Behold, for I am doing a new thing. Isaiah 43:19

This semester has been a productive one, but probably not in the way that you might imagine, especially if you read my posts last semester.  Last semester felt like a train wreck, but this semester has felt like a Sunday drive.  I can't say I exactly know what changed, but I believe it is the result of a lot of prayer and the peace of God's Holy Spirit working in my life.  Now, here I am counting down the last few weeks of my first year of seminary without panicking and not particularly stressed out.  Whatever has happened this semester, I sure hope it follows me the rest of my seminary career (or the rest of my life, for that matter).

Yes, there has been much to do.  I still have hundreds of pages of reading each week, with papers and research thrown in, too, but somehow I have also found the time to explore some of my own interests, and in the end I have truly been enjoying myself.  My book list posted here in my blog will testify to the time I have spent on my personal interests, as the "just for fun" section has more books on it than the "required readings" listed above it.  My mom might be partially to blame--she bought me an "itty bitty book light" when she visited last month, and now I can lay in bed for hours reading long after everyone else has fallen asleep.  Thanks, mom!

This time of Lent has been particularly productive for me, and has no doubt had a tremendous impact on the less frenetic feeling I have.  Just after Ask Wednesday I again visited the monastery where I, and the other first-year Berkeley Divinity School students, had our class retreat in February.  I drove up on Friday afternoon and spent the next 24 hours trying to listen to my own thoughts.  I wrote pages and pages in my journal, reflecting on my life--how I spend my time, what I enjoy doing, who I feel drawn to spend more time with.  This rumination helped me begin listening to where God is leading me right now.  If I had to describe, in one word, this experience of prayer and reflection it would be: Alive.  Alive! 

Lent has always seemed like a somber, dark, lonely time of the church year, but this year I have experienced something wholly different from that.  I wrote the following in my journal while I was at the monastery last month, and it has set the tone of my spiritual journey through this Lenten season:

This Lent has a wind about it.  It is incubating a great awakening and sweeping out the debris and dusting off the cold and forgotten things of the past.  "Wake up," it wants to say, "for I am doing a new thing." 

This Lent has been a time of preparation, not removal; of anticipation, not denial.  I am preparing my mind and my body for a new Easter, for the re-arrival of Christ's good works in my life.  In that sense, what I have taken on as Lenten practices have been about discipline, not in the sense of self-denial, but in the sense of joyful preparation and commitment.  With this small shift in perspective I feel livened in body, mind, and spirit and I am awaiting the Easter celebration as a much anticipated fulfillment of the hope that is growing within me. 

With Easter will come final papers, final exams, and tying up the last loose threads of my first year of seminary.  Like Lent, this year has been a time of contemplation, preparation, and planting.  God is indeed providing me with a rich soil out of which a Christ-centered ministry can take firm root and grow--always being nourished with God's spiritual food. Amen.

Good Enough is Better than Best

A couple of weeks ago, February 7th through the 11th, was a "reading week" at YDS--a week in which no classes are held.  The title is a bit of a misnomer, as very little reading was done for most of us who are also part of the Berkeley community. The fist year, Junior class, was on "retreat" at Holy Cross Monastery for three of those days, and the Middler class was on retreat for four days.  The retreat promised to be a time of relaxation and rejuvenation, apart from the everyday routine of being a student, wife, mother, friend, cook, errand runner, and cleaner, but as a student, wife, mother, etc., the demands of those roles did not pause for my retreat.  I was well aware of what I was not doing all the while I was gone.  Still, the monastery was beautiful and I did really enjoy myself.  However, panic set in as soon as I returned and was facing two paper deadlines the following Monday.  The feeling of impending doom that I had tried to forestall during my time away became a deluge when I got back.  I prayed for guidance, and ended up doing something I never thought I'd force myself to do--I asked for an extension from each of my professors.  And, by the grace of God and the kindness and understanding of my professors, I was given extra time to complete my papers.  I was so relieved!

I wasn't just relieved of my stressful deadlines, but a larger burden seemed to be dislodged in my small act of supplication.  I was forced to throw aside my pride and admit my need for help.  It felt a bit like ripping off a band-aid, but my relief far outweighed the image I feared I had lost.  As I have shared with you my plight with perfectionism, I thought I'd share with you my small victories as well.  I feel like everyone wants to give me a way out because I am trying to go to graduate school and raise a family, among the many other roles I fall into.  In a way, I have interpreted this as an implicit assumption that I can't possibly do everything well, and then taken it as a challenge to prove everyone wrong by excelling in every area I can.  But it's tiring.  Furthermore, it just isn't a space in which you can grow.  By definition, perfection cannot improve--it's changeless.  But I want to grow, and I want to be transformed.

While perfection is tiring, imperfection is uncomfortable.  I'm uneasy imagining doing something that's just "good enough."  But in reality, I believe that "good enough" is better than "best."  Voltaire, in his great wisdom quipped, "the best is the enemy of the good."  No matter how you put it, perfection threatens goodness in so many ways.  Perfection is always relative and subjective, but goodness is an absolute value.  Few people will agree on what is best, but many will agree on the more important quality of what is good.  Good encompasses a wide enough range that many things fall under its purview, but isn't so broad that it becomes hard to distinguish from the things that are not good.  Working hard and learning are good, but who is to say how that is measured?  Does the best grade mean you worked the hardest and learned the most?  Moreover, the best is such an illusive thing that its pursuit can sometimes lead you to chasing after white rabbits.  But I don't think God is hiding down the rabbit hole.

So where is God in all this?  I have found God in so many places--but none so meaningful as my relationships with others.  I have had some delightful, unexpected days with my kids during some of the many snow days we've had this year, and Eli and I even went out for a delicious dinner with some fabulous friends a couple of weekends ago.  And while I miss my many friends from Salt Lake City, I have met some remarkable people here that I am truly blessed to know.  We have dinner with friends regularly, and I have many fascinating and enjoyable conversations at lunch or coffee hour with many of my colleagues.  And, thanks be to God, I have a fabulous friend whom I do a lot of studying with, which makes spending an entire Saturday at the library so much more bearable.

This is what good is.  These growing friendships and special moments with family are little graces from God whose good can't be measured or graded.  God is good.  In the end, the papers that I received extensions on aren't perfect, but they are good enough.  Living life is what's really good!  Thanks be to God.

What I did for my Christmas vacation.

Yesterday, in the first class meeting of my Spiritual Writing class, the professor asked us to introduce ourselves and say what book we read over the winter break.  The first 14 students told their names and then rattled off the names of all sorts of intellectual-sounding titles about 11th century martyrdom between Franciscan monks, and sophisticated novels that I've never heard of.  I thought about reading something over the break, in fact, I was going to read The City of God, by Augustine, to get a head start in the class about Augustine I was planning to take this semester.  I went to one bookstore to find a copy, but they were out, which I took as a sign that I didn't need to read it during my free time anyway.  I've since decided to bag the class altogether, so it would have been to no end anyway.  When I first heard the professor ask us to recount our holiday read, I kind of panicked. "Oh, shit, what can I say that I read?" I thought.  My turn came.  "I'm Brin, a first-year MDiv student in the Berkeley program....ordination track.  I read the New York Times Cook Book, by Amanda Hesser, over my break, and I made salted butter caramels, lemon gumdrops, and a clementine-kumquat cordial from it, along with toasted coconut marshmallows, blueberry thumbprint cookies, chocolate chip cookies, molasses cookies, chili roasted almonds, and cranberry-almond biscotti."  I didn't read a single thing that didn't come out of a cookbook the entire recess.  My break was delicious!  I wasn't afraid to say it.

Christmas cookies and other goodies

Making cookies and candies for a couple of weeks was exactly what I needed my break to be.  The last semester flattened me like a steam-roller, and I needed a good dose of domestic bliss to re-inflate me before going back before the battering ram.  Here it is, the first week of classes, and I am ready for my beating.  After the end of last semester, especially final exam period, I felt like a shell of an individual.  I'm feeling a bit more optimistic now, but a lot has had to readjust to learn how to deal with this place, and my place in it.  I'm learning a lot about myself in the process.

I came here not knowing what to expect.  I'd heard the horror stories about seminarians' first semester melt-downs due to unrealized expectations and the like, and I was confident that since I didn't know what to expect, then my expectations couldn't be unmet, altered, or deflated.  Famous last words.  I know now what hidden expectations I had, or at least some of them, anyway.  I was especially surprised by some of them...maybe some of you who know me won't be, you be the judge.  I did know that I came here to do my best, but what I didn't realize is that I care A LOT about how other people judge me.  If you read the post prior to this one, I mentioned that I wrote a paper for my Patristics class that I didn't do as well on as I had hoped.  I obsessed over the paper, the grade, the grading system, and what ultimately became the most consuming thought was that I was really disappointed in myself for having such a negative response to this one grade.  It wasn't a bad grade, but it wasn't the best grade.  Apparently when I said I wanted to do my best, what I really meant was that I wanted to do the best.  Ouch.  This realization really stung on multiple levels.  It hurt my pride, for one thing, but it also threw me for a loop.  Why did I come here?  Did I come here to learn how to be a good priest and leader, or did I come here to stroke my ego?  Even the harsh question, as I look at it written on the screen, makes my stomach churn just a little bit.  I didn't know I had such an ego problem.  Abba Silvanus, a desert father from the 5th century said this about pride: "Woe to the person whose reputation is greater than his work."  I have worked harder here than I have ever worked in my entire life, and I have already learned more new information than I could have imagined, which is very satisfying, but apparently what I wanted wasn't just to learn, but to be recognized for it somehow.

A good friend asked me the other day what great epiphany I had had over the break.  Since the middle of the term, and my realization that I wasn't going to be the best at everything, but I was sure going to have to work myself to the bone, I have really struggled with the question of why I am here.  In my heart of hearts I believe that I am here to follow God's call to minister to His people, and to lead His church, and that going to seminary is first and foremost a requirement for the ministry to which I feel called.  Thus, I assumed that the reason I came here has been to gain some of the knowledge and skills to fulfill my call.  At a more shallow level, though, I realized that I came here thinking that this would be a lot of fun.  I love learning, and I love participating in the amazing process of acquiring and processing new knowledge--something I have done well, and for which I have been well-rewarded with accolades, scholarships, and my own satisfaction.  One of the things I learned over the break, and what I told my friends, was that I realize I am not here in order to do what I want to do, but to do what God wants me to do.  Not everything here is fun or enjoyable, but this work is important, and I have to do it, whether it makes me happy at all times or not.

I'm learning a hard lesson about pride, along with an important lesson about hard work.  No, I'm not having fun anymore, but I do still want to be here, and I am still going to try my very best even if it isn't the very best.  However, this is easier said than done, and you'll probably be hearing more about it as the semester picks up.  I have a lot of hope, though, that what I am doing here is important for me, and a definite sense that I am lucky to be here working through this challenge.  The challenges life gives us make the fabric of our lives so much richer.  My life, in all its complexities, is a good one, for which I am ever grateful.

The 5th century words of Amma Synctetica, a mother from the Egyptian desert, sum up my experience of formation here at Yale much more eloquently than I can.  She said, "In the beginning, there is struggle and a lot of work for those who come near to God.  But after that, there is indescribable joy.  It is just like building a fire: At first it's smoky and your eyes water, but later you get the desired result.  Thus we ought to light the divine fire in ourselves with tears and effort."

I survived, but it wasn't pretty.

This post was composed on December 20, 2010, just days after completing my final exams for the semester.  The experience of taking the exams sent me reeling...actually, the entire semester sent me reeling.  At any rate, I will also post some more current updates, but thought I'd share this very frank evaluation from me in the meantime, albeit a little after the fact.

"I apologize for the very long interval since my last post.  If I remember correctly, my last post was about midterm time, before I completely lost my mind.  I'll try to update you, briefly, about what has transpired since then, but it might take more than one post to do it.

"Well, midterms really sent me for a loop.  I had two midterm exams that I did very well on, but I also wrote a paper for my Patristics class that I was not happy with the grade I received at all.  By 'not happy,' I mean 'devastated.'  The rest of the semester has followed in much the same vein, of one insult to my ego after another.  In a way, it's almost comical.  Last week I was talking to a fellow seminarian about the experience of trying so hard and not ever being the best, and he said it has been a humbling experience for him.  "It's a fine line between humbling and humiliating," I replied, "and I'm on the wrong side of it these days."  I don't mean to be dramatic, but it's true.  The most prevalent lesson I have learned (am still learning) so far is that I'm not the "best" anymore.  And I can't even hope to be here.  My classmates are professional runners, renown musicians, published poets and novelists, not to mention some of the nicest and most interesting people I've ever met.  I've got nothing on that.  The picture on my Facebook profile says it all: "Mediocrity. Because you are going to suck at it anyway, you might as well stay in bed."  I'll be really frank about this whole thing.  Yale makes people crazy!  It's one thing to read about these polymaths in magazines and see them on television, but to have to compete with them in class is another thing altogether.  It really only makes matters worse that they are all so nice.  You can't even hate them!

"Well, enough candor for one post.  Hysterics aside, this place is really tough.  I have never worked so hard in my entire life, and its not like I've spent a lot of time resting on my laurels.  Hard work is brought to a whole new level here.  I always thought that my "best" was really pretty good, but it's only marginal here.  And my "very best" is still nowhere near the top of the class.  I'm holding out hope for me "very, very, very best," but that might be grasping at straws."

Myth #1: Seminary is Easy

If this is true, I want to know what seminary it is so I can see what's so different about it than what happens here at Yale.  My inclination is that it wasn't a priest who started this nasty rumor.  Having just survived my first midterms, I can vouch for the fact that not only is seminary challenging on a personal and spiritual level, but it is academically difficult too.  I can honestly say that I have never worked so hard in my life, and I worked pretty hard to get here. 

I have taken two midterm exams, one for Old Testament Interpretation [sample midterm question: "The land must not be sold beyond reclaim, for the land is mine; you are but strangers resident with me." Yeah, that was the question!], and one for Transitional Moments in Western Christian History [where I had to write an essay contrasting Augustine's and the Abitinian Martyr's conceptions of authority].  I also wrote twenty pages about Origen's views of freewill, his Christology, the trinity, the Holy Spirit, the soul, and apokatastasis (have you ever even heard this word before?!?!), which I eventually crafted into an eight-and-a-half page paper titled, "Origen, Freewill, and the Holy Spirit."  This paper was simultaneously the most exciting and most frustrating paper I have ever written.  On the one hand, I'm ready to sell the farm and dedicate myself to studying Origen, but on the other hand, I feel like I wrote circles around my thesis before finally arriving at it, which involved writing many pages of work that I couldn't even use in the end.  I hope that was just part of the learning curve of getting used to writing papers again, because I cannot continue to write that way in the future...I just don't have the time to write my papers three times over.

Nevertheless, I survived relatively unscathed.  Of course, I haven't received grades for any of my work yet, so I hope I'm not speaking out of turn by saying I think it went well.  In the end, I can definitely say that I did my best.  I truly worked as hard as I could, which I think is all God is really asking of me.  After all, God isn't waiting for me at the end of the term expecting to see my report card, but rather, God is walking alongside me while I struggle through these difficult tasks.  Tonight I read in Joshua 22:5, "Take good care to observe the commandment and instruction that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, to love the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to keep his commandments, and to hold fast to him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul."  In Micah 6:8 we are told, "What does the LORD require of you, but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God."  Amazing!  What an amazing God we have, that all He requires of us is to walk in His ways no matter what we undertake. 

This is not to say that we have no part in our successes or failures, because God will always provide for us.  Certainly, I can't expect to ace my tests if I don't prepare for them by going to class and taking notes, studying all of my readings, and dedicating ample time to understanding the material.  But it's the attendance, the reading, and the dedication that God requires, not the 'A'.  Furthermore, as a wife and mother, in addition to a student, God doesn't require me only to study and write papers.  God has given me a family to care for and enjoy as well!  So, this past Saturday I spent 9 hours curled up on a couch in front of a cozy fireplace on campus reading, making review cards, and studying for the midterm I took on Monday; and on Sunday I took the whole day off.  We rented a car and drove up the coast to see the leaves changing color and to eat at a little clam shack in Mystic Seaport.  It was a wonderful, rejuvenating day, and I didn't study the whole time.  I put the work in for my class by attending all the lectures, keeping abreast of all the readings, and spending a good amount of time studying (not cramming), and it was time to put in some work elsewhere.  I think in the end I was all the better for it come test time, too!    

Midterms!

All good things must come to an end.  Thus went the novelty and excitement of seminary, leaving instead a corpus of sleeplessness, stress, and a very messy house.  Yes, it's that time of the semester, when the fun of attending class lectures and lazily reading away the day gives way to the pressure of producing evidence of your knowledge and thoughts, concisely, systematically, and eloquently.

The view from my reading carrel in the library

There are many ways I've seen of dealing with this pressure.  I had a friend once who said her apartment was never cleaner than when she had a final to write.  Some prefer to put off the writing and studying, preferring to do it with the excitement of procrastination.  Of my classmates, several have been traveling this week, and others have been enjoying some relaxing time in the absence of classes (it's "Reading Week" so there are no classes this week).  I, on the other hand, have been holed up in the library or planted at my desk at home trying to elucidate the meaning of Origen's On First Principles while formulating some thesis with which to actually start writing my paper.  And for some reason, although I feel like I know the text inside and out, and I have truly enjoyed learning about the "rule of faith" that Origen prescribes, I have had the damnedest time trying to figure out what to write about.  Consequently, I did not actually begin writing my paper until yesterday morning.  Sixteen hours later, I have only written about half of it, but have outlined the arguments for the rest of the paper. 

In the meantime, the house has fallen to pieces, which I think is alright since all the kids went to bed happy and fed, and at least the dishwasher was run.  Picking up the pieces after I return from my little midterm hiatus will be a whole other project to undertake, one which I will celebrate as it will mean the majority of my immediate demands have been met.  Until then I am left to wrestle with the work that needs to be done, and the stress of having yet to finish it.  I am reminded of Sisyphus, who rolled a boulder up a hill over and over again for all of eternity.  Likewise, once the midterms are over, its just a short while before the same stresses and expectations will resurface in the culmination of final papers and exams.  After Christmas break, it will all start again, ad infinitum until I finally graduate.  I hate to mention it, but that's still three years away.

OK, I've painted a rather grim picture, and I really don't feel as dismal as this might sound, but the weight is heavy indeed.  This feeling is a familiar one, though, as I am remember its ebbs and flows from my undergraduate days, which were not altogether too long ago.   But here is the saving grace.  Whereas I was always concerned with perfection in my undergraduate years, because I knew I would be judged by my work when applying to graduate schools, I no longer have this expectation.  Here I am! And God (and perhaps my husband) forbid that I should suffer need of another graduate degree after this one.   What a relief.  Not that it doesn't matter at all, but it matters more what I get from what I am doing in the here and now, than what it will afford me in the future.  Almost simultaneous with this epiphany, I realized that this isn't an all or nothing proposition (you all might be shocked to know that I am a bit of a perfectionist).  If my midterm Patristics paper, or my Old Testament exams don't garner the highest grade available, it is still possible to do well--and that might in fact be good enough.  This last part is harder for me to embrace, but I'm working at it. 

Origen writes, "Every mind which partakes of intellectual light ought undoubtedly to be of one nature with every mind which partakes in a similar manner of intellectual light." (the highest intellectual light being God) So, onward toward the light go I.

A Kitchen Moment

When I am at home, I'm either at my desk or in the kitchen.  My desk is situated at the front of our apartment, right in front of a bank of windows that looks out onto the street.  It's a lovely place to sit and read, or type away on the computer.  When I'm in the kitchen, however, I am seldom sitting down.  I'm usually cooking a meal, washing dishes, or cleaning up; but some of my most insightful or revelatory thoughts come to me as I'm cleaning up after dinner or cooking breakfast--I call these my kitchen moments.

I was telling my Spiritual Direction group about one of the most recent "kitchen moments" just the other day.  As we went around the room taking time to check in with everybody about what is happening in all of our lives, it became clear that we are all feeling a bit overwhelmed--not just with the amount of work we are all doing (which is A LOT right now as we head into midterms in about a week), but also with the sheer weight of being here.  As I'm mentioned, seminary entails a much larger personal commitment than most other graduate programs, the pressure of which is starting to build (although I hear it's much worse in your second year when you also have to do "field work" 10 hours a week).  Anyway, many of us are feeling this in some way or another, and as a group we were discussing how we are being affected by it, and how we are coping with it.

So, how am I coping with it?  Well, self care is the buzz-word that comes to mind.  We're all supposed to be taking really good care of ourselves so we don't get too stressed out, whether this is getting enough exercise, eating healthily, or taking the time to see a therapist or counselor.  In reality, we often invoke the reason of "self care" when we excuse ourselves from doing something that we just don't want to do.  Why, I wondered at ten o'clock the other night, as I ironed fifteen purificators into nine-fold perfectly symmetrical little squares, did I not plead "self care" when I was asked to be on Altar Guild?!  But I digress.  I guess the point is that we talk a good talk, but it's sometimes easier to keep going, and keep saying 'yes' than it is to stop and reflect on what we really need, and how to provide it for ourselves.  This, I know.

And I haven't really figured out what my own method of self care is, but I have grown into a perspective that helps me keep myself in check when I start to feel overwhelmed with the mounting stresses of student life/family life/personal life.  Thus, the kitchen moment.

Eli and I were standing in the kitchen getting dinner together after a long day, when I looked at him and realized that I don't come home to cook dinner, help the kids with their homework, rock the baby to sleep, and wash dishes with my husband while we chat about our day as some kind of aside to the "real" job of being in seminary.  Rather, I work hard all day (and sometimes all night) attending classes and studying, hiding in the library to squeeze my reading time to the last drop, and working on homework assignments and papers past midnight some nights so that the rest of the time I can really be with my family.  They are my support and my reason for working so hard, and my inspiration when things are difficult.  What it's really all about for me, is them.

After reflecting on this during my Spiritual Direction group, I came home to be greeted with the following message, written in blue chalk on the sidewalk in the front of our apartment: "I love mom."  God works in mysterious ways, His wonders to behold!  Amen.