Saturday was spent helping to teach ten people how to be good Scoutmasters at our council's training facility. The classes were fun, and there was a lot of good interaction with the students. A few were fairly new to Scouting, but several were veteran leaders who were transitioning into a new role.

At home, we had the maple tree in our back yard cut down. Our kids grew up climbing in the tree, and finding favorite perches to read, curl up with cats and while away the summer. It got hit by lightning two years ago, and has gradually been dying, so it was time for the tree to go. We have several sections of the trunk saved for each of the kids (and us) to make endtables. We also dropped our middle daughter off at a county MRDD facility for respite care. She's been there before, and has a grand time on this type of "adventure".

On Sunday, we all went to a combined service with another Episcopal church and parish picnic. My wife, mari4212 and I stayed through the service, then drove down to the University of Evansville to drop mari4212 at school. Her classes start on Wednesday, but this gives her a few days to get settled in, and it helps with our schedule as well. We made good time going down, and got her settled in her dorm in reasonably good order, save for a temporarily missing computer cable. (See her post for moving in tales and room rants.) We also met with the rabbi and his wife at dinner. mari4212 thoroughly enjoyed her class with him last spring, and positively squeed about taking an independent study course this semester. After meeting him, we can understand why she got along so well with him in class. We then returned to home, leaving from Evansville at 8:15 our time (EST). naturally, Cincinnati traffic was snarled up, with three lanes merging into a single lane through a construction zone where NOBODY WAS WORKING. We made it home at 1:30 in the morning. I think I fell asleep before my head hit the pillow.

I was rudely reminded that things were shifting back to our almost kidless state at 5:00 AM, when Blackie, mari4212 's cat woke me up to have his head cuddled, and water added to his (almost) full water bowl. He's been sleeping curled up against her, and sleeping in late all summer, but now that she's gone, he needs to be reassured that somebody loves hime early in the morning.

Wednesday we start a road trip to take our son to Hampshire College. One LONG day of driving, moving him into the dorm on Thursday, a family orientation late on Thursday and all day Friday, then my wife and I have three days to ourselves before I'm due back at work. There'll be a stop in Boston, and another in Fall River, where my wife grew up. It'll be the longest alone time we've had with each other since we became parents. Too bad there'll still be fourteen hours of driving home in it.

My son and I went out to the Order of the Arrow Ordeal on Friday and Saturday. (OA is the Boy Scout honor society) 42 new people were inducted into the lodge. My son was in charge of ceremonies for the last time before leaving for college, and also managed the near impossible on a Boy Scout trip - he got to spend time with his girlfriend. The ordeal weekend was held at our scout camp, and he met her while they were both working at the camp. An ordeal weekend is deliberately stressful on the new candidates - not enough to fail them, but stressful enough to be memorable - and much more pleasant for the members. That is, unless you do it the way I do.  On each ordeal, the new candidates are gathered together in clans, and are led through the weekend by a member of the OA, who acts as a guide-by-example, and endures the ordeal all over again. That's the job that I usually do, for the adults who are experiencing the ordeal. I got home tired. 

On Sunday, we took the family up to visit my wife's sister and her husband and son.  It's the last chance the family has to get together before we take mari4212 and our son to college. Good company and good food - BUT - I discovered that I'm allergic to my sister-in-law's house. I started sneezing shortly after we arrived, and didn't really stop till on the way home. She's noticed that she sneezes more at home too, and is looking to have the ducts cleaned out. 

Between being gone for most of the weekend, I missed out on two of the "Quaffle" competitions at hogwarts_elite Quidditch matches. Sorry, Bronze Banditos. 

There was one interesting moment in church, and afterward. We take the time during our services to celebrate any special events in people's lives - birthdays, wedding anniversaries, anniversaries of sobriety, etc. in the middle of the services. This Sunday, a girl that's been a member of the youth group with my son and her boyfriend got up. She just graduated from high school and is starting college in a month or so. He's been to college for the past two years, and they've been dating for two years. They got up to announce their engagement, which became official last Friday, on their second anniversary of dating. Both mari4212 's and my son's immediate reactions were "She's too young to get married". 

My wife and I both noticed that she was wearing a mich tighter blouse than she had on previous occasions, and that her tummy was now bulging outward farther than her breasts. Yep - about five months pregnant. Both mari4212 's and my son still had the same reaction when we pointed out the evidence too them later - "Oh NAME DELETED how could you? You're too young to get pregnant". 

Well, yes and no. They're certainly old enough biologically, since it happened, and in any century before ours, eighteen to twenty-year olds would already be married and raising families. On the other hand, American society still generally discourages getting pregnant before you are married, and getting married before you finish your education. 

My father-in-law once defined a conservative Republican as a New Deal Democrat with a teenage daughter. Since I still like my Democratic label, I'm not reacting in quite the same way. Life for this couple would be easier had they not gotten pregnant, but 1) he's still in the picture and accepting responsibility, 2) she has supportive parents and a supportive church community, and 3) she had already chosen to go the local university and live at home, so she can still get an education. The successful marriages on my wife's side of the family for the last two generations have all involved moving in together after getting engaged and before getting married, and (in some cases) a pregnancy hat started after engagement but before marriage. My wife and I have no problems with our oldest daughter living with her fiance while they plan their wedding, because its cheaper for them than maintaining two different residences. 

Part of mari4212 's and my son's immediate reactions might just be that our oldest daughter is almost ten years older than the girl who just got engaged, and they might see oldest daughter's actions as responsible ADULT decisions, while someone that is their contemporary (or younger) is making an irresponsible childish decision. They may be right, but I'm mildly amused that they're responding in a more conservative manner than I am.

I usually don't post on the news, even though I follow the news on TV, newspapers and a variety of blogs. But sometimes, I just have to comment on the idiocy of newscasters. case in point, the coal mine disaster in Utah. They've just announced that a "seismic bounce" killed three of the rescuers and injured six more. The media is acting clueless, and the mine owners are somehow implying that a "seismic bounce" is a natural phenomenon, an "act of God". Nonsense!!


The newscasters seem to be either ignorant, or else determined to make this sound like a natural disaster. When the dust and rock settles, we'll probably find that the mine owners pushed the mining to the ragged edge of the safety margins (or beyond) when doing the mining, then went well beyond any safety limits during the retreat mining. They'll get fined, and maybe jailed. And nine men will be dead. Sadly, it's likely that the original six were killed when the mine first collapsed.

Update for the past two weeks -

fandom at last update, we planned on hitting our bookstore for Deathly Hallows at midnight on the release date. We actually picked up two copies, one for the family, and one for my oldest daughter, Elizabeth. mari4212 started reading when we got home, and finished the book by dawn. I started reading Elizabeth's copy, and when my son, Thomas got home from camp at noon, he started reading the family copy. He read it until he finished the book at 4:00 AM on Sunday morning, coming out of the room only to eat, and to complain to my wife "THEY KILLED NAME DELETED</b>! NO!!!" about one of the more tragic deaths in the middle of the book. I kept reading all of Saturday until Elizabeth came by after work and took her copy, then I got our copy and started reading early on Sunday morning, and finished before I had to leave for camp.
No detailed review here - but it's a satisfying read.

Boy Scouts We took 20 boys to Summer camp from July 22nd to 28th. The kids had a great time - we were one of nine troops in camp that week, staying at seven campsites (three small troops were joined as one for the week). There were three camp-wide competitions held, and our boys won all three, with little to no guidance or help from us adults. Many merit badges were earned, and there were few behavior problems (with the exception of one kid). The adults were NOT as happy. There were problems with how some of the camp staff ran program areas, we found out that the camp staff was under a lot of stress and pressure, and we're not happy with the way that the senior camp leadership responded (or didn't) to our complaints.

When I got home, I had to help finalize an interfaith church service to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the World brotherhood of Scouting. The committee that helped plan and run the service all did a great job, and my troop stepped up to host a simple reception in our meeting hall afterwards. The council did a lousy job of publicizing the event - we sent e-mails and articles to them, and the Council newsletter got delayed, and nothing showed up on the council web page. We managed to get enough publicity out to attract over a hundred Scouts and Scouters, but we could have had a lot more people there.

workI mentioned in the last update that I don't talk about work here, but I'll make an exception. Our company downsized my immediate boss around New Years day this year, since they haven't done such a good job marketing the investigation and remediation side of the business. We still don't have a lot of work in that area, but I'm essential to what we do (having the broadest skill set of any of the people in my company). Late Friday, I got a call from my former boss, in part to let me know he landed on his feet, and in part acting as a headhunter. He has a lot more work than staff, and needs several entry-level people in the environmental business, but he also needs at least one senior-level person. He'd offer a lot more money, BUT:

1) The office is two hours away - too far to commute easily.
2) Will any possible salary increase make up for at least temporary losses in my wife's salary as a day care provider? And will it cover any increase in the cost of living elsewhere?
3) No problem with mari4212 or our son, Thomas, since both will be in college. We DO have to worry about social services for our middle daughter, Sara, who's profoundly retarded.
4) The housing market in Dayton is VERY soft, with one or two years needed to sell houses in our area, and the sales price we could get right now would just cover what's left on our mortgage and HELOC. We could rent to our oldest daughter and her fiance, for enough to cover our mortgage and an escrow account to take care of repairs, but we'd still need a downpayment.
5) What's the housing market like in Indianapolis?
6) Moving churches, Boy Scout affiliations and our whole social network.

It will make for interesting times in the next few months.

It's been a long time since I made a serious update, and I'll be disappearing for all of next week, so here goes. In part the lack of activity is due to a busy final session at sorting_elite. Then there was Hogsmeade. In part the lack of posting has been competing with mari4212 for computer time in the evening. And finally, it's due to living a boring life.

So, what's new?

Work I never post details about my work, because I work as a consultant for other firms. Some of my work is covered by attorney-client privilege. Other work eventually makes it into the public domain when it finally gets submitted to a regulatory agency. Most of the time, my company and I are providing confidential advice to companies considering the purchase and acquisition of land. None of them would be really happy with having me share about what I do, no matter how circumspectly. Occasionally, there's some fascinating things that come up when we in the environmental world try to mix government regulations with health science and with the physical world, but even sharing that might compromise a strategy we will be using with one of our clients. So work stays off limits.

church We suspend adult Sunday School for the summer, so there;s really just the regular experience of attending services on Sunday - when I can (see family below). I am working on some posts about where my denomination is going on the issue of recognizing the ministries of gay Christians, or else splitting over the issue, but they're not in any final form yet.

family My kids are busy with their own lives, which takes a lot of time out of our schedules. Our oldest daughter is busy planning her wedding next year, but most of the fun trips are made with my wife and with mari4212, who gets to be a bridesmaid. She's been doing most of the squeeing about the wedding plans on her journal, while I watch our youngest daughter. There's been less posting of daily life now that mari4212 is at home for the summer. Middle daughter (the disabled one) just spent a week at camp, so Mari, my wife and I actually got to sit down for dinner for the week. She usually gets so distracted by other people that she doesn't eat until we leave, and she is far more interested in what is on other people's plates than what is on her own. This makes family dinners around a table difficult. Youngest son is working at a Scout camp this summer, and gets off at about 11 AM on each Saturday, and has to be back to camp by about 11 AM on Sunday. He doesn't have a car, so I get to make at least one trip out to camp and back each weekend. We've been able to make at least a few car pool arrangements, but it's been on a weekend to weekend basis. Any time I have to take him out on a Sunday, I miss church as well.

Boy Scouts Two new Eagle Scouts in the troop, or they will be as soon as they pass their Board of Reviews in the next few weeks. We're also getting ready to go to summer camp next week. I'm also helping plan an interdenominational service to celebrate the centennial of the Boy Scout Movement on August 1st.

fandom I did go to Order of the Phoenix, with mari4212, my son, one of Mari's friends and her dad. A good time was had by all. We're leaving in about half an hour for the book release party at our local bookstore. There's been some careful scheduling of the book rights. mari4212 will start reading as soon as we're home, and will probably have it read by noon tomorrow, when my son arrives home from camp and starts to read it. He will probably have to take it back to camp with him, but since this is the week I'll be there with the troop, I'll recover the book and get it read by the time I come back. We'll be living in tents, with no computer access and no Internet access either.

I firmly expect that the community will be almost silent for the next week or so, unless all of the Hogsmeade entries get dropped for voting. So except for a few comments back and forth this weekend, I'll see you all in a week.

I love having my kids home from school. It'll become less common in the future, as our youngest will be going of to school this fall, at least 12 hours driving (one way) away from home. He's functionally away already, on a church-related mission trip to help reconstruct New Orleans. he'll be back next Sunday, long enough to throw his dirty clothes into the hamper, pack more clean clothes and have me take him out to Scout Camp. From then until about August 13, he'll be in the house on Saturday night only. There'll be about two weeks left before he goes off to school, and we won't see him back until Christmas.

Oldest daughter moved out of the house several years ago. That leaves our disabled daughter and mari4212 at home with my wife and I for the summer. The good news is, it means "chick food" - dinner meals with interesting ingredients and new flavors that my son won't eat. The bad news is - I have to share the computer. mari4212 has hers set up downstairs, but the cost of upgrading the Internet connection to allow for multiple users is just too much for her summer use. Between sorting at hogwarts_elite and mari4212's sorting (and checking her f-list for raves on her Supernatural fan-fiction, it's been hard to finish some of the pieces I want to post. I guess they'll wait.

mari4212 mentioned being stressed out serving as an acolyte at our Sunday service, because so many of our young people were out. She actually did a fine job. I was being three other people during the service. I was acting as the sound man, a job my son normally does. I also filled in reading the Prayers of the People for an older parishioner who played hooky. And I filled in for my oldest daughter, who was supposed to serve as a chalice bearer, but didn't show up at the service. So yes, I too suffered through the heat of wearing the robes.

We stopped by after church to see what happened to oldest daughter, and arrived just when her landlady was delivering a shovel to my daughter, who was in tears.

Her cat died.

Our entire family have been cat people, and as soon as my daughter moved from a near-campus apartment to a rental house, almost two years ago, she adopted an older, stray cat who had been visiting her landlady. She took care of some eye infection issues, had him fixed, and found herself owned by Stray Gray. He was very skittish of strangers at first, then started to warm up to family and friends. He got fatter on a regular diet. He had approval rights over my daughter's fiance, and when said fiance moved in, Stray Gray got along with the fiance's cat. He got sick very late last week, deteriorated rapidly and died late Saturday night. My daughter buried him in their garden.

And that brings us back to the family cats. We have three, all adopted strays or the offspring of strays. Ginger and Blackie are siblings, almost seventeen years old. Ginger is firmly patterned on my wife, but Blackie is mari4212's cat, and is glued to her whenever she is home. Schroedinger is a four year old adopted stray who worships the ground that my son walks on, but will snuggle up to anyone else who she can steal a cuddle from. We're just now realizing that as much as Blackie and Scroedie are patterned on our kids, that both of them will live out their lives as our cats, in our house.

So next fall, when mari4212 and my son go off to school, we won't just be almost empty-nesters (middle, disabled daughter will still be with us) - we'll become full-time cat parents.

Many of you on my friends list have absolutely no interest in religion. You can just skip this entry. But for those of you who are:

* Orthodox Christians
* Attracted by religion, but feel burned by past experiences with Christians or other religions, or
* actively exploring your own faith

you might be interested in this post.

Today is Pentecost Sunday, the date when Christians celebrate the descent of the Holy Spirit on the disciples, and traditionally celebrated as the "birthday of the Church. The following is the text of the Prayers of the people, the communal prayers of our parish church for this Sunday.

( Prayers of the People - Pentecost Sunday )

Our rector wrote up these prayers, cribbed liberally (pun intended) from the Center for Progressive Christianity (http://www.tcpc.org/), and their guiding principles. My parish is a member of this organization. These prayers and principles are EXACTLY why I find my home in the Episcopal Church, and why I don't feel the need to change the views of any of you with different beliefs than I have. My church tells me that God is at work in all of your lives, that your path to God does not need to be my path to God, because all paths to God are just that - ways that each of us can reach the divine.

swiped from traumerin

Link: The Alignment Test written by xan81 on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

I spent most of the last week (and considerable time before) getting ready for a Boy Scout camporee for our District. We planned it as a service project at Fort Ancient Historical Park, a Hopewell Indian site that features over 18,000 feet of walls surrounding several hundred acres of hilltop. The camporee went from last friday to Sunday and was a rousing success:

* About 230 Scouts and leaders from thirteen different troops attended the camporee
* Another 30 Cub Scouts attended for the day
* The Scouts contributed over 525 hours of community service in a single day, clearing brush from some of the earth walls to make them more visible
* 55 boys earned the Indian Lore merit badge
* Another 50 learned how to kayak on a river, at a neighboring canoe livery
* The competition games held between classes and the service project were very popular.
* Five Scout troops and one adult leader group participated in a cooking competition, and we staff judges ate very well
* The weather was fantastic!

At the closing campfire, the director of the park gave a motivational speech, urging all of the boys in attendance to keep up with Scouting, and try to reach the rank of Eagle, the highest rank in Scouting in the United States (Queen's Scout for the English among us). The story works just as well for all of the people on my f-list, especially those who may have someone in their lives (including themselves) who tell them what they can't do, or that they can't succeed. It goes like this:

One spring, a hen turkey got up off of her nest to stretch her legs and scratch in the dirt. As she walked into a thicket, she found a strange egg. It was still warm, and she thought to herself that the egg would die if she didn't take care of it. So she tucked the strange egg beneath her wing, returned to her nest, and kept it warm along with her own eggs.

One day, her eggs hatched, and so did the strange egg. The other turkeys gathered around to see what would hatch from this egg. As the chick's head emerged from the shell, with its powerful beak gleaming, the other turkey mothers let out a gasp of horror. But the old, wise turkey leader said "Don't worry - just always remind it that it is a turkey.

As the strange chick grew, the other turkey chicks mocked it and insulted it, because it looked so different from them, with its dark feathers, large wings and powerful talons and beak. The strange chick asked the old, wise turkey leader why the other chicks mocked him. And the old, wise turkey leader told him "Don't worry, you're a turkey, just like them.

Another day, the strange chick saw his reflection in a pool of water, and noticed that the feathers on his head were turning white. He saw how long and powerful his wings were, and how small the wings of the other turkey chicks were. He returned to the old, wise turkey leader and asked why he was so different, and what he really was. And the old, wise turkey leader told him "Don't worry, you're a turkey, just like them.

Then one day, the shadow came. The strange chick looked up, and saw a powerful bird, with wide black wings and a white head and tail soaring overhead. The old, wise turkey leader shouted "It's an EAGLE. Run for your lives, into the thicket." The other turkeys ran into the thicket, but the strange chick looked up into the sky at the eagle, then at his own wings, and shouted "I'm an eagle too!" But the old, wise turkey leader told him. "You're not an eagle, you're a turkey. Go hide your brothers and sisters with your wings. The eagle chick shouted even louder "BUT I'M AN EAGLE". And the old, wise turkey leader told him. "You're not an eagle, you're a turkey."

And the eagle chick finally believed him, and hid his brothers and sisters with his large, powerful eagle wings. That eagle lived and died as a turkey.

The lesson of this story is that you were born to be an eagle. You're only a turkey if you believe what other people might say to bring you down. Believe in yourself, and be the eagle you were born to be.

stolen from 427




I disagree - the question they say I got wrong is incorrect in their answer key.

69% GeekMingle2.com - Free Online Dating

Not bad for an old guy!


Mingle² - Free Online Dating

from strangealchemy who always gets the exact opposite of what I get on these memes - but we get along online anyway.

I'm way behind with substantive updates on what's going on with life, but that's mostly because I have been busy with Boy Scouts on most evenings and weekends. We're in the middle of running an adult training course that involves two Wednesday evenings and two weekends, where participants actually form a Scout troop and learn what the program is like by being Scouts. Oldest daughter and my Eagle Scout son are on the staff as well. This year, another staff member and I are starting to work on a full-length manual for how to run the course, so I'll be co-authoring or compiling a book after all. Due date is two years from now, as we modify and improve on it during the next two courses.

Another fun part of Scouting was last weekend, when I attended a picnic for Vigil members of the Order of the Arrow. The OA is Scouting's honorary society, and it is unique in that it's the only honor society where members are voted in by non-members. Scouts are elected into the basic level of membership in the society by the rest of the boys in the troop, most of whom are not even eligible to be members. There's a second level of membership, which can be reached by learning more about the Order of the Arrow and committing to its purposes, and most active members advance on to this second level. Vigil is the honorary membership level WITHIN the society. Only one Vigil member can be selected each year for every fifty active lodge members, and at least half of the people selected have to be youth, under the age of twenty-one. Our lodge CAN elect either six or seven Vigil members a year, but typically, we elect fewer than that. Last year, I was one of four elected.

About forty of us gathered at one of our Scout camps, socialized together, and cooked up some burgers and hot dogs. After we ate, we sat down to review the names of the Scouts and adult leaders who had been nominated, and all of us got to say what we knew about them. Once the youth members were satisfied that they knew who each of the nominees were, we adults got kicked out, while the youth voted on who was elected. To me, that's one of the things that makes the Vigil honor special - it's awarded by the youth in Scouting, not the adults.

Once the election was complete, we all got called back in, and were told who was elected. Then came the fun part - figuring out an honor name for those who were elected, and translating that name into Lenni Lenape, the language of the Delaware tribe. The only restriction is that the name can have no more than thirty-two letters, including blanks between words. One of our adults (a Shawnee) manned the official dictionary, and translated as we came up with ideas. Mine isn't too bad - Achsin Elachtoniket, or Rock Seeker, in honor of my career as a geologist. One of the names we came up with was perfect, but came in at thirty-six letters. Good fun was had by all.

The identities of the honorees are still secret, until the day they are formally called out and recognized at summer camp or another occasion. Their honor names won't be revealed until after they keep their vigil. I plan on being there for that occasion.

We've finished up the class on "The Passions of the Christ" at church. We're currently starting a series on who we are as Episcopalians, how did we get into such controversy over consecrating an openly gay bishop in 2003, and what else is threatening to tear the church apart over this issue, women's ordination and (as the Canadians have done) blessing same-sex unions. I've been keeping the notes, although they're not as long or complex as those for Larry Welborn's classes. other than for mari4212, is there any interest in these classes?

I'm way behind on this one, but mari4212 will want the notes anyway. This is the last of our lenten sunday school classes. Since then, we've gon through palm Sunday and Easter, and i've been swamped with Boy Scout training and issues.

( Larry Welborn - fifth and final Lenten lesson )

My personal reaction to this and the previous lessons is that I am not yet completely ready to accept a depressed or melancholic Savior.

Part of it lies in the narrative. Larry would have us believe that everything was sweetness and light until about halfway through Jesus' ministry, when opposition by the Jewish authorities and the murder of John the Baptist triggered the melancholy. The evidence used to show the melancholy (predictions of His own betrayal and death, weeping at the death of Lazarus, agony in the garden, feelng of forsakenness on the cross) is supposed to extend all the way through Jesus life, to the moment of His death. On the other hand, the evidence for Jesus' active management of His melancholy, the entry into Jerusalem, the cleansing of the temple and the last Supper all occur during the middle of the narrative.

There's also the matter of the actual trigger. There's an old saying that just because you are paranoid DOESN'T mean that everyone isn't out to get you. In the same context, being melancholic doesn't mean that the "bad guys" aren't out to oppose you either. The initial lack of opposition to Jesus and His message may just mean that the Jewish authorities weren't aware of Him yet. The Temple authorities were dispatching what they saw as false messiahs on a regular basis, and Jesus wouldn't have been that much different to them. Jesus' response that he would be betrayed and suffer death wasn't despair - it was the stark truth, amply verified by what happened to every other messianic figure. Jesus was unique in predicting that he would be raised again from the dead, and I believe it was that faith in His Father's actions that gave Him the courge to go on. The REAL temptation that Jesus faced was more likely the apparent hopelessness of the situation and unbelief that God would actually carry him through.

swiped from strangealchemy Probably right, I'd wear a kilt.

You scored as William Wallace. The great Scottish warrior William Wallace led his people against their English oppressors in a campaign that won independence for Scotland and immortalized him in the hearts of his countrymen. With his warrior's heart, tactician's mind, and poet's soul, Wallace was a brilliant leader. He just wanted to live a simple life on his farm, but he gave it up to help his country in its time of need. </td> William Wallace 83% Indiana Jones 75% Maximus 75% Neo, the "One" 54% Captain Jack Sparrow 50% The Terminator 50% Lara Croft 50% El Zorro 50% Batman, the Dark Knight 50% The Amazing Spider-Man 50% James Bond, Agent 007 42% Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0 created with QuizFarm.com

Continuing with the Sunday School classes taught by Larry Welborn, here's the March 18th class. We've been discussing the passions of the Christ, the concept of jesus suffering through an emotional passion for much of his ministry, culminating in the passion week. In previous weeks, we've discussed the evidence for melancholy in Jesus' life, then modern perspectives on melancholy and deprression. In last week's class, we discussed the first of three symbolic actions taken by Jesus that show him working through the melancholy - the triumphal entry into Jerusalem

( Cleansing of the Temple )

Next week - the Last Supper

Continuing with the Sunday School classes taught by Larry Welborn, here's the March 11th class. Larry was absent, as he was attending a diversity conference on behalf of the Dayton Theological Seminary, so he recorded his lecture. My wife and I took mari4212 back to school right after church was over, and the rest of the week was busy both at work and at home, so please pardon the delay.

The focus of today's lesson was Mark 11:1-11, the triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

( Jesus entry into Jerusalem )

Next session - cleansing the Temple

Mostly for mari4212's benefit, but anyone else can join in the celebration. My oldest daughter is now officially engaged. They had been planning for this for a while, and are saving for matched Claddagh rings to use for both engagement and for wedding rings, but after seeking our permission last weekend, prospective son-in-law picked out a gorgeous garnet and opal "placeholder" ring from Grandma's jewelry. While my wife and I were taking mari4212 back to school, prospective son-in-law took oldest daughter on a hike through one of the prettiest areas in a nearby state park. After eight miles of hiking, they reached "their" spot, and he officially proposed.

Of course, we knew it was likely to happen, because as we were leaving, prospective son-in-law showed us he had the ring in preparation for the hike, but it wasn't official until we heard it from our daughter.

The placeholder might stay on the left ring finger for a while. Claddaghs used as engagement rings are worn on the right hand, so she needs something for the left hand as well.

Stolen from strangealchemy, with a little bit different results. No. I'm not completely sinless - see lust and gluttony.

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very High
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Moderate
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Moderate
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Low
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Low
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Very Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

mari4212 was here for the Sunday School lesson, but for other occasional readers of this series, here's session 2.

This is the second class on "The Passions of the Christ", which explores the emotional passion of Christ, which took place over the last half of His ministry, not just for the last few days of His life. As we reviewed in last week's session, Jesus was "a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief" starting from when He asked His disciples "Who do you say that I am?" at Cesarea Phillipi, then told the disciples for the first time that He would be betrayed to the authorities, killed, and would rise from the dead in three days time. We also discussed the idea of Jesus experienceing melancholy, which is generally triggered by some profound loss. Some of the possible triggers include:

( The contents of Larry's presentation, and my response )