On Consummation and Commencement

I think God waited to bring spring to Princeton this year until after we celebrated our Lord’s resurrection.  But, spring has exploded indeed.  I just got back from my early morning walk with Bono, and, while I hate waking up before, um, eleven, I usually really enjoy this morning bonding time with Bono and nature.  It’s prayerful, in a way.  I don’t really find myself praying so much as looking around, paying attention, and marveling at the intricacies and beauty of this creation.  If that’s not some sort of prayer, then I don’t know what is.

Everything is exploding in brash colors and bold life.  Over the last few weeks, I’ve gotten to see the little green buds on trees begin to grow and gather zeal for the day they burst to leaf-life.  I’ve also been treated to the burgeoning hyacinths, the daffodils, the tulips– even the dandelions and clover have captured my imagination this year.  It’s nothing short of a resurrection miracle when the grass sparkles green again, just when you’ve seen it brown and wintery for so long you think it might stay that way forever.  And everything is assisted by the soundtrack of birds chirping all the day long– robins, sparrows, chickadees, woodpeckers, and finches.  Chirp, chirp, chirp.  Sing, sing, sing.  Tweet, tweet.  Twitter.

All of this is new life juxtaposed against the backdrop of our leaving this place that has been our home for three years– the only home we’ve known as married people.  It’s hard for me to imagine what a marriage looks like outside of the ebb and flow of paper-writing, book-sharing, exam-studying, and all-nighter-pulling.  There are lots of constrictions to being students, but there is also a freedom that can only be fully appreciated outside of the experience.  Many people who came to seminary, including Peter, came straight from undergrad.  But some of us older-and-wiser seminarians have had some breaks  away from school– and nothing gives you the sense of loss of student-freedom quite like having a “real job.”  Not that I’d know too much about that.  Is Christian ministry a “profession”?  I still have my doubts.

So, we’re starting the arduous project of saying our goodbyes.  I worked my last day as a Patient Services Representative at Princeton University’s McCosh Health Center this past Saturday.  Have I mentioned that I’ve done that every other weekend for the past three years?  I’ve been admitting students to the Urgent Care clinic, distributing condoms (20 free per day to students! [Who the hell needs 20 free condoms PER DAY?!?]), filing, pulling charts, and answering phones for University students during my entire time at seminary.  It’s been a nice reprieve from the “Reformed tradition,” and I’ve learned a lot from my co-workers and the students who I often see at their worst– vomiting or coughing or bleeding.  We help them, and they feel better.  I’ve learned that a kind voice and a willingness to assist can go quite a long way toward helping a sick person feel better.  I’m sure there are pastoral care implications there…

This past Friday was my last day of classes at Princeton Theological Seminary.  I thought I would get nostalgic and teary, as I am wont to do, but those feelings didn’t come.  To be sure, I feel sad to be leaving.  It took me three years to feel like I had a “place” at PTS, and now that I’ve found it, it’s time to leave.  I was on the verge of turning twenty-five when I got here, and I was sure that I had gone through a sufficient enough identity-quest to be comfortable in my own skin.  But I was a nervous wreck.  I was intimidated by my peers who had come straight from stellar schools having written hundred-page undergrad theses on theological matters (which, by the way, included my husband.  Wheatonites should go to the library and look for “Following Jesus as Public Witness: Discipleship in the Thought of Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer” by Peter Kline.  Yes, it’s in Wheaton’s library.  This is what I married into…) I was terrified by the fact that I knew so little– for the first time in my life, I felt like I was one of the “average” kids.  Is that snotty to say?  Probably.  Yet, it’s true.  During our convocation in 2006, our lecture was given by philosopher Gordon Graham, and he lost me after two sentences.  (I’ve still been too petrified to take a class with him during my time here!)  My first chapel service included the zany Martin Tel leading the chapel in four part harmony that everyone seemed to know instinctively, and we ended the service by singing a song in (I’m not making this up) the Zulu language.  (We’ve since sung the song at least fifty times– I still can’t the darn words right: Siyahamb’ ekukhanyen’ kwenkhos’, siyahamb’ ekukhanyen’ kwenkhos.)  My first class was Church History 101, and the scars it left on me have stuck with me to this day.  I still count it as my worst class here, though I’m sure it wasn’t nearly as bad as I remember.  The second week of class we talked about martyrdom in the early church, and I still haven’t recovered from reading “The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity”:  “She was tossed, and fell on her loins; and when she saw her tunic torn from her side, she drew it over her as a veil for her middle, rather mindful of her modesty than her suffering.  Then she was called for again, and bound up her disheveled hair; for it was not becoming for a martyr to suffer with disheveled hair, lest she should appear to be mourning in her glory.”  (After three years of seminary, my sophisticated response is much the same.  Double you, Tee, Eff.)

My last day of class was quite different.  I skipped my 8:30 because I had been up since 4:30 finishing a paper for my 12:30 class, and I needed the extra time.  I got to school around 11:00, went to chapel, knew the hymns and choruses almost by heart, sat in a pew surrounded by friends, and received communion from a beloved professor and a trusted friend that I got to know this year.  When the “passing of the peace” closed the service, I embraced all the people around me, if I knew them well or not.  I have been especially mindful this year of passing the peace to my brothers and sisters who are new to the seminary.  I try to look them straight in the soul and say with conviction, “PEACE BE WITH YOU.”   And I mean it.

My final moment of school here was spent in Miller Chapel, sitting in a circle on the hardwood floor, surrounded by my peers and teachers in the “Taize in the North American Context” class.  As we ended class, we all knelt and faced the cross that Martin had positioned against the east wall of the chapel.  And together, we sung:

Bless the Lord, my soul, and bless God’s holy name.

Bless the Lord, my soul, who leads me into life.

So, here we go.  Into life.  Bless the Lord, my soul.