One last thing.
ABD. All But Dissertation. I began this blog a week after I had defended my dissertation proposal and could finally claim those three little letters. From the front side of all those requirements—coursework, language exams, preliminary exams, proposal, and two oral defenses—they seemed like staggering obstacles. On this side of them, however, with most of my dissertation still ahead, they look like mole hills. My dissertation sometimes feels like a tall mountain the top of which I can’t see, but that I am, nonetheless, expected to climb. I mean that in both a positive and a negative sense. The cartoon below, by Dave Walker of cartoonchurch.com, communicates some of the negative sense in which I feel it:
Sometimes, when I see the mountain, writing a dissertation seems like chasing a bare outline stretching endlessly into the distance. Following that horizon feels like a meaningless endeavor, with no finish line in sight, utterly stripped of its grandeur and beauty. When I consider all the reasons I have to finish my dissertation, it feels like someone has blocked my view of the real mountain I’m climbing with a false image of line peaks, just like in the above cartoon. One peak bears the label, “no more fees.” Another has, “job eligibility,” and the next, “freedom to do whatever’s next.” The text on those peaks is just as bare and lifeless. The words represent real goals of mine, but held up as reasons to write, they prove shockingly uninspiring. They also falsely represent the real object of my pursuit at present.
I am writing on the New Testament book of Acts of the Apostles. Acts may well be the best adventure story in the whole Bible. The Holy Spirit animates this story with fire, new language, bold proclamation, miracles, healing, martyrdom, preservation amidst shipwreck, and trials before councils and kings. Reading Acts affords a vivid encounter with the Holy Spirit’s living presence on earth. What could be better? What I learn through reading Acts and writing about it excites me tremendously. I imagine Acts and my work much more truthfully when I think of a trek into the Grand Tetons rather than a flat, illusory line drawing. I imagine my work actually looks a lot more like this:
These mountains indicate the positive sense of the cartoon: writing a dissertation worth writing does resemble a mountain-climbing adventure, but the quest is not inherently and irrevocably fruitless and dull.
Another cartoon, this one from Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis, illustrates how other incidentals can rob good work of its joy:
So a dissertation is not a marriage, but both usually begin with at least some passion. And they are both for something beyond the good things that they make possible, and both require more for their meaningfulness than the daily routines and tasks that make them possible. Losing sight of writing a dissertation because one has a good topic and something important to say about it precisely names the point where the “Passionsaurus” dies. And, as in the cartoon, it dies so slowly and quietly, one hardly notices.
It’s beyond essential, so I’ve learned, to keep in view what the work is really for. One might think the labels on the cartoon peaks name the work’s purpose accurately, but such an assessment mistakes the matter. So writes Dorothy Sayers in the essay, “Why Work?”:
[Work] should be looked upon not as a necessary drudgery to be undergone for the purpose of making money, but as a way of life in which the nature of man should find its proper exercise and delight and so fulfill itself to the glory of God. … it should, in fact, be thought of as a creative activity undertaken for the love of the work itself; … man, made in God’s image, should make things, as God makes them, for the sake of doing well a thing that is well worth doing.
Doing well a thing well worth doing—that, and nothing less, should provide the foundational reason for writing a dissertation.
Ponticianus said:
Very nice, Ms Wolff, and thank you for the Sayers quote. Will you be teaching and writing this coming Spring ’14?
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Celia Wolff said:
Thank you, CM. Spring ’14 is hard to foresee, but for Spring ’13, yes, I’ll likely have a couple sections of NT; then in March will have a Weekend Course of Study OT class. And of course, yes, I am continuing to write and will do so until I’m finished!
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Ponticianus said:
I did mean Spring ’13; I saw that Dr Rowe is teaching the NT survey again. I’ll be interested to see what changes, if any, he will make from Spring ’12.
I’ve taken a page out of his and your book, and am writing my Philosophies and NT paper on Acts. I’m trying to talking about the “translatability” of Jesus’ resurrection and the “the Resurrection of the Dead,” both with Pharisees and Sadducees, but more importantly with the pagans. Of course I will have to tread into ch 17, but I’d like to look more at Paul before the Areopagus (ante Areopagum, vv 16-21), instead of before the Areopagus (pro Areopago, vv 22-31), and just at what and why the Athenians are scoffing or considering at a latter date. A real page-turner.
Of course, if you want to forward me any pages you have written on the Holy Spirit in Acts, I’m sure they would play in what is going on in my paper.
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Celia Wolff said:
So far I don’t really have a sustained study of the Holy Spirit in Acts, although I have touched on the Holy Spirit’s significance and particular points near the beginning of the book. You might find it more useful to consult William Shepherd’s, The Narrative Function of the Holy Spirit as a Character in Luke-Acts (http://search.trln.org/search?id=DUKE001694398).
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lettertodiognetus said:
This is one of my favorite blog posts of yours. I will revisit this, as I climb my own mountains…
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Celia Wolff said:
Thanks, SJ! Re-reading this helps me too. I feel so much more excited about working on it when I remember that it’s an adventure and worth doing. I hope you find ways to sustain the joy that will enliven your work too.
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