Things They Don't Teach You in Seminary 2 (Divine Dumpster Diving)

It never ceases to amaze me what things you are required to do in parish life that they don't teach you about at seminary. Yesterday morning it was dumpster diving! I arrived at the church early to set-up for a meeting I was hosting. In the middle of making coffee and arranging chairs, the Altar Guild Director came in and said she needed my help. Someone had thrown away the flowers from last Sunday. Not normally a problem, but in this case, the flowers were still in a 150 year old silver vase (more of an oblong bowl). I went to the dumpster and the sliver bowl was supposedly buried under several feet of garbage. Using a pole, I was able to pull it up near the surface to a point where I could just barely reach it. Even being tall and having long arms, it was still a little difficult. I did not want to get my clothes dirty, particularly since I was hosting a number of UCLA campus ministers a few minutes later.

Seminaries seem to think they need to teach about silly things like church history, scripture, theology, and liturgy, They really need to get in touch with what really goes on in parish ministry and provide some classes that will be of real use ;-)


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