Odds and Ends

This week in Greek is dedicated to the odds and ends of grammar that are important but don't really fit in any other category. Yesterday we learned about the subjunctive case, and today we learned about the imperative case. For our homework we are no longer using made up sentences, we are translating chunks of the Bible! It's awesome because that's the whole reason we're in Greek. Before this class ends we will have translated 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, and Philemon all of which are wonderfully short.

In my spare time [a.k.a I really should have been studying during this time] I have been doing some reading. I read Diana Butler Bass' Christianity for the Rest of Us. I was really moved by many of the personal stories about people discovering or rediscovering the joy of Christ within a church community. The book lays out central ideas around which mainline churches are growing deeper into spirituality. There is a lot of diversity in the styles of spirituality, and it was fun to see what has been successful in other churches. I recommend the book highly.

I have also been reading Seeds of Hope: A Henri Nouwen Reader edited by Robert Durback. My mom gave this book to me, and it has small excerpts from other Henri Nouwen's books which makes it easy to read in short doses. It is not set up like a daily study, but it is easy to use it as such. Below is one of my favorite parts:

"Oh how important is discipline, community, prayer, silence, caring presence, simple listening, adoration, and deep, lasting faithful friendship. We all want it so much, and still the powers suggesting that all of that is fantasy is enormous. But we have to replace the battle for power with the battle to create space for the Spirit" from The Road to Daybreak

The PTS bookstore is having an 85% book sale. This is very dangerous. There are many books I want, and I know all I should be buying in the book store are textbooks. I have picked up some of my text books already, and I'm very excited for the upcoming semester.