Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
This week I have been trying to stay better connected to the will of God as it unfolds in my life. This happens best in community. I am never alone, I go to class, prayer, Holy Eucharist, dinner, etc. with fellow Christians. We are all very different, but the commitment to our creedal faith is strong and so far I've not detected any relativism towards who our Savior is or why we're here. Sewanee has it's faults, but not being faithful to God as revealed in scripture and our episcopal tradition does not seem to be one of them. I am deeply thankful for this.
My wife and kids are doing well. That is important because my commitment to them came before I answered this particular call to vocation. I've heard of people getting divorced so that they could go to seminary; that seems pretty outrageous to me, and makes me wonder what call they were hearing. We live in a society that accepts marital breakdowns, but I have to doubt that God ever told anyone to give up their marriage so they could be a priest. Not sure why I needed to say that, but it is what I believe.
Anyway, things are really good here. I feel like I belong, which is vital. And I feel that with God's continuing love and help I can make it, which is also vital. When I first started mountain biking (my hobby) I could barely go a mile or two without feeling like I needed to be hospitalized. After a while, I got good enough to hold my own with most other riders my age. That's where I feel I'm getting to at seminary. I'm not setting the place on fire, but I'm not an embarrassment either.
My continued thanks and well wishes to all my friends and family in Jacksonville, Sewanee and other places. And my continued love and allegiance to God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
blessings to you all!
Jon
Friday, September 25, 2009
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Reality
Last week was tougher than I expected. We're really digging in to the books and I've had trouble keeping up with my readings. My whole class pretty much bombed a quiz in Church History yesterday. The best we can say is that it was the first quiz and now we know what the professor expects... the other classes are going ok, but Greek is getting much tougher, I'm really having to apply myself to just keep up. The trouble is that after studying much of the day you want to have a break, but then you fall behind somewhere else. I just haven't learned the correct pacing yet.
I'm also trying to help out more with the kids. Marti misses working and all of the social outlets she had in Jacksonville. The spouses of the seminarians get together a lot, but she was used to working 5 days a week and spending lots of time around other adults. Now she's mostly at home with Joshua from 8am until 3pm M-F.
I have a lot of middler and senior friends and it seems like their lives aren't quite in balance either. I hope that we get credit for trying!
Many thanks to all of you who have worked so hard to stay in touch with us. I really appreciate your encouragement and support, it means more than you know.
God bless,
Jon
I'm also trying to help out more with the kids. Marti misses working and all of the social outlets she had in Jacksonville. The spouses of the seminarians get together a lot, but she was used to working 5 days a week and spending lots of time around other adults. Now she's mostly at home with Joshua from 8am until 3pm M-F.
I have a lot of middler and senior friends and it seems like their lives aren't quite in balance either. I hope that we get credit for trying!
Many thanks to all of you who have worked so hard to stay in touch with us. I really appreciate your encouragement and support, it means more than you know.
God bless,
Jon
Monday, September 7, 2009
What it's like...
I am having so much fun it should be illegal! We start each day with morning prayer, for the last six days we have been singing and chanting, it is glorious. Then I study for until lunch and go to class in the afternoon. Each class is challenging in it's own cool way.
Today we talked about Marcion and the Gnostic Gospels. Very strange belief systems that included seven layers of heavenly revelation, secret codes and amulets. The point wasn't the weirdness of the beliefs, though, the point was that the Gnostics (and others) were successfully promoting their beliefs and so the orthodox Christians had to respond. One of the first responses was to isolate 27 of the hundreds of writings that were circulating throughout the Christian communities and set them apart as Holy Scripture. We call these 27 writings the New Testament. How neat is that!
Tomorrow we'll be in Greek. I spent the last hour (9-10pm) with my friend Josh studying the conjugation of Greek verbs. I can now say the words "throwing", "leaving" and "speaking" in Greek in the first, second and third person, in both singular and plural. This is not very cool in it's own right, but if I keep taking Greek for all six terms, at some point I'll be doing small group work on Revelations or maybe Ephesians, and that is cool. To look at a bunch of squiggly symbols and see the revealed Word in the original Greek - goosebumps!
Not everything is study. Today the kids had the day off from school for Labor Day, so we went to the dining hall and had an all you can eat calorie fest. It's lucky we walk everywhere or we'd already be a much heavier family. Marti and the kids are thriving, making new friends and staying in that nice middle place where you're always busy, but seldom harried.
Anyway, I am having a blast and I am doing the work and it is going so nice. Thanks to all our loving sisters and brothers in Jacksonville and other places, your help and prayers and support are beyond anything we could have dreamed. We miss and love you all!
Blessings and peace,
Jon
Today we talked about Marcion and the Gnostic Gospels. Very strange belief systems that included seven layers of heavenly revelation, secret codes and amulets. The point wasn't the weirdness of the beliefs, though, the point was that the Gnostics (and others) were successfully promoting their beliefs and so the orthodox Christians had to respond. One of the first responses was to isolate 27 of the hundreds of writings that were circulating throughout the Christian communities and set them apart as Holy Scripture. We call these 27 writings the New Testament. How neat is that!
Tomorrow we'll be in Greek. I spent the last hour (9-10pm) with my friend Josh studying the conjugation of Greek verbs. I can now say the words "throwing", "leaving" and "speaking" in Greek in the first, second and third person, in both singular and plural. This is not very cool in it's own right, but if I keep taking Greek for all six terms, at some point I'll be doing small group work on Revelations or maybe Ephesians, and that is cool. To look at a bunch of squiggly symbols and see the revealed Word in the original Greek - goosebumps!
Not everything is study. Today the kids had the day off from school for Labor Day, so we went to the dining hall and had an all you can eat calorie fest. It's lucky we walk everywhere or we'd already be a much heavier family. Marti and the kids are thriving, making new friends and staying in that nice middle place where you're always busy, but seldom harried.
Anyway, I am having a blast and I am doing the work and it is going so nice. Thanks to all our loving sisters and brothers in Jacksonville and other places, your help and prayers and support are beyond anything we could have dreamed. We miss and love you all!
Blessings and peace,
Jon
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