love Minister’s Week. It’s my recharge after the hasty start of my spring semesters. Every year Brite and TCU and University Christian Church put on a four-day event for ministers to come and gather. They have lectures during the days by great ministers and scholars in addition to worship services at night. I love it because it’s such a different pace for my nights where I can reflect and reexamine moments.

Today Belva and I went to lunch at the Spiral Diner. For those who don’t know, the Spiral Diner is a completely vegan restaurant in Ft. Worth. I had a wonderful parmesan wrap that was delicious. It was fun catching up with Belva and remembering my times in Boston and the wonderful community that I miss. It was also fun for Belva to come back down to Ft. Worth since she went to school here for both her undergraduate studies and Brite for seminary. She’s showing me that she’s another example of a great person who does wonderful ministry in a non-traditional setting who went to her alma-mater for both undergraduate and graduate studies. Hmmm … who knows!

Tonight Richard came with me to the worship service. It was great since he had no idea what to expect. After the service I introduced him to Belva and we talked with Stuart for a while. (Stuart had walked in at the end of the service because his Dad was there; no, he made it clear that he didn’t and wouldn’t have wanted to sit through the whole service). What was even better is that I talked with Sharon Beacond on the way out and I introduced Richard to her and her parents. Richard and Sharon’s mom talked for quite a while about Houston (Richard’s hometown) and I talked with Sharon and then Dottie came up and another round of introductions ensued! The best was Richard’s comment as we were walking back to the apartment: “There were SO many nice people there. They are genuinely nice. I love talking to people who aren’t in college.” In that one service (and really the time afterwards more than in the service), Richard experienced why I love South Hills so much. We talked about why we love the age diversity and how it just enriches our lives. AHHHH —- I love life! Minister’s week is great because it grounds me and refreshes my perspective on humanity!

On Friday, I had one of those Greek sessions. It was a meeting which I left feeling giddy and ecstatic over. Last semester I translated the letter to the Galatians from Greek to English. While I loved doing it, I haven’t started the revision process with Dr. Schmidt until this semester. While we’re revising my version, he’s also doing his own version for the Westar Institute’s new translation project of the Complete Letters. He was on the team that worked on The Complete Gospels and in that project, he worked especially on Mark. So, with this translation project, we’re both working on our versions of the letter. Granted, his will be published, but it’s still fun for me to see the progress on his and get some advice into different translation issues.

We spent the first half-hour of the session on Friday working on how to translate the Greek preposition when it’s used in the phrase, ἐκ πίστεως. The main problem we have is that there isn’t a great way to always translate it in English using one-word prepositions. This preposition is usually translated using ‘from’, ‘of’, or ‘by’; however, in all of these cases, those really don’t tell what the relationship is to faith (πίστεως). Simplifying it to one word just doesn’t seem adequate. So Dr. Schmidt and I did some research. Between us I think we pulled 4 or 5 books off of his bookshelf and looked at how some scholars have sorted through the issue. We decided that the relationship was one similar to ‘by means of’ or ‘on the basis of’, but those are wordy and also inadequate for the situation. He still hasn’t decided how he’s going to do his version of it, but I decided to verbalize the prepositions. I’m going to do something like ‘rooted in faith’ or ‘stemming from faith’ to give it a better description without seeing too technical or boring!

I decided to remove the resume section of my website since I don’t really want to post it for everyone to see. In it’s place I’m going to do a section on projects that I’m working on. It’ll be a great place to publish my Galatians translation as well as any other projects that I finish (there are couple in the works at the moment). That’s all for now, but wait to see the site switch in the next week (hopefully).

Today started in a little bit of a funk. We’ve had overcast skies for three days and it’s been cold (I know, it’s all relative, but going from the 70s to the 40s is a change). Today I’ve had to read the second half of a book for my Senior Seminar in Religion so I can write a paper on it on Monday. I read most of the morning and afternoon and then did 4 miles on the stairmaster. I came back and was exhausted. Luckily Michael, one of my apartment-mates made dinner for all of us, so I didn’t have make my own!

Then I got the call. Tonee Jordan, one of my awesome friends from Boston this past summer, returned my call at the perfect time. It was awesome to talk with her, even though it was a short conversation. Tonee is, has been and probably always will be, busy with theatre stuff. She was on a break from rehearsals and she called to say hi. I love it when friends do that! She also gave me some great news: her mom, Belva, is coming down this week for Brite’s Ministers week! I got to know Belva this summer, not as well as Tonee, but it’ll still be great to see her!!! Ok, now that was the perfect pick-me-up. Reacquainting with old friends is great and I’m definitely looking forward to this one.

This afternoon I went to the downtown Fort Worth Post Office to submit my passport application. I’ve had it filled out for a week, but this was the first good chance I had to take it in. There were several things that struck me as ironic with the way the Post Office and the overall system works.

First, in order to pay for the fees for the passport I pulled out my credit card. They told me that they don’t take credit cards, only checks and ATM cards. What?!? It was a good thing that I had my debit card with me too. Who does that though?!? It’s SO much easier to fake or make a fraudulent check (which I might add has a chance of bouncing) than it is to get a credit card machine to read a bogus card. Not only that, but they already have to see at least two forms of identification, so they should know if the credit card is mine or not. I’m still trying to figure out other reasons why they wouldn’t take credit card. Anyone have any?!? E-mail me — a curious mind wants to know.

The second thing that was ironic was the oath they make you take when you submit your application. They make you raise your right hand and swear that the information you submitted on the form is correct. I wonder if they have anyone say no. That’s probably in step 8 of the process, so would people knowingly go through the first seven steps giving false information only to correct it at that last one? Either way, besides the inconveniences, it was a good thing to do and the postal ladies were nice! It was fun reflecting on it while driving back to campus.

For my senior seminar the book we have to read this and next week is Ronald Grimes’ Deeply Into the Bone: Re-inventing Rites of Passage. Is the passport application process a rite of passage or a ritual? Maybe. Maybe not. I’ll have to read more of the book and see!

I began the class day at an hour I’ve seen very few times in the past year: 8AM! Yes, I’ve gone off the deep-end and I’m taking Major British Writers with Bob Frye. The day began with a scare when Dr. Frye handed out the syllabus. While the 10 pages was intimidating it looks like it will be a fun class for the semester. The scare came from his information sheet. Usually professors will have students fill out our names and contact info for them. Dr. Frye’s sheet was two pages, asking us some fun questions about our favorite and least favorite aspects of literature and the supporting rationale. I thought the first page was fun to answer as it made me reflect on the readings I’d done in the past year. The second page made me laugh out of nervousness. I can’t remember the exact question, but Dr. Frye asked us to write an essay for him (ON THE INFORMATION SHEET!!). The question resembled “Define literature and distinguish between poetry and prose and give examples of each.” Just a little bit intimidating for the information sheet! While it was a little disheartening, I think the class will be marvelous and pretty intense.

My other classes today were Buddhism, Photography, and Sports Nutrition. All three of these are going to be good; however, on Tuesdays I have them all in a row for 5.5 hours straight. I’m sure I’ll write more about them when the semester picks up, but for now, I’m getting ready for my Senior Seminar in Religion which starts tomorrow. Senior Seminar is the class which we had to do pre-reading for over the break!

… or at least it usually does! Last night was my first time back to choir practice at South Hills in over a month. I went in anxious to see the faces of my friends and was not disappointed. It was wonderful to return to the community.

Over the holiday break I watched movies with my brother Luke. One of his that we watched was Dodgeball. While it’s a little bit of ‘dumb’ humor, it has its moments. My favorite character was by far the Pirate who would randomly reply ‘ARRRR’ to anything. When we were at DisneyWorld and the family would have a little disagreement with a lot of tension, I’d just reply by saying ‘ARRRR’ and the tension usually broke.

One of our songs last night had a sea-chanty style which made many of us want to swish our arms as we sang it. And we did, even at Rob’s (the director’s) request. At the end of our last run-through of the song, before I could even think of it, one of the basses, Paul Smith, shouted ‘ARRRR’ and the whole group busted out laughing. It was perfect.

After that we sang this Irish tune with some gorgeous melodies. I forget how it came up, but I responded to someone by saying ‘Ay, Lassie’ in an Irish brogue. All of a sudden the sopranos and altos that heard it were laughing again, I started blushing, and being the only tenor sitting in the row (Tim was off to the side), Paul thought it was funny to make fun of my red face. It was good-natured and fun. I LOVE MY CHOIR!!!

There are some rides which everyone needs to do once and some that people should do more than once. Aerosmith’s Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster is one of the latter. This morning at Disney’s MGM Studios the first one I did was the best! The theme of the ride is that we’re watching an Aerosmith sound recording session and they’re late for the concert and want to take us along in a limousine following them. My brother and I were lucky enough to get the front row of the coaster. It rocked; literally! The start begins with a massive acceleration period through a tunnel of glowing lights only to darkness and then suddenly you’re flying upside down in a loop! It takes you upside down and around two more times, does some wild turns, upside down again and some more crazy turns all with Aerosmith playing through speakers behind our heads and in complete darkness save for some crazily lit neon interstate signs on the way to the concert. By the end my brother and I had tears streaming down the sides of our faces because we were going so fast and it was so incredibly fun! The one downside was that my Dad pinched a nerve in the back of his back, so he didn’t go on many more rides for the day. I think he’s doing better though. Luke and I ended up going on it a second time. The best part: we lucked out and got the front row again (in about 12 rows). We couldn’t believe it!

One of the rides which some people should do only once is Mission:Space in Epcot. It’s a simulator that you ride in that recreates G-forces resembling a space shuttle launch for astronauts. Luke and I decided to do it and when we got to the simulator the attendant (who was probably between Luke’s and my ages) asked if we wanted to even use the safety bars that come overhead. We asked her which she liked better and she said to leave them up and she’d close our simulator for us! I definitely don’t think she was supposed to, but we figured “why not?!?” The ride is 10 simulators all connected around a central axis where the speed you spin at recreates the G-forces. I figured with the spinning that we probably wouldn’t go forward. I was right. During the launch Luke and I were in marvel at the forces our bodies had on them. At the end we were sick of them. Almost literally. They had many advance warnings of the motion sickness factor, and even went as far as having disposable barf bags in between each seat’s handlebars. Luke and I never needed them, although at times we thought we might. Not only did the launch have huge forces, but in order to get our simulator to venture to Mars, they shot us around the moon with huge forces! We got out of the ride and both of us were feeling pretty sick. Luke was worse than I was, but neither of us were ready for any more rides that soon. In the end I’m glad I did it, although I don’t know that I’ll ever do it again!

We went to Animal Kingdom today and it was crazy. I loved it. I normally don’t like amusement parks or zoos because of the crowds and masses of people. Too many people around will drain my energy and crowds can just get annoying. However, Animal Kingdom was like an amusement park combined with a zoo with small crowds (at least today). We started by getting Fast Passes to ride on a Safari through the park’s African wildlife reserve. We ended up going on the safari around 12:30. I got some great pictures, but unfortunately some of the coolest animals (such as the Lions) were just laying down basking in the sun. Not very photogenic!

After the Africa section of the park, we went to the Asian one. While my parents and brother went on the river raft ride, I ventured onto the trail with the kimono dragon, tigers and bats. Plus, along the path was a bird sanctuary that we could walk through. Some of the birds were SO pretty. It was such a fun trail that when my parents and brother got off, I did it again with them!

The Dinosaur ride after that was definitely cool. Luke and I thought at the beginning that it would be pretty lame, but the last half was quite a thrill. At one of the parts a huge mechanical dinosaur comes at us and a hidden camera takes our picture. When we got out and looked at it, Luke was ducking with his head between his hands. We didn’t buy it (way overpriced), so there’s no physical evidence; but, my parents and I all saw it!

The day was a fun one and I definitely want to do Animal Kingdom at least once more in my life. We’ll see how long it is until I come back! 😉

I just got back from giving Bill the latest template for the regional web site for the Christian Church in the Upper Midwest. I created the whole original regional website three years ago and updated it for my first semester at TCU. After that, however, I became too busy and taught Bill to update it. We finally decided that we needed to have a simpler design and trimmed-up web site.

When I was getting ready to go to Bill’s I had to scrape the ice off of my car. I’d come back when it was raining on Saturday and it had definitely frozen and built up until Monday. While I was scraping, I realized how thick it was. Before I’d even finished scraping a 4×4” section, my ice scraper snapped in half! The ice scraper had an 18” handle and a brush along the handle for getting rid of the ice and snow still on the car. It was a great one. Luckily Micah, one of Luke’s friends had a better one that let me finish the job.

We’re leaving tomorrow for Orlando. The forecasters are predicting that all the way from KC to Indiana (including north up to Iowa) are going to get ice and snow. Not only a little, but a lot! We’re supposed to get 10-14”. I hope that my friends in KS, MO, IA, and IL aren’t disadvantaged too much from it. Either way, I’m going to DisneyWorld early tomorrow!