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This past Thanksgiving marked the first time in about five years that we didn't visit family in Connecticut. I spent the three days of Thanksgiving break catching up on reading for all of my classes. In particular, I spent a good deal of time reading Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion --a real page turner. Actually, as far as theological treatises are concerned, Institutes is quite an interesting read. First of all, the scope of the work is expansive and truly systematic in nature. Second, Calvin also manages to go into great depth. Third, while Calvin owes much to Augustine, he also is unafraid to point out perceived flaws in Augustine's theology and carve his own unique path. What I find most impressive, however, is how contemporary he sounds. Maybe I have an excellent translation (McNeil), but Calvin's theology strikes me as being very easy to grasp. He doesn't create his own vocabulary as so many philosophers do. He deals in flesh and blood, nuts...

Seeing as today is probably the last day of the year in which the temperature will reach 60 degrees, I took advantage of the weather and went for my longest run in the longest time--exactly 8 miles. I ran to the Princeton University campus, which because of its primarily Gothic architecture feels more like a seminary than the seminary campus. There aren't many things prettier than a centuries-old college campus on a cool autumn morning. Nor are there many things cooler than Endomondo, the running app I downloaded for my phone. With it I can keep track of my overall time, distance, pace, and mile splits. I'm not setting any records--in fact, I'm running about 3 minutes per mile slower than I ran in high school--but running against my previous times (each workout can be saved) provides incentive. Running was also a way of postponing finishing my church history paper on Anselm and Aquinas. After spending much of yesterday working on it, the conclusion was all I had left to...

Choosing courses for the next semester is like browsing through seasonal clothing catalogues a season in advance. It's the middle of November, but I'm already course shopping for the spring semester. Here's what I filled my bag with: Intro to the New Testament (required) Speech Communication II (required) Presbyterian History and Theology Theology of Karl Barth Theory and Practice of Pastoral Care I decided on Presbyterian History and Theology only yesterday. I was hoping to take either Survey in Reformation History or God in the Old Testament instead, but their scheduling conflicts with Speech II, which I was placed into automatically based on my current Speech I class. Then again, if I'm going to take this Presbyterian theology seriously, I ought to confess that I was predestined to take Presbyterian History and Theology.

As part of my internship at Pilgrim Church, which began last Sunday, I preached my first official sermon today...to 2- and 3-year-olds. The topic was God's promise of Isaac to Abraham and Sarah. I had one goal and one goal only: to convey to them the idea of a promise. When I merely observed their worship service last week, I saw how excited they were to receive stickers at the end. In a stroke of genius, the children's pastor had me hand out the stickers so the kids would warm up to the impossibly tall white man (the kids are all Korean) who towered over them (even seated), and who probably seemed a bit scary. I began this week by promising that I would again give them stickers at the end of the service, which I then sealed with a pinky promise and thumb stamp. I'm pretty sure that gesture crosses all cultures. Just like I pinky promised to give them stickers, God pinky promised with Abraham and Sarah to give them Isaac--that was more or less the idea. I also made use ...

In a sign of how much my world has changed, I saw a headline in The New York Times this evening that referenced the midterms. I fully expected the article to be about college students struggling with the pressure of midterm exams. My midterm results came in: Early and Medieval Church History (A), Old Testament (A-). I'm actually more excited about the OT exam, which had the entire junior class stressed leading up to it. The day before the exam we had a review session with our preceptor. His first words were, "When you get the exam tomorrow, don't panic." Panic was not an emotion I expected to feel, until that is, he advised against it. That burgeoning sense of panic increased when, moments before we received the exam, a random student, who was not in the class, approached the eraser board and wrote, "Remember who you are and whose you are. Blessings from the middlers and seniors." The exam was challenging but not overwhelmingly so. I finished with about...

This past Wednesday I shared dessert with my randomly assigned peer group at the home of a professor. The idea is for a small group of first-, second-, and third-year students to gather and share experiences about seminary life. The professor serves more as facilitator than adviser. I don't remember how it came into the conversation, but at some point I referenced the Gong Show and suggested that it was a forerunner of American Idol. I thought it was an astute observation, but the reaction of more than one student was, "What's the Gong Show?" Are you kidding me? Chuck Barris? Jamie Farr? The Unknown Comic? Her words rang in my ears like the clanging of a gong proclaiming the generation gap.