I'm starting to freak out about money for seminary. It's just kind of hitting me that I'm going and that I'm not going to be on the amazing scholarship at I had at Troy.
I'm actually not just freaking out about money. I'm freaking out about it and starting grad school. My rector apparently had a hellacious time in seminary and has spoken all kinds of words of woe about it. I'm doing my best not to think about that, but they have been taking root. Everyone I talked to at General Convention said the secret is to get off the Close and enjoy the city. A member of my Standing Committee has gotten me in touch with someone that I think I'll be able to have fun with (his son, so I think I'll be able to do that. Sooner than I know I'll be freaking out about General Ordination Exams. Blah.
But right now what's on my mind is money: moving and living, primarily. Rent and deposits and groceries and I've been on a three-meal-a-day meal plan for the last four years and I have no idea what to do! So last night I clicked a very well-placed ad on Facebook for "seminary scholarship" and this morning followed through with it. Just for watching a demo about Logos Bible Software I'm in the running for some scholarship money, and if you're going to seminary, you can be too. You just click the link to seminary scholarship, watch the demo, and fill the stuff out.
There're even maps to help study for the Old Testament map test.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Where Was the UYA?
For those who are confused, that's Universal Young Adult, and I couldn't find any of them last night at Genesis night. Now, before I really get going on my feelings, I want to say that I really hope I don't come across as a pretentious ass. The service last night had some good parts to it. I really liked that a lot, if not all, of the music was local to the people bringing it to us. I greatly affirm writing music within congregations that embody where the community comes from.
However, this was a great snapshot to me of The Episcopal Church, somewhat in light of what others have said about the UYA on this blog. Sitting in the back of the House of Deputies like I am is well and good because I can't see the people very well; we're all on the same level so our heads are the same height, and there are diocesan poles in the way. However, last night when Scott Gunn and I walked in (late. We made an appearance), there were people with glowsticks and it was kind of rock-type music. Our seating was ABOVE everyone else, so I could see out over the crowd, even if I couldn't see everything on stage close up.
I really liked that there was a poet at one point. I liked the artist going the whole time. But I was overstimulated, personally. The poet talked about ADD generation and our inability to slow down/unplug, but last night didn't encourage that. During the songs there was music (very performance oriented), video going, an artist being inspired and creating really neat things, and lights changing colors. I didn't know what to focus on. I really wouldn't have mind if someone had sounded a gong once or thrice and smoked the place up with incense (which is NOT the same as a smoke machine blowing onto the band) and let there be some still, calm, silence.
I liked the themes of the worship service, but really thought the Doctrine of Concomitance was missing from one part of the sermon, which is really my only comment on the sermon. However, in looking over the CROWD I had a few thoughts. First, I was transported back to the Chicago with Earth, Wind, and Fire concert I attended in early June. At that concert we were at the very top of the stadium similarly to the way I was at the top of the arena's seating last night. Now, given my experience with worship at a mega church in early high school, I thought, "I think this worship is intended to draw in the Universal Young Adult." But looking over the crowd, I couldn't find any. What I saw were a lot of people in the same general demographic that attended the EWF concert.
What REALLY hit me was that I didn't see (m)any people like me ageise, and I'm in the young adult crowd. And that's The Episcopal Church. I felt like Katrina Browne talks about when she read about the slavery in her family's history and how it'd been there right in front of her the whole time. The aging of The Episcopal Church has been right in front of me at St. Mark's, at Diocesan Convention, at St. Paul's On-the-Hill, and even at General Convention. But it hit me in seeing the boomers LOVING something that's new to them (playing with their glow sticks) that doesn't speak that much to me. I've DONE that. I came into the Episcopal Church (and this is me personally), in part to get away from that.
What last night was for me wasn't about liturgy. It wasn't how I worship, but greatly can appreciate that there are plenty of people who do worship that way. For me it was a call to action for evangelism, particularly to young adults. If anything last night could've been really overwhelming; stats about the number of clergy people under the age of 35 are shocking for someone who HOPES to be ordained by 27. General Convention has been daunting looking and seeing few youngish people. I don't want to sound agist, either. There is a lot of wisdom from people who've been in the church a long time....but a lot of times young adults get shafted.
We're not just cute, inspiring, or sweet for being here. One of the things that I've loved about the Young Adult Presence with EPF is that I think they're really recognizing us for our gifts. While the booth was mostly personned by people who are older, we were given guidelines and told what EPF was supporting and told to "GO!" We didn't have people waking us up, we didn't have people checking-up on our testimony to make it say what they wanted it to. The Official Youth Presence has seat and voice, but not a vote! EPF, however, has asked us to do our research and speak to what's important to us. We've been tracking legislation and reporting to our coordinators daily, but that's been just as much of a time for me to process than anything else. Definitely not a task-mastering thing. They got us here to participate.
And we've participated. We came and have been doing what we came to do. And I'm thankful. I don't know that I have much to add to Cat's great post (and Michelle's post) about recruiting young people, other than really take us seriously. Don't use us as tokens, but really recognize our gifts and talents. Give us special representation, if you think that's important, but let us be us in that context and let us fully participate. Step 1: don't invite us somewhere giving us seat and voice and then not actually let us vote. And please give us grace. Remember that we're young and not always "established." I'm 22 and just graduated from college. I have no idea what I'm going to do in seminary; for undergrad I didn't have to pay for much other than gas and car insurance (scholarship). Others I knew had to buy things. We don't often make much money and give when we can.
My next step is going to be proposing people pledge $1/wk to "be known to the treasturer" and then start subtly taking over.
However, this was a great snapshot to me of The Episcopal Church, somewhat in light of what others have said about the UYA on this blog. Sitting in the back of the House of Deputies like I am is well and good because I can't see the people very well; we're all on the same level so our heads are the same height, and there are diocesan poles in the way. However, last night when Scott Gunn and I walked in (late. We made an appearance), there were people with glowsticks and it was kind of rock-type music. Our seating was ABOVE everyone else, so I could see out over the crowd, even if I couldn't see everything on stage close up.
I really liked that there was a poet at one point. I liked the artist going the whole time. But I was overstimulated, personally. The poet talked about ADD generation and our inability to slow down/unplug, but last night didn't encourage that. During the songs there was music (very performance oriented), video going, an artist being inspired and creating really neat things, and lights changing colors. I didn't know what to focus on. I really wouldn't have mind if someone had sounded a gong once or thrice and smoked the place up with incense (which is NOT the same as a smoke machine blowing onto the band) and let there be some still, calm, silence.
I liked the themes of the worship service, but really thought the Doctrine of Concomitance was missing from one part of the sermon, which is really my only comment on the sermon. However, in looking over the CROWD I had a few thoughts. First, I was transported back to the Chicago with Earth, Wind, and Fire concert I attended in early June. At that concert we were at the very top of the stadium similarly to the way I was at the top of the arena's seating last night. Now, given my experience with worship at a mega church in early high school, I thought, "I think this worship is intended to draw in the Universal Young Adult." But looking over the crowd, I couldn't find any. What I saw were a lot of people in the same general demographic that attended the EWF concert.
What REALLY hit me was that I didn't see (m)any people like me ageise, and I'm in the young adult crowd. And that's The Episcopal Church. I felt like Katrina Browne talks about when she read about the slavery in her family's history and how it'd been there right in front of her the whole time. The aging of The Episcopal Church has been right in front of me at St. Mark's, at Diocesan Convention, at St. Paul's On-the-Hill, and even at General Convention. But it hit me in seeing the boomers LOVING something that's new to them (playing with their glow sticks) that doesn't speak that much to me. I've DONE that. I came into the Episcopal Church (and this is me personally), in part to get away from that.
What last night was for me wasn't about liturgy. It wasn't how I worship, but greatly can appreciate that there are plenty of people who do worship that way. For me it was a call to action for evangelism, particularly to young adults. If anything last night could've been really overwhelming; stats about the number of clergy people under the age of 35 are shocking for someone who HOPES to be ordained by 27. General Convention has been daunting looking and seeing few youngish people. I don't want to sound agist, either. There is a lot of wisdom from people who've been in the church a long time....but a lot of times young adults get shafted.
We're not just cute, inspiring, or sweet for being here. One of the things that I've loved about the Young Adult Presence with EPF is that I think they're really recognizing us for our gifts. While the booth was mostly personned by people who are older, we were given guidelines and told what EPF was supporting and told to "GO!" We didn't have people waking us up, we didn't have people checking-up on our testimony to make it say what they wanted it to. The Official Youth Presence has seat and voice, but not a vote! EPF, however, has asked us to do our research and speak to what's important to us. We've been tracking legislation and reporting to our coordinators daily, but that's been just as much of a time for me to process than anything else. Definitely not a task-mastering thing. They got us here to participate.
And we've participated. We came and have been doing what we came to do. And I'm thankful. I don't know that I have much to add to Cat's great post (and Michelle's post) about recruiting young people, other than really take us seriously. Don't use us as tokens, but really recognize our gifts and talents. Give us special representation, if you think that's important, but let us be us in that context and let us fully participate. Step 1: don't invite us somewhere giving us seat and voice and then not actually let us vote. And please give us grace. Remember that we're young and not always "established." I'm 22 and just graduated from college. I have no idea what I'm going to do in seminary; for undergrad I didn't have to pay for much other than gas and car insurance (scholarship). Others I knew had to buy things. We don't often make much money and give when we can.
My next step is going to be proposing people pledge $1/wk to "be known to the treasturer" and then start subtly taking over.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Honey, what are you wearing?
I didn't get up to go to committee yesterday. I did get up and listen to the House of Bishops take up C056, which has to take up blessings. I liveblogged the debate, which was really good. You can follow all my General Convention updates at twitter.com/JosephPMathews. I had a piece of cheesecake for breakfast before that. The bishop gave it to me on Sunday after the diocesan luncheon. You can also follow ALL of what's going on about convention via twitter at search.twitter.com and searching for "#ecgc". When someone moved to postpone the discussion on C056 yesterday I left and went downstairs, but I didn't! Some of my legislation (new entry in a few minutes) came up so I stayed through it.
Before debate I was verbally assaulted by someone in charge of running the room, though. One person came up and told me and the guy from Center Aisle that we couldn't plug in. As soon as it was out of her mouth another woman came over, said it again, and then unceremoniously unplugged our computers. And then the chaplain prayed. And then she said, "You need to move your cords so that people don't trip!" When we asked why the answer was, "We're paying for power!" After my tweets someone posted this blog entry, which when I got it made me laugh. As the house session started the PB apologized to the bishops for the ENS headline about C025, and she said it would be fixed.
I was also wearing my Harry Potter costume all day yesterday.Throughout the day I got a lot of questions about it, but they were all positive. I explained and people laughed and enjoyed it. Since it's purple I was going to take it off for the House of Bishops, but Bishop Jacobus told me to go for it and have a good time. So I did. I took it off for Eucharist so as to not be a distraction or draw undue attention to myself. As I went down the escalator to go to the EPF booth to drop my robe off before Eucharist a beautiful young clergywoman said, "Honey, what're you wearing?" so I told her.
After session I went to eucharist and wound up sitting wiht a lot of EPF Yappers. We weren't big fans of the music yesterday. I got a veggie wrap (#3) from the exhibit all vendors and listened to EDS's new dean speak. I liked what she said. After it I went and spoke to the deacons and then campus ministry, where I was recruited to try to deliver a message to the House of Bishops, from which someone had borrowed campus ministry's pace banner. After that failed I sat on the floor and waited for them to get out of closed door session. I got in and they said that they'd take C056 back up today, so I left. It was about time for our EPF meeting by that point, too. We'd postponed from the day before (that was D025 discussion time). Someone from Episcopal Life, who posted the story online at that link.
We didn't really do legislative check in because we were all kind of tired and anxious about what was going to be happening, but we had a great conversation (I think) about D025. Most of us had been in the house of Bishops when they'd debated and voted, and we needed some time to just do group therapy and decompress (I think). It was really good to talk. We talked about Anglican polity, fear, the bishop who felt that others were hiding behind the smokescreen of the Communion, etc. When we broke I went back to the room to drop my bag and robe....
And then went to my first march. There will be pictures on Facebook. The neatest part was when we all took our signs down and were at our destination and people talked. I had to leave early because I was working Traces of the Trade. On the way back I was chatting with someone from Integrity who said that power strips had been put in the media area and when she went back the door keepers made a point of directing her to more power. That's amusing, too. When I got to the Marriott I checked in with Dain and Constance and then went to the diocesan hospitality room, where I got some grapes and enjoyed sitting with people from the Central Gulf Coast.,p>Traces of the Tradee was great, and it's inspired a blog entry for later today sometime After it I went to the room, got changed and was off to the theater. I have some interesting thoughts about Harry Potter and spiritual formation (that may be specific to me) that I'll blog later, too. Be looking for more content from me in the next few days! I have to write today's collect, as well.
Be well, do good works, and keep in touch.
Before debate I was verbally assaulted by someone in charge of running the room, though. One person came up and told me and the guy from Center Aisle that we couldn't plug in. As soon as it was out of her mouth another woman came over, said it again, and then unceremoniously unplugged our computers. And then the chaplain prayed. And then she said, "You need to move your cords so that people don't trip!" When we asked why the answer was, "We're paying for power!" After my tweets someone posted this blog entry, which when I got it made me laugh. As the house session started the PB apologized to the bishops for the ENS headline about C025, and she said it would be fixed.
I was also wearing my Harry Potter costume all day yesterday.Throughout the day I got a lot of questions about it, but they were all positive. I explained and people laughed and enjoyed it. Since it's purple I was going to take it off for the House of Bishops, but Bishop Jacobus told me to go for it and have a good time. So I did. I took it off for Eucharist so as to not be a distraction or draw undue attention to myself. As I went down the escalator to go to the EPF booth to drop my robe off before Eucharist a beautiful young clergywoman said, "Honey, what're you wearing?" so I told her.
After session I went to eucharist and wound up sitting wiht a lot of EPF Yappers. We weren't big fans of the music yesterday. I got a veggie wrap (#3) from the exhibit all vendors and listened to EDS's new dean speak. I liked what she said. After it I went and spoke to the deacons and then campus ministry, where I was recruited to try to deliver a message to the House of Bishops, from which someone had borrowed campus ministry's pace banner. After that failed I sat on the floor and waited for them to get out of closed door session. I got in and they said that they'd take C056 back up today, so I left. It was about time for our EPF meeting by that point, too. We'd postponed from the day before (that was D025 discussion time). Someone from Episcopal Life, who posted the story online at that link.
We didn't really do legislative check in because we were all kind of tired and anxious about what was going to be happening, but we had a great conversation (I think) about D025. Most of us had been in the house of Bishops when they'd debated and voted, and we needed some time to just do group therapy and decompress (I think). It was really good to talk. We talked about Anglican polity, fear, the bishop who felt that others were hiding behind the smokescreen of the Communion, etc. When we broke I went back to the room to drop my bag and robe....
And then went to my first march. There will be pictures on Facebook. The neatest part was when we all took our signs down and were at our destination and people talked. I had to leave early because I was working Traces of the Trade. On the way back I was chatting with someone from Integrity who said that power strips had been put in the media area and when she went back the door keepers made a point of directing her to more power. That's amusing, too. When I got to the Marriott I checked in with Dain and Constance and then went to the diocesan hospitality room, where I got some grapes and enjoyed sitting with people from the Central Gulf Coast.,p>Traces of the Tradee was great, and it's inspired a blog entry for later today sometime After it I went to the room, got changed and was off to the theater. I have some interesting thoughts about Harry Potter and spiritual formation (that may be specific to me) that I'll blog later, too. Be looking for more content from me in the next few days! I have to write today's collect, as well.
Be well, do good works, and keep in touch.
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