A Lesson Learned from My First Semester in Divinity School

When you are busier than you have ever been in your entire life, you have to make some difficult decisions about how to spend your precious time. What I believe you must not do is completely abandon that which nourishes you, that which fans the flames of your soul, that which has brought you to this special place and this particular moment.

I believe it is especially important to keep the creative energy flowing. If you are a dancer, dance; if you are a painter, paint, if you are a singer, sing. You probably won't get class credit for any of these things (with a few notable exceptions), but you will be happier and healthier than if you were to limit your activities to reading dusty textbooks and producing even dustier papers. If nothing else, I recommend keeping a journal. The energy and the ideas that are generated by journal writing frequently become something upon which you can build.

These past six months have been an amazingly fertile time for me as a writer and musician.  Theoretically, I have much less time for writing than ever before.  And yet, almost every time I've taken the time to write a poem or a song or a journal entry, I've learned something new and significant about myself and about the world, both visible and invisible.

As a seminarian, I do not believe it is my job to cough up digested bits of other people's wisdom. Rather, I believe my task is to take the received wisdom of others into my hands like bricks with which I can construct something entirely new and meaningful and beautiful. May it be so.