Dear Friends,
Well, I’m sitting in the Dallas-Fort Worth airport waiting for my flight back to New Jersey (which has been delayed, of course) and decided now is as good a time as any to say hello and write an update! My first thought was that I ought to share with you how much I love nonstop flights. For those of you who heard of my travel woes in August (I finally got to Louisville, aka my “second home” about 13 hours after I was supposed to) and going home for Christmas (32 hours to get home from Princeton) you’ll understand why I am so happy to be on a nonstop, with baggage in hand. I don’t have to worry about a connection, I don’t have to wait for the excruciatingly slow and unorganized baggage claim in Newark, and I get to eat Swedish meatballs from IKEA and actually send this update that much sooner (a lack of Internet is keeping me from sending it now).
So, I’ll get to the whole grad school thing in a minute but some of you may be wondering why I’m in Dallas and why I’m going to San Francisco next weekend. I have the opportunity to be part of a General Assembly (national level) committee of the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Committee on Representation, since the summer of 2004. We meet 2-3 times a year in various places, although last year we seemed to be permanently stuck in Louisville (see above) and from this I’ve had the chance to visit Atlanta, Louisville, St. Louis, Dallas, Albuquerque, Daytona Beach, FL, and hopefully on the docket for the next couple of meetings are Nashville and Lake Tahoe. Our main goals are advocacy and monitoring as well as training on how to and encouragement for Synod and Presbyteries (the middle governing bodies in the Presbyterian Church) to create and maintain their own Committees on Representation. The four main areas we deal with are 1) racial ethnic diversity, 2) male/female equity, 3) youth and young adult involvement, and 4) inclusion of persons with disabilities and disability awareness. This October I will be in charge of a biennial training event for our Synod committee staff and plans for it have been in the works for a year and a half already! So, this is just one area of my life that I’m getting to share with you all!
Now, back to that whole school thing: classes for the spring semester are in session (we began about a week ago) and my professors are already off to a running start. I have a rather eclectic mix of classes this semester:
· Introduction to Preaching
· The Theology of Karl Barth
· Iconography, Symbolism, and Theology
So far I’m enjoying all of them, although the last one on the list is certainly the must unstructured and unpredictable class I have, and I do like my structure in my classes. It should shape up to be a good semester though and while I’m a little anxious about preaching, I think I will really enjoy it. Also, after writing 4 papers totaling about 61 pages for the fall semester I am oh-so-thankful that I will only have 2 papers this semester.
With Princeton’s new schedule we also had a Jan term (shh, don’t tell anyone I called it that!) that took up three weeks of…well, January. I took one three-credit course in the pastoral care section entitled Ministry with Persons with Disabilities and Their Families. While it was a very, very intense three weeks, it was an incredibly valuable experience, especially for someone who is looking into working with children or adults with developmental disabilities for her vocation.
I know there have been several things I promised I would write about and haven’t gotten to them yet in my updates, but this is getting a bit long, so I think I’ll wrap things up for now. Thanks for reading, and I would love to hear from you. I also want to take just a minute and thank those who lifted up my alma mater, Westmont College, during the Tea Fire in November. Westmont is well on its way to recovering, no doubt in part thanks to your prayers. If you’re interested you can read more about fire recovery and rebuilding efforts here.
May you be blessed this day.
Thanks for reading,
Megan
