An unorganized discourse on classes and Labor Day

I have one week under my belt and it looks to be a good, and quite busy, semester. I am taking three classes this semester, as opposed to two classes (which I took each of my first two semesters) and which is the standard thoroughfare for doctoral students. My reason for increasing my class load is twofold: 1) I received a scholarship for 18 credits this year, and any credit unused would simply go to waste; as I might not be awarded the same scholarship next year, it behooves me to use all of the credits; hence, 9 credits, or 3 classes, each semester; and 2) my lovely wife has assured me that she will in fact kill me if I do not hurry up and finish. Taking three classes each semester will mean that I will finish my coursework this year - and everyone involved will be happy. So, though it will be busy and, perhaps, a little insane at times, I am committed to it. Let's just hope they don't commit me when I am done.

My classes this year are as follows: 1) Romans, a biblical studies course taught by a first year professor. I took the course primarily because of this professor. He studied under Richard Hays, a Wesleyan biblical scholar at Duke, of whom I greatly admire his exegetical practice. As I have lamented in previous posts, modern biblical scholars, in my humble opinion, tend to spend their time carving up the text until it resembles a large pile of meaningless scraps and in no shape to be edifying to the church. My hope (and experience thus far) is that this class will not be like that or that if it is, I would have the strength and intelligence to stand for a different approach;

2) Ecclesiology (which is just a fancy way of saying "study of the church"), a systematics course on, you guessed it, the study of what the church is, how it functions, etc. This course is taught by a Catholic nun whose primary focus, in her work, is what is called ecumenism. This means the work of finding what is similar in different denominations and working toward greater unity in the entire church. She is on several national "church dialogues" including one between the Catholics and Lutherans and another between the Catholics and Orthodox. She is also on the editorial board of an ecumenical periodical which I love called Pro Ecclesia ('for the church'). I am probably most excited for this class, as I hope that the main thrust of my own work, once I attain my PhD, will be the working toward greater unity in the church;

and 3) The Theology of Thomas Aquinas, a historical course studying the life and work of Thomas Aquinas, a medieval Catholic monk and theologian whose theological thought has had, arguably, the most influence of any Catholic thinker in the life of the church. I have been told that if you are a history major than you will have to deal with Thomas Aquinas at some point. It is taught by a middle ages scholar who has already shown in subtle ways that she is brilliant (she spoke to a student in both Swedish and Norwegian on the first day). This class will be more of what I am used to, as it is a historical course; however, I am fairly weak in knowledge on the middle ages so it is going to be a challenge. It should improve my Latin skills, however, as she expects us to read his work in Latin. We'll see.

On an unrelated note, does anyone else feel that Labor Day comes at the worst possible time? Last Sunday, I went through the entire grieving process of acknowledging that summer was over (Julie said to me: "See you at Christmas.") and that going back to class and getting back into the swing of things was in fact a good thing. This was very difficult, yet somehow I managed to do it, and by the end of the week and all of my classes, was starting to feel excited once again. And then all of the sudden, you are hit with this three day weekend, this mirage in the desert, summer's last, dying gasp. And you enjoy it! You love it! It makes you feel once again like you have no worries. But lo and behold Monday evening roles around and you are right back to where you started a week ago, trying to convince yourself that it is a good thing to be back. It is a little unfair - might have liked a three day weekend more at the beginning of October. But since when have students had any say?