Alumni Update: Dixie Laube

Well, friends and colleagues of United Theological Seminary, it is my turn to write for the blog. Are you excited? Some of you have not heard from me since I graduated and left UTS back in July of 2009. I have been on an exciting journey since graduation and I will try to include some of that here. I know…I know…you don’t want to read a book.

Anyway, when I packed everything up on July 2, 2009, I moved down to Rochester, MN into a newly constructed town-home. I am renting it, because my length of stay in Rochester (at this point and time) was only a year. I have been working on my carbon-footprint this year, too. If Dwight Wagenius is reading this, he would be so proud to know, that I am taking the City bus to and from work—everyday! For those of you who don’t know, I was accepted into the Residency Clinical Pastoral Education program at Mayo Clinic and Hospitals shortly before graduation. CPE started on August 21, 2009.

I was ordained into the United Church of Christ on October 4, 2009 and have been walking on cloud 9 since then. I will be with Mayo until August 25, 2010. Along with 4 other residents, whom Gage Church and I met, I am enjoying my time down here. Though there are some days (and weeks) that Gage and I reminisce about how wonderful it would be to have a Reading Week or Vacation to help us catch up!

Follow the UTS Global Justice Immersion Trip to El Salvador! March 18-26

http://utsglobaltrips.com/

UTS Alum Peg Chemberlin Responds to Glenn Beck

UTS Alum Peg Chemberlin responds to recent comments by Glenn Beck about the role of social justice in the Christian tradition.  Check it out!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peg-chemberlin/christians-run-as-fast-as_b_495166.html

Notes from a Second Year MDiv by Donna Stucky

Each class I take at United is another adventure into my religious, cultural, theological, social, and sometimes emotional self. Mostly I've felt that each class has so much to offer, especially to someone who loves to learn. My experience at United has resulted in honing, reaffirming, scratching, dismissing, questioning, doubting, rebuilding, and trusting my beliefs. Doesn't that sound like an almost perfect seminary experience...and by the way, I am aware of my social location and have learned to integrate. Most recently, I've learned to integrate world news, national news, local news, personal experiences, lectionary texts, worship elements, and multi-media formats.

This semester I have preached my first, 5-minute, practice sermon. I have the real ones to go. Anyone have a sermon they'd like to loan me. I never thought of myself as a preacher but hopefully I'll manage a couple of good enough sermons. Chaplaincy is my forte and I've been challenged to think about the difference between guilt and shame. I've always thought I'm very good and guilt...but maybe it's shame??? I've also been challenged to consider the value structure, longings, beliefs and maturity of anyone who may show up at the other end of my chaplaincy visit.

The thing that I like about seminary and the thing that's so frustrating it that one's sacred norms, codes and beliefs are thrown in the air like a clay pigeon, shot through with holes and then we're supposed to go pick up the pieces and make eagles out of them. It's tiring and it takes creativity and well worth it.

Blessings to all for a great Spring semester.

Donna Stucky