Friends, today was kind of a rough day. I hadn’t had enough sleep or coffee to get through the day. First class is two hours and twenty minutes (with a 10-15 minute break somewhere in the middle), and was really good today. The professor is engaging, the subject matter is interesting, and it is a generally fun class.
It was all downhill from there.
During the lunch hour, we had orientation for our Truett-mandated small groups. I’m still trying to figure out the difference between these and regular small groups, other than the over-bureaucratization (is that a word?). The lady tried to lead us in a meditative moment/centering prayer. As part, she had us think of the times we felt closest and farthest from God. Other than this question being absolutely sophomoric (we may “feel” close or far from God at any given time, but this has no bearing on our actual spiritual growth and development of the moment), the time when I felt farthest from God in that last week was that exact moment. When I was forced, in the middle of a room full of strangers with whom I don’t feel comfortable, to instantly be hyper-”spiritual” or something. I look forward to the small groups themselves and think that we can really do something valuable in them, I just wish that there wasn’t a need to quantify said spiritual growth.
And then my Intro to Theology class started. I want to give the prof the benefit of the doubt. I think part of the problem is that he is too smart (he always uses big words that I, nor anyone else in the class know the meaning of-within 10 minutes on the first day of a class entitled Intro to Theology, he had used the words ontological, epistemic, and polemic, all words that nobody knew), and tries to include all of the information in the reading into a class period. Information overload combined with talking a mile a minute without any pauses… It’s hard to get him to stop just to ask a question. And by the time he does stop, he has built an entire idea out of the idea that I didn’t understand in the first place, which means I lost the entire idea. Sheesh. My goal is to survive and pass. I’ve given up on the thought of getting an A. Just a C will do for me! I think he is doing his best, but at this point, I don’t plan on taking any more classes with him. Just isn’t worth it.
Then we had dinner with other Oklahoma people and our CBF state coordinators. It was awesome. Stacy and I were talking, and we really miss Oklahoma. The kinds of people. The community and friends. The fact I don’t have to worry about being killed or robbed every hour of every day. You know, just the uzh (as in, usual).
It is my goal to watch television and actively become stupider before the time I go to sleep. I had a prof who said we should set attainable short-term goals. Challenge accepted.
Tell me about your lives. Wherever you are, just talk to me. Uh huh. Yes. Good. And how did that make you feel? See, we all feel better now.
‘Night.
Yours for the community of God in the collection of all,
Rich
