Today was a good down day for me. I've been gearing up this past week getting ready for the three midterms I'm administering next week. All the midterms are written, printed, stapled, and ready to go. So there's not much left except... THE GRADING. But that doesn't happen until next week, so I've got a weekend ahead of me to look forward to.
What has happened this past week? Nothing of interest. Sunday church was good as the new pastor finally stepped into the preaching role. He was very engaging, funny, and had a good no-nonsense approach. He didn't pull any punches in his sermon, setting a clear precedent for the future. Among the many things he did was suggest that some people in the church *NOT* take communion because of some unresolved conflicts that some church members have against each other. I don't know the details of the previous hurts, but apparently it was big enough to really shake up the church, and this was a bold step on his part to put the internal healing up front even before talking about external things.
He also encouraged the congregation to fast on Wednesday, which I sort of did. He didn't specify parameters of the fast, but I chose a sunrise to sunset fast. Fasting isn't something I do ever, but with the irregular eating schedule that I've been on (that I'm still working on fixing), it wasn't too difficult or distracting. Why did I choose to participate? I don't know. It just seemed like something that I was being nudged to do. Did I pray for anything in particular? Mostly things related to the campus.
There's an opportunity to go to Malibu for Fall Conference with Jack and the other IV campuses. It would be interesting as I would bump into a lot of old faces in new places in life, but I don't know if there's much value or purpose in going. I can see some chance to continue to encourage Jack, but the student tracks aren't going to be aimed anywhere near where I'm at, so I might end up spending a lot of time just lounging around or something. I suppose I can try to turn it into a personal retreat and take up some of my own books to read or whatever, but I'll have to contemplate that a little further and talk to Spencer about it.
I might go to a men's breakfast at church tomorrow. I'm going to try to get to Costco to buy some bagels and other little things. I might go play some poker. I haven't decided yet.
