Only one more 6 page paper and two finals to go before semester #1 of this crazy thing called grad school (seminary?) is in the bag.

So what are the results? I know a few more things about the Old Testament (particularly Leviticus), I'm more familiar with the spiritual disciplines of the monastics, I completely suck at Greek, and I have a much more evolved view of how the gospel relates to the postmodern era (Teaching the Gospel with Chris Flanders is GRRRREAT). The serious academic types of the GST would consider my Gospel class as fluffy elective filler, but those three hours a week are where I find my faith both stretched and connected at the same time. (Sorry you Spiritual Formation fans out there, that class just didn't hit home for me.)

What has been the single idea that has stretched me most? Probably that the entire idea of God exists as a story, and cannot be separated from it. Therefore, our knowledge of God only exists inasmuch as we are a part of his story. And how do we reveal God in the world? By telling his story, and inviting people into it. Not by advancing propositions that lead to logical conclusions - people don't even think like that anymore. I am living a powerful story. Can you see it? Come and join me in this narrative that God is telling. Amazing! The second powerful idea is an extension of the first: language is no longer a representation of meaning, language is the meaning. That's why stories don't point us to truth (they don't illustrate truth) - stories are truth. Jesus Christ looked at the disciples and told them stories - almost always without the "meanings." Why? Because the stories themselves held the truth, and Jesus knew it. This is the stuff that keeps me up at night. This is the stuff that I come here to grad school for.

Too bad these gems are like diamonds in the rough when it comes to the grad school experience. Finding the truly transformational nuggets only comes after digging through huge piles of smelly mess. But I suppose that is what God goes through with his world.

On another note - please always remember that God comes through on prayers that are authentically given to him. All you have to do is actually pray. For some reason I'm always newly astounded when I pull myself around and actually lay it out before God, and God takes action. I say this because He has been answering prayers that I have actually been talking with him about lately.

Tomorrow I hit the road for a little taste of the home life. First stop will be in the heart of Soonerland, where I'll (hopefully) spend at least a little quality time with a friend and probably do some sitting in the Will Rogers room at the Union and pretend to write some more of this infamous Leviticus paper. Then on to T-town where I'll gorge on chex mix and chocolate covered Ritz cracker sandwiches with peanut butter in the middle. My mom is already getting nostalgic about me helping make those.

So, it's going to be a great week, I just wish this infernal paper wasn't hanging over my head. What makes me mad is that I could have had it done by now. And I'm probably not going to make a good grade in that class anyway. Siiiiigh. I've voluntarily made this thing into a bad dream - maybe because deep down I want this thing to be brilliant and perfect and it's just simply not going to be and it's only a few pages only one person is going to read who already knows far more about the subject than I ever will and has a thousand others to read just like it. I don't know why I get so obsessed over trying to make research papers some kind of watershed work that I end up not even working on them. I wish I would just view it as something to get done rather than feel like it was worth pouring myself into so that it makes a difference. That the sad advice I get from all of my older GST friends - just get the work done and forget about it. Dude, that was good advice for undergraduate. I came here to learn about the most important stuff in the universe. Why are the students of this information reduced to having to view it as "stuff to get done" and move on? I'm constantly amazed at how seperate the activities of the academy are from the real work of God in the world. My Old Testament professor explicitly told us to not include any kind of application to the ideas in our paper. Wow.

All of my blog entries from October 2004 and on can be found at www.discountbananas.com . Come on over!

This comes to us from the Ikon emergent Christian community in England:

Jesus and the Five Thousand (a First World translation) | Pete Rollins

13 Jesus withdrew privately by boat to a solitary place, but the crowds continued to follow Him. Evening was now approaching and the crowds, many of whom had travelled a great distance, were growing hungry.

14 Seeing this Jesus sent his disciples out to gather food, but all they could find were five loaves of bread and two fishes. 15 Then Jesus asked that they go out again and gather up the provisions which the crowds had brought to sustain them in their travels. Once this was accomplished there stood before Jesus a mountain of fish and bread. 16 He then directed the people to sit down on the grass.

17 Standing before the food and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks to God and broke the bread. 18 Then he passed the food around his disciples and they ate like kings in full view of the starving people. 19 But what was truly amazing, what was miraculous about this event, was that when they had finished the massive banquet there was not even enough crumbs to fill a starving hand.

I am in a widely celebrated class in the Graduate School of Theology called Christian Spiritual Formation. Supposedly the purpose of this class is about learning what it is to be continuously formed into the image of Jesus Christ. And being a bunch of good graduate theology students, we spend three hours every week trying to impress each other with endless knowledge of patristic writers and ancient philosophers, drawing out theological models on the board and debating the relative merits of this or that lectio devina, etc etc etc.

All the while there is a gray-haired older gentleman silently laying down sod outside in his blue-collar uniform, spending his days cleaning the plants and emptying the trash. In my observation, no one has spoken to him (maybe some do, but I haven't seen it). But I know something about this man. He was retired until he and his wife made it their mission to adopt every single one of the thirty or so students who came to ACU this year from Madagascar. These students practically live in their home. They feed them. They care for them. They transport them. They help financially provide for them. And no one, as far as I can tell, helps them. But together he and his wife provide, day in and day out, sacrificially. That is why he has had to return to work. The financial strain has been tough for them. But they love. And they love. And they love. We students and professors sit in our holes reading our 100 assigned books about spiritual formation, while the living breathing message of Christ is over in the corner wiping up the dirt.

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If I can wrap up another shorter paper tonight, tomorrow I will launch my 20 page treatise on Leviticus. Strangely enough, this has been a somewhat interesting research topic for me, although I may feel differently by the time I come crawling on bloody knees into that 20th page, trying desperately to come up with one more inane sentence so I can put this insane thing to bed and peel my bloodshot eyes off the monitor and live some semblance of a normal life.

But regardless of the academic fluffery that will inevitably have to be part of an exercise like this, it is interesting to get a look into a system that is seemingly foreign to our very existence as Christians and yet know that this is a very real part of God's story. To know that at one point in time almost total physical perfection was the golden standard to even being in the presence of the creator is a interesting and difficult concept with which to wrestle.

Anyway, I could write some more but I just realized that I am late to dinner at church. I'll never give up a giant home-cooked meal for only $2.