Monday, May 2, 2011

Transitions

Hopefully the title of this post is fairly self-evident for those who are in the process of discerning their call to seminary, those at seminary, those transitioning out of seminary to first calls, or anyone else who has ever been to seminary.  Seminary, especially Lutheran seminaries, are laden with transitions.  From one's official decision to accept and pursue the call to the time one transitions out of seminary after graduation, one is continually transitioning.
      The immensity of transition is apparent around campus now that the seniors will no longer be at Wartburg Seminary in the near future. For one thing, many seem to be relaxing more and studying less.  More importantly though, many of our seniors are starting to appear not so much as students any longer but as pastors.  This is simultaneously encouraging and daunting.  It is encouraging because the call to be pastors is what our seniors have worked hard to pursue so their work seems to have paid off.  However, it is also daunting for the campus community to be transitioning to new student leadership, trying to get in last efforts of preparation for the change that is to come in the lives of the seniors and trying to grapple with the reality of how soon the next graduation is coming after theirs.
     Yet, on the other end, many here are also filled with a different hope and anxiety for those transitioning into seminary.  I have talked to many who are considering seminary study in the fall and their transition process is equally encouraging and perhaps even more daunting than that of our graduating seniors.  While the seniors will be getting more settled through their next transition, those who are looking at starting their seminary studies are planning to uproot their lives in pursuit of God's call.  That is a tough transition with many open ended questions associated with it.  Will I like seminary? Can I survive in a new place? How will my family adapt to my seminary transition? How will I adapt to my seminary transition? Along with a whole host of other questions that make most anxious. 
     But, in the midst of the anxiety that accompanies the transition to seminary, there is much encouragment.  For one, God has those who have gotten so far already, and God will be with them in the future, as well.  Furthermore, the anxieties are experienced now mean that the transition into seminary has already started.  The anxieties that accompany the transition onto the campus of seminary begin long before anyone ever gets to campus, so in being anxious about moving into a life of seminary study one is already transitioning to seminary.
      Perhaps the reader does not find the same encouragement that I do from the transition process, but it cannot be doubted that we have an ever present God if people moving all over the place throughout different times and places experience similar calls in their individual lives.  The call is not something that is concocted by one group in one place, but rather comes from our ever present God moving us through the power of the Holy Spirit.  As we transition to different places from one another and have all sorts of anxieties as a result, we are united in the fact that we are making our transitions out of our love for God in response to God's call.

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