Duke, Desperation, and the Divine

So, if you read Facebook you will know that for the month of July I will be at Duke Divinity School taking four courses to move me along the United Methodist track of course of study. You also know full well how I have come with both feet dragging and daily desperation as I have tackled, and not tackled early enough, the pre-work required before I got here. I'll spare you all of that agony again but let me just say, I am here now and there will be a whole new source of anguish rising from my soul during the next four weeks. I will try to keep that to a minimum, however (no promises, though).

Day one began yesterday (Sunday, July 4) with a three hour drive that turned into over four and a half. You know those gadgets that you use when you drive that help you get to your destination? Don't trust them!!! I ended up at three different locations, none of them Duke Divinity School. By the time I arrived, I was late, I was ticked, I was in an even sourer mood than I was when I left home. My thought was, "this does not bode well for me and my time here, dear God. I told you I didn't want to come and this testifies to that fact!"

God smiled and pushed me along.

Well, I got registered, had dinner with the newbies (which I was and let me tell you, I hate being a newbie because you're just not cool cos you don't know anything about where you are - like being lost for over an hour), and then took a tour of the inside of the Divinity School.

Let me stop here and tell you that the building that we are having our classes in and houses the course of study office and the Divinity School library and our mailboxes and the chapel and.... well, it's a little confusing. You know you're into something precarious when they refer to the building as the Bermuda Triangle. Actually, I'm not sure that's what they called it but the word "triangle" was in their description and I found that to be true because I walked the same "triangle" of halls twice before I found someone who pointed me down the stairs to the next triangle level. Today I dropped M&M's to find my way back to where I started.

I found my dorm without much trouble, unloaded and partially unpacked my room. I drove to a local grocery store (no problem - GPS got me there and I got myself back), parked in the right parking lot but the wrong level, loaded up my hands with ten bags of groceries and walked the short trek back to my dorm.

Well, short according to the map. For me, my self-GPS-mind got me lost and I wandered to three dorms before I stumbled upon some people to get directions. They pointed to "over there" and then said, and I quote: "I think." Now, when someone adds the words "I think" to the end of directions it is a very wise man who decids to ask someone else for confirmation of those directions.

I'm not so smart, I have learned.

Thirty minutes later, hands and fingers having lost all feeling, I arrived at my dorm but with no feelings in my hands and fingers and, holding all thses bags, I couldn't get my key to get in. It reminded me of a story about how some game wardens would capture monkeys by putting peanuts in a jar with a small opening and the monkeys would reach in, get the peanuts but then couldn't get their hands out because their clutch of nuts in their hand had formed a fist which couldn't get out of the jar, so the monkeys would get so upset that they were easily captured.

I didn't want to be captured so I put down one hand of bags and got my key. I was safe.

Day two. I won't go into all the details of this day but let me share just a couple of things. First, this place is beautiful. I'll post some pictures later but the campus is... inspiring. The church is breathtaking. Cathedral looking at it's best. When I bring my camera I'll get some really good pictures and show you.

Second, worship/chapel was inspirational and moving. The chapel where we meet, Goodson Chapel, is also very lovely but it was the service and especially the message that touched me. There was a lifting in my soul, a levitating of my mood (even after my classes I feel a little better...just a little). And it also was a little weird.

Here's what I mean by that, and I admit that you probably won't think it's weird and, well, it's not in the sense of being weird as far as feeling something weird goes. It was a visual weird. The speaker, as he talked, would stand at the very edge of the stage with half of his feet/shoes hanging over the edge. He would move around, most of the time with his half of each of his feet hanging over the edge of the stage. And from my angle, it made him look like he was floating just above the step that ran along the edge of the stage. I kept thinking of an episode of "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer" where these "demons' would float just above the ground as they moved about. Well, this just gave the whole thing this sort of mystical, divine quality.

And then I realized, that's what I'm here for. I'm ultimately here for the mystical and the divine.

In fact, isn't that what we all are here for, on this earth, going about our tasks of work, family, church, vacation, learning, and so on? Aren't we surrounded by the mystical and the Divine, and our task is to have eyes to see, hearts to feel, faith to receive? So often we miss that "glimpse" of Jesus because we're so busy looking at other things, worrying about other things, complaining about other things, living for other things. We miss the Diving Presence and the Holy and the Mystical. Why? The prophet Isaiah put it this way:

For the hearts of these people are hardened,
      and their ears cannot hear,
   and they have closed their eyes—
      so their eyes cannot see,
   and their ears cannot hear,
      and their hearts cannot understand,
   and they cannot turn to me
      and let me heal them.’ (Isaiah 6:9-10)

Christ wants to do to us what he did to the blind man:

Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. (Mark 8:25)

Here is one of my favorite worship songs. It's my prayer for me and it's my prayer for you. May we see the Divine, Mystical, Holy God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDt0p_Rw1yg

Now, I must get back to reading and paper writing. "Have mercy on me, O God!"