Friday morning! Ahh--freedom approacheth. 2 whole days of living it up in our new house. ("Living it up" can roughly translate to reading, watching football, cooking, and sleeping.) But to get to the party-heartying I must first survive 8 more hours (well, 7.6) of work. Today we actually have seven individuals visiting the campus, which ties for the most in one day. This means I will be up and down, greeting and escorting to the next stops on their schedules. When I'm not I'll be back at my desk.
But ENOUGH about work! That's definitely not what this is for. The act (or art?) of blogging is supposed to be an escape. The fact that I've started today's post at 9:20 in the morning demonstrates the desperation in which I'm looking for distractions.
Last night we had our first Bible study meeting at our little red house. The turn-out was better than I expected. (Good enough that there were no left-over brownies, which is how I measure these things.) I envisioned a quiet, taciturn group. The young adult group through our church is just getting off the ground and everybody's tiptoeing around each other. My picture was a peaceful meeting in my peaceful livingroom followed by quiet, polite conversation in the kitchen as light refreshments were consumed. When I surveyed the actual group at 7:15 pm I had personalities ranging from older single man with slicked-back hair to young punk drummer to ancient Greek scholars to female Mennonite pastor (how does that even happen???). Needless to say, the conversation was not boring. Tom Sawyer would have never guessed the Beatitudes were that controversial. The hour passed by in a flash, ultimately leading to a collective dragging of the heels through the mud to slow down the runaway train. I'm afraid that our fearless leader got more than he bargained for. It was obvious that he had spent hours digging through commentaries, and he had pages of notes and things to share. He wanted to lead (AKA lecture) with a few opinions sprinkled throughout for flavor. We wanted to discuss. No...strike that. Debate. The evangelicals vs. historical context, round 1. I offered a few smatterings of insight but mostly kept my mouth shut and tried to keep my teeth from clenching. (What many see as a challenging, healthy argument usually gives me a tension headache as I tally the number of often-imaginary offended individuals.)
Anyway, the train did stop. The brownies were served. And the last person left after 9:30...way too late for me to catch The Office. (Minor bummer...we didn't have NBC in North Carolina...another plus about North Chili.) But the scintillating, bordering-on-abrasive, conversation truly trumped any witticisms from Michael Scott. And we look forward to next week and what it holds.
I just remembered I'm supposed to have an offertory prepared for Sunday. Oops.
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