Florence, Italy: Slowing Up (or Down if you prefer)

It’s fun how quickly books can change perspective. I previously wrote about my guilty conscience for quickly reading my book on slowness. I got over it pretty fast, sped along, and finished it tonight. The book is good in so many ways. While I’d love to adopt most of its philosophies on slowness, I’m more enthused about some of the things it inspired. Most people who know me and read the book would say it’s written in several parts directly at me. I took my undergraduate years too fast, I’ll admit, but I enjoyed it too.

What surprised me most from the book was the thoughts it created for seminary. During my Spring Break retreat I came up with a list of requirements I had for seminary. While they are great ideals, they are becoming less important than they were. Here’s the list that I’d come up with:

• They must be flexible enough to facilitate me spending one semester in a 2/3 world context. They don’t have to plan all of the details, but they can’t be an obstacle either.
• Their faculty must be impressive. They should not only have some authors who are well-published, but they should have a passion for teaching and engaging with students. They must continue to want to learn and be willing to let students teach them little things (like computers).
• Their student body must be a community. While this does bias one against “commuter-campuses” to an extent, there are many ways to still foster this community in any setting. Students should have outlets, both structured and unstructured, to gather with their classmates and create friendships that last beyond their tenure at the seminary.
• The seminary should be diverse. Rather than having polarizations or basing on standard percentages (for age, sex, race, denominational background, etc), the seminary should have as varied a spectrum as possible.
• The seminary should also have connections outside of its context. This means more than just the “feeder” congregations and graduate schools that most students would go to. It should have coeducational programs with other seminaries and also work to create denomination-linking opportunities as a flagship for ecumenism.
• The seminary should encourage spirituality by example. While many professors do have understandable personal conflicts with current ecclesial bodies, they should at least have been formed in that context and desire to form others in similar contexts. The students should all either be serving as staff or active lay leadership within a local congregation. In other words, the seminary shouldn’t just give out another degree but should actively seek to change and strengthen the church.

I don’t know of any seminary that fits all of these. Looking back on the list, I know that the seminary I pick probably will not be able to perfectly match 3/4 of them. Here’s another requirement that the book brought out:

• The seminary must give me latitude in what I study. I recognize that the curriculum requirements will partially constrict my options; but, when I find an area I have a passion for, I don’t want to be told I have to study other things before I can study that. Because I finished a rigorous degree in Religion, there shouldn’t be many subjects with strict prerequisites that a seminary will say I’m not able to study. Does it require critical reading skills? Hopefully at that time they won’t make that an issue. Does it require some other knowledge in order to understand the context? Perfect, let’s make that, and only that, be the first lesson I study for the course.

TCU gave me the chance to explore. Some of my favorite courses were seminars requiring substantial papers or projects at the end. Some of my other favorite courses were the directed studies I did individually or with a friend and the professor. My Classical Rhetoric course I’m currently doing with Dr. Enos is a perfect example of the bullet point above. Even though I had relatively little historical knowledge of ancient Greece and Rome, Dr. Enos took note and adapted the first lesson to teach me. The course is made of readings and small papers that I write. The first reading was a novel that showcased the events and atmosphere of ancient Athens. What was a 20th Century novel doing in a course of ancient rhetoric? It’s exact purpose: to teach. Dr. Enos’ willingness to use a different medium and to do a course with flexibility in the curriculum has made it one of my favorite courses at TCU. That’s another thing a seminary should do: it should encourage learning by stoking the passions that the students bring to it or develop while there. Subduing the flames just to make sure the student is ‘well-rounded’ causes apathy and indifference.

The prime example of that while I’m in Florence is my Italian language class. I must confess that I’m a grammar nut. I know, it’s a sick hobby. Talking about the function of a word, and in particular any of its relations or nuances with the rest of the language, is a fun hobby. I love piecing together the puzzle of a language’s components. My Italian class, it’s about grouping together the pieces; it’s about creating a bunch from scratch.

This is really stemming from my bias for reading languages; I simply don’t like to speak them. Give me time, and I think I enjoy writing them. The ability to converse, while it does show mastery and helps more than anything with comprehension and retention, is so stifling! The other issue with our Italian class is what I want to focus on. It’s intentionally a conversation class, meaning we gloss over a bunch of the grammar and leave holes that I want to fill. How do Italians say infinitives with participial constructions? How do Italians nuance between possibilities and probabilities – are there any stresses with different activities in using particular subjunctives? I want to learn how to say “Eventually I will be going back home to live” instead of just knowing how to say “I leave on December 14th to the United States.” It’s a huge difference!

My current mood is that I’d rather study the Italian language looking for puns and other tongue-in-cheek instances I find, rather than study the forms of irregular perfect participles. Don’t get me wrong, the perfect participle has been an essential part (sorry, couldn’t resist) of every language I’ve studied; but, memorizing it in rote form just doesn’t make for a fun night. Will I ever master Italian? Probably not; especially with how hard I’m working on it. I will, however, enjoy the rest of the time I’m here before returning.

Can you believe rapidly reading a book about slowness brought all of that on? Wow.