Seriously?

I am told that I am becoming too serious. My critic says that my blog posts have lost what little humour they ever had. I apparently can’t tell a story without sharing the sermon that goes with it. I never thought that I was a really funny guy, but obviously, whatever funny there was must have taken the other fork in the road when I started toward seminary.  I remain, apparently, humourless and boring (she claims she never said boring).

This accusation is bothering me just a little bit. I’m not sure its even fair and likely in some way hormone induced. Sure, you won’t hear me laughing out loud very often anymore when reading a book. A Theology of Public Life by Mathewes doesn’t have very many good one liners. Most of the people I hang around with at seminary are pretty serious, nose to the grindstone, types. We laugh sometimes, but outsiders might not get the jokes. My consulting customers, of course,  are another sort all together and like to laugh, but I need to keep my professional sense about me and telling too many funny stories can ruin one’s credibility.

My new study partner, Liia

So, today I got a study partner. She will help me to not take myself too seriously. She knows when to put her work down and go for a walk outside. She knows the value of stretching out for a good nap, often. She values loyalty and knows who the important people are in her life and what things are important as well. She’s had a bit of a problem with Hebrew, and is having a hard time figuring out what Augustine was really thinking, but, she will make a great pastor because she is such a good listener.

I’m hoping that she may be able to help me with my seeming loss of humour.

Reading Week is Over

Well, its gone. Reading week is over.

I really did not accomplish  as much as I had hoped, partially because the academic world did not stop quite as much as it might have. Calvin Seminary’s reading week is this coming week, so last week still required that I keep up with readings and assignments for the online polity course from there. Its a course with a lot of writing. Mostly short case studies, but last week there were five of them.

Of course, taking reading week off from the soup kitchen just would not have been right. I was there Monday, as usual and wrote the required journal entry for the course as well.

J and I had a nice day out on Wednesday. We had lunch together, restocked our shelves at the Bulk Barn (student discounts on Wednesday), restocked the wine inventory from  the LCBO (and found some good deals from the favorite winery),

Saturday was an exhorter’s training session in Kitchener put on by Classis Huron. The day started out early,blowing the snow of the first real snowfall of the season.  Technically, Saturday is maybe not part of reading week, but it likely would have been an academic day anyway. As it was, I learned about preaching with a group of other lay preachers. The instructors were good, provocative even. It was a worthwhile day (but I need to rewrite that latest sermon AGAIN) ending with a great meal and some excellent conversation.

courtesy gofinancialaid.com

So, we head into the last six weeks of the semester. Time pressure will come to bear on the work I did not get done in the past week and it will happen. I don’t know why it, is that getting close to deadlines makes me so much more productive, but they do!

The end is in sight!! (for those with keen eyes)

Reading week

Source: UBC Film Society

Thursday, I began Reading Week. It really doesn’t start until Monday (Tuesday if you recognize that Monday was a holiday anyway), but, the end of my class on Thursday really marked the beginning of a time with no classes until Tuesday the 28th. That’s a lot of days off. It doesn’t mean I won’t be busy though, and, unfortunately, the time won’t be spent on a beach anywhere.

A number of things will come in the way of this time being totally relaxing. On Monday night I need to teach a Catechism class to the youth group at a neighbouring church. Their regular teacher is on a sabbatical trip to South America, and finding no one in their own congregation to take on the job, they decided to hire me to take it on. It’s been more than a couple of years since I taught a large youth group. I went back in my presentations and found what I had done the last time this particular lesson came up. I found out that I’ve changed since then. While I can see what I did, it was really bad in terms of presentation. So, I have some work to do on that project so that I can make a good first impression.

This will also be a week of paper writing. All of my classes have a major paper that is due in late March. They are also very demanding in terms of weekly submissions which are flowing nicely into a pattern, but the pattern is leaving no time for these larger tasks. Hopefully, I can at least get a good start on some of them.

The Church Polity course from Calvin Seminary doesn’t know about Reading Week. It will continue through the week. It is my most demanding class in terms of submissions. Last week there were four of them due totaling just over 2000 words.

Threefold consulting will take me away from my desk for at least one day this week. It will be fine though since J is working more this coming week than normal, covering holidays, and it does get really quiet in the house with just me and the dog.

Form of Subscription

I’m taking a course right now, from Calvin Seminary, on church polity. Tonight, I wrote a short paper on the Form of Subscription, the document that all office bearers in the Christian Reformed Church  sign to signify their agreement with the creeds and confessions of the church.  The writing brought back memories.

When I signed the Form of Subscription at the beginning of my first term in council, I really didn’ t know what I was signing. I’d been elected as an elder and was presented with this document, that needed to be signed, signifying my agreement with all of the articles and doctrines found in three confessions that I recognized, but had only studied marginally. I was supposed to teach about them faithfully and be ready to let my council know if at some point I disagreed. I was also supposed to make myself available for discipline if my position was found to be wanting. This ceremony took place at the first council meeting I attended accompanied by the words “you’ve got to sign this”

I looked at the document pasted in the back of an old council minute book, surrounded by the signatures of those who had been in the same position before me. I knew all the names, but one stood out, my father. I knew that he was a smart and critical man who would not have signed something he did not believe in. At the time, I knew that whatever it was that he believed about the doctrine of the church, I believed too, so I signed.

I’ve learned, since then, what it is that I do believe, and I would still sign it today.

But, I don’t sign things anymore based on whether or not my father agrees. (and should not have then either) because, about a lot of things, we no longer agree (and maybe never really did).

10,000

image courtesy http://tomsadler.blogspot.com

This morning when I checked the statistics for this blog, the total hit count was sitting at an even 10,000. I thought that was pretty cool. Such a nice round number.

The first post on the blog was back in July of 2009 and with 117 words I expressed some hopes for the future as my life was beginning to take a new direction. Since then I’ve written 211 posts and in the area of 100,000 words. I’ve enjoyed the writing and find it somewhat therapeutic.

I’ve  enjoyed the feeling that out there in cyberspace folks are finding some value in following what I write. I know that the blog has regular subscribers both on WordPress and through Google Reader. I also know that some individuals hit my home page every day, many from Ontario, but some from further away. I don’t know what draws them, but there is a feeling of community, even though it is fairly one-sided. Most of the visitors come, read, and leave, anonymously, quietly. I’m good with that, I’m glad that they find some value in what is written here.

I also know that I have friends that read what is written here. Friends who are interested in the life that J and I are living, the things we do, the struggles we face, and the journey that we are travelling.  I’m glad that you are along with us, and while you to are generally quiet in terms of leaving comments I’m always a little surprised when it talk to you and you already know so much of the story because you have read it here. You keep me honest as well, because you know who I really am. Thanks.

So, its onward to the next 10,000. My hit count has increased steadily over the life of the blog so the next 10,000 may not take as long as the first.

Thanks again for visiting. Your interest is appreciated.

Is this February?

Its Saturday, February 4 2012, and we are living through a really weird winter. I woke up this morning to a cacophony of bird song that is normal in April and May. The fields are pretty much bare and two eagles (I’ve never seen an eagle here before) are working on eating something (likely a racoon, we don’t have anymore cats) with the help of a flock of crows.

January and February in this part of Ontario usually means snow squalls, closed roads, and that comfortable feeling that comes with being stranded in your house with the wind howling all around knowing that you can just relax because no one expects you to be anywhere anyway. This morning J is out for a run. Yesterday a cyclist went by. It just seems wrong.

So, I’m sitting here beside the wood stove anyway. It will be too hot here soon. The dog is sleeping at my feet. Its uncomfortable though. Spring seems to be in the air. A time to hurry up and get going. I’m instinctively being prompted to go outside and do something, clean something up, build something, spring is here.

Instead, I think I will fight the feeling. I have tomorrow’s sermon to polish and print, a paper on political theology to write for Tuesday, maybe a nap to have.  Just to keep the pressure of an impending spring at bay, I’ll just pretend that it is winter for a few more days.

Of course, it might come back. That will be another post to complain about the weather.