two down, one to go

it's time to turn my thoughts away from old testament study and the history of the spread of christianity to a more literary and theological frame of mind. actually, my class on the gospel and the imagination coincided quite well with my old testament class. what i'm really trying to say is, that class is over. it's time to review everything dr. wood's ever said in class.

it's interesting to go back and think about everything i've learned this semester. yesterday, in my oral exam, which

sidenote: the experience of that was what i would imagine a wedding
day to be like. i prepared and studied for an embarrasing
amount of time, only to sit and talk for 20 min. about 5
of those minutes wasn't even really related to what i had
studied, but about my life and experience with the class.
it was nice, and hopefully a sign that my answer to the
test question was satisfactory, but, man. there was no
honeymoon afterwards.

but, my professor asked how my views of God had changed throughout the semester. then, she asked how i had changed. the answers to those kinds of questions are ones that i had thought about, but had not been made to articulate until that point. it was a nice moment of reflection for me. i surprised myself a little when i realized how influenced i had been the things i've read and the conversations i've had this semester.

my thoughts are preocuppied now with theological terms, flannery o'connor, karl barth, kalistos ware, george herbert, etc. all the wonderful people we've read. i know i've posted a poem by him before, but i'll post another today. this one is becoming one of my favorite herbert poems and is one i actually got to present in class. it's a mystery how one can find comfort in recognizing humanity's finitude.

Employment. (I)

IF as a flowre doth spread and die,
Thou wouldst extend me to some good,
Before I were by frosts extremitie
Nipt in the bud;

The sweetnesse and the praise were thine;
But the extension and the room,
Which in thy garland I should fill, were mine
At thy great doom.

For as thou dost impart thy grace,
The greater shall our glorie be.
The measure of our joyes is in this place,
The stuffe with thee.

Let me not languish then, and spend
A life as barren to thy praise,
As is the dust, to which that life doth tend,
But with delaies.

All things are busie; onely I
Neither bring hony with the bees,
Nor flowres to make that, nor the husbandrie
To water these.

I am no link of thy great chain,
But all my companie is a weed.
Lord place me in thy consort; give one strain
To my poore reed.