Newsy York.

I'm back. Whew.

Here's a quick rundown of all the news:
1) I am taking a leave of absence in the spring to collect myself and be with my mom. I will be doing some kind of two-day-a-week field ed placement, probably in Seattle but possibly in Yakima. I will probably be asking folks if there are places I could stay one or two nights a week in the spring, if I do end up in Seattle.

2) That's getting ahead of myself. As most of you know, this was a difficult year for each member of my family. (I am reluctant to divulge very personal emotional information on this blog. If you don't know about all this, ask and we'll talk.) Thank you for your prayers and support. I am also of course emotionally shaky because of holding the world-record for number of traumatic break-ups in 12 months. Again, thank you for the support. I feel like taking some time to feed both my mom and myself is a GREAT decision. And I've been supported. Props to my financial aid officer, the dean of the seminary, my beloved bishop Nedi, Bishop George with whom I work at 815. All have been dreams to ask for help in this shaky time. I love being able to go to my mom when she needs me. And who knows? Maybe I'll take Spanish lessons! Voice lessons! I will also be going to Alaska in the summer to relieve some dead salmon of their internal organs, hanging out all bloody on the boat with my dad, soaking up water and salt and a community of people drinking coffee and wearing Xtra Tufs.

3) That said, any love and shout-outs you would like to give me in comment or e-mail form would be so welcome right now. (I am surviving one moment of outreach and comfort to the next right now.) I just got back from my friend Emily's ordination to the priesthood at St. John the Divine, and was compiling the extraordinary list of people I will be able to invite to my ordination in a couple years, and I was crying on the sidewalk thinking about the people I've been blessed to meet in my life. Y'all better come.

4) An aside: I'm rediscovering Reasonable Doubt after a summer of The Black Album, and you know, it's just so easy to fall in love with Jay-Z all over again.

5) I am taking Luke with Joanna Dewey (!!!!!!!!! Joanna Dewey!), which is going to be a ton of work because visiting profs always forget you're taking a million classes. Because they're only teaching one class, they always give a ton of assignments. Also, I think they get nervous about impressing the institution they are visiting and make their classes really hard. Argh. But it should be good. I don't like the Gospel of Luke real well: lots of female characters but they all get silenced and a "softer, prettier, less threatening" Gospel for rich people. But I LOOOOOOVE her work on Mark, and I hope she busts something open for me.

Also, The Practices of Teaching, a pedagogy class taught by my advisor, Mary Boys. Should be interesting.

Also, Intro to Preaching and Worship. Co-taught by some seriously kick-ass women.

Also, Exegesis. Taught by my Greek Bible prof from last term, the one who helped me so much.

Also, finally and painfully, Episcopal Polity and Canon Law, at General. Taught by the bishop of Long Island, who I've heard "doesn't like to be contradicted." They give letter grades at General. Expect a punitive C+.

What I'm most excitied about is that Pedagogy, Preaching, and Exegesis are all asking me some serious questions about who I am in the world. Where am I located? Who AM I? I can only bring that person to what I do and how I do it. This is connected to:

6) Surviving CPE. Some very good learning. But also massive frustration. One of the big pieces of learning was that I bring this person, this skeptical, hopeful, questioning, engaged person to the people I pastor. I can't bring someone else, someone less messy, someone more conservative theologically. I can't be tidy. I can't fit a little box. And this messy person I am can take care of people. Showing people that I am broken too, but that I keep looking for the places God and Hope poke their collective nose around the darkest corners, helps. Sighs of relief. I don't have to be a monolith. I am learning that SO intensely right now. Who I am as a prophet, who I am as a teacher, who I am as a pastor, are all who I am right now. A part of me is thinking, "Well, goodness. I'm only 27. I have to know who I am NOW? You're kidding, right?" But I do know a lot about myself, about my primary commitments, about myself and God. I know I need to be always holding the big picture and the teeny picture together. I know I want to break systems and cycles of injustice as much as I want to hold one little baby and baptise it with tears streaming down my cheeks. I know I see God all over the place: my lack of a Sunday School education enables me to not compartmentalize God-ness. God's in hip-hop, God's in the bookstore, God's in Spike Lee movies, God's in Gloria Steinum, God's in Prokoviev, God's in the turtles, God's in the sidewalk and in the cracks. God loves sushi and God loves me and God is skin and God is the magical math that explains how airplanes fly.

7) Bishop Katherine preached at Union's convocation. That was awesome.

8) Ghostface Killah's Fishscale was so hyped when it came out I just couldn't listen to it. I am now. I am cautiously pretty hot for it.

Also, this is a really interesting article about the responsibility white people have to hip hop. I'm going to post, but I'm still thinking on it. Racialicious is a great blog anyway.

9) I really need to do homework. Really. Much love. I'll be posting here again soon. Once I'm caught up at work I will also be posting back at the work blog too. I'm also going to be offering up a little political round-up, stuff I think is pertinent to media, race, representation, and gender.