Out of Exile!

What music I am listening to: Jeff Buckley's cover of the Leonard Cohen Song "Hallelujah," my favorite song at the moment because it encompasses all that I am feeling.

Had an epiphany in class today. Actually, I have been having several epiphanies in the past 48 hours. A good friend my said this morning, "How is that I will have several epiphanies in a short span, and the rest of the time is a desert of pertinent thought?" If life were fair, then brilliant thoughts would surely be evenly spaced. But I digress.

In Old Testament, we have been studying the exile of the Jewish people. For those non-Old Testament scholars out there, the Exile occurred when a succession of several empires (Neo-Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians) overthrew the kingdoms of Israel and Judah and forced the Jewish people into exile. The major theme of the Old Testament is the cycle of losing and gaining the "Promise Land." God's people are given "the promise land" as part of God's covenant with Abraham and Moses, but as soon as the Israelites sin and turn away from God, their homeland is taken away.

Here is where the epiphany comes in. Many of the Old Testament prophets lament Israel's wickedness that led them into the exiled condition. But a few view the exile and oppression as a time of renewal, that God is using this time of harship to enable God's people to learn, reflect and grow. Is this not a universal truth of pain and suffering? A fire may rush through a forest and destroy innumerable trees, but out of the ashes, do not new saplings rise up?

I know that I, along with my brethren and sistren (is that a word?), can identify with our ancestors who once dwelled in exiled. All of us are separated from family, friends, and our "homelands." I looked around the room today and I could feel the pain of my colleagues. Due to impending exams and papers, morale is at a low. Our class, once jovial, is now melancholy. The honeymoon phase of seminary is now over; reality has sunk in and we all feel as if we are drowning in a whirlpool of stress, crises of faith, and academic pressures.

It occured to me that though I can identify with our exiled ancestors, this is time of growth, of close self-examination, of rebirth of the spirit. I thought that I would come to seminary and life would be a Magical Happy fairy-land of little pink bunnies and elves hip-hopping towards the roads paved with candy. Boy was I wrong! I knew that classes would be tough, but I didn't foresee the existential crises I wrestle with on a daily basis. I am not alone. My brothers and sisters struggle as I struggle. My greatest wish is that we will learn to uphold each other, so that if one of us should stumble, the rest of us will be there with gentle outstretched arms.