WE HAVE AN INTERNSHIP SITE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Newark, Ohio.

Survey
A: 2
B: 5
C: 15

Ironically, this is the way I thought it might turn out. More people do prefer straight contemporary worship than plain traditional worship, but the majority of people like a mixture or like both pretty equally. I’ve had Catholics, Lutherans (both LCMS and ELCA), Methodists, Reformed, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Orthodox, and people with very mixed backgrounds respond. Respondents have come from fields such as Biology, Religion, Literature, Theatre, Music, Sociology,and Classics.

Pastor Rauch (Jon’s internship supervisor) took us to lunch at the Monk (the upscale pub across the street from the sem) and it was really nice. We had good conversation, excellent food, and an interesting atmosphere. I was definitely the most casual person in the room as people were in business casual clothing and I was in nice jeans and a nice sweatshirt. One rule I loved: no cell phones allowed. 🙂 (Ringing cell phones in chapel and in class and other public places drive me up the wall!) I had a Mediterranean Vegetable Salad which was OK and some sourdough bread which reminded me of home. (It was the best sourdough I’ve had outside of California.)

Jon is at an Ascension service tonight so I’m chilling at the apartment. It’s so nice to have a quiet night. While I’m home by myself, I’m putting the bulletin together for the worship demo that I’m doing with Robin next week. I love doing the bulletins so it should be really fun.

My worship professor used some incense yesterday in one of the worship demos on Evening Prayer to show how to demonstrate the singing of Psalm 141. He asked if anyone was allergic to it and I raised my hand. He asked me to go sit in the back, thinking that it would stay in one place. Maybe someone should explain that smoke does not necessarily work that way! After about 15 minutes, I left because I was having a nasty asthma attack. I came back but had to leave a few more times.

Class last night was interesting. We had an African-American Muslim man come to speak to us on living out Islam. It was mostly review for me after my experiences in Detroit last December but it was still interesting. Islam does fascinate me and as I was telling one of my classmates last night, I would definitely redo my experiences in Detroit. Being veiled for a week was very different and it created a different mode of spirituality for sure. I also felt more respected (believe it or not).

I got my last reflection paper back for Systematic Theology. My professor felt fit to warn me about my TA’s comments before handing it back to me, which made me even more intrigued about what was commented upon in it. The comments were definitely… “strong” but really nothing that I couldn’t handle or hadn’t seen before. My topic had been homosexuality and I had argued against a lot of things relating to it, which my TA strongly took to heart. My professor did say that he was sympathetic toward my viewpoint but he didn’t agree with some of the Scriptural stances that I’d taken. My reponse: OK… I wasn’t asking people to agree with me and I wasn’t saying anything incredibly controversial. (NOTE: I am not homophobic and I do not support violence or persecution of gays and lesbians. Let me make this very clear!) I still passed the paper so that wasn’t an issue.

Today, Jon and I are having lunch with the person who might be Jon’s internship supervisor next year. I’ll probably do the usual and be quiet unless a question comes to me that needs to be asked, such as the expectations on me for involvement next year. Matt has already said that I’d probably be approached to teach Sunday School and that I could definitely sing in the choir. I might want to do a little more though so we’ll see how it goes today. One thing that I will probably have to make clear today is that I am aware that this is *Jon’s* internship and not my own. I’m thankful that it’s not my internship because I have no clue about most of the things Jon will be doing.

In the meantime, I should probably go read some Borg and Wright for NT I.

Oh yes…. Happy Birthday Brianna!