Thursday, July 26, 2012

Illuminations

A rainy day and a stormy night in New Jersey today. I had hoped to get a picture of the two fat groundhogs that live on campus, but they were not out in the rain. We also have a large supply of chipmunks. Lola and Boo would love it.

Tonight was our best class in our night class. As I have mentioned before, it is a class called "Reading as a Spiritual Discipline." We each had to put together an 'illumination' of a Psalm, which very simply, was a way to read the Psalm without emphasizing words on a page. My classmates were very creative! We had pictures and singing and all kinds of stuff. But, I loved how it brought the Psalms to life and into 2012.

One Korean student chose Psalm 137, which is about the Israelites weeping by the rivers of Babylon because they have been defeated and are in captivity. He likened this Psalm to the Christian church in North Korea that is, in some ways, held captive. They cannot worship in the open, and there are grave consequences for being found with a Bible. He had pictures (faces were blurred out) of these North Korean Christians reading the Bible in small circles, with the windows covered, and only a small light. I forget that even in 2012, we have religious persecution. I cannot imagine the necessity of hiding just to read a Psalm. It is a privilege to be able to read and pray and gather without fear of harm.

So, I was glad to hear the presentation, because I had no idea of the extent of the raw fear of practicing your faith.

My illumination was on Psalm 100 - not as serious as my Korean classmate's presentation, but I think it had some creativity!

Tomorrow, we have to turn in our prospectus and bibliography for our projects. These will change over the course of the next year, but we now have a start.

And, quite frankly, I am hoping to sleep tonight. I keep waking up early in the morning, and then my mind takes off.

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