Insulated

One of my first impressions showing up at seminary was that there was such a variety of people here.  My seminary has a wonderful mix of people from all kinds of backgrounds.  But slowly, as we were grouped together and crunched into the same classes and the same structure, we've homogenized.

Part of this is inevitable.  We're all here to earn roughly the same degree.  We can't avoid studying the same subjects of theology, bible, and history.  Our minds are being led down these familiar patterns for a reason.  There's something foundational and good about sharing knowledge and finding common ground.

But other days, it just seems like we were all thrown into our tiny boxes called dorm rooms and forced to fit a mold of what a seminarian looks like.  Rather, more accurately, we've learned to talk and think like a seminarian should.  Dinner conversations revolves endlessly around the stress of classes and mundane church talk.  Our lives are saturated with the same thing.

Because of this, I find myself savoring the connections I have to the world outside of seminary.  I have a variety of interests that have nothing to do with what I'm studying.  Listening to podcasts about science or reading YA literature is a way for me to expand what I'm doing and to remember that all of this particular study isn't being done to trap me here forever.

I love branching out and talking to a friend living in a different country or just sitting down and watching a baseball game.  What's truly remarkable is that as I maintain connections to the world outside of seminary, the more I realize God doesn't just live at seminary either.

This isn't anything completely radical, and yet I think people have an idea that seminarians sit very piously and cultivate their spirituality and generally lead lives closer to God.  But God does not stay enclosed easily.  We cannot flatten God to simply the study of books, but God moves and breathes in all manner of things in the world.  I believe God is as present in the crack of a baseball bat as in the singing of a chapel choir.

While I can sometimes feel insulated, trapped in a seminary bubble, I am proud to follow a God that resonates in multi-dimensional glory.