Northwoods Seelsorger

In doing just a little checking on the internet, it's interesting to see how the Warham Guild hood, which I have as part of my STM degree attire, is actually a throwback to the Medieval hood. One article notes "the work of the Warham Guild in its imaginative renderings of medieval hoods" (reference is from here ). Again, here is my hood: The Medieval hood, which was originally a very practical outer garment to cover a person's head and shoulders, protecting both from the elements, bears striking resemblance to this revived form: This hood was also a part of the garb of monks in that era. The Medieval hood, in some cases, also had what is known as a "liripipe," a long tail hanging from the back of a hood. You can see the modern stylized version of this on my own hood. From an article on "Academic hood development" we read that "By 1463 the favourite dress of doctors was the hood with round bell-shaped cape, and the lir...

It took six years in total for me to finally make it across the finish line, and twenty years from the time I took my first graduate course.  However, as of April 29 the thesis was successfully defended, and as of this past Thursday, May 26, I was officially awarded the Master of Sacred Theology degree.  I have chronicled my journey over the years through this blog, and it's nice to finally write about the completion of this process.  My first post in 2010 describes the beginning, and subsequent posts along the way fill out the journey (If anyone reading this is truly interested in the remaining posts, simply type "Nashotah" in the search box in the upper left corner). It's hard to believe that I initially registered for the thesis hours in the summer of 2012, nearly four years ago!! At my defense I had actually not been on campus since January 2014 when I spent an entire weekend researching the thesis in the library. It's been a long, interesting journey, to sa...