Change is Stressful but Necessary for Growth

On Monday, I started participating in an online academic writing club. http://www.academicwritingclub.com This week has been an interesting journey so far. I had some anxiety for the first few days as I held unrealistic expectations that I would suddenly get the dissertation writing process under control and see dramatic progress towards the completion of the dissertation journey. The anxiety even had physical manifestations in which my muscles were tight and felt kind of a pinched nerve sensation. When this happened, which was on the evening of the second day of the club, I knew I had to evaluate what was going on.

Reading snippets of my 'Mommy Mantras' book has helped as there is a section on stress. One of the approaches was to become aware of the feelings as they surfaced and rather than tightening up in response to the anxiety, which of course always makes the situation worse, they recommended 'sitting with the feeling', 'acknowledging it', and 'softening it'. The latter recommendation didn't really make sense to me at first, but then I began to notice that when I just sat with the feeling as it arose, refusing to panic and tighten up, the anxiety's effects were lessened and a kind of perspective emerged on the anxiety. I started to have room to explore the reasons for the anxiety and to reframe my view of the situation. I'm not usually a fan of this type of approach, but I have to admit that it has helped immensely this week. It also helped that Wednesday night was a teleconference for the writing club and many of my concerns were shown to be common among other folks doing academic writing. Then, right after the conference call, I decided to take a few minutes to read scripture. The encouraging words found in Isaiah 40 were a balm to my troubled soul:

9 You who bring good tidings to Zion, go up on a high mountain. You who bring good tidings to Jerusalem, [c] lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the towns of Judah, "Here is your God!"
10 See, the Sovereign LORD comes with power, and his arm rules for him. See, his reward is with him, nd his recompense accompanies him.
11 He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.
12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance?
13 Who has understood the mind [d] of the LORD, or instructed him as his counselor?
14 Whom did the LORD consult to enlighten him, and who taught him the right way? Who was it that taught him knowledge or showed him the path of understanding?

What struck me was the juxtaposition between the immanence and transcendance of God. Here is the One who 'measures waters in the hollow of his hand', 'holds the dust of the earth in a basket', and 'weighs the mountains on the scales'. Here is the One who 'tends his flock like a shepherd', 'gathers his lambs and holds them close to his heart', and 'gently leads those that have young'. So my stress over the dissertation project, my concern over the fighting in Gaza, the dire realities of the economy, were put in a little better perspective.

In a related thought, reading The Crucifixion of Ministry by my former professor, Dr. Andrew Purves, has made me reflect on the dissertation process. I believe that my studies are a form of ministry and for quite some time, I articulated that they were intended to edify the Church, but this fall, I became acutely aware that the achievement of a Ph.D. and a tenure-track position were also 'covertly' major ego boosters. After a painful disappointment this fall as well as resolving to finish the dissertation even though it feels overwhelming much of the time, I began to catch on to the notion that I was really doing much of this 'ministry' in my name and for my glory. Now I am trying to shift to an understanding that I am participating in Christ's ministry, under his direction, in his power. Perhaps if this thinking takes root, my anxiety will further diminish, although I now that the work itself will not get any easier.

What is changing through the writing club is instituting the discipline of writing five days a week, planning the next session's work, and setting achievable goals. As the days have gone by this week, I am seeing progress in writing, organization, and the best part of all is that the creative juices are flowing. I've had some good interactions with professors about my dissertation, discovered some new source leads, and connections. I look forward to seeing further fruits from this approach in the coming week.

Outline View & Harbor of Rest

This week I learned how to use the Outline View feature on MS Word. I even took the little tutorial they provide online. Today, I revised my dissertation outline using this tool. I had already copied and pasted the various parts of two previous outline versions, but was finding it hard to get a bird's eye view with five pages of text. So this morning, I printed the mishmashed outline and worked at the kitchen table figuring out my new chapter titles and ordering the chapters. Then I went down the entire outline and assigned the subtopics to the new chapter titles. I put my head in my hands a few times due to feeling overwhelmed by all of the details that needed sorting. Finally, I sat down at the laptop and entered the new chapter titles in outline view as 'level 1' text and the subtopics as 'level 2' text. Once that was done, I was finally able to see areas of overlap which I knew were there over the course of many writing sessions, a problem I knew needed to be addressed, but was dreading. After eliminating the repetetive subtopics, I organized the remaining ones, placing some as 'level 3' text. Now I am thinking of taking all that I have written so far - about 90 pages - and integrating it into one file (with chapter divisions of course). Once that is done, the text will not be very cohesive, but I can see where the gaps are and I think I will be encouraged to see how much work has already been done.

My latest research has been fairly exciting as I found some Syriac background to the 'Harbor of Rest' language that Macarius uses (in Greek). One source is a study of funerary inscriptions from a Syriac monastery which found that all nine patriarchal tombs contained the theme of 'harbor' and/or 'ship'. The tombs had lengthy inscriptions with theological content. It was an article by Dr. Amir Harrak who teaches at the University of Toronto. I wrote him an e-mail to query him further. The other interesting source was posted from SyriacMusic.com, quite an amazing site. You can see the Syriac text for various hymns and liturgical chants, as well as listen to them as mp3 files. What was interesting for my dissertation is that on the evening of Palm Sunday, a special ceremony takes place called 'Nahiré' also known as 'Reaching the Harbor'. The priests/deacons walk around the sanctuary with candles, they read and discuss the parable of the Ten Virgins, and reflect on death. They also chant about 'knocking at the door' which is a theme in Macarius as well. In reading these texts, there is a connection between 'reaching the harbor' and death. For Macarius, dying and passing into Heaven is one way to attain the harbor of rest, but he also teaches that this rest can be experienced, albeit incompletely, in the present. The body will not attain Rest until Heaven, but the soul can begin to experience it now. Rest is incomplete here as Satan will continue to attack while we live on earth. My next step is to read Jacob of Sarug's homily on Palm Sunday as I'm wondering if it will cover any part of the harbor theme.

This afternoon, I'm going to see a French film featuring Kristen Scott Thomas entitled 'Il y a longtemps que je t'aime'. This can be translated as "I've loved you for a long time" or as one blog posted "more accurately as "I have been loving you for a long time". It's about two sisters who are reunited after at least 15 years' apart. The older sister played by KST has spent those years in prison for a unspeakable crime, unbeknownst to her younger sister. Apparently, there are some interesting themes such as: is it possible to change one's life, the nature of sisterhood, the strength of women, and more that I look forward to discovering this afternoon.

Going back to church

Our family hasn't been able to attend worship since before Thanksgiving, although we did get to witness the Nativity Pageant at my home church in Ohio on Christmas Eve. So this morning feels special as a chance to worship with our regular church family at Crossroads. Our church is going through some big transitions, in the middle of the search for a new senior pastor, and just beginning the search for an interim associate pastor as one of our associates left at the end of 2008. Some members left after our senior pastor left and some will probably leave now that one of the associates is gone. But that's okay. I want to go to church in the spirit of the following quote, focusing on inner transformation that will lead to outward transformation.

"Strive as well as you can to enter deeply with the heart into the church reading and singing and to imprint these on the tablets of the heart." Abbot Nazarius

This coming year of 2009, I want to become more active in our local church, finding some new ways of service. It's an exciting time for Sarah's faith too. She's been asking me what 'grace' is, we've discussed commandments, and other interesting topics. Her growth makes me grow as well.

Organizing my Dissertation

This morning, Sarah woke up just before 6 am, ate some string cheese, and then we went back to bed. I couldn't sleep as thoughts of my dissertation spiraled through my head. One of my goals for the immediate future is to improve my outline. I started with an outline that was approved by my dissertation committee. After the first two chapters were written, my director recommended that I base the entire dissertation on an expanded version of the second chapter. This fall then I fleshed out the original chapter, forging a new document of five chapters, bringing the page total just on 'Macarius' view of Rest' to about 50 pages. Then I attended a dissertation seminar that encouraged me to take all of the data I've compiled so far and try to look at it from a fresh perspective in the hopes that a more original thesis might emerge. I worked hard at this approach and decided the dissertation would be more meaningful if I looked at 'the place of Rest in the theology of Macarius'. Once I made that decision, I started writing again using a new outline. Now I have about 20 pages of writing from the new outline and 50 pages from the old outline. This morning, I worked at integrating the two outlines. I didn't get very far, but I did see that while it will be take time to integrate all of this material, it will be possible and it will make the project more organized. I found a quote online saying that we're in a world of information overload and unless the material being presented is in a logical, coherent form, it will not be helpful. I'm convinced that the topic is worthwhile, so now I need to take the time to make the details of the topic more approachable. Professor Corliss, from Marquette's Engineering Department, has a webpage that discusses about the dissertation outline as an engineering specification. I found his remarks about 'scope creep and schedule slip' very helpful:

If you are writing an MS thesis or a PhD dissertation, the Graduate School requires an outline. For a dissertation, EECE Graduate Student Handbook requires a proposal. You might be able to get away with doing these near the end of your project, by I strongly recommend you complete them early and that you complete them well.
Why?
#1 Project management. A dissertation is an engineering project, and it benefits from being managed like one. The risk of scope creep and schedule slip is VERY high. No one would consider undertaking a 1-2 year engineering project with a two page Statement of Work, but that is what you are doing. The cost to you of a loose plan is surely AT LEAST an extra semester of lost income, and probably more.
#2 Specification. Related to #1. No good engineer would undertake a 1-2 year project without a clearly specified acceptance test. How will you and your client (your committee) know you are done? Without a tight specification for the output, it is likely that you do work that turns out to be unnecessary, and it is likely that the committee will add scope (work) beyond what was originally intended. The cost to you of a loose project specification is the possibility of committee members continuing to ask, "Yes, that's good, but now you need to do this too."
#3 Protection. You may know colleagues who thought they were done, but one committee member or another kept insisting that they add one chapter after another, resulting in MAJOR delay in graduating. If you have a tight specification, and everyone on the committee agrees in advance that if you do what your plan says, we'll call it a degree; and you DO what your plan says; then it is a little harder for a committee member to demand more. A good Statement of Work protects engineers from unreasonably demanding clients. The time to agree on a Statement of Work is before the project begins.
The above is borrowed from this website: http://www.eng.mu.edu/corlissg/Advice/thesis_outline.html

One of my high school friends who finished his Ph.D. recently believes that one of the keys to finishing is good project management skills. He developed these skills in part through a consulting job. This will be my focus in the next few weeks, developing a clearer, more logical outline, writing a detailed work plan, and writing five days a week, 15 minutes or more on Mondays and Fridays, and longer stretches on Tuesday through Thursday when Sarah's in daycare. The fruit will come!