Lutheran cemetery----I mean, seminary

This happened last year about this time. The students are all on such overwhelm and exhaustion, we are now making the Freudian slip of calling this school a cemetery....

I kid you not.

I have eight papers due in three weeks.

And just for fun, my husband lost his job and can't find another one, yet.

I'm having increasing health issues---insomnia, psoriasis, strange cysts---all stress related, says the doctor.

Hence, I am a student at a Lutheran cemetary.

"Hi, my name is Alison. I am a seminary student and my life has become unmanageable...."

"Welcome Home"

OH MY GOOD-NESS!

I am loved and wanted here.
I am not taken for granted.
I am treated like a gift and an addition, not a burden or a nuisance or something to be feared.

One of the first things the new pastor at The Church of the Good Shepherd said to me is "Welcome Home." It brought tears to my eyes.
He invited me to come to the pastoral team meetings, and Good Shepherd considers me "their seminarian."
It is overwhelming.
I'm not accustomed to this level of welcome and inclusion. It is so warm!

It is scary. What if I mess up?

At my first pastoral team meeting, John, the new pastor said, "I'm so glad you're here," and I think he really means it!

It's going to take awhile to get used to this trust and inclusion and warmth.

"Christian hospitality." It is a concept I have heard at the seminary and have wondered what it meant. "The hospitality of the Gospel" is another way it is put. The idea is that God's primary message for us, "the Good News," is His love. He includes us all. His promise is for everyone. There is no one among us too wrong or too broken or so stupid or so misguided that He cannot reach us and hold us and comfort us and redeem us when we are ready.

Our biggest block is our own self-hatred and self-judgment. We see our imperfections and flaws and are ashamed. WE hide.

I am still afraid that the people at Good Shepherd will eventually figure out what a jerk I am and need to push me away. I don't think God wants me to feel that way or have that attitude. I want that fear healed and removed. I want to just accept the love and grow in it, and give it back tenfold. I'm not used to unconditional love.

Get this: One motto for the seminary is "Developing Leaders for Church and the World" which I love, and this year I've seen, "Equipping for Healing Relationships" which knocks my socks off!
Amen!
Isn't that what it is all about? Healing relationships? Loving, healthy relationships? ---By removal of arrogance and exclusive thinking and competition and contempt?
It works for me.

Last year I battled such loneliness in my unique Swedenborgian perspective. This year I am filled with gratitude for such a warm and inclusive seminary---and for learning how to include myself and speak the common lingo. The ideas aren't all that different. The Lutherans (and no doubt many other faith systems) are discussing and wrestling with many of the same observations and issues that I have been, but have discussed them in a different lingo and from a different perspective. I've simply needed to learn to see our sameness.

And how shocking to my protected little self, to discover that many of the great thoughts that I thought were uniquely Swedenborgian have been popping up in the Christian dialogue in various forms for many centuries. I was so, um, almost hurt to have one professor say, "Oh. That sounds like Origen...."

I wanted to put my hands on my hips and pout and say, "Nuh-uh! This is brand new stuff! Nobody has ever said this or thought this before!" I was actually offended, and clung to the need of Swedenborg's spin being completely and utterly new.

Sure it's new. Nobody has put it together in quite this way---at least, not by his day. But his thoughts didn't arrive in a vacuum. He must have been exposed to lots of the great Christian fathers of the past and studied and debated their various stances. Of course he would take a little from here and a little from there....

It's mind-bending for me. I have been very attached to seeing Swedenborg's perspective as utterly new and different.
It is and it isn't.
And the things he was writing about 200 years ago are becoming part of the collective consciousness, with or without his name attached. I doubt he would care for or want credit for having seen and written something that ends up being universally acknowledged as true. Besides, he communicated them into such a relatively dense and primitive context of spiritual understanding, in terms that remain fairly dense and abstruse to the average reader today, its no wonder it is hard to see any connection.

The point is, the light is growing and the healing is happening!
It is this that keeps me going.
I would have no faith by now, if God didn't keep revealing himself (herself) in new ways every day. And I think I would see and feel him (her) even more frequently, if I wasn't so attached to the few, narrow, specific ways that I expect to encounter him. He's right there, but I'm looking the wrong way. I'm saying, "Don't bother me. I'm trying to find God," and waving God away as he's chuckling and tapping me on the shoulder....

Thank God he has such a patient and wonderful sense of humour.