And you think your connection is slow...Love it!

Tuesdays are by far my longest day. I have three hours of Gospels in the morning with an hour break in the middle for chapel. Reformed chapels are interesting, very liturgical with a hymn, a responsive reading from the Psalms, a 'Pastoral Prayer', then one of the professors preaches. Nothing groundbreaking, but not bad. Then I spend the afternoon doing homework. Today was gorgeous autumn weather so I took some books out to the park. I tried a new park today and about 3:30 a ton of people came for a jr high cross country meet, so much for my peace and quiet. Then it's back to school in the evening for my three hour Systematic Theology class. Fortunately they invented laptops. If I was gonna try to keep up taking notes for these lectures with a pen and notebook, I'd be toast. But this is great! I can set up my laptop. They give us Word docs of all the notes ahead of time. It's a beautiful thing. How did I ever survive college without this stuff? Anyway, glad my longest day is over. The rest of the week is a breeze from here.

Today deserves two quotes:
"You can't believe everything you hear on the internet. That's how World War I got started."

"I'm an eternal optimist. You could bury me up to my neck in dog crap and I'd be like, 'At least my heads not under!'"

How's that for a welcoming party! Did anyone else remember that this is a New England team that doesn't lose back to back games? Apparently no one warned Matt Ryan and Co. I must say, I was pleased with how much our "weak" points flexed a little muscle this afternoon. How about that defense shutting out the likes of Matt Ryan and Michael Turner for the whole second half. They made some great third down stops and took Tony Gonzalez completely out of the game. Not only that, but when was the last time we had a 100 yard rusher, and who said Fred Taylor was too old? The supposed "strength" of our offense, the passing attack, still wasn't firing on all cylinders, but Julian Edelman had a fair share of grabs for a rookie and Randy Moss is still...well, he's Randy Moss. It's a little frustrating that everybody expects unbelievable feats from this team. Sure they rewrote the record books in 2007, but that was a different team. Some sports writer was saying that Brady's biggest competition these days is his own myth. If everybody's going to expect this team to be the 2007 offense with the 2004 defense, then they'll be sadly disappointed. For all those whining about missing Rodney Harrison or Teddy Bruschi...Get Over It! This is a different team. A different defense, and a different offense. They'll get things done, but they'll do it their way. And after three weeks, maybe they're still figuring out what their way is. So all I have to say is thumbs up for the win, but there's still plenty to work on for next week.

I went over to Freedom Park for the Festival in the Park with Jeremiah this afternoon. The weather was not too cooperative for shooting photos but I managed to catch a few good shots. You can see some more over on my flickr page. This silver painted guy near the Youth talent stage reminded me of Andrew Cass. We also stopped to listen to a teen singer/songwriter playing an acoustic guitar. She had a very mature voice and playing style. Maybe she'll get big and I can say I heard her way back when. There were lots of great photography exhibits, painters, homemade pottery and jewelry, plus lots of fair food and games. The clouds were flirting with rain all afternoon and finally let loose as we were driving home. A little damp and well exercised it was a nice break from the books.

My Statue of Liberty photo was chosen to be a part of the New York City sightseeing guide on Schmap.com. It's certainly no major publishing accomplishment, since there's about a million other photos on there, but it's fun to see my pics getting a little face time. You can check it out here.

I realize I haven't posted any pics from our new pad yet because I figured I'd wait till we'd gotten a little more settled in. Well, as you'll see there's still a long way to go, but it's getting there. There's still boxes of books waiting for shelves and suitcases of clothes waiting for a dresser. But I did manage to find a cheap desk and bed frame from Goodwill, so it's coming along. So here you go, a work in progress:

It's sad when you've watched a team long enough that you know they're gonna lose when they walk away with 9 points in 3 trips to the red zone, of course that's easy to say in hind sight. But that's not the only factor that led to today's loss. First of all, ELEVEN penalties for 89 yards! I don't remember the last time the Patriots had eleven penalties. You just can't do that and expect to win a game. Also, they say you don't know what you got till it's gone, well everyone in Patriot nation now knows what they got in Wes Welker. I'm sure Joey Galloway and Julian Edelman were trying their best, but there's just not the chemistry with Brady. When you have the kind of pass rush they saw this week you have to release the ball quickly and to do that you need good chemistry with your receivers. Speaking of the pass rush, Sanchez had ALL DAY to pass the ball while Brady was getting tossed to the ground almost every play! Everybody's been talking about the NY blitz all week, but they had no answer for it. This is gonna be a loooong season for Brady if he spends half of it on the ground. And it's gonna be a loooong season for the defensive backs if we can't get any pass rush from our D-line. And last but certainly not least, do we have a kick coverage team? Or maybe they just thought it was a good idea to give up 30+ yards and great field position everytime. When the kicker is in on the tackle, you know there's problems.

I'm sure no one would be surprised to hear that with 5 and half minutes left I was as confident as Brady in a collapsing pocket that the Pats would somehow come out with a win. I've been watching this team long enough to know that if you let them keep the game close, they'll find some way to win in the end. And sure enough, when the Bills kick returner thought he was helping run the clock out by leaving the end zone, he should have known they'd be ball-hawking to force that fumble that turned into the winning touchdown. So while I'm pleased to see that we haven't lost the swagger or the ability to play games all the way to the end, there are a few things that are a bit concerning.

In reference to my previous post on work and play, this morning I went to hear Dr. Wayne Grudem teach a lecture series about "50 factors within nations that lead to sustained economic growth or continual poverty." Point #15 dealt with the idea of work. He suggests that in nations with sustained economic growth "honor is given to productive work. The 'ideal' life is thought to be a life of joyful productivity that benefits both oneself and others." By contrast, in nations with cycles of sustained poverty "work is viewed as a necessary evil....The 'ideal' life is thought to be a life of ease, simply enjoying oneself and one's friends, never having to work again at a productive job." Is that not the direction that our very own culture is heading? Don't most people today want to get the most money for the least amount of work? We no longer hold to the idea that our work is making a valuable contribution to society. We no longer work as "unto the Lord." I fear this is dangerous water into which we're treading where our culture work ethic is concerned.

Ok Katie, allow me to teach you about being a good, knowledgeable fan. First of all, I would expect you to like the Steelers, obviously, you're from western Pennsylvania. So I don't question your character or like you any less because you like the Steelers. I also don't dislike you because you don't like the Patriots. Obviously, any good Steelers fan shouldn't like the Patriots because we always beat you in the playoffs. It's a rivalry. If you didn't dislike the Patriots then you would not be a very good Steelers fan. Therefore I respect you as a Steelers fan, that you're a good fan for your team. That said, you should respect me for being a good fan of my team by not liking their rivals. You follow?

I went to a new church today called Nexus. It was a pretty cool, inner-city church in Uptown Charlotte (for some strange reason they call their downtown "Uptown"...southerners). The pastor is a missionary to America from Zimbabwe so again, very cool accent. In his sermon today he brought up some very interesting points about the divergance our culture has made between work and play. It made me think about the overwhelming priority we've placed on recreation. It seems like the only reason people work is so that they can go on vacation or save up money for retirement when they won't have to work. We're always trying to get out of work. Just think of how often we're encouraged to take a sick day or a long lunch. Adventure trips and once-in-a-lifetime experiences are now a dime a dozen. They tell us to "Sieze the day" and "Grab life by the horns."

But take a look at the apostles. Those guys were tireless in their work. Everywhere they went they were sharing Jesus with people. And the church fathers, some of those guys we'd call crazy for the amount of time they put into praying over their ministry. How about David Brainerd who wrote in his journal on his 24th birthday, "I want to wear out my life in His service and for His glory." And he did just that ministering to the Native Americans until it cost him his life just five years later. But above all, it was Jesus who said, "My nourishment comes from doing the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work."

For those like me who are always on the look out for new music to spin, I thought I'd drop a few suggestions that I've been enjoying lately.

"Whenever I need to do some serious thinking, I go for a walk in the woods....There are always a million distractions out here!" ~ Calvin & Hobbes

The advantage of only three days of classes is four day weekends! Last night after class, Nate, Jeremiah and I loaded up in Nate's 15-passenger van and trucked it out to Raleigh for the long weekend. Nate's family lives there and Jeremiah has some extended family there so it works great to carpool and split the gas costs. My parents are going to a funeral up in Virginia tonight and tomorrow so it's just me and the kids running the house. No huge plans for the weekend, get some reading done, maybe some R&R. It's just nice to be close enough to the fam to hang out for the weekend.

When I told our maintenance guy, David, that I was in seminary, the first thing he said was, "Oh I'm sorry if a swore a couple times." That's the first thing my neighbor from Merrimack, crazy Bill, said to me when I told him I was a pastor. Maybe it's time I take up swearing to throw off the stereotypes.

"Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason...I cannot and will not retract anything."
~Martin Luther in response to being accused of heresy at the Diet of Worms (1521)

"If I'd get a light saber I'd seriously contemplate a life of monastacism."

The advantage for you, my reader, of following along while I'm in seminary is that you get to experience much of my learning without having to read all the books or write all the papers. This morning was my first Gospels class, where the professor brought out some excellent points about understanding the original meaning of a text. Now I'm sure you're no stranger to the idea of seeking out what the author (say Luke) was trying to communicate to the original readers (Theophilus). But in the case of the gospels, you're involved with narrative stories. Therefore you have two original meanings. First, you have the original meaning to those who were historically involved in the story. But then you also have the meaning to the original readers. For example, in Luke 9:23, Jesus tells the disciples, "If anyone would come after me he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me." At this point in history Jesus had not died yet (obviously) so to his disciples the cross would be considered a criminal's torturous death. However, by the time Luke had written this passage, the original readers (and all those after them) already knew of Jesus' death on the cross, so his reference to 'taking up our cross' would have been a glaring reference to the cross of Christ and added a whole new level of meaning. So the original meaning is two-fold, first to the historical audience, and second to the reading audience, but both are still the original meaning. So in our interpretation of narrative in the Bible, it can help add to our understanding of the text if we take into account what the original readers knew, but the historical audience didn't. Pretty basic, but pretty cool.