intensives: week 1

I'm currently in St. Paul, MN…living communally in a hotel with fellow interns…and logging classroom time for seminary. A major component of the Willow internship is a seminary education, resulting in an M.A. in Transformational Leadership (Bethel MATL) provided by Bethel Seminary. Study is divided into quarters instead of semesters. Though the majority of the coursework is completed as distance work (online), every Spring and Fall we (interns) must come to St. Paul for 'intensives' for two weeks, one course each week. This involves classroom lectures and interaction with the professor.

This week is focused on my Old Testament 101 class - Genesis through Ruth. At this point, we've focused on the Pentateuch (a.k.a. Five Books of Moses, or simply the first five books of the Bible) and themes of 'promise,' 'covenant,' 'law,' 'creation,' etc. This stuff is mentally exhausting and I value my evenings to relax and decompress and otherwise hang out with my fellow interns…running, exercising, conversing in the hot tub, or having chicken-fights in the swimming pool.

Sometimes ridiculous fun is just what it takes to relax and refresh. No?