I found myself sitting in chapel for a special worship service for the Middlers (second year seminarians), as they prepared to find out where they were going on internship. I was so excited for their waiting to be over, as I realized how fast approaching my own internship would be upon me. As we ended the worship, we gathered around the baptismal font and with the Middlers in front of us, we laid hands on them. I had my hands on Matt Anderson (fellow blogger, Wisconsinite, and also a Lutheran year student, who had arrived just like myself this fall) and Nate Sutton (the man who always has the best Greek translations in my Jesus and the Gospels class, and who I am convinced will be the Presiding Bishop of the ELCA someday). What a powerful experience as I prayed, I was thinking primarily about them and knowing that Nate would be in the Chicago area and Matt was open to anything with places like Washington State and Florida being discussed (he would go to Vancouver, WA), and I prayed that they would be content, that they would be strong as they went their separate ways. After the prayer we closed with singing, "We are Marching..."
If you would have asked me last fall about the Middlers, I would have told you names and maybe a little bit about them, but now I realize that I have all this anxiety about losing a big chunk of my family. I realize that I know names and know so much more about people, I have gone on retreats, been in class discussions with some, and I just say hi to them all the time. The cruel world that is seminary is the fact that I will never be on campus with any of them again. I may see some of them next year, but really it is all that quick. So I cherish the relationships, and as I almost cried as we sang, "We are Marching," I realized I was so thankful to have known the class above me and the seniors as well, and although, I so desperately want to keep them here, they are so desperately needed out there... And they're good, so watch out world the interns and seniors of 2011 are coming!