March 2010 Archives

On Tuesday evening of this week, I, and all of my Honor's comrades attended a lecture, that was part of the Poehler Lecture's, by Dr. Loma Meyer. That name should ring a bell because not only was Dr. Meyer a large part of Concordia's past, but Meyer hall was named for her. Dr. Meyer started making her mark in 1967 when she first came to Concordia. She has help various positions throught the years she has spent at Concordia. To name a few specifically, she has been the Executive Vice President, Dean of the Faculty, and a professor at Concordia. Dr. Meyer has also has been president or vice president of many other groups at Concordia and elsewhere.

Throughout her speech, Dr. Meyer had a multiplicity of excellent points and overall the speech was very interesting. The overarching theme of the speech was about the connection between faith and learning. I learned a great deal about Concordia's past and what things are seen happening in the near and distant future. She stressed that even though things may be great at Concordia right now, there are changes needed and she explained what changes have happened. Dr. Meyer talked in some detail about what past presidents have done and how certain presidents have "changed" (there's that word again) Concordia. Since I am in the pre-seminary program, I found Dr. Meyer's statistic on how many people are pursuing a church work study very interesting. Compared to 43 years ago, the percentage has dropped from 93% to 6% today. That is an incredible drop and is certainly a "change." (Hmmm, that word again.) Dr. Meyer also highlighted the Honor's Program and how this was one of many significant implementations President Holst has made. Another point of Dr. Meyer that I really identified with is the implementation of technology. This is a major change that completely changes (boy, twice this time) how students learn and interact. I know that I can't imagine learning without the technology. How awful!

Dr. Meyer certainly made connections to the Honors Program in her speech. Combining faith and learning effectively is almost the mission statement of Honors. There are two connections to Honor's that I think Dr. Meyer made in her speech. The first is technology. The more technology progresses, I can see the Honor's program changing to do more online learning. Technology may allow us to do more activities and to meet together more often. However, my second connection of the future goes hand-in-hand with this. In Honors, I feel that we all become a tight knit group by the end of our two years of Honors. The problem comes with technology becoming too integral to learning. If too much online learning is done, there is a possibility that the sense of family will not be as strong and may dissolve. This would be detrimental to the Honor's Program and this connection needs to be looked at very seriously.

Overall, Dr. Meyer was very intruiging to listen to and I got a lot of insight from it.

It appears that Sor Juana had many obstacles that she had to face during her life. She spends most of page 257 talking about how the fact that she didn't know all these different areas of learning, and that she didn't have a teacher to help her understand caused her to not learn all that she wanted to. Sor Juana felt a calling to learn as much as she could about everything, but without the proper resources, she found that difficult. Sor Juana says, "I considered it necessary to ascend the steps of human arts and sciences" and "How, lacking logic, was I to understand the general and specific methodologies of shich Holy Scripture is composed?" God was calling Sor Juana to study the scriptures in depth, but she felt that she couldn't because she didn't have enough knowledge. Sor Juana also speaks on page 259 about being "singled out." She explains that she feels that since she has been singled out, she is viewed as "everyone's enemy" because she is taking the spotlight. Sor Juana doesn't seem to want recognition and sees it as an obstacle. All Sor Juana wants to do is to serve the Lord and follow her calling to learn.

When looking at my life and obstacles that I have faced, there are only a few that I see that have made an impact. The first of these is that there never seems to be enough time to properly fulfill my calling. There are many groups and activites I would like to be involved in to further my knowledge of the Bible and of Jesus, but there is never enough time, it seems, to do even the necessary tasks. I can definately see this in my project. I deeply love working at Feed My Starving Children, but there always seems to be something that I deem more important or higher priority. I would love to do more than 100 hours of volunteer service, but time is an obstacle. Overall, however, I think that the Lord has made it fairly clear to me what my calling is, and how I should go about fulfilling that calling to be a pastor. Of course, there are many small obstacles that come up, but the Lord always seems to be there to help me over them. I get a lot of inspiration when I read stories like this one by Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz. I am amazed at how Sor Juana always trusted in the Lord and never appeared to doubt. Even though Sor Juana had obstacles of not having a teacher, not having the proper resources, etc., she still put complete trust in the Lord and trusted that as long as she did as much as could to fulfill her calling, God would do the rest. I hope that I can be more like Sor Juana and that I can grow closer and closer to God so I can fulfill my calling as best as I can.