My first week of theological school/seminary/whatever you want to call it is on the downslope! And, I’m still alive! So far, so good, indeed.

Cue the Monty Python and the Holy Grail “Intermission” Music…
NOTE: Just looking at my visitor stats, it seems like I get quite a readership bump when I link my posts on Facebook. So, I’m going to make a habit of that.
…and now, back to your irregularly scheduled blog post!

It’s a Wednesday afternoon, which means for the first time in my week I have time to breathe. My course load is heavily weighted toward the beginning of the week, with seven hours of class (beginning at 8:00 a.m. and ending at 9:00 p.m.) on Mondays, three on Tuesdays, and the final three spread out over the final three weekday mornings.

Classes this semester are Greek I (ἀπόστολος!!!), Theological Ethics, Old Testament Literature and History I, and History of the Christian Church. Each class will present its own unique challenges…

• Greek: I took three years of Spanish in high school, which produced in my brain just a mix of Spanglish and silly phrases… ¡Tengo un gato en mis pantalones!
• Theological Ethics: This class is on the 7000 level, and I am the only first-year in the class. I get the sense that I’m not supposed to be there, but I actually like it a lot so far.
• Old Testament: So… many… maps…
• History of the Christian Church: I thought this class would cover fairly broadly the development of the church from the many individual (and later, identified as heretical) sects of Jewish Jesus-followers to now, but judging by the syllabus and the required texts, we’re mostly covering 1800-present (Pentecostal movement, black churches, religious right, etc.). Not that that’s bad, but it’s unexpected. I hope I’m not getting shortchanged!

In addition to the classes, I now all of the sudden have access to a great resource – a fully-functional gym and wellness center. So I’m forcing myself to workout every weekday. As the blog post is titled, so far, so good (besides the soreness)… but I suppose we will see how long that lasts.

I do have a nifty little Twitter application on the right side of my blog, so you’ll be able to see what I’m tweeting about even if I don’t have the 25 minutes or so to crunch out a new blog post. This morning, my friend (and member of Rob Bell’s church!) Mike Lamson tweeted an opinion piece regarding the Glenn Beck pseudo-rally in Washington, D.C., that I found particularly edifying. I tweeted the concluding sentence from that post, but here it is in its entirety (note, I have not heard of the author before):

God, the Gospel, and Glenn Beck by Russell D. Moore of Moore to the Point

Anyway, tomorrow I have a quiz over the Greek alphabet. Time to go connect the symbols to the letter names! Thanks for reading, friends.