hermeneutic heaven and hell

I feel a strange sense of peace as I sit here, on a Saturday morning...BLOGGING. the past couple of weeks have been pretty busy, and I haven't had much time to just stop. my friend was just telling me yesterday that she skipped class just so she could do laundry and go to the gym...it had been so long since she took a day for herself. I knew exactly what she meant. it's been assignment after assignment, so there's no real sense of rest between each...

so here I am...finally resting. and as I think back to the past couple of weeks, I realize that they've actually been very rewarding; despite days where I didn't feel well (but was helped by poe, the drug dealer) and days where I didn't know where to begin to get work done.

some of the most memorable days were last friday and saturday, where I had a huge midterm and then a lenten retreat after. I studied with much difficulty for the midterm - reading the text was like reading yoda on paper, and oh my goodness...if you've ever had to study hermeneutics, you would know what I mean. hermeneutics is essentially the "lived experience of the text"...that text must be read contextually (the term is 'exegetically')...but what I had to study gets into much more complicated details than just that. if you're already confused, you can identify with how my head was just spinning...

funnily enough, on the next day post-midterm, the lenten retreat I attended had EVERYTHING TO DO WITH HERMENEUTICS. we were essentially doing an in-depth bible study throughout the day, and were encouraged (through acting for example) to investigate the particular passages we were given. I just had to laugh when our guide began talking about hermeneutics of suspicion because I HAD JUST WRITTEN AN EXAM ABOUT IT. God is funny that way.

I'm not usually the type to be enthusiastic about acting and related arts of the sort, but the retreat was such an enriching experience of "living" the Word. it was something else being immersed in a particular biblical story and to get a sense of what the different characters must have been thinking at the time...and it was SO FUN! it felt like being a kid again...:) it was so wonderful that twenty-something people would want to gather together on a sunny Saturday at church to read the Word together...it was something else.

anyways, I don't know why you've even read this far...I'm clearly just babbling...

p.s I updated the sidebars! finally!