Where I've Been...

These last two weeks have been crazy for me. I've traveled the country and experienced many significant moments, at least for me.

On Tuesday, November 13, I flew out of Waco for the Evangelical Philosophical Society conference in San Diego, CA. About the time I settled into the hotel room, I got a phone call from my mother-in-law. Her mother was not doing well and she was trying to get ahold of Jess to let her know. From that point on, my time in San Diego seemed tenuous. However, on Wednesday, I was able to reconnect with some friends from Bethel (some of which are my former professors, but especially after the trip, I feel like I should call them friends). I had lunch and supper with them and also spent time at and in between papers catching up and discussing things.

On Wednesday afternoon, I presented my first paper at a conference. The paper was entitled "Kierkegaardian Commanded Love". It was a brief synopsis of my master's thesis and was well received by all 8 people who came to hear it. It's even better when I only knew four of the eight! Half of the people came because they thought my paper title sounded interesting.

On Thursday, I was able to do my bookshopping at the conference where everything is half off. I limited myself to 8 books, but I'm quite excited about the 8 I chose. On a far more solemn note, while eating lunch with a friend at The Cheesecake Factory, I received a call from Jess letting me know that we needed to start booking tickets for a trip to Michigan. Her grandmother was going to pass away, and they were keeping her on the ventilator long enough for everyone to get back. So with the help of Brad (and no help from Continental Airlines), I got a red eye flight booked for that evening on American Airlines, which was my first domestic red eye flight of my life.

Friday, I arrived in Chicago at 4:40 am, and awaited my flight to Detroit. I arrived there about 9:30, and waited in the terminal for my lovely wife to arrive on her travels from Waco to Dallas to Detroit at 1:30pm. We were picked up by my sister-in-law, her boyfriend, and my beautiful niece, Sophie. It was the first time I had seen Sophie since her birth in September. They drove us back to Jackson, and we went directly to the hospital. We got to see Jess' grandma while she was only semi-sedated on the ventilator and she seemed to interact with us. After some time, we left the room so they could take her off the ventilator, and we came back to hearing her familiar snoring, as she peacefully slept before passing away late that evening. Jess was present with her mom and aunt for her grandma's passing.

Saturday and Sunday seem like a blur. The thing I remember most is working on a slideshow of Erma (Jess' grandmother) for the viewing. I was glad that I was able to help out in some way in everything. The family loved the slideshow and I'm making copies on DVD for everyone to have at Christmas. Another neat thing is that my parents called on Saturday night from Ireland to express their condolences to Jess. That meant a lot.

Monday was the viewing, and it was neat to see how many people Erma had impacted. She was a woman of small stature, but was loved by all. My parents also came up for the viewing (after getting back from Ireland at 1am and working all day). That meant a lot too.

Tuesday was the funeral. It was the first funeral of someone that I felt like I had a close connection to that I was just there as family. Many family members shared at the funeral as well as many non-family people. The funeral home was pretty much packed. The one downside of the funeral was the officiating pastor, who among other things, butchered half of the names of the family members when reading the obituary. Not cool. Not cool at all.

Wednesday we spent some time with family in Michigan, and I did a wee bit of homework. That evening, we drove down to Berne, as we were celebrating Thanksgiving with my family on Thursday. It was the first Thanksgiving spent with family as a married couple. It was cool that my brother Jay turned down doing stuff with his friends when they called, and he told them that he couldn't hang out because he was hanging out with his brother and sister-in-law. It is a good feeling when your younger brother wants to hang out with you. :)

I actually got some good connecting time with each of my brothers over Thanksgiving, especially with Jared, even though he was back in Texas. I love my brothers and am so grateful for them. I'm looking forward to us all being together in Berne for Christmas.

Thursday evening we drove back to Michigan, as our Friday flight was an early one, necessitating us being at my mother-in-law's house at 5:15am. We stopped at Starbucks and we were off to the airport. Because we bought our tickets so late, we weren't able to sit together on the plane, which was sad. We arrived back in Waco around 1:15pm, and were picked up by Travis.

Friday afternoon was spent working on homework and then Friday night was spent going to the movies with Aaron and Bekah. The movie we wanted to see was sold out (No Country for Old Men), so we settled on Beowulf. I was pleasantly surprised with it and would recommend it to most anyone. It was really nice to be back in my own bed last night after 10 nights away from it.

Today, I did homework. Lots and lots of homework. Finished a paper, graded a bunch of stuff, started working on a lecture, etc. I'm just trying to get caught up as the end of the semester is less than two weeks away, and I sure have plenty to do.

All in all, it's been an exciting time. I feel closer to my family now than I did two weeks ago, especially my in-laws. More and more, I feel the distinction between "my family" and "Jess' family" shrinking, which is nice.

Don't expect much from me soon... I'll be in the world of trying to finish a semester strong!

Chops of Brilliance

There is a conference currently going on at Baylor right now celebrating the life and writings of Abraham Joshua Heschel, one of the leading Jewish theologians/philosophers/thinkers of the 20th century. Many Jewish scholars are in attendance at this conference. As I am presently taking the Jewish Philosophy class, I have been attending some of the sessions, including the luncheons.

Today, we had a buffet luncheon provided by the food services here at Baylor. The buffet included a nice pasta salad, cooked carrots, Peruvian potatoes, some kind of pasta with sauce, and pork chops. Yes, we were served pork chops at a conference full of Jewish scholars. To the surprise of no one, many people were vegetarians for lunch today. It was quite funny, yet sad at the same time.

Maybe I'll write more of my thoughts about this situation at another time.