This morning's work, reading, reflections has been so rich and so exciting I am totally energized.
(My computer is not letting me make the changes that I have tried now several times and because I am using a network that is in a different language, I cannot do spell check, nor do I have a handy dandy dictionary next to me here. SO be gracious, please, I know that I have spelling issues and would find help if not for here. Thanks.)

Could also be that the generator broke and there was no hot water, so I started with warm water and then it was freezing cold and I had to shower and wash my hair with ice water. Then my blower dryer, [new travel one] started smoking. SO either way, even with this small human daily tragedies, I spent time in the library with my research and got energized.



Life here is ritualized with the community in which I am learning. We rise early and breakfast is offered in common dining room. [I missed it this morning due to everything but managed to sneak a cup of strong coffee which was sorely needed.] Then we go to chapel to pray and sing, have short reflection time. Again I so appreciate the prayers in many languages, the rich harmonies with many different "accents". Then to work and some errands, ending at the library for study til, mid morning when the whole community gathers for coffee. [YES!] Then back to the library where I study and read til noon, then off to lunch at dining room.



Now I return to my room, where I find solitude for reading and more studying and of course this blog. This is a new discpline for me, forcing me to write and encapsulate my day. It is strange that I have never seen it as a discipline. Solitude too, becomes a discipline.



Yesterday listening in the afternoon to Ph.D. proposals and seminar speakers, I Peter was mentioned as a heraneutic (bible) support for peace-making. I decided to read I Peter every day, even the parts about wives being submissive to their husbands. [ While choking] I have discovered that every day, every time I read it, it is new. There is some kernal that speaks outloud. It is only 5 chapters, about 3 1/2 pages long. Quick read but real depth. I find myself reading some parts over several times at one reading. Discipline does emerge when we seek it. It is surprising what we find.

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[Dietrich Bonehoeffer talks about God's "yes", in his Wedding Sermon from a prison cell, which we read at our wedding. I have found that if God adds God's "yes" to somethings, God just as surely adds a God "No" to things as well, that is if we are listening.]

A personal lesson that has emerged in my time here is about God's no-s. A few years ago, I too

was accepted into the Ph.D. program here. I will never forget the day my acceptance came in the mail, nor my spirit's elation. It was a life-long dream. As it turned out, family realities, church realities and financial realities all converged to make pursuing my doctorate impossible.

For some time now, I have been that metaphorical three year old having a temper tantrum with God. I have been stomping my perverbial feet and pointing my perverbial finger, pitching my own version of a "pissy-fit" for God. Thank God, God was not at all impressed. The "NO" was clear, I just didn't want to hear it. When listening, a heart can hear what the spirit is saying even when it doesn't really want to. Isn't that the miraculous-ness of the spirit's work?



So... my lesson....as my days here began, I truthfully started my time with Ph.D. envy. But now I have discovered the gift I have been given and that is freedom. I am free to study away, research away and be led where my research takes me. Truly, in ways that hopefully will be meaningful to my call as Pastor of First Baptist Church of Brockport, in Upstate NY, I can follow the spirit. I came with leadship questions, I came with questions about "context" and how it affects ministry or how ministry is affected by it. Unbeknownst to me I was led here for a kind of solitude I would not have found in the USA, where language, culture and tradition are all foreign.