Outrageous

"What three words come to mind when you think about studying theology?"

Mine were something along the lines of: "community, stretch, and practice", but someone else on the call wrote "outrageous". The hairs on my arms stood up as I looked at a word that encapsulates the feeling that I have as I embark on a three year program in a little over a week. What I am about to do is outrageous.

I am about to start three years of full-time graduate school to receive my Masters of Divinity (MDIV) at Candler School of Theology at Emory University. I've come a long way from being a sophomore in undergrad who told a prof that "If I could major in anything, it would be getting coffee with people and letting them know how loved they are." I uttered that phrase in hopes that people would stop bothering me about graduate school. Jokes on me...a MDIV sets people up to do that well. While the work will be rigorous (both personally and professionally), I firmly believe that I will leave this degree knowing how to better love.

And in a world that is falling apart, with news cycle after news cycle displaying the worst of what we choose to do to each other, choosing love is outrageous. Seen as "fluffy" , "a waste of time" , and "soft" , love chooses to defy expectations and odds. Love shows strength, abundance, and a fierceness that is often misunderstood. Studying this love feels outrageous sometimes.

Now compound that with the fact that I am a woman in the Catholic Church about to spend three years of my life studying the practice of theology... Just for some context, in Jesuit schools, Jesuit seminarians are ordained a Deacon at the end of their MDIV. I still don't quite know how to answer the question of, "What are you going to do with this degree, given that the diaconate is not yet open to women?" The scary truth right now is this: I don't know. But I know that I am called here and I'm willing to figure it out as I go. It does in fact feel outrageous as a woman in the Catholic Church to study divinity. And I believe in a God who makes miracles from outrageous circumstances.

I ask for your prayers as I start this outrageous adventure. All in, ready and not, with fear and joy both by my side, here I come.