Week 1 of Field Education is OVER at Duke Divinity School!!! WOOOO WHOOO!!! One aspect of this opportunity is the request to submit a journal entry to the school regarding my experiences each week. I’ll be sharing those via this blog as well. If I censor portions, I’ll let you know, but I plan to share with you my full truths. Enjoy that! I can’t always share, and won’t always be allowed to. Ask whatever questions you have as a result. Here goes…
Let me start by explaining that I am allowed to journal whatever I’d like to regarding my experiences, yet some question prompts are provided. So far, I’ve used prompts to guide my responses for week 1.
Week 1 Journal Entry
PROMPT #1
Describe your initial impressions of your setting.
My initial impressions of my setting are still developing. The immediate impression is unfounded because I am still particularly curious about how things will turn out. I find myself more gathering than assessing at this point. I will say that the people are friendly. Some seem timid and some skeptical even, but all seem willing and ready for what my presence might entail.
Here, they have been prepped for my arrival for about a month’s time. (Yikes!)
I find that to be rather intriguing…
I attended Sunday service a few short hours after I arrived, and I felt the entire message was about me. I could have followed the preacher’s point of reference and said it was about the “community,” yet while there, I was the present depiction of the new reality the preacher was readily painting in the mind of his parishioners.
Upon reflection, I honestly was quite amused by it all.
I found the message to be quite moving personally, and spiritually. He did a good job getting his point across, yet I’m not quite sure if it was received well by all considering he had to speak of such “heavy” things so directly in the first place.
We shall see what happens!
Hmmm… There are plenty of racial considerations and question marks here. My presence seems alarming to some and soothing to most. (For context: To some, I’m a black girl with fiery hair in a white church of only white people. To others, I am a city girl–a stranger coming in their church to change things from the way that they should be done because that’s the way it’s always been done.) /
Depending on who you talk to, I am welcome.
There are some who may feel as if I am meddlin’ though. haha
