Iz A Stewdant Tooh

On Wednesday I attended my first seminary class, Discipleship and Ethics. I have been looking forward to auditing a course for a long time. It will be good for me to have a little taste of what Carl has been doing the last few months, as well as give me the opportunity to learn and be challenged. I also have the chance once a week to step out of my Mom role and enter into the Student life for a brief time. It's been 7 1/2 years since I've been in university and since then I've only taken a Spanish class. I'm a bit out of practice sitting for a 3 hour class and taking notes.

I decided to take Discipleship and Ethics because I was told by many seminary people, graduates and current students, that it's the course to take. The professor is amazing and the course is very insightful. Carl took the course a number of years ago in Winnipeg, so I'll be interested to see what kind of differences we will notice.

I have already enjoyed the reading. This past week I read, Lest Innocent Blood be Shed by Hallie. It's a pretty good book, I would recommend it. It really made me think about pacifism and the choices that need to be made by being a conscientious objector. Plus I have a large package of articles and book excerpts that I will read from each week.

A couple of things that I learned this past Wednesday are:

1) discipleship and ethics can be used as synonyms in the Anabaptist understanding
2) that God passed down ethics to us, not as a to do list, but like a garment he offered to Adam and Eve; it's a better way to live considering the alternative was to wear fig leaves
3) I always wondered why God would put the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the garden if Adam and Eve couldn't eat from it. Well, the tree placed there, not available for Adam and Eve, represents our limitations as humans. Why should we have full run of the garden like God? We aren't God, we are limited beings.

There were lots of other things that I learned, but I won't regurgitate the entire course. I just thought I would share some things that made me stop and think Hmm... this week.

The only dilemma with my course on Wednesday nights is I'm going to miss America's Next Top Model.....hopefully Carl can get the VCR to record so that while I'm at my Discipleship and Ethics course I don't miss my trashy show! :)