thursday musings

last night, for whatever reason (i usually can't identify the causes of my mood swings), i climbed into bed with a "i want to crawl into a hole and die (read:hibernate)" mentality.

you'll never guess what finally snapped me out of it: it was another moment in my religious education class. almost every week in that class i feel like i'm hovering outside my body and my mind, as if an outside observer, and asking myself what the heck is going on. trust me, if you ever walked into our class, you would be terribly confused and probably quite amused.

but what an experiment it has been! here's what pulled me out of my funk today: at the end of class, we all laid down on the floor (as we do quite frequently) and sang to ourselves "twinkle twinkle little star." first we sang in a normal voice, followed by opera, country, and rock star voices. yes. but wow, it's such a release. to just be stupid and laugh at yourself and laugh collectively and to not think for a few moments.

another highlight of the day--i checked out a new small group tonight. i was a bit wary because it was described to me as a group of "mostly twenty-something marrieds, with a few singles." red flag. but i desperately need to know people outside of candler, i need another community. it was so bizzare, though, to talk about the Bible without other students of theology. the church i've been attending has been working through a series on exodus, and the small groups are reading through the same. of course, that's also just what we've been studying in OT, so it was really good for me to hear theological thoughts and perspectives outside of those belonging to Candler students and professors. it was also good for me to realize that there are some conversations that happen with Candler classmates and teachers that shouldn't happen in more of a lay setting. again, i felt like i was having an out-of-body experience--there i sat, with all this "knowledge" about the exodus and the ten commandments (which we discussed tonight) but i couldn't just barf it all out and sound like a smarty pants seminarian--or just completely irrelevant. i had to hold it all in tension and respond to people, engage in what we were actually interested in talking about instead of just launching into a lecture of sorts. i need that, to remember that not everyone is a seminarian (nor should they be). we need to come out of our ivory tower of academia every now and again. i'm glad i got to tonight.