Nice to be thought of...

I had a special surprise on Friday - flowers from mom and dad!

Makeshift workstation...

When you've spent hours sitting at a computer desk sometimes you just need a change.

Tidbits...

• This has been a crazy week. Two papers and an exam down, I don't know how many more assignments to go before the semester is done - I'm afraid to even look ahead too far. I know that this week I have one huge assignment due in Bible Study Tools where we have to catalogue all of the occurrences of the word "lamb" in the Hebrew, Greek, and English Bibles and then write a 1000-3000 word essay about what we've found. I think there's something like 190 verses in the English translations that have the word "lamb." Next week I have four papers due and I need to have all my materials ready to petition for admittance to the M.Div. program. AAAAAAHHHH..... I keep telling myself: One thing at a time.
• After the craziness of last week and the anticipated craziness of the next two weeks, I decided to take Friday evening off. Carrie and I went to Mishawaka to go shopping. Carrie had some things to pick up so we quickly did those things and then we decided to stop by the mall and just wander. Stepping into that mall felt like stepping into another world and I realized that it has been 8 months since I had been in a real mall! On the one hand I felt incredibly out of touch with that world, but on the other hand it didn't really bother me. Lots could be said about this but I won't get into it now.
• Spring has arrived and the mood on campus has definitely changed. People have pulled out their summer clothes from storage and the Ultimate season has begun. It's amazing to see how people come out of hiding in spring. Spring is a turning point, a season of transition from the cool, dark months of winter to the long anticipated warm days of summer. Though the weather has shifted, not everything felt so fresh and alive this week on campus. We started off the week with another faculty resignation, the 5th person to announce that they are leaving at the end of this academic year. This is a small school and it seems to have been hit hard with 2 faculty retirements, 2 faculty resignations, and the resignation of our president, all in the last six months. We are trying to talk about hope and the opportunities that these types of changes bring, but I can tell that people are starting to get weary. On top of that, it seems as though we have received announcement after announcement this week of major health concerns of students' and faculty's family members. Now, more than ever, we need to be a community of prayer.
  
• On a more positive note, we are heading into reading days the first three days of this week and then the first full week of April is our spring break. Carrie and I are planning on heading up to Manitoba on our break in April and I'm really looking forward to a little time away.
  

Two days later...

This afternoon it was 73F (22C) and I just had to get outside for a walk. I deliberately took the path that would lead me past the crocuses again and was amazed to see them just glowing in the sunlight.

Perspective: Tiny.

Here's the little one that was barely peeking through the vines on Friday.

Moments...

Every moment and every event of every man's life on earth plants something in his soul.
We do not exist for ourselves.

A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire.

We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves.

Quotes from Thomas Merton
Writer and Trappist Monk
Our Lady of Gethsemani Abbey in Trappist, Kentucky
1915-1968

Signs of spring...

A ray of hope that spring is almost here. I captured these little treasures on my camera this afternoon to share with you.

Cut off from the outside world...

At about 5:00pm last night our internet on campus went down. It was a fairly stormy day with lots of wind and rain, even some thunder and lightning, so perhaps that had something to do with it. Anyway, we didn't have any internet connection and it seemed like every time I planned on doing something that I thought didn't involve a computer I realized that I needed the internet; for example, to look up a recipe, print off a picture to colour, or watch a movie (on Hulu). I got through yesterday evening alright, but then this morning I went in to the office and tried to think of things I could do without any internet. I managed to think of a few things but I was surprised when I went to listen to my favorite radio station (CBC radio online has become my connection to Canadian news) or look up some fact that I needed in order to enter something into the database to find that I was shut out. Much of my course material is also online and I began wondering if "my internet was down" would be a legitimate excuse for not doing my homework. To think, just a few years ago I could go for days without being online and a few years before that I didn't even know what the internet was. How things have changed. Well, as you can guess, our connection to the outside world was restored once again this afternoon, so now I have no excuse not to get my work done.

(Now be honest, how many of you thought that my title, "cut off from the outside world" had something to do with a crazy Mennonite separatist movement or something? --- I thought so.)

Ignorance is bliss...

This has been a hectic week for me, made busier by the weekend class that I attended yesterday evening and all day today. I actually realized last night that I had not stopped all day yesterday - class, chapel, lunch guest, work, potluck supper, class. It was a great day and the +20C helped, but at the end of the day I was tired. I seems like almost every day this week was like that. Now it's Saturday and I have to get some meeting minutes done for a Monday morning meeting, but I plan on relaxing at some point this weekend. I'm exhausted.

Something that's come to me a few times this week is the responsibility of knowledge. I'm learning so much these days that I almost want to explode because I don't know what to do with it all! There are so many things to think about that it boggles my mind. Though I really enjoy seminary, there are days when I'm just tired and wish I could go back to not knowing. Simplicity is refreshing in this complex world. And yet I don't think I could, nor would I truly want to, ever go back.