America letter # 20. The end.
Dear friends,
I had my last lecture at Wartburg yesterday, and handed in my last paper, in Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer is one of the 3-credit courses I have taken this semester. We started with reading a short biography, before we worked through some of the books Bonhoeffer wrote. The Cost of Discipleship is one of the books I have liked the most. I have learnt something about how important experience and lived life are in the formation of an own theology and ethics.
Early in the semester we wrote a paper about the connection between our own biography and theology and ethics, with some comparison with Bonhoeffer. The paper we handed in yesterday was about method of ethical reflection. We chose an ethical topic to have something practical to work with, and then the assignment was to explain how we reflect ethically. I chose a case from my upcoming internship. The intern where I will have my internship normally presides at a weekly Eucharist at the care center. With my strict ordination theology I will not do that, but I was not quite satisfied with the option of changing it to a Service of the Word either. So I found that I had to explore the possibilities more, and came to two other alternatives in the paper; I can have ordained ministers come and preside, or I can preside at a service of “distribution of communion to those in special circumstances,” where I bring consecrated bread and wine from the congregation’s Eucharist. I find the last alternative exciting. They have a liturgy for such worship which a lay person can lead. I have not found such a liturgy in Norway.
It is fun to write academic papers that are so related to praxis. This paper was the end of an academic year, and the beginning of a year of praxis, internship. I find it very heavy to say goodbye here, but it is not quite as significant for me as for Bonhoeffer’s end and beginning. Just before he was executed, he heard “this is the end.” “But for me it is the beginning,” Bonhoeffer replied with his strong faith. A chapter is coming to an end, while another is beginning.
Greetings from Hanne.
I had my last lecture at Wartburg yesterday, and handed in my last paper, in Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer is one of the 3-credit courses I have taken this semester. We started with reading a short biography, before we worked through some of the books Bonhoeffer wrote. The Cost of Discipleship is one of the books I have liked the most. I have learnt something about how important experience and lived life are in the formation of an own theology and ethics.
Early in the semester we wrote a paper about the connection between our own biography and theology and ethics, with some comparison with Bonhoeffer. The paper we handed in yesterday was about method of ethical reflection. We chose an ethical topic to have something practical to work with, and then the assignment was to explain how we reflect ethically. I chose a case from my upcoming internship. The intern where I will have my internship normally presides at a weekly Eucharist at the care center. With my strict ordination theology I will not do that, but I was not quite satisfied with the option of changing it to a Service of the Word either. So I found that I had to explore the possibilities more, and came to two other alternatives in the paper; I can have ordained ministers come and preside, or I can preside at a service of “distribution of communion to those in special circumstances,” where I bring consecrated bread and wine from the congregation’s Eucharist. I find the last alternative exciting. They have a liturgy for such worship which a lay person can lead. I have not found such a liturgy in Norway.
It is fun to write academic papers that are so related to praxis. This paper was the end of an academic year, and the beginning of a year of praxis, internship. I find it very heavy to say goodbye here, but it is not quite as significant for me as for Bonhoeffer’s end and beginning. Just before he was executed, he heard “this is the end.” “But for me it is the beginning,” Bonhoeffer replied with his strong faith. A chapter is coming to an end, while another is beginning.
Greetings from Hanne.
posted by Hanne at 4:28 PM
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