First One!

Met with my Committee on Preparation for Ministry last Monday night (August 16), and the Chair jokingly suggested I create a blog. This might be an easier journaling tool than pen and paper, and assuming I am sufficiently vague/anonymous, I hope to be able to chronicle my middler year at seminary for the people who care to read about it. So we will give it a try!

Upsetting news this week: a classmate of mine died. I did not know him, except on sight (I would recognize him), but I know several students who were close to him. He was 26, and it's always sad when someone dies so young. I think of his parents, siblings, and fiancee (another seminary student). We were peers in school but not in age. I read online the sermon preached at his funeral, and the idea that he is with the Lord in the Resurrection with the communion of the saints is comforting. The student who wrote/preached this sermon said the deceased student lived in denial -- denial that his congenital heart condition was a burden or an unfortunate limit to curb the way in which he lived. I thought that was nicely put.

We have college friends coming for a visit tomorrow -- kind of unexpected in that we probably haven't seen them in about 5 years. We were beginning to wonder if we weren't even friends with them any more. It'll be interesting to see what we find to talk about. They know nothing of our life now, nor do we know about theirs. My mom's most recent MRI was not good; it seems her brain cancer is returning. Not the kind of news you'd call virtual strangers to share... Not sure I will bring that up with them... Told mom on the phone today that they were coming -- she is curious to see how the visit turns out, too.

Finished reading Simon's Family by Marianne Fredriksson, and am almost done with Flame Trees of Thika by Elspeth Huxley. Good diversions, both. Almost finished with my Kenya scrapbooks -- time to clean up the dinig room table! OK, signing off for now....