"I don't know what I believe until I preach it."

An episcopal scholar and priest said those words when she spoke to one of my classes this semester. I haven't been able to get it out of my head ever since, perhaps because I am finding it increasingly true for myself as well. I've always considered myself an "verbal processor," which is to say that I like to think through things and arrange my thoughts by explaining it to someone else. (Side note: this provides me with another opportunity to realize just how lucky I am to be married to my husband. He is the one most frequently tapped to be my conversation partner, and he patiently agrees despite the fact that he'd probably like to do something besides listen to me ramble).

And perhaps this has stuck with my all the more since graduate education has this important but frankly disconcerting tendency to disorient you, to cause you to question. I'm thankful for this . . . most days. But occasionally I nearly long to return to a time when I didn't have SO MANY questions, if such a time ever actually existed. I long some days to lose the awareness that things are not as simple as I once thought and that life, ministry, relationships, and faith are inherently beautiful and magnificently complicated. I long for a time when I (mistakenly thought) I had it all figured out. (Side note: I don't really want to regress. I really don't. But some days, especially days at the end of long semesters like this one, it appeals to my tired self).

Next semester I'll be teaching a freshman Bible course over the life of Jesus. And so I'll have the perfect opportunity to work out for myself again what I believe, since three days a week I will face a class of forty and "preach it," so to speak. In preparation for that, I hope to post some preliminary thoughts, ramblings, and ruminations here. A test run of sorts.

And today, I take heart in knowing that Jesus sent out people to preach the gospel who weren't always sure what they believe and who weren't always right. Otherwise, I'm not sure how many of us would qualify. I am sure I wouldn't.