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Plays Well With Tillich
Oct. 29th, 2003 07:36 pmLast week I turned in my first paper as a seminary student. The assigned topic, for my "Christian Anthropology" class, was how the student defines "human." Of course, we were supposed to make reference to our reading. In this case, that was the section "Being and the Question of God" from Paul Tillich's "Systematic Theology, vol. 1." I wasn't particularly happy with my paper, but the professor gave me a 95.
Of greater interest than the grade was his comment: "You play well with the limits of Tillich's thought."
I don't think I've ever had a professor observe that I had "played" with a topic before -- and it certainly gives me something to think about. I'm always very serious about my academic work; bringing the word "play" into the process opens up a whole new way of approaching paper-writing. It certainly says a lot about just how over-serious I can be, since I've had more than nine years of higher education (a BA and an MA) and I've never thought about "playing" with paper topics before.
To commemorate this particular event, I'm thinking of having a t-shirt made that says, "Plays well with theologians." Not a bad thing for a seminarian!
Of greater interest than the grade was his comment: "You play well with the limits of Tillich's thought."
I don't think I've ever had a professor observe that I had "played" with a topic before -- and it certainly gives me something to think about. I'm always very serious about my academic work; bringing the word "play" into the process opens up a whole new way of approaching paper-writing. It certainly says a lot about just how over-serious I can be, since I've had more than nine years of higher education (a BA and an MA) and I've never thought about "playing" with paper topics before.
To commemorate this particular event, I'm thinking of having a t-shirt made that says, "Plays well with theologians." Not a bad thing for a seminarian!
