Praying Paul

Greetings dear friends! It's been a wonderful week here at PTS, and the weather is being as inconsistent as ever. I'm cool with it, though, because it means that there is a rare nice day here and there--nice enough to have Hebrew Exegesis class on the Chapel steps last Thursday! Anyway, we have entered the Lenten season, which means we have about seven weeks until Easter Sunday! Woo Hoo!

Lent Discipline. To many people, Lent has been a season of giving something up--chocolate, coffee, cookies, cursing, whatever... Less often, I see people endeavoring into the realms of new disciplines. Both of these observations have inspired my plan for Lent. Now now now, having a background in Psychology means that I read a lot of studies about such endeavors: taking on too much too fast usually ends in failure, temptation gets stronger the longer it persists, and it takes about 60 days to develop a new habit. All this considered, I have decided to give up three of my dining-hall weaknesses: cookies (which are consequently on NW's top ten list of awesome things in America), ice cream (which kinda stinks now that they got rid of all that cherry ice cream and replaced it with my two favorites--choco mint chip and cookies and cream), and granola (which you can eat as slow as you want because it practically never goes soggy)! So, wish me luck with all that! The far more interesting part of my Lenten plan is my new discipline: Praying Paul. This might not be the most accurate description of what I am actually doing, but my plan is to memorize an awesome section of Paul's letters everyday. Sometimes this is a single verse, sometimes it's five or six. The point is that I will be memorizing even more Scripture than I already do, and to be quite honest, I have been obsessing with the Prophets and Psalms a little bit too much lately, so this should jazz up my rememorizing a bit! I'm getting most of my suggestions for passages from my brain, my friends, and a nice little book titled A Still More Excellent Way. 


Psalm Sing. I foreshadowed the Psalter celebration two posts ago, but man o man it was pretty darn cool! There was a reception with tasty snacks, lively people, and a book signing. We all then ventured over to the Chapel to sing a little bit. It was quite a fun and uplifting night. Check out the first page of my Psalter:

You know, I really love the Psalms. What a wonderful book! You should go read a few! They're short, and there is one for every occasion. Also, I will be sure to have my Psalter with me as I travel to West Chester and Weatherly over Spring Break if any of you want to look at the pure dead brilliance contained on the pages of this incredible collection of Psalms!

Palm Sunday. First Pres WC is having a Palm Sunday 5K run/2k walk that you should all try to attend. I am currently training for the distance of 10K, which includes five days of gym time and at least four evenings icing knees. So, if you are a seminiarian reading this, I encourage you to join me in my training. If not, you should go to about.com and get a good training schedule for yourself. More details can be found at: http://www.firstpreswc.com/palm-sunday-5k

I hope all is well with each of you, and I hope to see you soon (whoever you are)! The LORD be with you! =)

Psalter Celebration

I was checking through my post history just a few moments ago, and I realized that last semester I posted about once every three or four days. This semester, however, I am posting roughly once a week. Tonight is the exception. Four days ago was the last time I posted, and now I am posting again! Wooo Hooo!

Exegetical Working Paper. This weekend I did some serious exegeting (ref Exegetical Tools)! That's right, friends, a little extra-Jesus in my life... this time in the form of the Gospel of Luke chapter 13! I have an assignment due tomorrow for New Testament that is basically a condensed outline of the steps one is to take when interpreting a passage. It's a very exciting process, and a learning one at that! The precursor to being a preacher, Hallelujah!


Seminary Basketball. Here at seminary, basketball can get pretty serious. We don't compliment the other team after every play. We are only nice to the refs the vast majority of the time. And we care more about having fun that winning. What kind of basketball players are we? ;) Seriously though, it is really a lot of fun! We even had an awesome cheering section last game (that came up with some quite interesting cheers)! Here is part of the "trash-talking":

Enter the workout-gym with a ball, leave with a note with a game date upon it. =)

Psalter Celebration. Sing praise to the LORD you people his saints!!! I cannot wait. I can't. It's impossible for me to wait. Waiting for singing is hard. And in the mean time, I have been journaling through the psalms, which is hard and does not help with the waiting. I will journal about a psalm, look up the arrangement in the Psalter we are using, and then get super excited about singing them! Ahhhh! There is a book signing reception on Friday (for PFAS) followed by a Psalm sing! Yippee! And before all of this, I have my Psalms class where I will be singing. My voice might not be working by Saturday, but that's okay because I love singing!


Lent. Oh lent. It's been almost a whole year since I engaged in Lenten behavior. So the question is... what to do for lent? I have a couple ideas floating around in my brain, but if you have any suggestions (or challenges for that matter), throw them at me! I will post about what I decide to do sometime soon.

Well friends, I continue to pray for all of you each night! It has been a while since I have seen many of you, and you should know that I miss you all! I hope to make a series of visits over Spring Break, March 3-11.

God Bless!