A week ago, I was thinking about how I might be feeling in one week, when I was back from travel, back from my first time at a TEEM intensive. I am feeling the way I hoped I would be feeling. I am feeling relieved and hopeful--and not too exhausted.
A week ago, I was getting ready to pack. One of the benefits of driving is that I can overpack. I ended up with three extra tops and sweaters/overshirts, which was fine with me. I decided not to bring long pants or skirts; I assumed we'd be in a casual mode, and happily, I was right. The tops I brought were dressier, so if I had gambled wrong in either direction, I wouldn't have felt too out of place. Including me, we had 6 females, and none of us wore dresses or skirts; only 3 of us wore shorts, and I was the only one who wore long shorts each day.
Why do these sartorial choices still seem so important? Because they are, in so many ways. Why did I spend so much time planning? Because I was going to be far away from home, and I have the type of body where I can't just go to Target and find clothes that will fit me.
I felt comfortable in my own skin, and that doesn't always happen for me, even at this relatively late age of almost 61 years old. We were a wide variety of people from a wide variety of backgrounds--that also helped. It was so different from some of my seminary classes, especially the in person classes that happened during the day, where I was the oldest student and often the only one who had already had a career.
I was the only one with a PhD, but I'm O.K. with that--it's always been my situation in many different phases and parts of my life. I did try to be conscious of how much I was talking--I wanted to give everyone a chance. I think I was successful. Late in the day, one of my fellow students said, "I'm really glad you were part of this week. You've added a lot to the class discussion."
I was especially grateful for that comment, because earlier in the day, after a discussion of procreative sex (the only kind of male-female sex valued by the ancient world) and the texts that have been read as anti-gay, I said, "Paul thought that we'd all be better off celibate. I'm not taking relationship advice from any of these people."
It was a good week, and I'm glad I went. It puts me that much closer to ordination. But it also gave me new experiences and new friends and some new information about Paul (see this blog post). As I age, I want to keep doing things that move me out of my comfort zone--nothing crazy, like sky diving, but experiences that keep my brain working in new ways.
No comments:
Post a Comment