Is it Spring?!

Beautiful day here today in STL.  50 and sunny all day long!  The best part is Monday it is supposed to be 61!  I have been here for 6 weeks now and have made a few connections to the community.  I renewed my soccer officials license, and have my first games on the season this weekend, which will be good to get back outside, get some exercise and earn some money.  I also found a community band to join!  I unfortunately have not picked up my trumpet in almost a year, but it will definitely be good to get back playing again.  The band is called the After Hours Community Band in St. Charles, MO http://www.ahcb.org/index.php they rehearse once a week and it sounds like it will be a good group to be a part of!

The St. Louis Symphony is playing the Planets by Gustav Holst this weekend, and I'm planning on going tomorrow night.  This will mark the 4th symphony I've heard play this amazing orchestral work, including Columbus (2x) Dayton, Cleveland, and now St. Louis.  The symphony hall looks like a beautiful place and I'm pretty excited to go check that out! http://www.slso.org/powell/psh.htm

3 weeks ago I got to spend the day at Camp Mo-Val http://www.mmsucc.org/camp_mo-val/welcome.asp, the camp from the Missouri Conference UCC for their Conference Youth Event.  I was asked by a friend here at Eden to go down and teach a guitar workshop.  It was only by chance of a fortune cookie I said yes.  My guitar abilities aren't great, but I'm discovering they are getting fairly adequate for my purposes.  The fortune cookie, although I don't remember it exactly said something like, "an opportunity to use new gifts will present itself in the coming days".  So when I read that, it was kinda like, well I guess I'm obligated now!  It was a good day, and I got to spend it at camp which is always enjoyable!  As far as developing guitar abilities, I was able to play with Christopher Grundy and Deborah McBride on a song that she wrote.  That was a great experience, getting to play with two great musicians and a performance for the Eden community.

Last year with the OSUMB in D.C. for the Inaugural Parade, I was able to spend some time enjoying the beautiful artwork in the National Gallery, and saw this piece http://www.nga.gov/fcgi-bin/tinfo_f?object=42929, Snow In New York by Robert Henri, that really stood out to me for some reason.  I have been looking for a print of this work for about a year, and finally found one, and it came in the mail today!  The amazing thing about this, and the intriguing connection it continues to have with me, is that Henri dated this piece March 5, 1902.  Exactly 98 years later it arrived on my doorstep.  Pretty cool coincidence!

I am beginning to really embrace being a Cubs fan in St. Louis.  Last weekend I found a Cubs hat at the mall, and wearing it out of the mall I got more evil eye looks than I did from Michigan fans when the band made the trip up to the Big House for OSU vs. M*ch*gan games.  It's unfortunate that the Cubs don't come to town here till August 13.  I'll still be cheering them on all spring and summer, and hopefully I'll be able to get a ticket to a Cubs Cardinals game in the fall.

I have managed to start forming a really horrible habit in terms of papers.  The past 3 papers I've had to write for school, 2 here, and one at OSU I've turned them into procrastination masterpieces by staying up all night writing the papers.  This is not only stupid for the night of sleep I lose, but for the entire day of productivity I have lost the following day.  This will not turn into a habit so help me God!

The next paper I have to write is for my Disability Justice and Spiritual Health class.  It is going to be examining the concept of ableism in relation to an institution that we have a personal connection with.  I am almost afraid to write this paper, thinking about the institution I will be examining.  My initial thought is to use the Ohio State University Marching and Athletic Bands, to examine how they promote the culture of ableism. Ableism is the belief that those who are able bodied are superior because of their ability over the disabled.  Just like racism, sexism, ageism, or any other -ism you can imagine, it is dismantling the ability for people who do not fit into a certain category to experience the world in a similar fashion to those who are the oppressors. There is an interesting correlation with my Bible 4 class to this concept, having just examined the socioeconomic criticism of the gospel of Matthew, and how the oppressors are contributing to the culture of oppression, in todays society, by simply living life.  This contribution to the oppression of others, mainly the 2/3rd of the world living in the "3rd" world, or poverty stricken, or oppressed places, is done when all of us who are privileged partake in any institution, such as shopping at Wal-Mart, eating at Taco Bell, buying clothes manufactured in a sweat shop in India, that some how in some way engage in the oppression of others.  I have no doubt this will be a difficult paper to research and write, and that it will help significantly change my view of ableism in todays society.

That is for next week though!  Today is Friday, start of the weekend, and I'm going to enjoy it!  Volleyball tonight with the Eden team (maybe we'll win a game this time!)  Go Apiru!  Soccer tomorrow morning, St. Louis Symphony tomorrow night.  This should be a great weekend!

Go Bucks!  Big Ten Co-Champions, and the only school to ever win conference championships in Mens and Womens Basketball and Football in the same year, done for the third time this year!  Go Cubbies!  Can't wait for April 5, opener at Atlanta.  Enjoy some Steve Goodman Cubs tunes with 30 days till opening day!  Eamus Catuli!  AC0265102....here's to AC000000 by the end of this season!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gS3llgyGZ68

Thats the news from Eden, where all the Women take charge, all the Men are well founded and the Children are still Cardinals fans.

First Week: Check

Good morning! I have been in St. Louis for about a week and a half now and am getting settled in pretty well. My main room of the apartment is pretty much set up how I see it functioning for a while now, now all I need to do is finish my bedroom, and still try to be okay with the pink bathroom. As you can see I've put some brown in there and the really cool tree shower curtain so that makes it better. I've got my first class today! Well over 200 pages read for the first day of classes.

I should keep a page count of how many pages I read throughout my seminary career....that would turn out to be ridiculous.

This morning I went over to the Luhr Library to go to the Eden Bookstore, but apparently it doesn't open till 10:30 AM, so I'm back here writing this waiting to go back to the bookstore to get my last few books that they didn't have in until yesterday.

Lets see, what have I done in the STL so far? Been to Target a few times, been to the grocery (Schnucks, pronounced schnooks which I still can't figure out), waited in line at Webster University's student center to get my Webster ID for 45 minutes....I was the only person in line. Been to the Webster Gym a couple times, realized I needed a knee brace, went to Sports Authority and bought a knee brace. Got a bad haircut at Greatclips for 6 dollars. Thinking of going to have that $6 haircut fixed. Just watched someone get pulled over outside my apartment, and was kept up most of the night on Thursday night by snow plows, I still have no idea why they were spending so much time on Bompart Ave. I'm pretty sure it leads nowhere.

I have an apology to offer to Nate Taylor. When I was moving here, we had gotten to about Indianapolis when I realized that the Shag Jesus was still hanging in our living room back in Troy. (I think that is a bad thing because it obviously fit in a little too well!) I'll post another picture when it makes its way to the STL and onto my wall here.

Yesterday we had an amazing chapel service at Eden! A last semester seminarian, Cassandra Gould, offered an amazing message about hooking up! It was explained based on the contexts that the phrase has been heard in history, and it matters who is speaking to whom as to what the contextual meaning actually is. In this case, referring to 1 Cor. 12, talking about individual gifts we have all been blessed with, and imagine what would happen if we could hook up to use those gifts together.

As Cassandra stated, "Imagine what would happen if an African American female preacher hooked up with a Caucasian female preacher, Imagine what would happen if that Caucasian female preacher hooked up with a Caucasian male preacher, imagine what would happen if that Caucasian male preacher hooked up with an openly gay female preacher, imagine what would happen if that openly gay female preacher hooked up with a disabled preacher, imagine what would happen if that disabled preacher hooked up with an able bodied preacher. Imagine what would happen?!"

She was kind of putting on a show while preaching this, she had many of her friends lined up to stand up and join when called upon in the sermon. It was quite moving.

Well friends that's the story from Eden, where all the Women take charge, the Men are well founded and the Children are Cardinals fans.