ssllloooowwwww...

This picture is the best visual out there to communicate the state of my brain.  Old.  Rusted.  Out-modeled.  Questionable usage.  Questionable relevance.  And... a quality I am too familiar with in almost every dimension of my life... very slow... just say the word like you mean it... sssllllooooowwwwww.

I sit in classes with these whipper-snappers who ask questions that I need 5 minutes to unravel.  Profs talk really fast and I'm relying on long-term memory storage to retrieve appropriate information. 

... errr... 2002, Dr. M's class on systematics... maybe halfway through course... that page with the doodle of a cow.... yes... something about Schleiermacher... Romanticism?... emotions?... maybe radical... yes.... definitely unorthodox... like a 19th century guy or something?... what's the word for (garbled mess of an idea with no word)?... wrote some book that said... something...

So, basically, by the time this whole process is done, I have scant information on the topic, I've missed the last 5 minutes of the lecture (which has moved on considerably), I'm now behind on the notes, and my brain is tired.  So, multiply that at a steady pace through 3 hours of Modern Theology, another 3 for Confucianism and Taoism, and yet 6 more hours on Monday.  Hence the above visual to indicate my acknowledgement of what age, inherent deficits on processing speed, and woeful disuse does to this brain. 

Rust.  A whole lotta rust.

Public Service Announcement.

Always tip your local bakery gal... or guy.  I'm speaking generally, of course.

New friends for Ruth AND Skip!

It was like the beginning of a movie.  I rang the doorbell of a house I'd never seen to attend a bible study with folks I'd never met.  Young, the homeowner, answers the door.  "Hi.  My name is Ruth and I am new.  I'm here for a bible study I found on the church website."

I'm welcomed into the house and then meet Sage, his wife.  There are a number of people already there.  I answer a billion questions.  Then, I grab a fistful of goldfish crackers and wander into the living room and ... wait for it... wait for it... I find 2 BUNNIES!!!

Sage and Young are just as obsessed with bunnies as I am!  We're well versed on the articles found on the House Rabbit Society website.  They are the real deal.  Here are some pictures.

This is Mumu.  He's a lion head breed rabbit.  Of course.

 Blog reader, meet Eva, Eva, meet blog reader.  You have to say Eva like you are watching Wall-E.  EEEVAA!

What's clear is that Young and Sage are hard core.  Seriously.  They even built this bunny jungle gym!  I'm gonna make one for Skip when I move back home.

While in a perfect world, Skip and Eva and Mumu could be great friends, in the fallen bunny world, Skip would pounce on them and rip out their fur... it's just reality.  But, I'm very very delighted to have some kindred spirited bunny friends!

First day of school!

I guess the first day of school holds little weight when you have 14 years of secondary education (yep, I repeated kindergarten) "first days," then 4 years of college "first days," and 2 years of graduate school "first days."  (Not to mention the completion-challenged 2nd graduate program multiple "first days.")  Then, there are first days of school as a teacher and there are 9 of those.  Actually, I've had a first day of school every year since 1984.  Whoa.

Anyway...

Classes today... Tolkien's Apocalyptic Imagination and Th.M. Research Seminar in Christian Thought.  Already, I have to read and finish the Silmarillion by next week for the Tolkien class and give a presentation on some Calvin sermons on Ephesians.  Plus, a load of Barth reading.  The other two classes start Thursday and Friday.

It's kindergarten all over again.  "Hey, ummm, my name is Ruth and I'm from North Carolina."  "Hey y'all, can I sit at this table?"  "Excuse me, do you know how to work the library printer?"  "Does anyone know where AC 240 is?"  I've also done my fair share of that super awkward wandering around the buildings on campus because I got somewhere too early or I just don't really know what I'm doing.  You put your hands in your pockets and then realize you don't have pockets.  Then I look down and "Drat!  I dressed like a teacher... I look all out of place... everyone else is way casual."  Then you pull out the cell phone to look like you are the kind of person who folks like to call or send a text message to.  You scan the phone but, as usual, no messages.  So, then, you just look up the weather and stare at that for a good 10-15 minutes.  Then, you put the phone away and look for a stick of gum in your purse.  As soon as your start chewing... "Drat!  I'm about to go to lecture and it is so rude to chew gum in front of your professor (or at least I hated it as a teacher.)"  Now you have to spit out your gum but you can't find a trash can so now you are the girl who is overdressed, holding chewed gum between your thumb and forefinger, incredibly disheveled, and dropping things because your phone didn't quite make it back into the pouch in your bag.

It was Ruth, in all her glory.  : )

But, truly, being in class was like taking in a higher level of oxygen.  It was so refreshing to be a student yet simultaneously, I was ACHING to teach.  OH, how I wanted a chalkboard and a podium!  Instead, I reminded myself that I am spending loads of money to have them teach me.  I did, however, laugh at all the profs jokes because I know what it feels like to make jokes that your students either don't get or don't think are funny.  Ah, but it was so sweet to be in that hallowed ground called... deep breath... a classroom.  The place where ideas are in the air you breathe and you can almost hear minds do what they were created to do.  It's so wonderfully freeing and right and wholesome that you just want to hug someone, or do a little jig, or something...

I just love school... even though I have to study Calvin this week.  At least I get some Tolkien thrown in there somewhere.

And you should never say never to first days of school... let's hope I get to be in all kinds of contexts where that happens in the future. 

And, next time, I'll remember not to overdress or chew gum or be awkward...Yeah right... who am I kidding?

Feelin' Groovy.

I was walking around downtown Boston today on my way to church and THREE different people stopped to ask me for directions.  Either I appear to know what I'm doing or I seem more approachable than an intense urbanite.  Probably the latter.  I like approaching wide-eyed, slow, hiking shoe wearing people too, when I have a question.

Homesickness.

One of the lunch discussion topics I brought up at the English L'abri this summer was homesickness.  Why do we feel sick at heart about not being at a particular geographical location we call, "home?"

I've been reading through Lord of the Rings in preparation for a Tolkien class I'm taking and I find myself identifying with Frodo and Sam regarding their almost mythic loyalty, longing, and passion about "the shire."  Not everyone has a "shire."  I think the idea and attachment to "home" can be potent for some and not for others.  Being one who resonates with this attachment, I believe those who do not have this potent sense of belonging to a real land are missing out on a powerful theological/emotional dynamic.  Dorothy was right.  "There's no place like home."  Without home, we are truly islands.

Home, of course, conjures up a lot of sentiments.  Like the theme song to "Cheers" (here in Boston... it's on my 'must visit' list...) ..."Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name and they're always glad you came."  Home is belonging.  It's the place we decided, intentionally or not, to dig our heels in and say, "I'm going to spend my life loving, investing, and knowing intimately this place.  So, the place is a piece of us and we are a piece of that place.  We can even start articulating it as loving a town or city, almost like it's a person.  I've wanted to try to hug Asheville from time to time, or the mountains.  Mountains make me feel snug... maybe they're trying to hug me. 

With all this personification of nature, you may think I'm reading too much Tolkien.  Perhaps.  But, I do believe there are spiritual dimensions to geographical places and communities.  And, I might add, I think we often overlook them... to our loss.  If we forget this, we inhibit our capacity to see that when God is our home, it is not simply in some ethereal, vague sense of "being with God."  No.  It is far more.  God is our home and we can be anywhere in the world and be at home, in a way.  But, when home is "the shire," God being home takes on a whole new meaning. What if God moved into "the shire?"  What if the Spirit of God transformed and redeemed the spirit of a place in such as way as to make it more "the shire" than it ever was before?  That is precisely what I think is happening and will happen. And... that is a glory to behold. 

And, that glory is one worth feeling homesick for.