I
began seminary by parsing Greek verbs, and I concluded seminary by visiting the
sick and dying. I began seminary by reading, reading, reading. I concluded
seminary by being, being, being. For me seminary began with the comforts of
home, namely books and essays, and it concluded with much unknown to me, namely
the living texts of people’s lives filled with joy and tragedy. It began with
studiously working in the library, and it concluded with being present and
available for people in unspeakable circumstances completely out of my control
in the hospital.
I
have not yet found the words to sufficiently express my gratitude for making it
from one point to the other, from the comforts of home to the dark corridors of
the unknown. But I am indeed grateful for those wizards and lords involved in
taking me from one point to the other. In the coming weeks, I will no doubt
spend more time reflecting on what in the world happened this summer, but what
I can say for now is that this hobbit shall not return home the same.
Near
the beginning of my CPE (clinical pastoral education) experience, the image in Ezekiel thirty-seven of dry
bones receiving life proved to be a helpful image for encapsulating what
CPE had begun doing for me as a budding pastor and theologian, and this image
remained with me throughout the rest of my CPE experience. I was around death
and grieving more in those early weeks than ever before. CPE cast me into a host of variegated experiences
that opened my eyes to sides of life I had never encountered before, and
consequently it added experiential dimensions to my theology and in some sense gave
life to the dry bones of my rather academic theology.
In
his sermon, ‘A Divine and Supernatural Light’, Jonathan Edwards asserted, “there
is a difference between having an opinion that God is holy and gracious, and
having a sense of the loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace. There
is a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet, and
having a sense of its sweetness.” CPE has given me invaluable experiences that
I will carry with me, that have changed me, and it has added dimensions to my theology moving me from opinions and rational judgments to having a sense of God’s paradoxical holiness,
tenacious grace, and immeasurable love known to us in the Incarnate Son of God.
CPE
has begun giving me this sense by
drawing me into the world and rooting me in the soil of the earth, the soil of
particular human lives, however broken those lives may be. Indeed, it is in the
brokenness and tragedy of people’s lives that my theology has become all the
more incarnational, and as my theology has become more embodied than before, I
have begun to see that my theology has at its heart the deep love of God
pulsating and embracing the feeble human lives in that valley in such need of
resurrection, that valley where my once skeletal theology has encountered drug
addicts, alcoholics, terminal patients, loving wives, grieving daughters,
immeasurably strong mothers, and courageous medical staff. As I have encountered
their lives, God has breathed life into mine and has revealed to me what I
would stake my life on, namely that nothing can separate us from the love of
God known to us in Christ.
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