What Is And What Should Never Be

I woke up one morning and I was 30 years old, walking down a cold and quiet High Street, in search of bacon rolls (and meds for my virally infected husband).  I have a memory of being a kid on the school playground and learning that your "golden" birthday is the one where you are turning the same age as the day you were born. Since I was born on the 30th of March, my 30th birthday is my golden one. Having calculated this, I realized--30 is the age I want to be. And I've been saying this for at more than two decades now. I've been anticipating this day for a long time. Anyone who knows me knows that me + that kind of expectation is a recipe for a disaster. About this time last year, I realized that my 30th would fall on Good Friday--not the most appropriate day for celebrating and not the most convenient day for celebrating when you and your partner both work in the church. I considered letting today pass without fanfare and had thought of planning an Alice in Wond...

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted. To all my degenerates out there: You’re the best. I’m exhausted. I’ve spent the past six weeks preaching, sometimes on both Sunday morning and evening. I’ve spent the past 6 days writing an essay worth 1/3 of my grade that determines whether or not I continue my research in the Ph.D. program in the fall. I’ve managed to avoid the many offers for coffee from parishioners in the past weeks, mostly citing my busy schedule as the culprit. The Mission society wants my participation, I have a presentation to give at the end of the week, another sermon due for Holy Week, and I my mind feels as empty as my soul. Today, I had coffee with a friend tasked with establishing a church plant among college students in Edinburgh. After an hour of contemplating the dimensions of secular society and its invasion of the church, we began to talk about things that are meaningful to people. Ironically, I found myself babbling about rhythm in ...

They kept saying it was going to snow and I didn't believe them. They've said it before and it hasn't really. But this time it did snow. And snowed and snowed. Basically the country (transportation, schools, shops) shut down for like 3 days. It was the weirdest snow. You'd see a blue sky one minute and then a flurry of flakes and high winds for a while. On and off like that for days. (They say more is coming tonight/tomorrow? We'll see. May just be very cold rain.) The break was much needed--I actually ended up getting so much done that I couldn't have done otherwise as I was supposed to be at a conference for three days. Plus there's not much I like more than sipping a warm drink and watching the snow fall. Except for maybe walking around out in it. 

At the start of February, we went to Inverness to celebrate Craig completing his second major paper, and to explore a place we'd only traveled through before. Inverness is a bit of a hub into the highlands--there are lots of cool places you can visit nearby or by traveling through. We'd been through before on our way to Skye. This time we took a bus from Inverness to Culloden Battlefield, the site of last battle of the Jacobite Rising, where the Jacobites were ultimately defeated. We also strolled down the streets and canals of Inverness browsed their museums and the world's best used bookstore, and consumed lots of pizza and craft beer (that's really all it takes to make me happy.) The train ride there rolling through snow covered hills was actually one of my favorite parts of the trip. Who knew we'd get to see so much snow in Edinburgh a month later?