Falling Behind

[qos]

My friends are quite prolific -- and there are a few more of you than there used to be. I didn't even have the chance to read and respond to yesterday's posts.

Last night was Women In Transition, which was a good time. I've committed to developing my class "The Lamp and the Mirror: Illuminating and Reflecting On Spiritual Life" before summer. This is *after* I finish my final papers for my two classes, but it's my turn to step up and start teaching. My assignments are to gather information on likely venues and develop my course outline into more detailed lesson plans.

I have "Christian Ethics" class tonight, and won't be home until after 9pm. We have to present a one-paragraph description of our final paper topic. I was going to look at assisted suicide (which I think should be legal) - but I may instead examine plural marriage. Our thoughts about marriage seem to form out of a whole series of assumptions about the "natural" qualities and roles of males and females, religious codes, ideas about power and body ownership. . . I was doing some online research yetserday. One site that advocates polygamy because it is biblically-based reject polyandry (one woman with multiple husbands) because it violates nature and the Bible. (To quote The King and I: "Flower must not go from bee to bee to bee!") Where do our ethics depend on our assumptions about nature?
Feel free to weigh in on the topic if you have thoughts, opinions or questions.

Finally: perhaps this will become a meme?
I love the beauty, creativity and self-expression of LJ icons. I also enjoy the masking effect. I only know what a couple of you look like. A few of you I know from everyday life. Two or three of you have icons with your photos. But the rest of you are mysteries to me -- as I am to you.
So, without looking at my Info Page, I'd like those of you who don't know what I look like: How old am I? What do I look like? What is my personal style of dress? What do you imagine when (if) you picture me?
Those of you who know me can do this too if my verbal image doesn't quite match with my actual appearance.

And meanwhile, I'll do my best to get caught up with all your entries as best I can. But please understand if I fall behind in conversations!

Dad's surgery is tomorrow morning. I'll be at the hospital all day. More on that this evening.

Comments

[qos.livejournal.com]

Which grad program? Which school?

I have an MA from UW's school of international studies (comparative religion) and am currently working on an M.Div. (probably switching to MATS) at Seattle U.

[lexicat.livejournal.com]

UW - Biochemistry. This is exciting/amusing because I have BSs in Math and CS, so it's a brand new field to me. Well, technically I've been working in a biology lab for a year now, but we do completely different stuff, and biology is a big field.

Why are you moving from MDiv to MATS? That's kind of a big question, but I couldn't find any commentary on it skimming the last month of your journal.

[qos.livejournal.com]

I'm switching to the Master of Arts in Transforming Spirituality for a couple of reasons.

One of the most important is that I feel that if I become an ordained minister (my original goal in starting the program), I would feel an obligation to keep my ministry within the doctrinal bounds of the denomination which ordained me. I'm currently affiliated with the Swedenborgian church, which I find is an excellent place to be as someone who has a pluralistic spirituality with Christianity as my foundation. But even within the Swedenborgian church I disagree with some of the doctrines. I realize that there are ministers in every church who have doubts or disagreements with certain doctrines, but I feel a very deep sense of distress when I imagine those I meet identifying me with a particular set of beliefs, or when I imagine moving beyond the orthodoxy of a path to which I have sworn myself. My own spirituality is far more fluid than that.

Second, I've come to realize that I really am not tempermentally suited to being a person who functions at the center of a community and who is deeply involved in all the issues. I go nuts when I feel obligated to do group work over a long term.

I've been realizing my gifts are more in teaching than exhortation, and I function better in small temporary groups (like classes and workshops) or in one-on-one relationships. So I'm shifting my focus to spiritual direction.

Finally, on the level of sheer practicality, doing spiritual direction work means that I can be self-employed rather than have to find a congregation to hire me and perhaps having to move to in order to get a paycheck. I have some powerful motivations to stay in Seattle and no guarantee of a paid ministerial position if I remain. The next closest Swedenborgian congregations are in the Bay area or the midwest. I can continue my dayjob and build my practice gradually. Hopefully one day I'll be able to support myself as a freelance teacher, writer and spiritual director, but if not, I still have a day job with a decent paycheck.

What led to your switch? How did you get into biochemistry? What is it you've been doing?

[lexicat.livejournal.com]

What led to your switch? How did you get into biochemistry? What is it you've been doing?

I switched because I was unemployed and needed a job. I happened to know the right people, and BAM, here I am.

I stayed because biology is so interesting. I'm not really a mathematician or a computer guy, I'm a scientist. I like solving problems. I like learning things no one else knows.

I am going into biochemistry sort of by default, because they're the university that isn't UT that accepted me. Which is fine, because their program is really good and their people are neat. Biochem is more my kind of task anyway, as compared to what I would be doing here, which is managine hoards of data, and then analyzing it. But this data has so many dimensions it's hard to even make, much less keep track of and make meaningful.

Before this I mostly had experience doing web development, but also a variety of other things.