Term has started... unexpectedly.

I know what you are thinking, Thursday followed Monday or April followed May... no, the unexpectedly part of the title is what's happening this term.

Monday I brought a big pile of Marti Gras beads to my class I'm taking next door (to Starr King) at the Pacific School of Religion, called "Interpreting Sacred Texts", or "NTOT" in the rather archaic terminology of the school. The lecture has sixty students, and so it was easy to spread the gifts around. A few of the guys were shy about taking beads... but many were fine with it, including a couple of PSR folks who have become my friends. Mostly the women enjoyed it, though I had to think about a couple of rejections-- was this a political statement about the wearing of ornamentation? Was it an unwillingness to receive gifts? Was it a cleanliness issue? or was it that they wanted nothing to do with me?

Well, the beads weren't the unexpected part. The class went normally, and enjoyably, just like "OTNT" last term.

Monday afternoon I have "How Did We Survive This?", taught by Rev. Dr. Dave Sammons, or simply "Dave". It's a survey of events in Unitarian and Universalist history, concentrating on the ones that almost sank the ship-- from the Dedham Case to LRY. I took a class with Dave last term, and so I think I know his style, and what's expected.

Tuesday morning I went to "Introduction to Preaching", with Rev. Alma Crawford. Alma is both a UCC and UU minister, and the class spans denominations from Catholic to Wiccan. It's oversized a bit, 24 of us, but the diversity will be fun. I have to preach three times for this class. Lots of reading, lots of writing, lots of speaking. Again, I expected this.

Then it was time to pay the bills. I had my once-a-semester chat with the Registrar, Becky Leyser, and she asked if I would take my New Orleans experience and do a "Write Up" for credit. I really didn't think of NOLA as school work, in fact I was overjoyed that it had no readings, no papers and no sitting and listening. (not that those are bad...) I thought maybe I'd get a sermon out of it.

So what should I do? Spend time reliving my two weeks, in hopes of coming up with something very distinct from this blog? I left a good number of loose references in the blog, for me, not for you the reader. If I left those breadcrumbs, shouldn't I go and follow them? Hum!

The administrative assistant for student services, Trudell Webster, is actually relocated from the Crescent City, so I spent a good while talking to her about my trip... it made me feel better about the questions above...

Becky also noted that Starr King School for the Ministry has a minister this term! I'd noticed a face in Tuesday's chapel, but assumed he was a 3-rd or 4-th year student, back from internship. Nope, it's Rev. Sean Parker Dennison, who has his own blog... read all about him!

Sean and I had been chatting before my apointment with Becky, and we talked more after. I'm glad he's here. The SKSM staff is very protective of the professors-- always reminding us to not take up their time with non-academic matters (we got another memo on this last week). Fall term I got the feeling of being a mouthless child in a candy store... ministers behind every door, but a rule that they were not to act like ministers to me. Rev. Sean will have plenty of work to do... plenty of human interaction and listening.

This brings me to the unexpected part.

I came back to school for my evening class, mysteriously called "Spiritual Companion:Artist" As I came in the door I saw a circle of chairs and several students I knew. I chatted with one guy from San Francisco Theological Seminary, and some others from SKSM. But just as the class was starting I learned that I was sitting in "Intro to Islam" or something like that. My class was meeting downstairs in the reading room.

And I am the only student.

Seated at the table is an old Irish woman, Dr. Dorothy Donnelly. The class description said that the class would be learning do's and don't's of pastoral listening, allowing the Spirit to guide us. The first crisis is: should we even have the class? The second crisis is: This is a bad time, when should we have the class? The third crisis is: How should the class be taught? Dotty, as she is called, lets me decide these, maybe... or maybe she just wants to read my eyes.

We go through a long process of talking times and days and methods, while I am still uncertain what the class was going to be about... I have fallen down a rabbit hole.

So now we will meet for tea on Mondays, and she will assign readings for me, so she doesn't have to simply talk to one student for three hours a week.

Homework: I am to pray for her, and to pray for myself. This may end up being the hardest class this semester.