Lent 2012

The "ashes to ashes, dust to dust" aspect of Ash Wednesday has got me thinking about dust. It occurs to me that this blog has become rather dusty lately. I have left it abandoned not because I haven't had anything to say, but because I have been ridonkulously busy for the past 6 weeks. But this season of Lent is causing me to pause and contemplate. I'd like to share some of those contemplations with you, hopefully posting each day of Lent. This is not "what I'm doing for Lent." That is between me and God. This is just a healthy exercise in getting my thoughts on paper, er screen.

Let me get you up to speed.

January was spent doing an internship at a hospital. It was an 8-5 chaplain gig, which was one of the most valuable learning experiences I've ever had, and also one of the most exhausting. I was emotionally drained at the end of the day, but would muster up the energy to study for ordination exams.

Which takes us to the major stress in my life lately, the ords. The Presbyterian ordination process requires all candidates to pass 5 ordination exams. The first is the Bible content exam, which I passed last January, and the other four are called the senior exams. Most Presbyteries require that all four be taken at the same time. The topics include Theology, Worship/Sacraments, Polity and Exegesis. The first three are three hours each and the fourth is a take home which you have five days to complete. As you can imagine, it is very stressful to take nine hours worth of exams in two days and then have to carry on for another five days by diving deeply into a Biblical text. I'm exhausted just reminiscing on it! Having completed them, I now dwell in that liminal space of waiting to hear if I passed them or not. I won't find out until mid March. I'm doing my best not to think about it, knowing there's nothing I can do but wait.

In other news, I got engaged! This is very exciting and I couldn't be more joyful, but it has also added wedding planning onto my already full schedule. Not that I'm complaining, I love it so far. I'll be posting on that in the coming days.

And then there is school. We're into week 2 and I'm already overwhelmed by quizzes and presentations and sermons. I'm taking a full-time load and continuing my internship at a local congregation.

All of that should provide plenty of material for blogging in the next 40 days or so...