Favorite Seminary Class

Monday night, I went to a church council meeting that was held by way of Zoom.  As we waited for everyone to arrive, my pastor asked me which was my favorite class in seminary.  We just started week 5, so I've had time to make a determination.  I answered honestly that it changes every week.

When I was last in grad school, working on my MA and PhD in English, I would not have answered that way.  By week 5, I knew which class was worthwhile and which was a dud.  My class in James Joyce was fascinating week after week, while I quickly lost interest in a class in Yeats.  The difference may have been in the dynamism of the faculty members.  I came to each class with no background knowledge, no prior experience with either writer.

In my seminary classes, I have lots of background knowledge and experience, and so far, I'm finding lots to love in all of my classes.  I'm pleased with how much I already know about some topics, while I'm learning a lot that is new about others.  My Hebrew Bible teacher is always giving us a new perspective on familiar subjects; for one Zoom meeting, we had a guest Q & A with a scientist who works at the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History, which gave us a different perspective on the first chapters of Genesis and evolution.  My teacher's interpretation of the Tower of Babel was new to me:  God isn't upset by the height of a tower, but by the exclusivity of humans who want to build fortified cities; having a city destroyed and people scattered is a "grace note."

I expected to get a lot of new information from the Hebrew Bible class.  I haven't read most of those ancient stories in years and haven't studied most of them in depth.  I've been pleasantly surprised to be finding out just as much new information about the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Matthew, texts that are much more familiar to me.

Even in my Spiritual Formation class, which covers many of the topics that I've learned in my program to become a certified spiritual director, I've been led in interesting ways.  For example, my teacher gave a video lecture on Galatians 5, and Paul's approach to The Flesh and The Spirit, ideas I'd never considered before; I was so inspired by her lecture that I created this blog post so that I would remember what she had said.

So far, so good.  I'm able to keep up with the reading, the writing, the discussion posts.  But more importantly, I'm able to keep up with the variety of ideas I'm discovering.