On Being Church

Back in the Saddle

It has been a while since I've written everything. The volcano-delay coupled with the demands of church and a profound tiredness of soul have kept me away from writing anything. It felt so good to have written over 24 thousand words for chapter 2 and the thought of editing, footnoting and reworking the text seemed daunting to say the least. But today is a new day! I have begun the work of transforming my "pastoral-dramaturgical method" into a "pastoral-dramaturgical construal of the event of preaching"... an even bigger mouthful but a more accurate and freeing articulation of what my work is really trying to accomplish. My hope is to finish the editing, footnoting, reworking by the end of August so that I might ship off this piece of my project to my advisor(s) and begin to work on the chapter focusing exclusively on 'preaching as performance'. I'm also getting excited about my next trip to England as my dissertation supervisor is taking a position at Cambridge for the next several years. I'll still need to go to Exeter, but most of my time will be spent in Cambridge - which is gorgeous! And hopefully, my wife is coming along on the first trip.

Ashes to Ashes

Well, I made it to the Society for the Study of Theology (SST) conference in Manchester, presented a paper (which went well) and then got stranded, like thousands of others, by a volcano in Iceland. I'm now scheduled to leave 11 days after I originally planned to be home. Thankfully, Rev. Dr. Julie Gittoes, Vicar of All Saints in Hampton (London) and a member of SST has agreed to 'put me up' until I can get home. It is amazing to be the recipient of so much grace! We have had great conversations over dinner AND I've been able to do laundry! Today I went to Cambridge, where I will be going for PhD supervision for the next three years as my adviser is moving from Exeter to Cambridge. It is beautiful and amazing and filled with tourists! This is a good lesson to breathe and relax and trust - We are NOT in charge!!!

Milestone

I have just finished my writing for the day and I now have 20,135 words! 135 more than my target for mid-April. I'm sure quite a few of the words are rubbish, but I'm very, very excited to have reached this milestone. These are my words, no footnotes, no extensive quotes, no nothing added as filler.

It is amazing how hard it is to get started writing a dissertation, but once the snowball starts rolling down the hill, it grows and grows. I guess I've learned that the trick to having a snowball get bigger isn't to push harder and harder; it is to be patient and let it first snow!

Enhancing Salubrity - A Vocational Issue

Again, yet another 'breakthrough'. Although, at the rate I'm going, I'll be breaking windows before I get any writing done. Setting the outline has been a nightmare, since I have chapters 2 through 6 set in concrete, or maybe carved in marble, but have been wrestling like Jacob at the Jabbok with chapter 1.

Chapter One sets up the whole project. Chapter One sets the course, the direction, the tone and the tenor of what I'm going to be working on for the next four years. Chapter One introduces the concepts of 'pastoral' and 'dramaturgy'. Chapter One is the first impression. Chapter One is IT!

How will I begin, which pastoring or dramaturgy? Will the chapter be about preaching, sermons, dramaturgy, or the work of pastoring? Which order to the items need to be in? Introductory items first working toward a conclusion or concluding items first and then show the rest as evidence, as if in a trial?

While I'm still not sure about evidence or introductory material first, I am, finally and thankfully and limpingly certain that Chapter One will be focused on the call to enhance the richness of sermons: "Enhancing Salubrity - A Pastoral-Dramaturgical Vocation".

May the muses speak, the floodgates open, and the words just simply flow onto the screen.

Burst Technology

It has finally dawned on me, I cannot write every day.

So, after months of anguish, I've finally created a schedule or system that makes sense for me. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday - reading and research, dreaming and wondering. Thursday and Friday - write 1,000 words. Saturday and Sunday, to finish up any writing that didn't get done or simply goof off and recharge for the week ahead. Rather than trying to crank out something every day, and feeling incredibly guilty when unable to do so, I now have a weekly rhythm that makes much more sense. And thanks to Scrivener, a wonderful writing production program, I'm able to write and then keep track of what I've written in a way that is easy to maneuver and manipulate latter on. The progress is slow, but it is progress none the less.

It's About Better Sermons

It has taken me a while, just over a year to be more exact, to figure out that my research project, while focusing on dramaturgy, is really about 'better sermons.' Why it has taken this long is beyond my to comprehend, other than I'm an intellectual thrasher who needs to meander through the hinterlands of my imagination until I have a deep sense 'this is it'. Well, 'sermons' are IT.

Working toward sermons which actually nurture and sustain Christian communities-of-faith, I'll incorporate dramaturgy into: 1) the pastoral vocation; 2) preaching; and, 3) the interpretation of Scripture.

It is amazing how liberating it is to finally have a clear picture/sense of what I'm actually working on. Now, I hope I can stay focused and simply do the work. My goal is 20,000 words by the end of March 2010. I'm hopeful that this won't be a huge obstacle. If I'm able to put together that many words in a manner not too deviate from the work of prior theological scholars, I'll be awarded with an advancement from MPhil candidacy to PhD candidacy. Not a bad move.

Writing in the Rain

There's something about cleaning the gutters in a thunderstorm at 2:15 a.m. that really clears the mind and prepares one for writing. That and the new pair of Bose earphones which really make Rostropovich's cello sound especially good. As my daughter is heading off to college tomorrow and I'm flying to England on Monday, I'm not sure how much progress I'll make this weekend but as of right now, I have 8,654 words down on paper. I'm about 2/5 done with the first chapter. My hope is to get it half done before jetting out.

I'm learning more about myself in this process than I ever imagined. It is hard to 'have fun.' It is hard to just simply offer what I have and not worry about nailing it down to the point where no one can question any of it. In my effort to make a precise argument, I close down the beauty of the argument I'm trying to make, turning 'fun' into something else. My prayer for the next season of my dissertational adventure is: more fun!

Maybe my job is simply to 'clean out the gutters' and then to trust the flow?

Salubrious Is the Word

In my prior post I shared relief at having settled an important issue - what type of sustenance is a sermon. As I continued to sit with the idea of "Scriptural Sustenance" I kept thinking ... close but ...

Then, in a moment of (un)inspired typing, a search lead me to the word 'jejune' - an adjective which means not nutritious. And that search lead me to discover the word 'salubrious,' - 'favorable to or promoting health.'

Now I really have it: Sermons as Salubrious Sustenance - best dissertation title ever!

The Difference a Word Makes

For some time I've been stuck on how to get set up my project properly. The title I've been working with has been: Sermon as Sustenance: Dramaturgy and the On-going Performance of the Gospel. I kept bumping up against how I was going to get the whole question of biblical interpretation placed into the flow of the project. This morning, after a time of quiet prayer, the answer emerged: Sermon as Scriptural Sustenance ... Bingo! My project isn't a conversation between pastoring and dramaturgy, but a trialogue - Bible, preaching, dramaturgy. It feels good to have finally settled this matter. Now its time to address the thousand related changes adding this one word to the title means.

Confronting Ignorance

I'm amazed at how often I bump up against my own ignorance - looking up words in the dictionary, being over zealous in my writing schedule, finding books that I think will make my research obsolete before it even sees the light of day.

Writing a dissertation, like staying on a healthy routine, is difficult work. At times, the juice of the Spirit is flowing and everything is falling into place. At other times, everything is just falling.

I am emerging out of a period of falling. Having just spent two weeks on vacation on the whitest beach I've ever seen (Siesta Key, Florida) I now find myself back in my flow of the Spirit, reading articles on dramaturgy and beginning a book on homiletics by Jana Childers (Performing the Word: Preaching as Theatre).

I'm heading to Exeter on August 24 and was hoping to have 20,000 words done. I'm not sure that is at all possible or prudent at this point. I've creating a good writing/research schedule for myself and just hope to be able to stick with it. Work at church is picking up as we get closer to September and the kick-off of the new program year. So ... I'll just have to wait and see what happens. Thankfully, I'll be waiting upon the Lord (something about 'renewed strength' is floating around in my head - always a good thing).

So, I push on ... blissfully ignorant yet floating in grace (like I said, two weeks at the beach, sorry).