Randomness

Thoughts of a cozy brain on a sleety night:

• Yesterday we found a pretty good Chinese restaurant in old town. This is a very cheerful development in Edison-Albright land.
• All hotel and hostel reservations are made for our Spring Break trip to Greece. We're going to to Thessaloniki, Meteora, Nafpoli and Athens--Feb 14-20. Happy Christmas/Birthday/Valentine's Day to us! I found some good deals but the accommodations could be sketchy as a result ... I think we'll be pretty happy no matter what, though.
• Speaking of trips: the Edison-Swift-Albrights went to Budapest over Christmas break and had a very good time. Pictures are here.
• I had an amazing 28th birthday: it coincided perfectly with a ball organized by our students, so Sean and I got to get all fancied up and dance (I was especially happy to polka, my favorite.) It was lovely to see our students all dressed up--they did a great job putting the whole evening together.
• I just finished the first section of our text for religion class, which focused on questions about God and suffering. Monday we move on to discussing questions about the trustworthiness and authority of the Bible. Last week we talked about prayer, and used depictions of prayer in popular culture to focus our discussion. One student sang and played guitar, many students sent me great clips from movies like Bruce Almighty and A Walk to Remember. In one class we got onto the topic of profound suffering: what can we say about prayer, about God, when faced with the reality of people who have lost everything, or who've known nothing but suffering to begin with? People who experience one tragedy after another, like some of the patients I met during CPE? We talked about the limits of apologetics to answer these questions, and I told them about my experience of finding profound faith in the midst of profound suffering in the people I met at the hospital. On a lighter note, I think Talladega Nights may have the greatest prayer scene in movie history.
• I preached today. My microphone batteries gave out right before I started reading the Gospel. =P We got the audio recorder fixed, so once Sean finishes boosting the sound and getting rid of the hiss, we'll post it. In the meantime, here's how it concluded: "Our Psalm today (147) leaves us with some very good news: 'God’s delight is not in the strength of a horse, nor his pleasure in the speed of a runner.' God doesn’t love us because of how fast we can run, how much energy we have, or the good works we do. We can run, we have energy, we can do good works, because God loves us. God who numbers the stars, God whose hands hold us securely, this almighty God picks us up when we can’t run anymore,
  giving us rest so that we can soar on eagle’s wings. Amen."