Grad School

I've been seriously considering graduate school since 2003. My original intention was to pursue a humanities degree immediately upon my graduating with my bachelors. I'm interested in so many different things, and I found an ideal humanities program with a little bit of philosophy, literature, and history. But a snafu with my degree (I was one credit short) pushed my graduation back a few weeks so I couldn't get my application into grad school by the required date.

2004 was a year of transition for Lamont and I. We considered digging our heels in at Gen-Next. We seriously considered Salvation Army training college. In the end, we went job hunting. Although I wanted to enroll in grad school, building a new future had to take priority.

I also began to explore different programs -- creative writing, leadership, youth development, and communications. A few months ago I found a school which offers a MA in Spiritual Formation and am very much drawn to it.

I do wrestle with a lot of questions: Do I want to go into debt with my 38th birthday right around the corner? Am I taking a personal interest (spiritual formation) too far? What does a person do with a degree like this? But I've decided to call the admissions office tomorrow and start the enrollment process.

I look at it like this: everybody has a spark, something that really ignites life for them. For me that spark is spiritual formation. I can make that spark burn brighter or I let it go out because of neglect. I'm choosing the spark.