Journal Entry 4
Dec 14, 2007
Well, the first semester is over. I’m not sure I know what to say about it. This might be because my brain is still recovering from the trauma of the past few weeks, but it also could be because there is so much to process. Right now I’m just happy that everything has been turned in and I just hope that I’ll be equally happy when I get things back. But if I only stop there I am missing something.
I think it is important to take time to reflect back on what has happened over the semester. When I first started almost four months ago I knew no one here. I would sneak through the study room to my carrel and maybe nod at a few people. Now I am lucky to actually make it to my carrel because it’s so easy to get caught up in a conversation with someone along the way. Not long ago I didn’t know the difference between a Greek second-person, singular, present, indicative, middle/passive verb and a third-person, singular, present, subjunctive, active verb. Though I have a long way to go, I actually know some verb forms and a little bit of how to make sense of them in English. At the start of the semester I had no idea who Pelagius, or John Chrysostom, or Humbert were, but because of learning about these men and the context that they lived in, I have a larger view of the church through the ages. In preparing a final project for the class Christian Tradition, I realized how intricate the details of the Christian Church are. The church has been through so much, surviving persecutions, counsels, misguided leaders and nations, divisions and reformations, and yet the core of what the church believes is still intact. We serve an awesome God that has carried his church through the ages. This year during advent the emotion of longing or waiting has really struck me. We long for the coming of Christ. And I wait with a sometimes anxious heart to see what he has in store for the semesters to come.
