Post GOEs

Some reflections on the questions, etc. post GOEs after a little time to rest and recover. Maybe some day I'll type in the actual questions, or once they post them online include a link to them. I checked the other day, they still only had up through last year's posted.

The thing I realized during GOEs is that sometimes knowledge and growth happen so gradually we don't even realize it. In being pushed to the wall and feet to the fire, even on those I ran out of time on I knew where to go to find the info and was confident I could answer it okay given a little more time so it let me know that I *have* been learning the sorts of things I should have been during seminary. So that was affirming. I've been doing some relaxing, sleeping and vegging on a few braincandy movies for a couple days to recover.

The couple questions I feel worst about I'm thinking about rewriting/finishing this next week while the books are out and sticky-tabbed and the info is fresh in my mind. I'd hate to be part- way into the semester and not have looked at or thought about the question for over a month and have my Bishop and COM ask me to do a rewrite and have to juggle that in with coursework and other responsibilities. I know at least one other classmate who thinking of doing the same thing. I also know of some past students who in addition or in place of doing a re-write sent along some course papers from seminary in the subject area that they didn't do well in, to demonstrate their knowledge and capability to their Bishop and COM.

I agree with others that the 2 open book questions were the hardest for me, and not because of the broad area of the question, but because of the wacky twist they each had.

Had Theology wanted the theological issues about Jesus 325-381 AD, I found tons of info on that (and Arians, etc) immediately because the reason for the council seemed to be to rubberstamp/solidify the work done in 325 at Nicea, the trick was trying to figure out theological issues around the SPIRIT (about all I found were the Macedonians and Sabellians), which took me so long to find that I ran out of time to adequately answer the question, so my paper starts out like a paper and then eventually dissolves into outline as I didn't have time to finish fleshing it out. And can I just say thank God for Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms, Oxford Dictionary and Oxford Companion?

History was wacky with that teeny time window (1870-1910). I knew immediately as I read the question that I was going to go look up the Social Gospel Movement and Rauschenbusch (sp?) and see if that fell into the right period. It did, boom, had my U.S. piece. But then I spent so long finding something in England, that again I ran out of time to really write on the piece that I knew and had the most info on. Made me quite cranky. I kept finding Americans and Germans, and also discovered Romanticism and Oxford Movement ended to soon and other things started later, etc. Eventually went with Social Liberalism/Liberal Protestantism and F.D. Maurice, but again... it took me so long to find that stuff that the beginning and end (The Episcopal Church today) are written *okay* (not great) and part of the middle is a bit more like an outline.

Bible... can I just say that telling someone with ADD and an above average IQ to look at the whole of Romans and the whole of Hebrews, and that they can use anything in the BCP is almost as bad a black hole as an open book question? I had so many ideas about this question on the Wrath of God that I had a hard time narrowing it down and tying it all together in the time allowed. I did feel better about that one than the two open book questions. Had 3 pages and felt I'd addressed everything, but it wasn't quite as smooth/tight as it could have been with a little more time. Think (hope) I probably did enough to pass.

Ethics... not sure. I tried to make an argument for absolute triage (the practice in natural disaster of giving care to those more likely to survive and denying or delaying care to others) - think I did okay on the piece where we had to make a utilitarian argument for it, but 1) sort of ran out of time (but not like on the open books), and 2) on that day my heart wasn't really in justifying the practice of absolute triage (I could have made a better moral/ethical argument for respecting the life/dignity of others and giving them care) so it was harder to come up with arguments. I might have done enough of what they were looking for to pass. I tried to put in some ethical terms/ideas so that even if I get a 2 that my diocese would know that I had a grasp of Ethics and might not want me to do anything else in that area.

Liturgy: no problem creating the service. The problem was losing time getting real picky about various parts of the service so usings bits and pieces from various resources and also picky about which readings and which hymns I wanted - but I liked the service I ended up with. I had reasons/rationale, but a lot of it was more pastoral than theological, I tried to give theological reasons, not sure if I did enough of that or not.

Contemp. Society/Affluenza I felt good about, and then on Sunday my field ed parish as an adult ed class happened to show a video on Affluenza and as I watched it (hadn't seen it before) sat there thinking, "wrote about that, wrote about that, mentioned that, talked about that." So I left church feeling even better about that answer.

Practical Appl. Min. I felt good about - actually saw a similar situation as the Embezzling case go down, so I had some thoughts about what to do in that situation. Also felt okay about what I came up with for the second situation we had to address about Stewardship.

I think we've passed what the biggest/scariest hurdle. This next semester will be over before we know it. Can't believe 2.5 years have already gone by!