Obviously, one of the primary things that has been on my mind over the last few months, and, indeed, the last couple of years of this seminary journey, has been the relationship between my spirituality and my vocation (or avocation - the ways I spend most of my time.)

I haven't been talking much about religious topics, or about seminary. Some of you, I know are relieved. Sorry, it's only temporary. <grin>

Not so long ago, I said that changes were afoot. I feel finally ready to blog about the most recent results of a process that I've been going through for the past few weeks or so. This is just another leg of the journey I started over two years ago, in my decision to go to seminary. Which, of course, is part of my lifelong journey of creating a life that is fulfilling, of service, and full of spirit.

I ran into a colleague of mine today at the conference (there are a lot of PSR and GTU folk about,) and she had heard, at the PSR Breakfast this morning, that I had a blog. She asked me whether or not I'd talked about some of the events that had happened this spring at PSR. I said that I hadn't. She seemed disappointed in me. I explained that I'd not been able to process them yet, and not been able to integrate other people's experiences and my own.

I'm sitting in one of those big camp living room kinds of things, with a huge fireplace, and a bunch of peole sitting in chairs, and lots of activity around. I'm at Asilomar, the conference center in Pacific Grove, CA, on the ocean, near Monterey.

because I'm blogging, but not for procrastination. That is, I'm DONE!! I handed in a final take home exam in the big Bible class that I keep mentioning. I turn in my last paper this afternoon (it's already printed out, I have nothing more to say,) and I had one little tiny annoying form to get signed by my advisor.

A somewhat serendipitous occurance (two mentions of the same essay, "Uses of the Erotic" by Audre Lorde in a 24 hour span of time, one of which was in my Christian Worship class, in discussions of the history of Queer Theory and Theology - a whole different topic to write on sometime) sent me back to her collection of essays, called Sister Outsider which was published more than 20 years ago.

Ages ago in  "blog time" (that's about a month) Beth wrote a blog entry, called "Blogging as Professional Development." Not too long later, when I was talking with Cindy about my upcoming work next year as an intern at Fairfax Community Church, and expressing the (at this point, mild) stress of thinking about writing sermons, she said I had no

One of the very neat things I've learned in the last few weeks of writing a biblical exegesis (basically, interpretation) paper, is that somehow, even though this is a completely different field, my scholars tools still work, and I still have what I'll call 'scholar's instincts': whatever that is inside my head that leads me inexorably forward in researching a topic.

One of the really cool things, in my mind, about being both religiously pluralistic in perspective, as well as intensely interested in contemplative practice and mystical thought, is that you get to think about how practices and concepts from outside one's own religious tradition can positively impact one's own spiritual practice and journey.