Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Thank you Ben King

I had lunch today with Ben King, chaplain for the Episcopal student group at Harvard College. Great guy. I hadn't seen him since the fall and we caught up again last week and decided to go to lunch. Aside from a great lunch and an awesome new (and free) t shirt, Ben said something that really struck me. He said "I'm socially and ethically liberal because I'm doctrinally orthodox." Now that's it, right there. I think so many people associate orthodoxy with right wing fundamentalism, and they really have nothing to do with one another, especially if you're working within a denominational framework. It's because I believe that Jesus is God's son and because I believe in the Resurrection that I believe in social justice for all people, and our mutual responsibility (and by mutual I mean both individual and societal i.e. the government) to work towards that. Which doesn't mean that believing in the resurrection is easy for me. It's not by any means, but reducing it to a mere metaphor seems to devalue everything I stand for. Ben told me I'm a closet doctrinal conservative. Ha. But I said I don't know enough about theology (yet) to be one way or another. So gimme a few years and we'll see : ) Other than that things are going well here. Hard to believe I am leaving for KY in a month. I'm excited about going home, but the amoung of work I have to get done...sheesh! I spent all day today working on my Shinto paper...which meant that I didn't go to work. I'll just put in the rest of my hours on Friday, when I have a tendency not to focus as well on school work anyway. I'm hoping to knock this Shinto paper out of the way ASAP so I can start on the other two papers I have to do. Yikes. And move outta here into a storage place, which means I have to buy the truck first. So many logistics and so little time! But it's all good. AND...is meeting here tomorrow night, so I've got to get ready for that. And pray that I can get this field ed stuff for next year worked out in the upcoming couple of weeks...I really feel called to work with that group...
Hope you're all staying sane as school comes to a close!

Peace y'all

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