Fraternities and Sororities have nothing over on Seminaries when it comes to Hell Week. This was it. Hell Week 2012 for Candler School of Theology. Mid-Term. That week in which you have a midterm take home due that is 12 pages long, a mid-term covering 1500 years of history, an Old Testament Quiz, a 10 page paper due. It is that week in which students begin questioning the wisdom of coming to seminary, wondering if they are really cut out for this kind of academia. It is that week when the newness has worn off and parts of the Bible are being read that get looked over in Sunday School and from the pulpit. You know the ones. Passages that tell you to take your disobedient children to the city gate and have them stoned to death. Those passages that reflect a patriarchal, male dominant, female enslavement/ownership society in which women are viewed as property the punishment for rape is a virtual slap on the wrist. Some students wonder who this God is. They have never heard such things and they question their faith in ways they never thought possible. There are long faces, tired face. There are weakened immune systems and trips to the clinic or the hospital. Let us not forget all the Wives, husbands, children and significant others who have become seminary widows, widowers and orphans over the past week. We entered our own wilderness. It's easy to look back at our different Egypts and think we were better off there. It is easy to forget all the divine interventions that brought us to this exact place headed towards our promised land. We listen to the song of Moses and we wonder if we are with the God who wounds or the God who heals, the God who gives life or the God who takes life. Then we see moments of Grace such as a professor extending a deadline. We get emails from professors assuring us that if we did poorly on the midterm there is a way to recover. We are encouraged by our fellow travelers on the journey. We remember. We remember what/who brought us here and we remember why. Keep those things fresh in your hearts and memories and know that God is with us, ever present in the wilderness, ready to bring us into the promised land.
On the home front: We averted a massive tragedy yesterday. I entered the house when I got back to North Carolina. Leigh Anne was out on the lawn mower mulching leaves. I set down my bag and begin the process of doing laundry. I was tired and my head was pounding. I heard a loud buzzing noise in the house. It sounded like something could blow up any minute. I checked the water heater, no not that. I checked the air conditioner, it's unplugged. I turn off all the electronics in the room, still loud buzzing noise. I turned off the lights. Still loud buzzing. What could it be. I went and got Leigh Anne reluctantly off the lawn mower. She thinking I was being silly came into the house and once she heard it she too became alarmed. She rechecked everything I had already checked and we deduced that the only other thing it could be was the gas heater. She went outside and turned the gas off to the house. I very cautiously and with fear turned off the gas valve inside the house. Both of us expecting an explosion any second. The flame went out, nothing exploded and the buzzing continued. We knew the sound was coming from near the door way. Was there something going on with the electric meter. Leigh Anne turns off breakers, the buzzing continues. Is something in our walls, has someone planted a bomb. The possibilities continue to grow until I pick up my duffel bag and realize the buzzing is coming from within. Did someone plant a bomb in my duffel bag. This is a crazy world. Then at once we both recognize the buzzing as the electric razor in my makeup kit which had been inadvertently turned on when I threw my bag on the ground upon arrival home......Life resumes.
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