Staying in Jesusville for $12 a night

I've been in school so long I can't bear to imagine how many miles I've put on my car commuting to and from class. I'm often asked why seminaries don't offer correspondence courses. Some do. But the two I've attended don't for the most part. Despite the dents in my debit card from all those fill-ups at $3.73 a gallon, I believe that's a good thing.

Education doesn't take place in a vacuum. There's a good deal to be learned by class discussion. Hearing something in person deepens what you absorb in reading. And because Christianity is relational, learning in a classroom environment requires you to grapple with your own thoughts in light of how other people are experiencing and interpreting the material. (Not surprisingly, often quite differently than you are!)

Still, much of my education has been as a commuter student (except for some wonderful extended stays in Evanston). Now, as a UTS student in the Twin Cities, I motor in for class and then return to my abode. Said abode, however, is unavailable for these last two weeks of the semester, so I'm staying overnight in an on-campus commuter apartment. As one fellow squatter said last week, "welcome to Jesusville." And it costs only $12 a night.

I doubt I can live in our own home for $12 a night. Beyond the benefits of frugality, however, living where you learn gives you an entirely new perspective. It wrests you out of the fragmentation of "this is school, this is work, this is home, etc." It makes you feel like a participant in the whole learning thing, not just an observer or a note-taker.

I think that's why it's so important that churches need to create a space beyond a one-hour worship service for the give-and-take, the learning, the grappling, the questioning, the meal-sharing, etc. Without entering into that space, we can never really integrate what we learn with how we live.

I'm too old to go back to dorm life. But I'm heading back to Jesusville for a couple more nights as the semester ends this week. It's a good model for living with one another: be a good roomate, pick up after yourself, and bring your own linens.