I have completely dropped the ball on this site over my Christmas break.

Firstly, there was one of the most harrowing end of semester experiences ever. As it has been written in days of yore, I am phenomenally bad at being tested, and faced three very detail oriented exams. This alone put my brain in fear-crash mode, and then there were some hairy papers. (Most of which I’ve kind of hinted at here.) It was a lot to conquer, and yet I did, which feels good. Despite accomplishing some really nice thinking throughout this semester on theologies that can be very relevant to specific groups of people (I definitely found a neat way to look at young adult sexual identity issues), it was easy to feel like I might throw up my hands and scream “What does it all mean?!!!” Academic studies are great, but I felt a little isolated from the actual practice of ministry in the last month. Hopefully that will change, as I think I have finally gotten out of Hamlet-mode on taking “Introduction to Pastoral Care” next semester. I hope that thinking about how I’ll serve REAL PEOPLE on a daily basis will ground me a bit.

Nextly (take THAT English!), Sarah was back in town. Normally, that doesn’t equal total productivity failure, but considering the separation of the past semester, we ended up in lock down mode. Also, we have one of the more complex family structures imaginable, so a single day holiday takes us about 4 or so days to actually celebrate. Add to the normal holiday shenanigans the fact that my birthday is right after New Year’s, and essentially we’ve JUST stopped traveling the world telling people that we DO INDEED like them.

All this to say… stay tuned. And yes, I like you all, too.