Letter 12-2007. The student.

13^th July 2007

Dear friends,

The student does not give up, and now it starts to make fun! Now that I have finished my presentations and my preparations for the courses, I can eventually let theological bits and pieces make a full picture.

The church history (CH) lectures about Catholicism have long been a limited field which I have not managed to connect to what I learn in other lectures here. In the same way the systematics (ST) seminar has been limited from other courses. But when I in my preparations for the ST presentation needed to learn a bit more about the 2. Vatican Council to understand Schillebeeckx better, and I in the CH lecture learnt just that, I must say the theology started moving. When the Vatican then last week came with their church statement, I could just nod that it fit completely with what I have learnt. It is fun to play theologian when you think you understand something of what is going on the the church world.

Another connection, which was more expected, I have experienced in practical theology (PT). PT is a clearly theoretical subject in Germany. It is also in Norway, we have practice periods, but at the faculty PT is mostly theory. Such pure PT lectures as in Germany we do not have at MF though. I have followed lectures here in Leipzig on pastoral care in certain life situations. It has been a nice continuation of PT 503 (pastoral care and institution practice) which I did in Norway last winter. The last lessons have been about pastoral care for sick and dying, and in between these lectures I have had the chance to participate in a seminar (with practical exercises and little pure theory!) two weekends at the psychological institute, about pastoral care for dying and their relatives. The first weekend was about ourselves, and we worked on our own relation to death. We filled in a questionnaire before the course, and I must say I learnt a lot just from that. It took time to look up all the unknown sickness, feelings and mourning words, but when we were to fill in a similar form at the end of the course, I hardly had to look up a word. Anyhow, I did not only learn words. The questions gave me an awareness what my own mourning process has done. The last weekend was about pastoral care for others, and I recognised something from PT 503. It was just good to get something repeated, and I found it more systematic. It is something I like with Germans, they are orderly and systematic. We learnt more specifically about dying, and it was exciting to se how I now could understand more of the talks I had in the hospital in March.

In addition to these nice connections in lectures and seminars, I have rediscovered the joys of the library. I finished a paper in PT 503 after I came to Leipzig, and then had to use a German pastoral care book as reference literature. I only found some pages covering the subject though, I did not have time to read this German book so carefully. I got response that it was great that I read German pastoral care literature, and that it was a good book. Now eventually I have the time to read it, not only pretend...

I have also found out that the time I have this German library to my disposal is limited. So today I have looked around, trying to find out what I should read before I leave. There is of course lots more than I can mange. I actually said after my ST presentation that I was not going to read more of Jüngel. I think he is funny for those with German as mother tongue, he uses a lot of images, but for a foreigner it is much work. I will give him another chance, though, and I have borrowed a thin book, so we will see. The pastoral care book is full of references, and reminded me that I should read something by Moltmann when I am here. „Der gekreuzigte Gott“ is quite big, though, so I content myself with „Mensch“ as the first book. If it is possible to understand, I might dare to go on. I have long wanted to read Bonhoeffer's „Gemeinsames Leben“, and now at last I have borrowed it. It is not very long, so if he does not write too difficult, I will get through. I have also discovered Dorothee Sölle. It happened as recently as last week, also through the pastoral care lecture. Have I slept in the lessons when I have not heard her name before? One of my fellow students here meant that she might be the most important German contemporary theologian besides Moltmann. Now I read what she writes about passion. I find it a bit difficult, but it might be because I read it at bedtime. Systematic theology is often more suitable for the reading room, or at least when I am more awake than late at night.

Student happy greetings from Hanne.