Questions and Answers

One week from today, God willing, I’ll be back in class at SSU.  For the past few months I've been an ambitious but ultimately clumsy juggler trying to keep school work, work work , family time and my pilgrimage all in the air.  Getting back to school will be cathartic, a purge as the voices that all my readings have put in my head will get exercised.

I still don’t know if this is synchronicity or good planning but the 3 main tracks of this module have created a “perfect storm” for me that has left me with far more questions than answers about what I do, my vocation, and what “church” is supposed to be about.

It feels like a lot of what I've read has confirmed to me that there is another way.  But the materially also makes me wonder if I only hear what I want to hear, only see in the material what I want to see.  Israel had two groups of prophets in the Kingdom and those that got it right are the ones whose books we call canon today.  Is it possible that the church has two groups of prophets today and we’ll only know which group is “hearing God” after a generation comes and goes?

10,000 questions are bouncing around the interior of my brain and truthfully it has been hard for me to be in the moment lately.  I'm thinking about school work, school bills, things undone, things to be unlearned and I'm wondering what really important thing did I forget about today.

Prepping for this module has been rich.  I've found another mentor in Gregory.  Add him to my list of “witnesses”: Bonhoeffer, Nouwen, Herbert, and Buber.  I've discovered the beauty of Brueggemann’s words about the prophetic imagination and find myself at odds with myself as I object to and am drawn to his vision at the same time.  And the third track on counselling has been essentially asking me to figure out how broken am I.  If my brain has a purée button, this module has pushed it.

But this time next week I’ll be sorting it out together with my fellow modulites.  We’ll share thoughts, ask questions, be given more questions, be presented with versions of reality that are alternatives to what I've previously believed in.  And it will be good.

A great big “Thank you!” to all who have kindly supported this endeavour with prayer, finance, patience and reading my reflections on this experience.  After this module I will have follow up homework but no more class time.  That’s happy sad for me.  I will move on to my final phase where I write my thesis or project.  In the midst of it all I will continue to keep you posted on what educating brian looks like.  Next week I’ll be “live blogging” my module.  If anyone is interested in following along there will be – roughly – 3 posts per day (short) that will attempt to sum up my education experience from each day.  If you’d like to really get into the experience you could read ahead: OT prophets from Isaiah to Malachi, Gregory the Great on pastoral care and come up with a list of reasons why pastors pastor and do the things they do (hint – not all our reasons are good and sometimes our pastoring serves to cover up some personal defects we’d rather you didn't know about!).

There's a lot a still don't know but this much I'm sure of - it's a grace to be able to learn.

As always, those who'd like to help me get educated can find out information over there --> or by contacting SSU or emailing me.  Thanks!

Oh The Places We'll Go...

I’ve travelled 6,000 years to the past and back again in the last 12 hours. 

Our day started at breakfast after a night of nausea that I won’t describe to you.  Just take my word for it, when they tell you not to eat certain things in Egypt, just don’t.  At my smallest – and yet most interesting – breakfast ever, I realized that right outside of the glass wall of our hotel restaurant was a spectacular view of the pyramids.  Slipping out I quickly snapped a few pictures and got back in time to load my backpack for the day.

8:30 a.m. and we were headed to the Egyptian Museum. 

Heard about recent riots in Cairo?  Turns out they happened, with some occupiers still camped out, directly across the street.  The government building that was set on fire was right next to the Museum.  It’s blackened, burnt out corpse stared down us as we made our way in and out, testifying to the volatility of this amazing land.  Our guide, an archaeologist, later told us that when the riots were taking place and the fire burned, local archaeologists and other academics gathered at the Museum and formed a human chain around the facility to prevent rioters from getting in and destroying or stealing any of the antiquities. 

The Museum is phenomenal.  It holds artefacts that span the ancient history of Cairo, Egypt.  I thought I knew some things about Cairo’s history but it turns out, not so much.  I’ve seen things today.  I’ve even seen dead people.  I could’ve stayed all day.  We were supposed to only stay 2 hours.  They ended up letting us stretch it to 3.  I was overwhelmed and didn’t know where to look first.  After running my hands over hieroglyphics carved into one sarcophagus after another I saw the giant sign that said, “It is forbidden to touch or lean on the antiquities.”  Oops.  Too late!  My fingers had traced the symbol for Horace several times by then – among other symbols – joining a chain of hands no doubt – extending my relationship with the objects all the way back to the original carver. 

It would take weeks to walk through it all and weeks to tell you about all I saw in the few hours we were there.

Here’s the bad news.  You are not allowed to take pictures inside the Museum.  None.  Zero.  And they were watching both overtly and covertly, they had an eye on us.

Almost the last one to the bus, we pulled out and headed for lunch.  We drove down some crazy roads filled with crazy drivers and honking horns.  We returned to Giza (west side of the Nile – Cairo is on the east side) and pulled up to a restaurant that passing by on my own I would have taken for just another gap between buildings.  We walked back, past a huge BBQ pit with spits of whole chickens turning swiftly over hot coals, 3 women sitting by a brick oven making fresh pita bread and back into a garden filled with tables and chairs.  If you’re ever in Giza…

It was a four course meal: appetizers, more appetizers, main, dessert.  Our first appetizers: Egyptian cole slaw, pickled beets, marinated chunks of potato, white beans and babbaganoosh (sp?) with fresh pita bread.  Second round of apps: French fries (Egyptian fries?  Potatoes are a universal food!), round friend balls of meaty goodness, rice & meat wrapped in grape leaves.  The main: chunk of chicken just -  think Swiss Chalet only eating outdoors, in Giza, and incredible spices for melt in your mouth happiness.  Dessert: orange.  Don’t be underwhelmed by dessert.  This was the freshest, tastiest orange I’ve ever had.  It was the first orange I’ve ever had that actually tasted like orange, which makes no sense because, unless you’ve had one of these, you think like me that all oranges taste like orange.  They taste like oranges, this tasted like orange.  I think Martin Buber would understand.

 

After lunch, we headed to the Great Pyramid.  And I’ll have to save that story for another day.  

I’ve got a lot to learn but there’s nothing like travel and meeting real people from another part of the world to get you educated.

Tomorrow...Mt. Sinai...looking for a burning bush.

Post Exam Stress Disorder

It feels like I'm not making that up.  Harder than the exam is this wait to find out what my marks are for the work I did this past module/semester.  The exam covered material Genesis (the book, not the band) to Revelation (no 's') and the questions could have come from anywhere in between.  A little bit Narrative Theology and a little bit Bible Trivia.  No matter what my mark is I feel like I know the material - Narrative Theology - and could take someone else through it.  Which is good since I will.

We had 3 hours to take the exam and I finished somewhere around the 90 minute mark.  I could've written longer answers but I tried to cover the basics and leave it at that.  Back in the undergrad days, 25+ years ago, my essay answers were written as much for effect as they were for information.  I could write an answer so long I was sure my instructors would rather give me the benefit of the doubt than actually read through the whole answer to see if I knew what I was talking about.

The questions could come from any of the 50 questions we had to study from.  Exams like these are always a gamble.  Did I spend enough time of the right questions out of the 50?  This time I guessed wrong.  There were a few questions that I thought, "no way will that be on there...".  My bad.  Some questions that I thought were key to the material didn't even get honourable mention.  Nevertheless, there was only one question I had to completely pull a rabbit out of my hat on.  I hope to find out soon if the rabbit died or not.  I also suspect some of my other answers made sense to me but probably didn't adequately respond to the question.

It took me at least 2 hours after the exam to start talking in complete sentences to my wife, the elusive Donna.  She encouraged me that I took it and finished it - not that she didn't think I wouldn't or couldn't but she cheered me for getting it done.  I think she was as relieved this round was over as much as I was.

One thing I noticed that's different from my undergrad days: I still remember the information I studied.  Back in my BS days, or is that BA?  I forget...I remembered what I studied for the length of the test (sometimes less) and then let it all slip away once I survived the exam.  This time it's staying with me and it's actually re-framing how I understand the Bible.

Now that that's done I'm starting the reading for my next module that's due by February 15th.  2662 pages.  10 books.  10 papers.  100 quotes and notes.

And once I get my grades I may wish I was waiting again.  I have so much to learn.

Happy Holidays.

P.S.  For those wondering about fundraising to Educate Brian - we have now reached the $1200 mark!!!!  Woohoo!  We're moving on up to the $10,000 overall that I need to raise and the $4500 I need to raise by the end of this month (December)!!!  Thanks to all of you who have given so generously to help me get educated!

Exam

Tomorrow morning I'm going to take an exam.  Other than at the doctor's office I haven't had one of these in decades.  My prep for this exam has been mostly procrastination.  And then a little more procrastination.  Eventually I tried to get into "study" mode and I've tried to recall how I did this 30 years ago in my undergrad days.

Back then we'd spend some time picking out the right play list of records for the stereo in our dorm room.  Yes, LPs.  Big, black, in cardboard sleeves with great covers.  Then we'd get some hot chocolate going as the first album started to play - usually Bruce Cockburn.  My room mate and I would start to talk over our notes (if we had the same class) and that would remind one of us of something more interesting which would lead to a major theological discussion - "who would win in a fight, Daredevil or Batman?".  Batman, of course.

Eventually we'd get onto the subject and the material at hand and give it a go.  Memory devices.  We'd come up with some winners.  I've done the same for this one.  I've come up with memory devices so incredibly clever and memorable that I can only recall the first 3 letters of any of them.  Then we would quiz each other.  By this time we'd switched over to a Phil Keaggy album, maybe Jeff Johnson or possibly the Bob & Doug Great White North Album with special guest Geddy Lee.  Eventually I'd ask my room mate Tim a question and finally realize that the thoughtful pause was actually the sound of him sleeping.  More often it would be me who passed out in mid-reply only to wake up for our 7 a.m. class with notecards stuck to the side of my face by the drool that'd leaked while I slept.

I'm not sure that any of these approaches will work at 48 but I'm determined to figure out how to study for this before I fall asleep tonight.  And wake up tomorrow with my notecards stuck to my face.

I have so much to learn.

Big thanks to all who continue to contribute to Educating Brian.  I've raised about $1000 now out of my goal for $10,000 to educate me.  Every gift of $5, $25 and $500 is helping and I thank you for that.