Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Week in Review
A quick recap of all the where's and what's of the last week:

Today began a week of Resident Advisor training here on campus in Wilmore. I'm one of eight RA's for single housing this year. We spent the morning on a low-elements ropes course in some group-building exercises. The teamwork stuff is working out quite well so far. In the afternoon we the spent some time brainstorming some thematic directions for our floors. Ben (with whom I share duties in this house) and I then spent some time sharing ideas we've been mulling over the summer.

I seem to be full of good ideas. We settled on a verse, Revelation 21:5 - "Behold, I make all things new." That's a favorite of mine. I get giddy thinking about how God makes stuff - all stuff, the past, relationships, thoughts and attitudes, the inside stuff, all stuff - new. I also tossed out ideas of praying the hours daily together as a house and also developing a community blog focusing on the 10 vows of a Vineyard monastery. It could become a community journal of our spiritual formation over the upcoming year. I look forward to articulating more of the details and making my pitch to the rest of the guys.

Met with the professor for my independent study of New Testament interpretation for the second time. Had some good conversation about what interpreting the Bible looks like specifically in community.

Last week Jackie and I drove to Tulsa. On the way, we stopped in St. Louis and spent an evening with Jessi, a former roommate of Jackie's. Jessi showed us the town, including The Loop, where while standing at the intersection waiting for the light to change, a gentleman drove by in his Jeep and extended his middle finger in our general direction. We found this to be a rather rude expression of St. Louis hospitality until we realized that Jessi was wearing her Chicago Cubs Mark Prior jersey, and wouldn't you know it, the Cubs had just beat the St. Louis Cardinals.

She took us to Vintage Vinyl, where feeling the moral imperative to support the local indie record shop I purchased the Flaming Lips' Fight Test EP. Remember to support your local indie record shop, kids. I successfully convinced Jackie to talk me out of purchasing a Jay Farrar album, but then myself convinced Jessi she needed it for her collection. We later visited the City Museum, which is a bit of a misnomer. It's not much of a museum. It's more like a McDonalds Playland on steroids. Or something out of a Tim Burton movie.

We spent about two days in Norman, OK and helped my sister Sarah movie into her new house. Time with Sarah and Jason and Kelly in Norman means only one thing: Board games.

On Tuesday we drove back to Tulsa, where Jackie got to spend extensive time with the parents, meet the grandparents and see the grand sites of Native America, including the Center of the Universe, the praying hands and the golden driller. Great fun was had by all.

Wednesday evening I met with the Staff-Parish Relations Committee of First United Methodist in Tulsa. This was the first hoop to jump through for ordination candidacy. After the interview, which included such burning questions as "Why do you want credentials?" I was approved and thus will be recommended to the charge conference that meets in November.

And I found out the day before leaving for Tulsa that I was not chosen for the "cool and neat" church job. Which is fine by me. I've a couple resumes out now for jobs on campus.

That's all for tonight.

posted by Peter at 1:10 AM
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