FIVE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS.

This is what my books are costing this semester. Jiminy Crickets.


Can somebody call them and tell them I only make $150/week?


I have a feeling that I'm going to have to provide artifical respiration to my bank account this semester. Between doing my CPE in Seattle (paying rent in two places, here and there, and paying Swedish) and buying plane tickets, I'm going to be eating a lot of cereal and tuna fish. Well, I already eat a lot of cereal and tuna fish, but you get the point.

And, interestingly, the front page article in Episcopal Life this month was about how much debt seminarians accumulate in the process of attempting to follow a call to ordained ministry. Which I felt great about, right? Until the part about how the people trying to relieve that debt are only willing to do it if the seminarian is going to an Episcopal seminary. Apparently those of us who are trying to prepare for the ecumenical future of the church at truly excellent seminaries are not worthy of being supported financially. Puh-leeze. This is the 21st century. The studies tell us that no one is choosing a church family on the basis of denomination anymore. And, as a friend of mine at an Anglican seminary told me, "I feel like I'm being taught how to be a really good Anglican but not necessarily how to be a really good Christian." I am at Union because the academics are stellar, and because I need to learn how to make good church. I am learning how to be a good Christian and not isolate myself in an Anglican enclave. I need to learn how to speak God, not just Canterbury-ian.

And all of these things are making me more intensely Episcopalian than I've ever been: I defend and speak up for my beloved, beloved tradition all the time. So I'm not losing identity: I'm gaining it. But apparently that's not exactly worthy of support. Yeesh.