Advent

Well, exactly a year ago today I started my internship at San Jose Episcopal Church. It is hard to believe that so much time has gone by so quickly. In the 12 months since then, our son Joshua was born, my wife and I both quit our jobs and we packed the whole family and moved to Sewanee, TN for seminary (incidentally, I did finish my internship at SJE a few weeks after Easter).

Now I'm close to the end of my first term at seminary. It was excruciatingly difficult for the first eight weeks, but it has been wonderfully pleasant since midterms ended. There were so many unknowns and so many changes, it just took a while to feel grounded again. Life here is truly sweet and we've done our best to enjoy it. This past week Marti's mom came for Thanksgiving and we all had a great visit. I have been mountain biking two or three times a week and the kids spend lots of time outside - hiking and goofing off. We have finally found a place where we all like to worship... and believe me that is important! There are many options, but Marti and I could never agree with the kids on which place we wanted to go. Interestingly, we all enjoy the local Episcopal convent, St. Mary's, so that's where we have been attending for a few weeks now. The sisters are very nice and welcoming and the views from their clifftop perch are amazing. Anyway, it's just nice to be able to get the kids to church without resorting to WWF-style take downs.

We are just three weeks away from our Christmas trip to Jacksonville and we are all getting very excited. We can't wait to see all our old friends and spend some time at the churches we love so dearly. I have been on the phone with several Florida friends in the last few weeks and that just makes the prospect of going home that much better. We won't know our internship placement for next summer until February, but if all goes well, then we will have 11 weeks in Jacksonville starting in late May of 2010. That would so awesome.

Whenever I make a post on this "Christian Trek" blog, I feel like I should talk more about God. I think the most hopeful and useful thing to say about God and seminary is that God is in it with us. By that I mean that God, as revealed through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, is in all that we do here. I was really disappointed when I first got to seminary and discovered that we didn't have a weekly "lets just sit around and talk about Jesus" class. Actually we do have that class, but it takes place according to God's schedule. It is a class that is taught with much more humility and silence than my urban, ADHD addled brain had expected. For instance, I see God's teachings in the sincere affection that we share in this community. I experience lessons in overwhelming hospitality from every person I encounter here at Sewanee. I am awed by the incredible good work being done on shoestring budgets by the small local charities. I was even schooled today at the convent, when one of the quietest and nicest sisters did a brilliant job leading the worship service - wearing her collar. This is a woman that I have known since the beginning of the term, she is in two of my classes, but I had no idea she was a priest. Please understand that I have been planning to wear my collar 24/7 - for the first 2 or 3 years following my ordination... so the thought of someone not "showing off" their clerical and scholarly achievements is a real blow to my desire to inflate my own ego. Clearly there is a "Jesus" class at Sewanee, but don't bother trying to study or be on time for it...

peace,

Jon