What a crazy week it's been...I have completely re-routed my life plans for the next few years. It feels slightly insane, but I also have a strange, unfamiliar sense of peace now that has been sorely missing in my life for the last several months.
It has occurred to me that maybe I'm not supposed to be a counselor after all, and that I definitely should not have pursued that degree at a conservative Christian seminary. In the same way that it's never a good idea to make drastic changes to your hair while experiencing depression and anxiety, it's probably not a good idea to pack up your life, move 3000 miles away, and start a degree that you never expressed interest in before, at a school you know next to nothing about. The lesson I learned? Look before you leap. And be willing to let the people who know you best help direct you. They are often able to see things that you can't.
I have some nagging feelings regarding the fact that I will probably live the rest of my life with "just" a bachelor's degree. But where is that guilt coming from? It's pressure I put on myself, mingled with a skewed idea that somehow my intelligence is measured by the initials after my name. Well, deep down I know that's not true. And I don't have "just" a bachelor's degree; I worked my ass off for it, and I enjoyed doing it. I gave grad school a try for a year, and it wasn't for me. There is no failure in that. There is also a lot less debt to pay off, and that's a huge plus!
I have learned something else about myself, too: I do not thrive well in bubbles. Christian bubbles, political bubbles, any kind of restrictive environment where everyone around you shares basic core beliefs, and you find your worldview shrinking, not growing. Not every Christian is cut out for seminary. What was unique about my experience at Kent State was how challenging my environment was. I was surrounded by peers who were burned out on church because they were only exposed to negative examples of Christianity. This motivated me to try and live more authentically, especially when I decided to write a conservative column for my campus newspaper. There was a definite sense of being "watched." And it convicted me in the best possible way.
My on-campus church group met twice a week, and that is where I felt "fed." That was where I grew. The key, I think, was having a healthy balance of church life and secular life. That was non-existent at seminary, when most of my time was spent in the library writing exegetical papers, and in class, wanting to beat my head against my desk listening to other students talk about "the lost," and how we as Christians have all the answers.
I can honestly say that seminary brought up way more questions than answers. That's not a bad thing. Most importantly, it was as if someone was holding up a mirror of my old self, the one who thought all the answers to the world's ills were tucked neatly in Scripture. Obviously, it's not nearly as simple as that. I wish I hadn't had to pay (read: borrow) $20,000 to learn that lesson, but I'm not sorry I did. Education is never a waste.
Thanks to a few searches on Google, I learned that spiritual burnout is a real issue. It can make devoted Christians jaded at best; atheists at worst. I'm nowhere near relinquishing my faith completely, but I definitely feel burned out. Jesus is someone to know, not someone to study. When seminary schooling reduces him to merely a homework assignment, when Bible verses are used as platitudes in times of real struggle, and when I'm feeling frustrated and wondering what attracted me to Christianity in the first place, then the right thing -- the only thing -- to do is leave seminary. Because my faith matters to me still. I need to spend time with God on my own terms again. Spiritual discipline is not "homework," and I don't think it's fair to be graded for it.
So what will I do now? Well, I do have an English degree. Maybe I'll look into publishing or editing positions. I wish I were the kind of person who could see this new road as another new adventure, but I have way too much OCD for that. In the mean time, there is a stack of books in my bedroom calling my name -- books I haven't had time to read because I've been swamped to my ears in books about Freud and Pauline epistles. And they seem to be saying,
Welcome home, SB!
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