Finishing big works

This week I finished The Pentateuch as Narrative, a 479 page (minus appendices) biblical-theological commentary on the first five books of the Bible. I don’t remember exactly when I started reading it but it was well over a year ago (Does anyone else remember when they start things? I never write stuff like that down, […]

I love…

Our community has endured a series of strange tragedies over the past couple of weeks. Today’s the day that Micah had a metabolic crisis and went to the hospital 13 years ago. The world is a dark and heavy place; we all know it. But that’s only part of the story. Looking for the wonder, […]

Disruption

Saturday night we went to a dance at a country club with friends. It’s quite outside our usual venue and activities. (We are members of the Y, not the country club.)The median age of the attendees was 65, if not older, and everyone was very happy about this table of “young people.” And the table […]

Cultural (or not) references

A few weeks ago, I spent the weekend with a friend and we started laughing at how often we said, “That reminds me of a Bluey episode…” If you want to riff on a scene, four things always work: A Hamilton lyric An old hymn A Disney song A Bluey episode Those older hymns do […]

Not My Job

It’s not my job to change anyone’s mind. It’s my job to listen to understand. To ask questions. To provoke conversation. To consider different viewpoints and ideas.To remain steadfast. To remember that my goal is growth in love. But I don’t have to convince anyone. As much as I want to be persuasive. As much as I believe in the […]

An experiment in notetaking

Today I finished How To Take Smart Notes. The book summarizes the system of notetaking of Niklas Luhmann, who was a prolific writer. How did he do it? He took good notes. He took literature notes on his reading, compiled separate notes on how the reading connected to the work he was doing and the […]

Seminary Notes 13: Goodbye, Hebrew

Wednesday morning, I printed out the four pages of my Hebrew final and dug in. We had three and a half hours to take it and I had less than fifteen minutes to spare by the time I turned it in. It was long. It was grueling. But it is done. In a different format, […]