Spending time with Basil

In a previous post, I talked about journaling with the masters. Part of my time journaling with the masters was spent Basil's writings. His writings are fantastic and I gleaned a lot of wisdom from his writings.

Basil was a bishop in Caesarea in the 4th Century AD. He is celebrated by the orthodox church on the 1st of January, which traditionally is said to be the day he died (more about his life can be found here). I think that it is apt that Basil is celebrated at the first of every year because what he wrote about the Christian life would be great for building a New Years resolution.

What I learned from Basil was to find solitude, reject the world's ways, and practice self-control. Basil taught that we will not be able to really focus on God's word if we cannot find solitude. We need to find quiet from time to time so that we can focus on spending time with God and his word. Second, Christians are not to live according to the world's ways. The world has many things to offer, but it cannot offer us the life the God does. Third, we need to have self-control for the times that we do interact with the world. It is inevitable to have to involve yourself with the world, but being self-controlled can keep us from taking the necessities and abusing them.

These three things stuck with me from reading Basil, I hope that they can help you in this new year. I would also encourage you to find a wise person who has gone before to mentor you. They don't have to be living, you can find a good book and learn from those who have gone before. Just find a wise person, listen to what they have to say and apply it.

Journaling with the Masters

This semester, I am taking a class called History of Christian Spirituality. The major assignment for this class has been reading Invitation to Christian Spirituality edited by John Tyson. This is a book that is a collection of readings from different Christian Writers from every century. It goes back as early as Ignatius of Antioch and as recent as Bishop Desmond Tutu. It is a fantastic read. I would warn you, however, if you decide to read it, that it is not something you just want to pick up and power your way through. It's really something that you will want to chew on.

Although it was assigned to me, I have had the privilege of reading through this book and journaling through it as well. I have spent the last two and a half months reflecting on the thoughts of Christians from the second century all the way through the twentieth century. Not every reading was easy. Some of them were very foreign to my Christian Experience because the include descriptions of visions and practices that I have never heard of or tried. Other readings were hard because they confronted my very comfortable 21st century Christianity and caused me to approach my faith in a new light.

If you haven't ever ventured into Church history, I would encourage you to try reading something from a different time period. It means that you will probably have to read something from a denomination or tradition that is not your own. It is a stretching experience, but you will be better because of it. There is a wealth of Christian wisdom waiting to be discovered in the fathers and mothers of the Christian faith.

I am really excited that my time in church history isn't over yet. My "homework" continues for the next month as I read from a spiritual master. I'll be reading from St. Basil of Caesarea and I'm sure that I'll share some of the wisdom gleaned from his writings.

I hope that you can find or have found someone who has gone before to learn from their wisdom.

Summer

Summer is officially here for me now. I finished my last homework assignment on Friday.  It was a great semester and I am happy that now I actually have time to write on the blog again and do a lot of other fun stuff.

May was really hectic for Lindsay and I.  She finished up here M.A. and graduated. Then the following Tuesday she started a new job. She's working a full time job here at LCU as an administrative assistant. Ironically, she works for the wife of the professor who I am a TA for.  We are very thankful for this job because it allows us to stay in Lincoln while I continue to work on my masters degree.  May was crazy for me because I finished up my spring semester while getting ready for my intensive class.  Meanwhile, I was trying to find some employment as well, which I did find. I am now a barista at Jamani Java in Bloomington, IL.  I was training last week and I am starting to work more regularly this week.  Even though I've worked in a coffee shop for 4 of the past 5 years, every coffee shop is different and does things different ways. It's exciting and I am very thankful for a job that doesn't end with the school year.

We're not quite sure of all the things we're doing this summer, so if you have any (cheap) suggestions let us know.  I do know one thing however, I will be doing lots of reading. Some for fun and some to get ready for this next semester.

Weekend Getaway

It wasn't really a weekend getaway, but the weather was great. Linds and I set out for Louisville, KY with 4 others to check out Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Sunday after church, we left Lincoln, and Dr. Estep drove us to Louisville. The best part was stepping out of the van in Kentucky and it was 61º. We ate at a local restaurant, and then hung out some of Lindsay's friends who attend Southern.

We got up early the next morning, had breakfast,

and wandered around campus for a while. It was a beautiful day. We met at admissions, and they took us to the cafeteria for lunch and then gave us a tour. It was a very beautiful campus and would be a wonderful place to attend. Their library has hundreds of thousands of books. While it is still a ways off. It was a nice look into what might be the future of my education. Like I said previously, I hope to continue my education with in some sort of doctoral program. It might be at Southern, it might not. It was a nice place to visit, and I had a good time.

On the way back, we swung by Southeast Christian Church. It's a really nice church, and we were able to get a quick tour of the church. The have a lot of good things going on their. They are a very successful church and it was a cool to have a sneak peak into some of what goes on during a typical Sunday morning.

That was my adventurous weekend. I hope that your weekend was adventurous as well (or restful, if you needed that).

February is over.

February always seems like the longest month in the year. Thankfully, it's over. I am thankful because hopefully it will get warmer. This is one of the first winters where I have actively been wanting warmer weather since the end of December. I think it's because this is the first winter where I am paying for my own heating bill.

This has been a short and busy month. Great things are happening however. I'm almost halfway through my second semester of February. I love seminary and love continuing my education which is good because soon I'll switch to a longer degree. Currently I'm only getting a M.A. in Christian Education, but I'm switching to a Masters of Religious Education. In name it sounds the same, but it has twelve more hours added to the degree. Why am I switching? Because I like school. Also, because the longer degree gives me a better set up for continuing my education. I'm looking around, and have nothing even vaguely set in stone, but I would like to pursue a doctoral degree after seminary.

Other than school, I've started teaching. My friend David and I are teaching a class at Jefferson Street Christian Church. We are teaching History of Christian Spiritual Practices. I know, exciting name. We are looking back into history and seeing what Christians in history did to grow closer to God. It started with Jesus as the example of an everyday relationship with God. The we looked at the apostles and church fathers and their emphasis on baptism, communion, and the word of God. It's been exciting, I'll share more about it later, I'm teaching about the reformation a week from tomorrow. I'm learning to appreciate church history and just started reading Church History in Plain Language. I'd recommend this book to just about anyone curious in learning more about church history.

Hope this finds you well. Happy March!

Life goes on in Lincoln.

Life has been really busy which has kept me from posting. No much exciting has happened in Lincoln since the last post. There's still corn, it's still windy, and there's still homework.

Linds and I have been to Indy twice, however, since I last posted. The first time it was for Dave Ramsey. Linds' dad graciously provided tickets for us to attend Dave's Total Money Makeover. It was fantastic and we were very glad that we could go. Sadly, we were only in Indy for about 16 hours. It was on a Thursday night so we couldn't stay the weekend, since we had to be back to work on Friday.

Two weekends later we went back to Indy to see my sister, Julie, and her kids. She was in town and so we went home to hang out. It was a great weekend. It was nice to enjoy the amenities of Indy that Lincoln doesn't have (a used book store being one of them), but it was more fun just to be able to spend time with family.

Other than that, my time has been spent grading, teaching Sunday school, reading, writing papers, going to class, and working. Life is certainly busy in Lincoln.

It has begun.

My first week of seminary at LCU is officially over. Yesterday I had my first Hebrew Class and today I had my first "Shaping the Heart of the Leader" class. The experience is certainly a lot different from college. The classes are longer, the demographic is a little wider (everyone from new college grads to retirees), and the work is harder. I am very excited to push on and learn more.

Hebrew is what the name suggests, we will be learning Hebrew. Yesterday was sort of a linguistic "culture shock" for most. First of all the letters look like this ב ג ד, which is the equivalent of b g d. Second, what you see there is really d g b, because the writing goes from right to left instead of left to right. And Third, there aren't really vowels, for example one of my favorite words is "שמצ" which is pronounced "shema" but spelled (transliterated) šm' in English. So, needless to say, life is interesting in hebrew.

Shaping the Heart of a Leader is going to be a great class to start seminary with. Over the next three weeks we will be doing personality evaluations like DiSC and Myers-Briggs. Then we will integrate our personality in to how we do leadership. Also, all of that is combined with learning about and focusing on the spiritual growth of a leader. I look forward to learning about myself, how I lead, and also how to take care of spiritual life.

I won't start my third class until the intensive week, but I have enough on my plate currently, so the next few weeks should be great.

Done with school, time to start married life.

It's been an interesting few weeks. For starters, two weeks ago I graduated from college. Now I'm moving on to seminary. in the fall i'll be starting my masters in Christian Education. I'm excited about moving on in my education even though most are glad to be done with school. I will say that I am a little envious about all those people getting a job in the field they graduated in, I will still be a barista come this fall and I will also be a teaching assistant for the head of my department in seminary. I love working at the coffeeshop and it will be good to be a TA, but I also would like to find a full time ministry to work in at some point. My time will come, and till then I make coffee and be a TA.

Since graduation, I have been relaxing and getting stuff done for the wedding and for after the wedding. I've been working on getting groomsman gifts and trying to plan for the honeymoon and anything that I can do to help Lindsay while I'm in Indy. She's down in Southern, IL getting ready for the wedding, setting up for the reception, and going crazy doing as much as possible. Tomorrow I'll head down there so that we can get our marriage license. Tomorrow night is the rehearsal, and then Saturday at 2 we'll be getting married. That's crazy.

Besides getting ready for the wedding, I've had a chance to see most of my family in the last two weeks. My brother and his family flew to Indy this Sunday. I haven't seen him since Christmas of 07 and this is the first time that my nephew Alex has ever left Colorado. It was great to be able to see them and sit down and have dinner with them. Yesterday, my sister and her family drove in from New York. I haven't seen them since this Christmas, and it's been fun so far to have them hanging out at the house. My other sister and her family live here in Indy and I've had a chance over the last couple days to see them and hang out with my niece and nephew when they come over.

It's been a good couple of weeks and I've almost made it to my big day. After the wedding we're heading to Brown County, IN for a week and then coming back to Lincoln to start living in our tiny little apartment.

A Wardrobe and a Ring

First I want to say: yes it is the wardrobe you are thinking of, but probably not the ring that you are thinking of.

It was a pretty eventful weekend for me this weekend. It really started on Friday when I took a field trip to the Wade Center. The Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College houses a very large (and for some of the authors, the largest collection in the world) collection of original drafts and first editions of Lewis, Tolkien, and 5 other famous Christian authors.

I am taking a class on C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Our class spent time studying Lewis and Tolkien. We each have to write some sort of research paper about Tolkien or Lewis or their works. I am working on a paper about the relationship of Lewis, Tolkien, and the group of writers associated with them (the inklings) and how it effects their writings.

Among the first drafts, original letters, and first editions, the wade center has objects, furniture, and even pipes belonging to those writers. One of the biggest pieces is the wardrobe belonging CS Lewis, the wardrobe that was inspiration for his book.

Also, this weekend, there was a ring. It was not Tolkien's Ring, however. Lindsay and I ordered our wedding rings two weeks ago. Saturday, we went down to Springfield and picked up her wedding ring. It's a beautiful ring, but I can't wait to finally have my ring which won't be in until March.

And so it begins one last time.

Well, it has been such a long long time since I posted last and lots have happened since then. So I will elaborate in list form:

• Came back from Maine, stopping in NY to see my sister and her family.
• Visited friends in Lincoln, IL at LCC
• Visited friends in Quincy, IL at Madison Park CC
• Went back to NY to spend a few more days with my sister and my family.
• Drove back through a blizzard in Cleveland.
• Spent Christmas and New Years in Indy
• Spent a weekend with Lindsay's family and met the new niece and nephew from Ukraine.
• Moved back to Lincoln for an intensive class
• Lindsay and I went to Target and Bed Bath and Beyond to register for wedding gifts (and I registered for a Wii)
  
• Now, classes have started and I'm volunteering at Jeff St. CC

Now that everyone has been caught up, hopefully regular blogging can begin. Things are going well here at LCC, we've experienced sub-zero temperatures for a few days, but now it's back above 0°.

I've been through all of the syllabus classes and have a 3 day weekend. It's going to be a good semester, but I have a ton of reading to do. But it's alright, because this is the last semester of College that I have to get through before I graduate.

That's all for now.