Seminary Fruits in the Practical Life
by Jared Coady
After one year in the Christian Community Seminary Distance Learning Program, the call to priesthood had grown in clarity within my soul to the extent that not joining the seminary seemed unthinkable. As the first trimester of the newly formatted Hybrid Knowing Christ program now draws towards an end, I am able to share how the opportunity to continue to work, even as I begin my studies, has had a profound effect on my life and the lives of those who I serve in my life as a Waldorf Class Teacher, mentor, and community builder in the heartland of the United States.
I am humbled and surprised to have discovered in the process of my learning this trimester that my relationship to archetypes was not nearly what is needed in an education that seeks to help uncover what is truly human in the students. Biblical studies have brought increasing clarity of what a King, Warrior, Mother, Father, or Priest truly is. The relationship to these and other essential activities enlivens my work with the children, as the stories I share daily now surge with more of the true life that resides behind the images. I am better able to counsel parents in their fathering and mothering activities, because I know better in an archetypal sense what a Father or a Mother truly does. Finally, when I don't know how to help one who suffers, I feel that I have full permission and support, through and with Jesus Christ, to "suffer with.”
The Immaculate Conception
by Pinturicchio Bernardino
The Solar King and the Lunar Queen Meet from the book Splendor Solis
(English: "The Splendour of the Sun")
Published in 1582.
I know without a doubt that the blessings of the seminary are pouring through me and into my community, mostly unbeknownst to the recipient of the blessing. The above examples are just a few broad strokes of how my first three months in the Christian Community Seminary have borne fruit.
Our Author: Jared Coady
Jared currently lives in Norman, Oklahoma where he works in community to co-develop a first grade school based on the principles of Lifeways North America. Over the past two decades he has also worked as a Waldorf class teacher, subject teacher and in school development in Taichung, Republic of China; and in Lawrence, KS; and Miami, FL.