Yesterday I forgot to include 3 beautiful things in my post, so I will do 6 today. Not because I necessarily feel like it (our Christmas tree, one of the remaining items not stolen, was thrown away by our manager to make room for his rowing machine outside our back room - what a guy), but I do think it will be a uniquely good exercise for the state of mind I'm in. I need to shift my thinking dramatically so I can be in a proper mode to fully appreciate my history reading (usually a great pleasure) and later attend a dinner. SO, here goes, 6 beautiful things.
1) A tiny patch of grass growing up through the sidewalk outside the library. It's so perfectly green and so gutsy to have grown there. I hope it doesn't get pesticide-ded.
2) High for Jan 9: 82 degrees.
3) Sitting in Galatians today and realizing that I knew as much, or more, than most everyone around me, even people who've had Greek much more recently. Turns out, smarts and (very) hard (long) work pay off when you're asked to read and translate live. And I actually cared so much about the discussion I couldn't shut up, which was largely helped by actually reading all the commentary. Turns out, once you get over the crap of translation, this stuff can be pretty fun. I felt so good I switched the class back to a grade instead of pass/fail.
4) TWO, count 'em, two free pizza meals in one day. Thank you Brehm Center for lunch and dinner will be some kind of meeting about a PBS show to be filmed at Fuller, or using Fuller people, or something - I'll let you know. I'm intrigued. Maybe I can be the token liberal.
5) Souad Massi's voice.
6) Seeing my liturgy nerd friends again. Ah, how I miss our attention to stupid details. And especially our stupid jokes.
OH, I almost forgot the most important one. I told someone about our idea to have a house near a college campus where we offer a monastic-style life to a few students. John will do the academic side - salons & guest speakers, studying books together, and reading papers/projects in progress for one another weekly - and I will do the spiritual side - daily offices, counseling, prayer practices, bible study, and so on. It's our dream. And I told someone today and she was so excited and really understood our vision. She was very encouraging with practical suggestions for fundraising and models we should look into. It felt great to meet someone who has done similar work (her house was for women in transition) and seen it succeed, and for her to think our idea is actually good and would be attractive to supporters, students, and parents alike (she thinks we'd have a waiting list).
So that's a very beautiful thing. Ah, my anger has dissipated. Thank you Lord.
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3 comments:
could non-students live in your house? cause my other half and i would be very interested in something like that. maybe we should look into going to fuller.
Actually the thought is that the house will be near an undergraduate campus where one or both of us is teaching. The original plan was that it would be more like a fraternity (but NOT like one in most ways) with a spiritual rule of life and an academic salon built in. Many seminaries already offer communal living, including Fuller, that includes taking meals together, sharing chores, etc. We haven't lived in one (they won't take our cats), though, so I don't know much about it. At many seminaries, all the students live together - and I assume that includes spouses.
Valparaiso University has a house that is striving to offer a similar program. I was a resident for two years and would love to do some work growing communities like that. Do you know of other undergradute institutions that offer intentional christian communities?
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