seminarians

One of the privileges and honors and humbling experiences I've had as a priest in this branch of God's holy, catholic and apostolic church (whatever that means) is to 'supervise' seminarians.

I spent a while trying to remember who all I had 'supervised' and lost count several times. I think it is around 30 or so--a few less or a few more. And I loved and still love them all....

I have used punctuation (' and ') to set off the word and concept 'supervised' because I think there is nothing I have done that was, by definition, supervisory for those folks. Mostly what I've done is give them their head, let them loose and covered their asses when necessary.

Ironically, the one thing seminary education does not teach you is 'how to be a priest in a parish in the real world'.

One can learn a great deal worth learning in seminary, truly. You can learn scholarship about the Bible and learn theology and church history (though no one, including me, learned nearly enough about that in seminary) and you learn about the liturgy and pastoral care and all sorts of really important and necessary things. But you never, ever learn how to be a priest in a parish in the real world.

So, I took that on as my job, my purpose, my calling--to set them free and give them their head and cover their asses in the real world of being a priest. And one of the great things about having them around was that they kept me thinking theologically--because that was their job at the time--and kept me hoping for the future of the church with such wondrous creatures in it.

I'm pressed for time but I'll do "seminarians--cont." soon....God love them all, we are better people and a better church because of them....