Storms, Reformation Day and Barbara Brown Taylor

So I promised that I would be more diligent about writing in this journal and this is my attempt to do so.

This week has been rather eventful.  As everyone knows, Sandy made her way up the East coast on Monday and Tuesday.  We made it through pretty relatively unscathed.  There were a few downed trees on campus and we lost power for about 15 hours or so.  Because of the storm classes were canceled on Monday and Tuesday which was great at the time but now means that a bunch of the classes are a week behind.  I spent most of Tuesday curled up in front of the fireplace reading "A Storm of Swords", not very productive, but really nice.

Things were back in full swing on Wednesday.  I don't have any classes that day but I still had plenty of work to do, both studying and as a Sacristan.  Wednesday was also Halloween and traditionally the Halloween party is held in 'Maywood', my dorm.  Because of the storm this party was kept pretty low key, but there was still quite a bit of dressing up, which was nice.  We also honored a 'Reformation Day' tradition that started last year.  Last year an amazing student and her husband dressed up as John Calvin and Martin Luther because as they put it 'On Halloween you are supposed to dress up as something scary', and just before midnight they got the idea to nail the 95 thesis to the door of one of the more Catholic professors on campus.  So a large group of us joined them in this endeavor and it was funny and ridiculous   That was last year, this year we did not have a scroll of the 95 thesis so instead we went to the same professors house and sang 'A Mighty Fortress is Our God' in its entirety.  Tradition honored.

This weekend has been topped off in a truly great way.  VTS had the honor of hosting Barbara Brown Taylor this Friday and Saturday.  Friday she gave a wonderful lecture based on her upcoming book, and that was great, but today I got the chance to take part in an all day writing seminar.  I am glad I was able to get this experience.  Barbara Brown Taylor was very engaging and down to earth and there was a lot for us to learn from the experiences she shared with us.

So that was my week, I will try to do another update next Friday.