Unfortunately, this year Betsy and I are not taking our vacations together. Her Ph.D. Mentor--Linda Safran--thought she should go study Byzantine Greek in Belfast. It's a great opportunity for Betsy, she has Ancient Greek before, but the Byzantine dialect is it's own species. Belfast is one of the very few places where one can study it.
I traveled by myself down to New Jersey to start my vacation--beginning the longest period my wife and I have been apart since we've been married. Five weeks! Man am I missing her now! I'm still reflexively reaching out for her in the course of the day.
So I flew down to New Jersey to my mom's place and then we drove north after picking up my sister Lynne and nephew Charlie. It's a long drive to Monhegan Island, Maine, so we stopped halfway up and then did the rest of the drive the following morning. Monhegan is tiny: about a square mile in total land area! My mom rented this cottage for a week for the four of us. We had a great time feeding the ducks on the pond and walking the rough trails to the ocean cliffs. Ate lobster, of course.
We had limited electricity and instead relied on gas for light and cooking. When it got cold and wet I started a fire in the wood stove. It was charming and simple and the kind of place where one can experience real country dark. I forgot how much I'm missed the nice things about living in the country.
No TV, of course, so besides the local talent show we had to make our own entertainment. I read a ton of books. And I kept reading after the week on the Island was through and I came back to Toronto. Here's a list:
- The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, Anne Rice
- Get Up Off Your Knees: Preaching the U2 Catalog, Raewynne J. Whiteley, Beth Maynard
- Twilight of the Idols, Friedrich Nietzsche
- The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe
- Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell
I also saw a bunch of movies including...
- A Mighty Wind
- Walk the Line
- The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981 version)
- Spring, Summer, Fall, Winder ... And Spring
- Little Miss Sunshine
- United 93
- Hannibal Rising
- The Good Shepherd
- Hostel
- Stranger Than Fiction
That is a lot of literature and film, even if it was over three weeks! But with my wife out of town there isn't much else to do! Wish I had time and space to describe each of these, but there isn't. I'll just highlight Stranger Than Fiction as being a really terrific movie--funny and poignant and TRUE. It brought me tears, which few movies do.
Yesterday I had another church interview. It's the place I really want, though now we'll have to see if they want me! There is a lot I could say about this particular interview, but unfortunately it's the kind of thing that I can't be very open about at this moment. I just hope I gave them a sense of how much love I have to give the church.
Anyway, now I'm slowly getting back into the swing of church. In particular I have to get ready to preach on Sunday! It will be difficult to NOT talk about Evangelism with these texts.
-t
No comments:
Post a Comment