Atrahasis

If you want to know what that is, it is one of the cool things I learned today.

Today begins the graduate school classes. I am jokingly referring to it as the day I stopped selling back books, because I'm beginning to believe I'm getting to a point where I need to keep everything I read cause there's too much good stuff in it. I figure, all the other Theology professors I've seen have essentially a library in their offices, so I may as well start building my own.

I had "Theological Synthesis" and Intro to Old Testament today. The synthesis class is basically systematic theology, which is basically...if I dare to describe it as such...studying a system that a theological view falls from. I really don't know how to explain it well, but I can think of an example (I hope). Take Aquinas, for instance. He has (in essence) a system to his theology, so that there is a central point that he draws all of his other conclusions from. What he believes about Jesus' humanity and divinity, the trinity, the role of the church, our moral obligations, and other dogmatic questions essentially derive themselves from this one thing that he holds onto.

Now as I read that over, I can already tell there are flaws in my explanation, so just trust me on this when I say that it is cool, even if I cannot explain it. If I can make it through the reading this weekend I will stick with this class.

The other class is Intro to Old Testament, which is with Fr. Clifford, who just happens to be the dean of the entire School of Theology and Ministry. And we engaged in small talk today during the break about literalists of the Bible. So I would like to think I know someone famous and in power ;) But the class is very good, just a lot of information to digest. My head is still swimming right now, for a lot of different reasons.

But all today I just felt excited. I actually felt excited about what I was learning, kind of a "look at what I learned today" feeling, which honestly I probably haven't had since I was a kid. It really is a great feeling, and it quickly reaffirmed for me that this was a good decision. I needed something like this. This place, BC, and this masters environment is so far beyond what I was expecting. It's challenging, the theology is hard, it's detailed, it's very in depth and requires a strong foundation in one's faith, but I don't feel like the professors are out to grill us at all. It feels like a journey to discover what this really means. Fr. Vacek, or Edward, (which by the way I still don't like calling professors by their first names, I understand why they do it, but I don't really feel intimidated by that or by them, I want to learn from them, that puts me in the student's position...sorry, I got carried away there) had said that mathematicians study numbers and formulas, scientists study nature and the world, and theologians get to study God, and we are quite a lucky few for it.

I am very excited for this.

I just hope when November hits that I'm not entirely overwhelmed by this work, but honestly even if I am I still think I'm going to love it. Even if I don't get my PhD now or ever, I still feel that this place is going to be great for me. The people come from all walks of life and all have different reasons and stories and beliefs and vocations and what not, but we're all drawn to the same place by the same faith and the same desire, to come and know God more and share that with others. It's an incredible feeling, an incredible action, an incredible reality. I'm still getting used to what it means, but it really is great.

The best part though, is that I continue to sense that there's more going on here than studying theology. BC tries to gear this program to also help form its students, to not just let what we learn in the classroom stay in the classroom. I need more challenges to my faith, I do not want it to remain the same, because every time that it does I get in more trouble.

So again, I am really excited.

I do miss St. Louis though. I will always call it home, and I'm not sure if Boston will ever come close to that. But I do love it here so far, and things are going great.

Oh, yeah, the Atrahasis thing. Well, honestly, if you want to know I'm probably not the person who should tell you. You can google it and see what it is, and maybe you can figure out the importance of it for this class. But in a nutshell, it helps to explain the beginning parts of Genesis in terms of what it meant at the time it would have been written for the Israelites. That is a very, very condensed and horrible explanation, but it's all you're gonna get out of me. But if you want to know, you definitely can. I'm learning new things up here all the time.

Theology is awesome. Thank God for it.

"I want to know You
I want to hear Your voice
I want to know You more
I want to touch You
I want to see Your face
I want to know You more"

-Sonicflood, "In The Secret"