2007-09-29 - 11:42 a.m.
My mom has always said that a new year should begin in September. Why is January, which is really in the middle of most things, the point where we choose to roll the numbers over? Isn't September a much more logical time to start the new year?
It sure is in the Church. Things have started up with a vengeance at work. All the programs that stopped for the summer have restarted, along with several new ones. It's part of being at a really big church that I'm still getting used to- on any given night of the week there will be two or three separate and independently well attended events going on.
As a general rule I don't go to anything at the Cathedral in the evening or on the weekend- my logic being that if I'm there forty hours a week to begin with, I don't want to spend my leisure hours there as well. This week that didn't really work out so well.
I've started this new course- it's called Education for Ministry. Basically it is a theological education course for people with no theological background. It's a four year course, and I'm starting year one. Every year you study a different aspect of Christianity, and learn how to do theological reflections. Year one is about the Old Testament. I've done two weeks of this so far, and it is really interesting. People assure me that it will be very useful for school next year, and I hope it is, but even if not, I'm glad to learn this stuff. It's a lot of reading, which I don't mind, and some self directed assignments. The whole course is sort of self directed, with a twist of group work. It's sort of designed for people who really want to learn, and I'm hoping to use this to motivate myself. The other aspect of the course is theological reflection. I'm not entirely sure what that means at the moment, although I'm expecting it to become clear. At the moment we are working on doing our spiritual autobiographies. You do this every year in EfM, and this year we are doing it in the context of greater world events. You go through the time you've been alive, and chart your spiritual life- when significant moments have been, that sort of thing, and then see how that corresponds to what is happening in the world, and how those world events affect your spiritual life. Last Tuesday we went through all the major events we could think of, in ten year segments, starting just after WW2. Forty years later, we finally got to some events that I can remember. I think I'm the youngest person in the room by a good twenty years- which is less than I'm used to!
The course is held at the Cathedral, so every Tuesday I get to work my seven hours and then hang around for two and a half hours till the course starts. It's not so much the long day that gets me as spending it all in one place. Then on Wednesday this week, I helped out with a new program for high school students called Holy Disorder. We met at the Cathedral, made supper and played Wii. Again, not the long day, but the fact that I never left work. I suppose if my future does lie in the Church I'll have to get used to this.
