Something Has Changed Within Me. . .
Mar. 7th, 2005 05:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qos. . . Something is not the same
My wedding at Cana paper is going very slowly.
I should be able to write this in my sleep, but between my home life (cleaning house, helping my daughter with her first book report, cooking dinner, enjoying downtime with her) and my dwindling patience with academia, it's been very hard to give it the time.
I think the fact that I should be able to write it in my sleep is part of the problem. I have always hated feeling like I am being made to jump through hoops that someone else thinks are necessary. The fact is, I've taken New Testament studies before, TA'd the class twice after that, and taken an advanced class in the gospels. Is there more for me to learn? Of course. But not in this class. The whole thing has been a waste of time and money, and I powerfully resent both.
And now my resentment is vying with my pride. I don't want to write the damn paper at all, but since I have to, I want to do a good job. I need to stop caring so much and simply grind it out. I haven't received anything less than an A on any paper I've done here at seminary, no matter how much or little effort I've put into it, and there's no reason why this won't be the same.
Why do I keep going to school? Why am I pursuing a second Masters degree?
Because I'm good at it. I know what most profs want, and it's almost effortless for me to give it to them. Even when I feel like I'm being risky and moving outside the lines, I write well enough, and my insights are good enough, that I'm rewarded not punished.
For most of my life, academia has given me tremendous satisfaction.
I'm tired of playing by the rules of someone else's game. . .
But my patience is wearing thin with the formal academic structure of required classes and assignments. I'm ready - finally - to go to the next level. To take more charge of my own learning. To throw myself into a different kind of learning, one which I have avoided before: the kind which demands more intimacy with the subject matter than simple book-learnin'. I want the guidance of a teacher, yes, but I want a program which is personal, flexible, and designed to foster my strengths and challenge my particular weaknesses, not one which assigns me a standard checklist and tells me that only by following it can I succeed.
If I was heading for a traditional vocation, that might be the case.
But I'm not.
Not anymore.
Which is why, day by day, I'm becoming more and more convinced that I don't belong where I am.
There are a lot of powerful voices in my head shouting at me to stay inside the box where it's safe, where I can make sure what I do will be "acceptable" to the Powers That Be who will either grant or deny me success.
But if I can't succeed on my own terms, being who and what I am, is that success?
Once upon a time, it wasn't an issue. I was comfortable and content inside those boxes. They defined me, and I considered myself lucky that I fit so well, with so little effort.
Except that I wasn't rewarded, except in school. I came to seminary in the first place because I finally realized that the reason I'd never had conventional career ambitions was that I had a previously unrecognized spiritual vocation. That vocation has been taking shape slowly, as the layers of convention continue to be peeled away, and now I'm nowhere I ever expected to be.
I have two choices: trust my gut, trust my deepest self, trust Mystery -- or stay in the box of tradition, hoping that I will be rewarded for my compliance.
Glinda:
You can still be with The Wizard
What you've worked and waited for
You can have all you ever wanted -
Elphaba:
I know
But I don't want it - No!
I can't want it anymore
My wedding at Cana paper is going very slowly.
I should be able to write this in my sleep, but between my home life (cleaning house, helping my daughter with her first book report, cooking dinner, enjoying downtime with her) and my dwindling patience with academia, it's been very hard to give it the time.
I think the fact that I should be able to write it in my sleep is part of the problem. I have always hated feeling like I am being made to jump through hoops that someone else thinks are necessary. The fact is, I've taken New Testament studies before, TA'd the class twice after that, and taken an advanced class in the gospels. Is there more for me to learn? Of course. But not in this class. The whole thing has been a waste of time and money, and I powerfully resent both.
And now my resentment is vying with my pride. I don't want to write the damn paper at all, but since I have to, I want to do a good job. I need to stop caring so much and simply grind it out. I haven't received anything less than an A on any paper I've done here at seminary, no matter how much or little effort I've put into it, and there's no reason why this won't be the same.
Why do I keep going to school? Why am I pursuing a second Masters degree?
Because I'm good at it. I know what most profs want, and it's almost effortless for me to give it to them. Even when I feel like I'm being risky and moving outside the lines, I write well enough, and my insights are good enough, that I'm rewarded not punished.
For most of my life, academia has given me tremendous satisfaction.
I'm tired of playing by the rules of someone else's game. . .
But my patience is wearing thin with the formal academic structure of required classes and assignments. I'm ready - finally - to go to the next level. To take more charge of my own learning. To throw myself into a different kind of learning, one which I have avoided before: the kind which demands more intimacy with the subject matter than simple book-learnin'. I want the guidance of a teacher, yes, but I want a program which is personal, flexible, and designed to foster my strengths and challenge my particular weaknesses, not one which assigns me a standard checklist and tells me that only by following it can I succeed.
If I was heading for a traditional vocation, that might be the case.
But I'm not.
Not anymore.
Which is why, day by day, I'm becoming more and more convinced that I don't belong where I am.
There are a lot of powerful voices in my head shouting at me to stay inside the box where it's safe, where I can make sure what I do will be "acceptable" to the Powers That Be who will either grant or deny me success.
But if I can't succeed on my own terms, being who and what I am, is that success?
Once upon a time, it wasn't an issue. I was comfortable and content inside those boxes. They defined me, and I considered myself lucky that I fit so well, with so little effort.
Except that I wasn't rewarded, except in school. I came to seminary in the first place because I finally realized that the reason I'd never had conventional career ambitions was that I had a previously unrecognized spiritual vocation. That vocation has been taking shape slowly, as the layers of convention continue to be peeled away, and now I'm nowhere I ever expected to be.
I have two choices: trust my gut, trust my deepest self, trust Mystery -- or stay in the box of tradition, hoping that I will be rewarded for my compliance.
Glinda:
You can still be with The Wizard
What you've worked and waited for
You can have all you ever wanted -
Elphaba:
I know
But I don't want it - No!
I can't want it anymore
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-07 03:12 pm (UTC)Powerful and nerve-racking.
Nerve-racking and brave, stepping off that cliff.
(Very Indian Jones, hey!)
P.S. Elphie -- LOVE YOUR ICON!
P.P.S. I don't think it was a mistake that I surfed in last week. Seems more and more Not the case.
P.P.P.S. Elphie -- Everyone deserves a chance to fly!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-07 04:14 pm (UTC)Of course there's nothing inherently wrong with jumping through a hoop -- if the other side of the hoop is where you wanted to be in the first place. In other words, you don't have to change your path just because somebody happened to put a hoop across it. But in this case, it sounds as if there's reason to doubt that the Powers That Be in question actually can grant or deny you success, the success you have in mind, anyway. Which means that you're jumping through this particular hoop either for exercise or for fun -- the only reasons go out of your way for a bout of hoop jumping.
Further elaborations of the tortured metaphor are left as an exercise for the reader. ;-)
Food for thought: You've written elsewhere about an interest in spiritual leadership, and the Christian tradition offers some very specific (and, in my experience, very sound) advice on the subject. If you would lead, then serve.
Perhaps, then, one of the questions to think about as you weigh paths and alternatives might be, to whom and in what manner you can be of service, be useful...and not in a year or five years or "when you're ready," but tomorrow, this weekend, next week.
The tricky thing, of course, about the notion of "service-as -leadership / leadership-as-service" is that it isn't about being Queen. And the one may get in the way of the other from time to time.
I know you already know all of this...but it gives me something to type. ;-)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-07 04:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-07 06:28 pm (UTC)All in all this post seems to be asking us to yell: "JUMP OUT OF THE BOX!"
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-08 02:20 am (UTC)You've hit the nail square on the head with this one. My spiritual director raised the same question a couple of months ago. I haven't been giving it enough thought. Note to self: when my spiritual director and one of my oldest friends are raising the same question, I would do well to pay attention.
As for servant leadership: first, I'm still trying to get my head around you saying positive things about Christianity. It may be an example of unfairly selective memory, but I can't remember you saying anything nice about Christianity lo those many years ago.
And you're right about it not being about queen-ship. Which is one reason why the archetypal ground-clearing of last winter was so critical for me. I still have Queen of Swords as my LJ name, and the archetype is still pertinent (in both positive and negative ways) but as for my vocational role, the Sage (scholar, shaman, storyteller) is what I'm aiming for now. And there's nothing in that about "power-over."
Which isn't to say that I've suddenly become good at serving. A few erotic scenarios aside, it's not something I've ever been particularly good at. There's a wisdom to be gained here that I haven't yet grasped. I pay lip service to "servant leadership" but I haven't got it figured out. Hopefully my class next quarter will help in this area.
It means a lot to me that you're reading my journal and leaving comments like these. Thank you.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-08 02:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-08 02:22 am (UTC)I don't know. . . I'm making this up as I go along!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-08 03:01 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-08 10:13 am (UTC)Chuckle. No, your recollection is neither unfair nor particularly selective. I just have different priorities today. And a little more maturity at forty than at seventeen. Or better manners, at minimum. ;-)
I'm very glad that you don't mind...I do worry that I might be overstepping my bounds now and again.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-08 01:44 pm (UTC)You haven't come close to overstepping any boundaries with me. I have learned to cherish friends who know me well and who "speak the truth with love," who I can trust to be truthful with me and confront me when I'm falling short of what I can be or simply displaying fuzzy thinking.
When we were teenagers, I felt like your challenges to me were motivated more by general cynicism than anything else, and they often hurt. Now, I'm more mature (thank goodness) and can accept criticism and challenge far better, and your challenges have far less edge to them.
I'd like to think we've both improved with age. :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-08 04:26 pm (UTC)As much as I empathize about redundant coursework and stupid assignments, I have to admit to a certain amount of amusement to find a divinity student describing a missive upon a religous subject as a "damned paper".
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-09 05:54 am (UTC)