95!

I got a 95% on my theology essay.  All I could think when I saw the grade was that the professor must be the easiest grader ever.  I sweated through writing that essay like I haven't done in years (since law school).  I started it twice and gave up, thinking I have no idea what I am reading or what I am writing.  I'm clueless!  Then I finally steeled myself to get over my despair and just power through the thing.  I kept think of Chesterton's quote:  "Anything worth doing is worth doing badly."  I would do it even if I did it badly.  I worked through the whole thing and kept writing myself into corners.  What am I even saying, I'd wail to myself.  I will note that towards the end when I was working on it for maybe the 5th time, some clarity, some wisp of clarity began to filter through.  Not much, but some.  There was a word cap, so I had to keep summarizing my summarizing.  That does help hone in on meaning.  Finally I finished it.  Well, not really.  I didn't have any room to write a conclusion, so I just ended rather abruptly.

A week later, if you had asked me what I had written about, I wouldn't have been able to tell you.

I really struggle with comprehension.  Theology and philosophy are hard reading.  I find I have to squirrel myself away so I can read out loud to myself, otherwise I don't get what I am reading.  So many of these articles, encyclicals, etc are on line.  Some I can print off and others I can't.  I really struggle with the ones on line.  It is so hard for me to focus and absorb what is being said.  I have to time myself:  "Ok, ten minutes reading this section."  Then I have to have pen and paper so I can scribble down notes on what I am reading.  Meanwhile my eyes begin to sting and water from the glare of the screen and the force of my concentration!  When I print off the readings and read them I cover them copiously in underlining, circled words, comments and questions in the margins.  And even with that effort I feel I have only absorbed the bare minimum.  If asked to articulate what I've just read, I can barely do so.  To truly get it, I'd have to reread and reread.  I could do that if I had the time or the ability to focus that much.   In truth, it is also my fault for being so distracted by politics and other worthless things.

Here's an excerpt from the reading I was attempting this morning:

The idea which represents an object or supposed object is commensurate with the sum total of its possible aspects, however they may vary in the separate consciousness of individuals; and in proportion to the variety of aspects under which it presents itself to various minds is its force and depth, and the argument for its reality. Ordinarily an idea is not brought home to the intellect as objective except through this variety; like bodily substances, which are not apprehended except under the clothing of their properties and results, and which admit of being walked round, and surveyed on opposite sides, and in different perspectives, and in contrary lights, in evidence of their reality. And, as views of a material object may be taken from points so remote or so opposed, that they seem at first sight incompatible, and especially as their shadows will be disproportionate, or even monstrous, and yet all these anomalies will disappear and all these contrarieties {35} be adjusted, on ascertaining the point of vision or the surface of projection in each case; so also all the aspects of an idea are capable of coalition, and of a resolution into the object to which it belongs; and the primâ facie dissimilitude of its aspects becomes, when explained, an argument for its substantiveness and integrity, and their multiplicity for its originality and power.

So now you get what I am talking about!  I've been thinking can I really do this all the way to a Masters degree?  I don't know.  I might really burn out.  The thing I really find myself interested in is learning more Latin and then I love the idea of learning Biblical Greek.   I do my Latin homework for fun.  Isn't that telling me something?  I do love learning about Catholicism at a deeper level but I just don't know if I am cut out to be so highly academic about it.  I'm 56.  What do I care if I actually get a Masters or not?

These feelings are probably currently being exacerbated by the fact that I have my Theology midterm next week!