A Week of Lasts

It has been a week of last things. It is hard to believe that my last week of classes at Duke Divinity School will be over as of 2:20 pm today. While this seems like a simple statement, it indeed feels like quite a big deal. If you only knew how hard my first year, first semester or even my first month were around here, you would know how amazing this journey has been and how accomplished I feel for almost being through with it.

I know I’ve said this before, but going to grad school and seminary is more than just going to school. It is a total life encompassing experience—it shakes you not only theologically but in your entire worldview. You land on the other side of the three years wondering who you were when you first entered. I’ve learned things about myself that it took being in a community such as this to learn such as I love small groups of close friends, I love to “work the crowd,” and I love to read anything on the topic of pastoral care—just to name a few of the more normal things... Plus, you know, all that "academic learning" I did.

And, I believe that the same is true for many of my classmates as well from the conversations we’ve been having most recently. We are changed people. So for these reasons and many more, it has been a week to celebrate. In fact, several of us went a little crazy yesterday with the photos. It was a very liberating experience to be in the Divinity School yesterday knowing that the power we have felt they had over us for the past three years is about to go away for good. Hooray!

So it has been a week of lasts…
The last time I had to translate Greek for homework...
The last chapel...
The last evaluation to fill out...
The last time Peter Storey one of my favorite professors will ever lead a class at Duke...
The last day time eating all together at our favorite Q Shack…


The last time to run around the school crazy and do photo shoots for no particular reason other than to express our joy of being done with our MDivs.