Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Obstinate

There are days when I wake up feeling "obstinate" for lack of a better word. It's a feeling of utter rebelliousness. For some reason I feel like not submitting to anyone or anything. I just want to do my own thing in my own way. This phenomenon cannot be explained and is not driven by any particular circumstances. I simply wake up knowing. I begin my day with my patience meter on 0. As the day goes on the little irritants (that on normal days probably would not bother me) accentuates and reinforces my overall obstinate disposition. I simply cannot find a way to refocus those feelings into something positive. It's almost like it is impossible to overcome for the day. I just have to wait it out knowing that waking up feeling that way 2 days in a row is improbable at best.

This does not play out well on days when I have class and have to sit for 2 hours under someone's teaching and listen to a select few students say absurd things. Yesterday was one of those days. Under the pressure of all that was irritating I lost it on some student that was talking to hear himself talk. The class laughed at my outburst assuming that what I was doing was with the motivation of humor, but it wasn't. It was out of anger. Humor has been a pretty natural way for me to express anger though, it always has. But that's probably another topic. I'm finding it harder and harder to hold my tongue when class gets out of control on inane discussions that seem completely removed from the world I live in or the context which I "do" ministry.

Now with that said, don't misread what I am writing. Seminary has been a place of incredible growth for me personally and has made me a MUCH better and more balanced thinker than I was before Seminary. I didn't realize how much I did not know but now I definitely realize all that I still don't understand and that has be invaluable. I wouldn't trade it for the world. And I think the professors at Western are fantastic! But there is something about that third year that is getting very tiresome. No wonder they give you 25% off your tuition to finish your third year in the MDiv program rather than take the M.A.!

I'm not sure how to conclude this blog post. I don't write too much that's serious on here anymore. But this is the best I can do at written processing. As most of you know, I'm definitely not a great verbal processor!

1 comment:

g13 said...

i'm not encouraging you to speak out of anger, but i think there needs to be more, much more, conflict in the lecture halls of evangelical seminaries.

thanks for offering contrary opinions and occasionally cutting across the "orthodox" evangelical wake. you're not the only one who learns by pushing against the status quo.