It’s been quiet here. However, it may start getting louder soon. I’m intending to start posting my sermons online, so there’s no better time to start than the beginning of the new year (for the church, that is!)

Expectation, or, the End of the World as We Know It
Luke 21:25-36

I’ve never been a fan of talk about the end of the world – what many refer to as the apocalypse. I’ve never seen the movie Apocalypse Now. I always thought those bumper stickers I saw down South that said, “In case of rapture, this vehicle will be unoccupied” were stupid. I made it through one of the Left Behind books only because I had to read it for a class in seminary on fundamentalism. All those charts that presumably predict what the course of the history of the world looks like – and try to show exactly when the world will end based on the election of some world leader – just make me angry and frustrated. Every time someone asks me about 2012, I don’t think of the new hit movie or the prediction that the world will end when the Mayan calendar runs out of days two years from now, so I have to pause for a minute or two to figure out exactly what they’re talking about! And to top it all off, I’ve never been a big fan of the book of Revelation in the Bible – it is confusing, easy to misinterpret, and difficult to apply to everyday life in the twenty-first century.

But today, as we embark on the journey of Advent and begin a new liturgical year, our gospel reading from Luke puts the idea of the apocalypse before us, like it or not. It’s a strange choice, really – in that time when conventional wisdom would suggest that we should be singing Christmas carols and talking about the birth of a little child, our readings jump to the end of Jesus’ life and insist that we not yet think about the coming of Jesus at Christmas but instead think about “the Son of Man coming in a cloud” with glory and power to make all things new in the kingdom of God. When we begin what one of my friends from seminary calls the “month-long baby shower we call Advent,” it would seem that we should start with the baby and his story. Instead, we look today at the end times as the season begins, remembering first and foremost that the coming of Jesus at Christmas was only his first coming – and so we should be expecting another one!

Rather than jumping right into the story of the first coming of Jesus, our readings for this season begin with one of Jesus’ teachings near the end of his life, just before his arrest, a passage often referred to as the “little apocalypse” where Jesus talks about the days beyond his life on earth with his disciples. Expectation seems to be the key word here – Jesus speaks of signs and fears and forebodings that should not be a surprise but rather should be expected along the way. And then at an unexpected time, when the powers of the earth and the heavens are shaken, he promises that “‘the Son of Man [will come] in a cloud’ with power and great glory.” Surprisingly, though, Jesus insists that these things are not to be feared – instead, he suggests, “Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” Just because these signs are not feared does not mean that they should be ignored – just like it is clear that summer is near when the fig tree sprouts its leaves, so it will be clear that the kingdom of God is near when all these signs and portents and shaking take place. But just keeping our eyes open in expectation is not enough – Jesus insists that there is more for us to do to get ourselves ready for this day ahead. “Be on guard,” he says. Don’t let the worries of the world get you down so that you aren’t ready for the day that is sure to come. Keep your eyes and ears and hearts open for what God is doing, ready to avoid the pitfalls sure to come along the way so that you won’t have to worry when the time for the kingdom of God is upon us.

Jesus’ message here is not quite as harsh as some of the apocalyptic messages in other places in the Bible that tend to bring us fear and uncertainty, but he still gets at the core of them: we need to expect that the world as we know it will come to an end. From Jesus’ perspective, there seems to be little for us to fear – judgment is not the main point of all this that he is describing. The reality is that the apocalypse is not so much to be feared as it is to be welcomed. In it, Jesus insists that our “redemption is drawing near” and things will finally change. These days ahead are not primarily about how the world gets split into “us” and “them” – “us” who are “saved” and “them” who are not – but rather about the coming of salvation for all. These days ahead are not about the destruction of all the world but rather about the end of all the things that distort God’s goodness and disrupt God’s intentions for our world. These days ahead are not about things that matter only when the end comes but rather about the revelation of what God is doing now to make all things new once again.

At the core, that’s what all this apocalypse business is about – the Greek word that gives us “apocalypse” is best translated “uncover” or “reveal,” and so the days ahead promise to be the revelation of something new, God’s work of revealing what God is up to. That’s what Advent is all about – waiting for the new things God is revealing even now in the world, watching for reminders of God’s presence every day, expecting that God will reveal Godself once again at Christmas and beyond, and preparing for the fulfillment of all these things in the kingdom of God that is being revealed even now. But in the midst of our waiting, watching, expectation, and preparation for Christmas, we must not forget that there is an even greater revelation ahead, and our eyes, ears, and hearts must be open to perceive it as it is revealed in our world. As Jan Richardson, an artist, blogger, and United Methodist minister, puts it:

“In the rhythm of our daily lives here on earth, Christ bids us to practice the apocalypse. He calls us in each day and moment to do the things that will stir up our courage and keep us grounded in God, not only that we may perceive Christ when he comes, but also that we may recognize him even now. There is a sense, after all, in which we as Christians live the apocalypse on a daily basis. Amid the destruction and devastation that are ever taking place in the world, Christ beckons us to perceive and to participate in the ways that he is already seeking to bring redemption and healing for the whole of creation.”

Practicing the apocalypse is hard anytime, but in the buildup to Christmas in our culture it is nearly impossible. It’s nothing about a shift to saying “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas” – the reality is that Christmas was taken over by our culture a long time ago. In all the trappings of the season – in all the decorations, carols, and the like – there’s almost nothing left of this radical message of revolutionary redemption and healing for the whole of creation. But God’s new thing still beckons us to join in. We must stop just going through the motions of the holiday season and start paying attention to the wildly transformative message of these days. We must stand up to our world’s insistence that Christmas begins the day after Halloween or Thanksgiving and ends on December 24 and instead continue it to Epiphany on January 6 and beyond. We must turn away from the preparations for all those parties and other celebrations and instead prepare the way for the incredible, transformative gift of God coming into our midst in Christmas – and the day of the kingdom of God that is still yet to come but beginning to come about even now.

My friends, it is time to start waiting, watching, expecting, and preparing for the end of the world as we know it – not in 2012 or any other particular date, but when the fullness of time has come, and maybe even in our midst. You see, in these days, if we expect to see only what we have seen before, then we will see exactly that, but if in this Advent season we open our eyes to the possibilities of what God can and will be doing in the days to come, then we might just see God revealing something new before our very eyes.

These are hard things for us to do in these days. Even if we choose to buck the major pressures of the world, there are some obligations it would seem we must still keep. We just can’t skip some of those Christmas parties. We still have to get and give gifts for some people. And so often we feel that we cannot deprive our youngest friends of the joys of this season.

Even when we can’t give up everything about the world’s Christmas we can do a few things to change our own. One online movement known as the Advent Conspiracy suggests four steps that I’ll repeat here. First, worship fully. Don’t miss out on the opportunities in our life together to focus on the real reason for these days. A great way to step into this is to join us on Thursday nights this Advent for our Advent prayer services in the style of the Taizé Community in France, where we spend the better part of an hour in quiet music and prayer, stepping away from the pressures of the busy season to recenter ourselves in the life of the one whose first revelation we celebrate in these days. Then, the Advent Conspiracy suggests that we spend less. Americans spend an average of $450 billion each Christmas. Yes, a little push of spending might help our economy this year, but is that what this season is really about? What if we bought just one less gift this Christmas, or perhaps looking for other ways to give that might be even more meaningful than that high-priced gadget or that beautiful new sweater that will get worn only once? If that wasn’t enough, the Advent Conspiracy points us to give more, to give time to family and friends in the midst of a busy season or talent to an organization in need. A group of my friends on Twitter and Facebook took up this cause on Friday and gave over $2200 to organizations and causes we care about. And in all these things, the Advent Conspiracy suggests that we love all. In worshiping more fully, in spending less, and in giving more, we embody God’s love in Jesus Christ that comes among us at Christmas, reaching out to those who are most in need and living in the way of love that Jesus began in his own life so that that love might be revealed all the more in our midst until the kingdom of God comes.

As we journey together in this Advent season, may we be filled with expectation like the children of God – expecting the things that God is preparing for us in the same way that we once looked forward with great excitement and joy to opening those gifts on Christmas morning so that we might be ready to receive the incredible gift of God in Jesus Christ this Christmas but also be ready to recognize the coming kingdom of God – the end of the world as we know it! – when it comes in our midst so that we might join in what God is doing even now to make all things new.

Lord, come quickly, and make all things new!

Amen.

Today is April Fool’s Day, and there are some great things happening on the web, as usual. The best I’ve seen so far is today’s Brian Lehrer Show from WNYC on GM’s New Plan (hopefully audio is coming later).

Today is also the first event for Presbyterian Bloggers Unite – on campus ministry. It’s honestly hard for me to write on this right now, as the PCUSA’s support for campus ministry is changing very quickly because of staff cutbacks that merged the campus ministry office with the youth ministry office and cut the staff who had been working in campus ministry. I’ve worked with both offices over the years, and I’m trying to be hopeful about the merger even though I have some concerns.

That said, I’m not going to dwell on the uncertainties of the future here. For me, campus ministry was a time of full engagement with the life of the church. In high school, I was very active in youth ministry programs, but toward the end of those days things changed in my home church and I felt left out. However, when I went to college, I resolved from the beginning that I would try to get involved differently, so I set out for church that first Sunday morning even before classes started. I was alone in the bathroom that morning, even in the Deep South, but I quickly found a home in that wonderful congregation.

Soon I discovered that there was more going on for college students and got involved in the Westminster Fellowship sponsored out of the church. We were never a large group, but something special was happening in our midst that could not be measured by numbers. Through time spent together, Bible study, and special trips, we got to know one another and provided a place for people to gather who were looking for someplace to call home in the midst of a campus filled with Greek letter societies, other religious organizations, and affinity groups that in some way were more about exclusion than inclusion.

During my sophomore year, I was brought on board as a campus peer minister, paid a small stipend simply to maintain the email list, make announcements, help organize events, and show up when we met. My junior year, we welcomed an associate pastor to the church who was responsible in part for campus ministry, and she helped us grow in faith even more. We even organized the first statewide gathering of Presbyterian campus ministries in Mississippi.

I also got involved in campus ministry nationally with the Presbyterian Student Strategy Team, where we organized national gatherings of Presbyterian college students for the first time in a number of years. The numbers were often small, but the things happening across the denomination, in ecumenical ministries and in congregations, always surprised and encouraged me. I also traveled to several regional events across the country to represent the team and engage with other college students about their experiences in the church.

I could write much, much more about my days in campus ministry, but I’m amazed these days by how the connections I made in those four years continue to sustain me in my ministry today. Imagine my surprise three years ago when I walked into my room at an event for new pastors and discovered that my roommate was an old friend who had served with me on PSST! I count others from conferences and events during my college years among my best friends even today.

I believe that the college years were a formative time for my ministry, and I can’t imagine engaging that sense of call without campus ministry. I pray that all of us across the PCUSA will work to meet college students where they are and make a place for them to be welcome in the church during these formative years, not so much out of fear of losing them but because we know that they have gifts to share and need a place where they can feel at home.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, perhaps long enough to make some people (including me) wonder if I’ve abandoned this venture…. but today I have several things to offer up in thanksgiving that I’d like to share. I just returned from eight incredible days of travel, and there is much to be thankful for…

• I’m thankful for candidates for the ministry of Word and Sacrament who inspire and show incredible insight into the life of faith even as they do difficult work on ordination exams.
• I’m thankful for ministers and elders who take time out to evaluate and assist those who are journeying into ministry with honesty and grace.
• I’m thankful for friends whose presence can be meaningful and grace-filled even when words are not spoken.
• I’m thankful for the connectional church that binds us together across the miles.
• I’m thankful for friends who show hospitality, grace, and generosity.
• I’m thankful for the beauty of God’s creation in nature and in human creativity.
• I’m thankful for moments when reconciliation gets lived out.
• I’m thankful for an approach to LaGuardia that gives an incredible grand tour of NYC and everything around!
• I’m thankful for safe travels, including four flights with no significant delays or lost baggage!

So, over the past two Sundays, I’ve been preaching on Romans 8. It’s been fun to approach these things as a series. This Sunday, the Lectionary takes us to Romans 8:26-39 to finish the chapter. Trygve David Johnson has a nice look at this text at Theolog’s Blogging toward Sunday.

The end of Romans 8 is definitely in my top three favorite biblical texts. It’s just incredible stuff. Now normally I don’t turn to commentaries, especially this early in the week, but today I figured I might as well use that investment known as the New Interpreter’s Bible that sits on my bookshelf. I’m glad I did. This is quite possibly the longest commentary on fourteen verses in the whole twelve-volume set — in sum, this section covers about twenty pages.

As I read, though, I found the text illuminated in such an incredible way. There’s nothing quite like this — so many passages to fill so many sermons, so many inspiring words that illuminate a text that was already inspiring to begin with. Still, the end almost had me in tears.

We paraphrase, in conclusion, the final two verses of the section. Paul has spoken, and we must speak, of the love of the one true God. This love of God calls across the dark intervals of meaning, reaches into the depths of human despair, embraces those who live in the shadow of death or the overbright light of present life, challenges the rulers of the world and shows them up as a sham, looks at the present with clear faith and and the future with sure hope, overpowers all powers that might get in the way, fills the outer dimensions of the cosmos, and declares to the world that God is God, that Jesus the Messiah is the world’s true Lord, and that in him love has won the victory. This powerful, overmastering love grasps Paul, and sustains him in his praying, his preaching, his journeying, his writing, his pastoring, and his suffering, with the strong sense of the presence of the God who had loved him from the beginning and had put that love into action in Jesus. This is the love because of which there is no condemnation. This is the love because of which those justified are surely glorified. And this is the love, seen surpremely in the death of the Messiah, which reaches out to the whole world with the exodus message, the freedom message, the word of joy and justice, the word of the gospel of Jesus.

– N.T. Wright, “Romans,” The New Interpreter’s Bible

With that said, I’m not sure that there’s much more to be said. But anything you’d like to offer would still be appreciated!

I finally ventured out last night with a couple friends to see Wall-E. As usual, Pixar brings us a great movie, and I suspect I’ll be back to see it again in the theater. It was that good. And I’m not at all a movie person!

There are so many possibilities for thinking about allegory with Wall-E: the concern of global warming, the need for personal connection, even how the world pushes off the sacred. However, there’s something striking me about Wall-E’s commitment that bears some reflection.

Wall-E is, at his core, a faithful robot. He keeps doing what he was programmed to do (and no surprise, since he seems to be running some variant of Mac OS!) Even when all the other Wall-Es on Earth stop functioning properly, he keeps going. He scavenges parts off of other broken-down robots to keep himself running, and his ingenuity is something surely beyond his original design.

But Wall-E is something more than a faithful automaton, working beyond his scheduled useful life span. He recognizes that there is more to his world than just compacting the leftover trash of Earth. He is unafraid to collect things that strike him as interesting. You might say that Wall-E has a heart (as only Pixar can give). In the end, this ability to think outside the box leads him to incredible discoveries of love and life.

I have to wonder: Is Wall-E a good model for the life of a disciple? Is Wall-E’s faithfulness to his task while recognizing the things of beauty around him something we can learn from? Does Wall-E give us a little bit of the path toward a new creation that we so desperately long for?

There are surely countless other discussions that could emerge from watching Wall-E, but this is what struck me close to home.

Like many Presbyterians, I won’t ever forget my first General Assembly. The year was 1998. I had just finished my freshman year of college, and somehow I managed to be invited to attend GA as a volunteer with the Office of Communications. I flew to Charlotte a few days before the assembly began, checked into my hotel, and ventured over to the convention center, where I met people in person I had only spoken with online.

I was immediately put to work on the project of the day: helping to set up an Internet “cafe” for those attending the assembly. Although much of the convention center was brand new, we didn’t have a high speed connection (probably because of a high cost to set it up). We set up a local network of ten or so computers, then connected it to a couple special boxes that shared four dialup connections across the network. Even the newsroom and the web editing stations were set up in this way! Most news was posted first on PresbyNet before it made the PCUSA web site. Mountains of paper information never made it on the web, at least not during the assembly.

Flash forward to 2008. I’m on vacation, not at the assembly, but that didn’t matter. From a quiet village on the coast of Maine, I was able to watch live streaming video of the plenary sessions, read along with the committee reports, and chat live with other Presbyterians from around the country. I might as well have been there, if all that mattered was the business done! The chat room Presbyterians even started proposing a new group of “Web Advisory Delegates” to be polled before each vote! Bloggers from among the commissioners, advisory delegates, and observers took time to post often, and some old stalwart publications even brought in people to blog the assembly.

The technology behind GA this year, at least from a distance, was the best I’ve seen it. Everything just worked, almost well enough for me to wonder if we need to spend the time and money to get 1,000 people together to have these kinds of conversations that we could have at home.

But having been there before myself reminds me that there’s something about General Assembly that can’t be recreated on a computer screen. The people we encounter in person show us the breadth of the church that goes far beyond one congregation, and the worship services point us toward a new song of praise that seems beyond belief. Amidst all my memories of five assemblies, the one I can’t put out of my mind was opening worship in Charlotte – 13,000 Presbyterians gathered around the Word and the Table to worship.

The GA Junkie made an interesting point in his reflections on the assembly today:

We polity wonks and GA Junkies have an insight into how God, through the Holy Spirit, works in our covenant communities through these governing body meetings and our connectionalism. We need to recognize that the roughly 2000 people here at the General Assembly represent about 0.1% of the PC(USA).

Will technology help the church to understand this work of the Holy Spirit better? Only time will tell.

So after a three-year hiatus, I’m back to blogging. Why?

1. As the three-year mark nears in Whitestone, I’m feeling a tug to engage a little more of why I do what I do while I’m doing it.
2. I’m trying to convince myself that my life isn’t boring. Other people might actually want to hear a little more of what I’m thinking!
3. I’m a little jealous of the attention other bloggers are getting these days. The Presbyterian Church (USA) just elected a blogger as its moderator. Other friends are blogging more and more. Pastors are engaging issues of importance online and not just in the pulpit.
4. I’m always interested in trying out new toys. I’ve done a couple blogs before on Blogger, so WordPress here I come!

Look to hear a little more in the coming days about what’s been going on with me.

Forty-one years ago today, three young men were killed as they sought to help others exercise their rights as Americans to vote and as humans to live free of fear. They came to Mississippi as part of a massive influx of people to register voters in a state known as a “closed society” that ensured that only a few kept their power. They came to Mississippi as young men but never left alive.

Today, one man was convicted of helping to orchestrate the murder of these three young men. He lived a life in Mississippi that sought to limit the rights of others to be human and American. In a previous trial, one juror kept the others from conviction because she could not believe that a preacher could do such a thing. Now feeble and infirm, continuing to deny any connection to the crime or to the organized hate that facilitated it, he faces up to sixty years in prison, never to walk free in Mississippi again.

Summer began today, and I think Mississippi can call it another Freedom Summer. People from around the world have come to Mississippi to cover the trial, and we have seen glimpses of a new Mississippi. This new Mississippi is like the new creation that Paul talks about in his epistles: it hasn’t come yet, and we don’t know what it will look like. We may even miss it when it comes our way, and it probably won’t be finished in time for us to see what it looks like. Nonetheless, it is coming.

Today was one glimpse of that new creation, a new world where justice and peace reign, where those who wrong others are forced to face their sin and begin the process of repentance.

Tomorrow, another glimpse of that new creation is set to begin just around the corner from the courthouse where justice was finally served today. At the Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner Living Memorial Civil Rights Education Summit and UNESCO’s Breaking the Silence Project, teachers and others will gather to talk about how to teach about these events in schools. When I was growing up, the most I ever learned about the Civil Rights Movement came from news coverage of the release of Mississippi Burning. It is certainly a sign of the new creation that people are trying to teach these things to the children of this place that remains so torn by the violence that has marked its history for so many centuries.

Pray that the new creation may come quickly into our midst in Mississippi.

Several weeks ago, I decided I would “pre-order” Coldplay’s new album X&Y from iTunes. So this morning, I got up and downloaded the songs and put them on my iPod before I went walking so I would have something new and interesting to listen to. I was generally underwhelmed, but right as I was getting ready to change to something entirely different, “A Message” came on.

Within seconds, I knew the song, and I nearly stopped walking to listen more closely. “A Message” is clearly indebted to the wonderful Samuel Crossman hymn “My Song Is Love Unknown” with the tune LOVE UNKNOWN by John Ireland, a fact only slightly acknowledged on the web (see here and here for the references I have found). Here’s my interpretation of the lyrics, since none that I have found on the web are accurate with the references to the original hymn:

My song is love
Love to the loveless shown
And it goes on
You don’t have to be alone

Your heavy heart
Is made of stone
And its so hard to see clearly
You don’t have to be on your own
You don’t have to be on your own

And I’m not gonna take it back
And I’m not gonna say I don’t mean that
You’re a target that I’m aiming at
And I get that message home

My song is love…
My song is love unknown
But I’m on fire for you, clearly
You don’t have to be alone
You don’t have to be on your own

And I’m not gonna take it back
And I’m not gonna say I don’t mean that
You’re the target that I’m aiming at
And I’m nothing on my own
Got to get that message home

And I’m not gonna stand and wait
Not gonna leave it until it’s much too late
On a platform I’m gonna stand and say
That I’m nothing on my own
And I love you, please come home

My song is love, is love unknown
And I’ve got to get that message home

Some reviewers and listeners have called this a love song, but I can’t. The similarity between the hymn and the song is striking — I wouldn’t call it plagiarism but could certainly describe it as inspiration. There are certainly elements that move the song beyond the Lenten themes of the hymn, but I find it to be a deeply spiritual thing.

The next time someone claims that Christianity is dead in Britain or the US or anywhere, I will simply point them to this song. The next time someone says that old hymns aren’t good for anything, I will point them to this song that many are already describing as a hit. It’s clearly not the age of the music that makes things good or bad — it is the depth of the spirit in it.

As I spend more time at home, I’m finding that some of my old habits are coming back. For example:

1. It’s really hard to get any “work” done at home. I try to read or do something other than watch TV or sit in front of the computer, but I always seem to end up right back here where I started. I recognize that part of that has to do with different space and having other people closer in to my space, but I still find it hard to do the reading and other sorts of things that I would have done in another space with this same amount of time.

 

2. Somewhat related to this are eating and personal care habits. I all too easily break back into unhealthy eating and excuses to not exercise while I’m here. I try pretty hard, but I don’t succeed. I’ve always had much better success when I can start from scratch and do things in an entirely new way.

 

3. I either live in my room or outside the house. Thanks to a rearranged room, I have more openness in my bedroom than I have had since I was little. However, I can’t spend much time outside of it without leaving the house altogether. I find that I have to take some kind of trip every day to keep my spirits up and simply make sure that I don’t completely lose it!

I’m simply glad this is a temporary arrangement!

While shopping for birthday cards tonight, I ran across this one that was too wonderful not to buy:

When asked to describe herself, Mille Grosler exclaims, “Toaster ovens! I’m all about toaster ovens. I love the toaster part, and then there’s the oven part. I love that. Give me a toaster oven and I can die happy.” 

Inside, the card goes on:

You’re weird. 

That’s why I like you.

Too good not to pass along!

It is HOT. I moved back to Mississippi a week ago, and who knew that summer would come so quickly? I was away this past weekend, and when I stepped off the plane at nearly midnight last night after several days in a place where I needed a jacket, I was nearly bowled over by the heat and humidity — it was nearly 80º! I have forgotten — but certainly not missed!!! — summers in Mississippi. The forecast calls for cooler weather over the next few days, but thankfully I will be getting away from here yet again on Thursday.

I resumed my walking regimen today, and I was astonished at people’s response. Granted, it was midday, but I was still the only person out walking at all. In the places where there were no sidewalks, I think the passing drivers were so surprised by my presence that most of them moved completely over into the opposite lane. I’ve been walking on streets for a couple years now, and there was something very clearly different about this. Maybe it was just the fact that I was out exercising in such dreadful heat… or maybe it was just that anyone was exercising at all. I don’t know.

Anyway, that’s life. Of course there’s more, but I have to save something to write about later, right?

We’re right in the middle of all the celebrations for commencement. Tonight was the baccalaureate service, and it was truly wonderful. Sarah Walker offered a wonderful take on it in her blog tonight, and I affirm her comments here by reference!

Everything is striking me very deeply in these times. The part of the service that grabbed me was the prayers of the people. When they are done well, they are often my favorite part of the service, and tonight was one of those times. I don’t remember how it all went, but there was a lot about beginnings and endings, and it wasn’t some trite anecdote about commencement being a beginning that you’ve heard at two hundred high school graduations. These beginnings and endings seemed more real than they have before as Mark Douglas prayed. Maybe it was in the growth I can see in myself over the last three years — but maybe it was actually in the ways in which I see that I have also stayed the same.

I don’t really understand it, but can we understand it? I don’t think I can really wish for that real understanding, but as the ending comes extremely near, lots is coming together as it never has before. Tonight I heard “alpha” and “omega” in an entirely new way, and that was unsettling — but yet comforting. I’ll have to quote Sarah, for she is more eloquent than I could imagine to be tonight:

All I needed was to hear it. Hear the promise. I needed the reminder. I have the faith. I believe the promises. I just needed to hear them. And I needed the rest of the service too. It reminded me of who I am and Whose I am. It reminded me of what is important and in Whom I place my trust and my life. It reminded me of how to live. 

It feels very strange to say it, but I’m now entering my final week at seminary and in Atlanta. It is a strange time, and I’ve become very emotional all of the sudden.

• At church this morning, I nearly lost it when one of my fellow seminary students offered the prayer of thanksgiving, as it was his last Sunday. I’ll be back for one last Sunday at Central, and I can’t imagine what kind of condition I’ll be in then!
• After church, I started thinking about what is next in the church world for me. Where will I go to church while I look for a job? None of the immediate options at my parents’ house are particularly appealing, so I’m trying to think outside the box a bit. Perhaps I can find someplace life-giving for that brief period.
• I’m starting to have my final chances to visit with all sorts of friends around here. We’ll certainly be running into one another over the course of the next week, but intentional time together is quickly disappearing.
• Three of us went out to see The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy tonight. I kinda feel like Arthur Dent sometimes, with so much of the world caving in around me, constantly looking for what I can hold on to as everything around me changes. Now if I can just figure out exactly what my “fish” would be if I were to sing “So Long and Thanks for All the Fish”!
• In general, everything just feels really strange. It is strange to see packed boxes accumulating in the room, empty bookshelves where the books have been for three years, and junk I should have thrown away years ago piling up in the trash can. I’m hopeful that it will all get done, but it hasn’t happened yet!

There’s much to be done, but I don’t feel like doing any of it anymore! Oh well… it will happen somehow.

This makes two nights in a row that I have stayed up way too late! Tonight is actually better than last night, when I got to bed at 3 AM! However, I must say that I am now running Tiger and very happy to be doing so! It’s quite fun, very speedy, and just a generally wonderful thing. The first two hours were excruciating as everything settled in, the caches were created, the Spotlight indices built, and the random software reinstalled, but after that, I have been extremely impressed, especially considering some of the horror stories I have read and heard from others.

Life is much more than the computer now, though. It is strange to say this, but I am now done with seminary. There’s nothing I can do to change this now – the only possible problem would come if a professor chose not to pass me in my final semester, which I doubt will happen. It is a weird feeling, to say the least! Even weirder is the thought of leaving behind the people here.

If you had asked me even two weeks ago if I would be sad about leaving, the answer would have been a resounding NO! But things happen…. and now I’m fighting back tears when I think about the wonderful people around me. Yeah, there are some folks whom I am ready to be away from, but I keep finding that the people who are important to me are really important to me. It’s a very strange feeling, one I have felt before, but one that I feel much more deeply now than then, and I’m not entirely sure why.

The boxes are starting to get packed, the bookshelves are getting bare, and things are just changing all around me. I’m all for change, but it’s just scary to be in the middle of it, not certain about what is next.

Friday is a big day for Mac fans everywhere with the release of Tiger, OS 10.4. Mine ordered from Apple showed up today, a day earlier than it was supposed to, but FedEx is really good with getting stuff from Memphis to Atlanta Nonetheless, there is simply too much to be done in the next week to take a chance on a complete OS upgrade, so the early arrival will sit on the shelf for a week or so.

I’m honestly amazed at the prominence of the Mac these days. This new OS release has merited mention on the New York Times’ editorial page. What a shift for a computer platform that everyone said was dead five years ago!

I came into the Mac world right before everything hit. I was at the tail end of the “Switcher” campaign but ahead of the main iPod craze. I don’t know what I’d do if I were still on a PC these days. Moving to a Mac was the best investment I have made. It cost me a bit more than it would have cost me to just get a new PC, but I am immensely happier with my choice.

One of the reasons why I switched was the alternative nature of the platform, and all this new coverage and popularity almost makes me think twice about it. I certainly didn’t choose the Mac simply because it was the uncommon choice, but the “think different” factor is certainly there. Things are simply changing very fast in the computer world, but I’m really happy where I am nonetheless.

Now back to all those papers that are keeping me from upgrading….

For some reason, I’ve decided to try blogging again. Maybe it will offer a nice new forum for letting out some of the “stuff” that gets stuck up inside sometimes.

It has been a quiet yet busy weekend. Last night was one last shot at Jazz at the High and a wonderful ASO concert. Vaughan Williams, the featured composer of the evening, is an amazing composer: he wrote some of the most amazing symphonic and choral literature of the 20th century, compiled fascinating collections of British folk music, and even wrote original hymns for the 1906 English Hymnal.

Today, I communed with Walker Percy some more and the Christian education of adults a lot more. The annotated bibliography is now nearly done – just one more book to review to hit the minimum! Thankfully, Britcoms closed the day.

Off to bed, far too late….