yay for costumes!

crystal looked good as a hippie... haha! she worked hard to get her hair really big. the pic does not do her "do" justice.


jamie felt bad about her goth looking costume because people upstairs to see the band were really dressed like that... haha oops!

dave was the best oompa-loompa i have ever seen. i think he came right from the chocolate facotry!


shaggy was scared as usual, so i am trying to save him! haha the dude in the back giving the thumbs up was a band groopie... haha i guess he wanted to be in our pic.


i think matt is borat's twin for sure! not only does he look like him, he had the voice down, too! matt is our class president.


my pt class had our first class party last night. we had a sweet turn out with a wide varity of costumes!
jon and i went as daphne and shaggy from scooby doo. a special thanks to connor for providing the daphne constume! we of course did not have time and/or money to put together costumes. we wanted to do something different because jon's shaggy costume (green shirt and brown pants) did not really apprear to be a costume, although that is exactly what shaggy wears! we could have done a shaggy wig, but i am not so sure jon would have worn it anyway... haha. jon did shave his beard to look like shaggy which was a nice touch! it was a fun night!

the band that night was quite a sight to see... wow! this was the hardest rocking, head banging crew i have ever seen. luckily we could go downstairs to get away from these crazies. i have to admit we did sitck around for the first few minutes of their show just because it was so shocking to see a band and a whole crowd of their followers going absolutely nuts! i am talking long hair, smashing and jumping dudes screaming songs. i think my jaw was hitting the ground at this point, and i am sure my ears were about to start bleeding at any second. so we took our party elsewhere! i am not sure if i was more scared or shocked... haha! either way.... it was an experience for sure!

e l i z a b e t h

some HUGE hamburgers

for some reason this had me laughing one evening, so of course i reached for the camera to capture the moment for all my blog readers! although it does not seem to have the same effect looking back at the pics now... haha oh well.

also, i know how some of my readers out there have a great appreciation for a good home grilled (not a fast food, mass produced pattie of who knows what) hamburger!

jon has mastered the art of grilling. these burgers were huge and delicious!

we vow to use the grill as long as we can. you can pretty much grill year round in ms; we are not so sure that will be the case here in pa, but we're going to give it a whirl. we will keep you updated! haha

happy grilling everyone!
e l i z a b e t h

thank you, god, for the routine...

i have to be honest - i sort of assumed that most of my classes in seminary were going to be a lot theological jibber-jabber that would leave me (after seminary) trying to figure out how to apply what i learned to everyday life. not that this is a bad thing. i think it is important to believe in a triune god and a christ who is fully god and fully man, for instance, even though it is difficult to figure out how all that works and the implications for our lives.

however, since i have arrived here, i have realized that i could not have been more wrong! the professors here at pittsburgh have a special way of making everything very practical - even the most theological things. i will give you an example from today's spiritual formation class (or as we affectionately refer to it - spifo) with dr. barnes. this particular lecture was about several things (a little augustine, justice and compassion spirituality, etc.), but one of these things was spirituality in everyday, ordinary life. i hope this will bless your soul as it did mine! by the way, this is dr. barnes' stuff - not my own. i am not this clever, and i do not wish to be accused of plagiarism! also, i will certainly not articulate it as well as he did, but i hope you get the point. so here it is:

apparently if you add up the instances that are talked about in the gospels, it only adds up to a year worth of days. those of you who are on your toes will be asking, "i thought jesus' ministry was 3 years." good point. so what was he doing the rest of that time? as dr. barnes put it: "this means that 2 out of every 3 days jesus looked at the disciples at the end of day and said, 'well, don't write down anything from today... nothing significant happened.' it was just a routine day." it was a laundry day possibly... or another day running around town... or working... or whatever you do on a normal day.

but, no matter how ordinary, these are nonetheless significant days because god loves routine. think about it. everything in creation hinges on the routine. electrons moving in circles around a nucleus. planets moving around the sun. seasons come and go and come again. the sun comes up and goes down and then comes up again. everything in creation is in a constant routine, and we would be in serious trouble if any of these things got out of wack. but through this routine, all of creation is singing doxology to god because, through this routine, everything in creation is doing what it was created to do. praise god from whom all blessings flow! the sun comes up every morning, not necessarily because of natural order, but because god instructs it to.

those of you who have played with little kids recently know the truth of routine being a god created thing. if you start a game with a kid, what is the first thing they say after you stop (say you are swinging them in circles)? that's right... do it again! do it again! do it again! soon you realize that they are going to keep this up a lot longer than you can. why do they do this? simply put, they love routine because they were created in the image of a god who loves routine.

the problem for us is that we are real good with our spirituality during times of crisis or when things are going really well. but not everything is valley and mountaintop experiences. what about the plains in between which take up the majority of our lives... the days when we are waking up and going to school or to work and picking up the kids from school and cooking dinner and doing laundry and cleaning the house and cutting the yard and going to meetings and practices and ______ (you can fill in the blank). the real challenge of spirituality for us is to pay attention to the things happening in our routine - this is the task of spirituality! as dr. barnes said, "you have to see the mystery beneath the ordinary." it is all about the subtext. if we got to go back in time and we met jesus, chances are that we would see him on an "ordinary" day... a day when he was not healing or casting out demons but going about his daily routine (if there was such a thing!). but was there truly anything "ordinary" about anything jesus did? certainly on the day he was crucified, people walked by and saw something that was ordinary. unfortunately, everyday people were hung on crosses. surely, people saw him that day, and it was just part of their routine. but christ was at work in that ordinary event to make it extraordinary!

too often we don't see the holiness of routine. i know that i don't. i even get upset at it! it is boring. i want constant change to keep me entertained. but this is why it is so important for us to live in community. the people around us can see the holiness in our routine. they know the subtext. they know the mystery beneath our ordinary lives. we certainly can't take our beating heart for granted when there are those around us who know what a blessing a healthy heart is. we certainly can't get sick of tending to our children when there are those around us who desparately want the frustration of tending to children but can't get pregnant.

karl barth stated that all sin begins with a lack of gratitude. how can there be room for sin when we are grateful? may we be grateful for our "ordinary" routines. may we look for the subtext and find the holiness in everything we do. may we find christ making the ordinary extraordinary.

cheers,
jw

by the way, the theology of the triune god is extremely important in everyday life. check out james torrance's worship, community, and the triune god of grace. just another great, practical lesson taught to us here at pts!

msu vs. wvu

the day got off to a wonderful start! we dressed in maroon with cowbell in hand and set out to cheer on our dawgs. the sun was shinning and it was cool and breezy outside... just the perfect weather for a football game.

the drive to morgantown was beautiful! we did not get a pic because we were conserving battery life for the rest of the day (i forgot to charge my batteries.) don't worry we will post fall pics soon! we passed lots of wvu fans on the way, and we made sure to display our maroon and white! haha

after about 90 minutes we arrived on the wvu campus. it is an odd campus i might add. we first saw soccer fields and then continued to dirve a mile or so until we reached the wvu alumni center. the stadium was about another mile from the alumni center, and we did not pass any other campus buildings in between. so we are not really sure where their heart of their campus is. anyway... i quickly spotted our tailgate!! jon questioned, "how do you know that is our tailgate?" i answered.... "well, they are all wearing maroon!" haha he immediately rolled down the window and rang the cowbell out the window (we are still sitting on the hwy stuck in game day traffic.) everyone at the tailgate responded by ringing their cowbells right back at us! haha it was a good feeling.

this was not the "tailgate" i am familair with. this was catered with glass plates and glasses. there was no plastic cutlery for at least a mile or so. although we did have the usual hamburgers/hotdogs/beans/chips/cookies meal, it was the nicest version you could have.

we got to see a couple familiar faces from home which absolutely made our day... (straton greeted us walking in, brad fuller, adam telle.) also, we chatted with other random msu grads from all over which was fun, too. we send out a speical thanks to stacey's mom and dad for taking us under their wing. haha we got to spend some quality time together at the tailgate! it was lots of fun!

after the mini pep ralley and the door prize give-aways (no i did not win anything... it must have been an off day for me), we decided not to wait on the shuttle and just hike over to the stadium. as i mentioned earlier, we passed nothing like dorms, or class buildings... or anything marked wvu for that matter. it was just like walking through town... we passed kroger, burger king and other businesses. i guess their campus is really spread out.

we could tell we were getting close to the stadium when we filed into the the cattle herd of navy and yellow. oh yeah... we stuck out. the worst part was marching through their tailgate parties. we have it good at msu as far as tailgating goes. they seriously tailgate in a HUGE parking lot from their trunks or truck beds. we did end up walking next to some dude who was a little on the sober side and nice to chat with, so that made the walk through the enemy terriotry a little less painful.

once inside the game... we notice everyone standing along side a glass wall looking down. we assume is it the little tram car they have buzzing all over campus. but to our surprise, you can look down on to the team's workout room. i wanted to take a pic because it was really neat, but then i felt odd and decided against it. feeling odd usually doesn't bother me, but this time it got the best of me for some reason. you could see the players all geared up pacing around, all the workout equipment lined up painted in school colors, and a snack bar of some sort. the snack bar was serving power bars and protein shakes for a little pregame boost.

once safely seated in our msu section we were anxiously awaiting the game to begin. it was great until we forgot how to kick off the ball. we were a little flustered after that and never found our heads again. i do not know how you could ever find your head in that stadium... they play LOUD. obnoxious rap music for every down in the game. it was seriously so bad that everyone was sticking their fingers in their ears. our least favorite was at EVERY thrid down they would play these doom day bells that would shake your brains out. i kind of felt bad for the bands... they never got to play. it was homecoming, so they had an alumni band as well. we did get to cheer during the 2nd and 3rd quarters, so that was fun!

here are the pics from the day...



a little pregame. everyone in the band wears a cape. it was pretty sweet. their band was huge and ran everywhere on the field.









so wvu has a bad history of couch demolition. i think it is a thing of the past, but the alumni are still making reference to the old days.







a shot from the 2nd quarter when we actually decided to play.







we were hoping to take a pic with the score board after the game and send it out for christmas cards... haha since the game was clearly not going our way, we opted out.




this turned out to be quite a blog... whew!

e l i z a b e t h

ynz

oh my friends. i have heard it! ynz!!! so let me explain... ynz = y'all here in the burgh. i am really trying to think of a decent pronunciation, but i am not coming up with much. this is the best i can do... say you-ins. now abbreviate you to just the y+ins. i have been told that you will know a true "pittsburgher" when they say, "ynz!"

last night at work, i was in the receptionst's office chatting with a patient who was making an appointment. as the conversation dwindled, he ended it saying, " ynz have a good night." i had to replay it over in my head a couple of times to make sure i heard him correctly. yep... he said it, yzn. hahaha

another funny word that i did not expect to sound differently is bagel. everyone around here says it one of two ways:
1 they actually say bag with a short "a"... so bag-el
or 2 they say begel... with short "e" sound

these words have been dubbed into pittsburghese.

remind me to never stop saying y'all!

e l i z a b e t h

schenley park

schenley has quickly become our new favorite weekend hang out spot! we just cannot seem to get enough. even when it gets cold, schenley will be the place to go. they have one of the best out door ice skating rinks around here! we can also go watch hockey games there. it will be nice because they have big heaters set up on the hill over looking the rink, so you can keep warm when jack frost comes to town.

here are some pics from last weekends picnic/ disc golf/ play/ study afternoon:



from our favorite spot, you can see the skyline of downtown.











another shot where you can see downtown on the left of the pic and oakland (u pitt's neighborhood) on the right.






this is u pitt's most famous building, the cathedral of learning. you can see this place from pretty much anywhere in pittsburgh. i have only been in it once... only because i was lost, haha. i would like a tour. the classrooms all have themes and are supposedly remarkable.









this play place is for big kids! there are a number of these throughout the park. the one we were playing on was not very fancy, so no kids usually play on it. james was brave enough to show our claim on the territory! when i went to grab my camera i could hear other park goers saying, "what is that guy going to do up there?" hahaha it looks like jon is trying to be dangerous as well by choking himself on the swing.







vanessa and i chose the simultaneous slide.... wheeeeeee!





guess what!!?? it is 42 here this morning! burrrrr!

e l i z a b e t h

breathing air again

i am sure none of you care, but fall is my favorite time of year. maybe it is because some of my best childhood memories seem to be related to fall. i remember very vividly, for instance, playing in the leaves while my dad was trying to rake them up at our old house on ponderosa dr. there are even songs that i relate back specifically to fall. try out toad the wet sprocket's "all i want," and see what you think!

any way, there is something about this time of year. there is something about how the cold weather kisses your face and exposed skin, leaving your ears and nose with this strange burning sensation. it makes it even better when the rest of your body is layered in warm clothing. there is something about knowing it is cold outside and being able to be cuddled up in a warm home. all the clothing seems softer and more cushy (fleece and down anyone?) beginning in the fall. there is something about the cold air filling up your lungs that makes you feel like you are breathing for the first time in your life. i have never felt so alive as i do during first few days of fall. actually, i find it sort of ironic since we usually associate death with this time of year. any way, you can ask elizabeth about the feeling alive part. she was going wild yesterday! it was like someone had given her tons of sugar and caffeine. when i asked her why she was bouncing off the walls last night, she simply said, "it is something about this cool air." there is a scent in the air, too, (maybe from all the dying leaves) that smells so clean and pure. it is like nature wishes to give life a peaceful, clean send off into death. there is no other time of the year that smells like fall.

visually, i would take the changing colors of leaves in fall to the blooming flowers of spring any day. maybe that is a little wierd, but i stand firm in this opinion. it might just be the magnitude of it all - trees for as far as the eye can see in brilliant reds, golds, oranges... the glory of it all is overwhelming!

even on the palate, fall brings welcomed change. the foods and drinks associated with this time of year are second to none. who would disagree? when else can you drink warmed liquid chocolate or warm caramel apple cider? when else does it feel better to get up in the morning to a hot cup of coffee? what other times of the year do you get excited about hot soups or chili? what other times of the year are the foods that are pumpkin spice flavored? fall is delicious! everything seems to be comfort food.

any way, i just felt like sharing. i should probably be stressed right now with two exams in the next few days, but i am having trouble getting myself worked up about them in this feeling of sheer delight.

long live the fall,
jw <><

reading with a seminarian...

i thought i would give all of you (although, i am not sure anyone is reading this anymore!) a list of some of the things i am reading, so you can read along with me if you are bored. here it goes (and yes, i am reading almost each textbook front to back for my classes which end in a month):

the oxford annotated bible - i recommend the rsv after doing some greek translations!

confessions - st. augustine
devotional classics - richard foster
the secret life of bees - sue monk kidd

life of antony - athanasius
a short history of christian doctrine - bernhard lohse
the story of christianity - justo l gonzalez

nestle - aland novum testamentum graece - you might want to learn greek before getting this one!

the old testament - michael coogan

some just for fun books (a.k.a my light reading):

union in christ - andrew purves
reality and evangelical theology - t.f. torrance
the nature of atonement - john mcleod campbell
worship, community, and the triune god of grace - james torrance

i hope you enjoy!

jw <><

why hello fall!

apparently, fall officially came today. yesterday was summer with highs in the 80s, and it was 90 like two or three days ago. today, though, is fall with highs barely in the 70s. this wasn't just a cold front, either. the extended forecast shows that the highs will not be getting out of the 60s for the next 15 days. this is fall, my friends.

the trees freaked out today about this sudden change. i was all excited about the changing colors of the leaves, but today i went outside and the leaves are just all falling off. they weren't falling off yesterday, and they haven't even changed colors. it is like the cold air hit them and the trees thought that they had missed something. so, the leaves are just falling off. whatever.

cheers to the cool weather,
jw

luck... or not?

do you believe in luck? lately, i have noticed christians beginning to say "blessings" or "grace" instead of saying "good luck." this has me wondering, "is it really wrong to wish someone good luck? is it wrong to believe in luck as a christian?"

this evening i went to the grocery store to get some ketchup for the dinner recipe we were making. i thought, "ah, no big deal. the store is right around the corner. i should be back in 15 or 20 minutes." i was seriously wrong. i got to trader joe's and discovered they didn't have any ketchup. they have always had ketchup! i had a few other items, though, so i figured i would check out and go to the other grocery store across the street.

i picked out the shortest line - only one person in front of me. this should be quick. wrong! the grandma has forgotten her checks in the car. no problem. the parking lot isn't that big. i watch her walk out the store and into the parking lot. where the crap is she going? she seems to have parked down the street. forget this. i am changing lines. i spot one with only two people, and the one person is finishing up.

i change lines pleased with myself. now what the heck is going on??? grandpa in front of me couldn't find something. this is an easy fix, though. the cashier rings a shelfer to come get the item for him while he finishes ringing the guy up. a few moments later, the shelfer hasn't returned. the cashier leaves to go find the item himself. you have got to be kidding me.

grandma is back. i am starting to get steamed. at least she is taking an hour to write that check. the cashier finally comes back and gets grandpa checked out. my turn.

i race to the car and head across the street. 30 minutes have already ticked by. oh my gosh! the lines are thirty people deep in this place. i get the ketchup and head to the 12 items or less line. there are only 8 or 9 people ahead of me. this shouldn't be too bad. i stand there for a moment (which felt like about 10 minutes) and realize that no one in any of the lines are moving. some lady with screaming kids is checking out in my line, and, of course, there is a problem with something. literally, ten minutes later i still haven't moved. once again, i have picked the stellar line. during this time, i am counting the items in the genius' basket in front of me out of boredom and frustration. at least 15 or 16 items. come on lady, this is the 12 items or less line. finally she gets to the check out. i count the items as she puts them on the conveyor belt. i count 20, plus more four items that she appears to be trying to steal as she leaves them in her basket. the cashier catches her, though. while checking out, she decides she needs some more items and proceeds to go get these items, which she also tries to basket without paying for. i realized that she couldn't count, though, when she pulled out 4 $20s and a few $10s to pay for a $48 bill. i kind of feel like a jerk for hating her for being in the 12 items or less line. i finally make it home over an hour later.

so here is my question, "is there such thing as luck?" i think this raises some interesting questions. if we do not, we are saying that nothing is left to chance. god has control of all things at all times, including me standing in lines for an hour for ten items when i should be studing for tests that will help be become a minister. there is never a time when we are simply left to the elements.

what if we do believe in luck? i don't think that it necessarily means that we don't believe that god puts his hand into our lives at times. free will has to be in there sometimes, right? so having good or bad things randomly happen to you could be considered luck. on the other hand, it is fine for times when one or two things go right or wrong, but how do we deal with things like tonight when nothing goes right and we can't catch a break? it seems to be a pretty big coincidence that i managed to wind up in all the wrong places at all the right times. could it simply be bad luck to make all the wrong decisions? but if it wasn't luck, why in the world did it happen? is god trying to teach me patience or something? i don't know.

good night and good luck,
jw <><

lessons learned from the grill... and other random things

i know that i haven't written in quite a while... i attribute this to writer's block - that and the fact that i read about a million pages a week. i am having trouble processing it all in my spare time (what little i have)! any way, i am going to try to start writing again to give elizabeth a break, since she has been holding the site up on her own. maybe it will help me straighten out my thoughts. sorry if i am unintelligible.

i just had a few quick things to say, which are entirely unrelated to each other.

1. grilling kebabs (ha! this word is spelled funny!) is difficult. I have three serious burns on my hands to prove this. my suggestions for doing so are: a) be careful when placing and moving the kebabs when you have a upper rack on your grill. this bad boy gets very hot and will burn the crap out of your knuckles. b) don't use metal skewers unless you have to. c) if using metal skewers, don't try to pick them up with your bare hands to move them while they are on the grill. they, too, will burn the crap out of you. i am not sure what i was thinking about while doing this (maybe something about athanasius or the doctrine of the trinity), but i have a perfect skewer imprint burned into my right index finger and handy opposable thumb (you got to love it. it always wants in on the action.). for some strange reason, once you remove the skewers from the grill they are almost immediately cool. go figure.

2. be careful cooking hotdogs. they apparently burn quickly and will easily roll out the hole in the back of the grill when the cover is open and onto the ground. they do wash off nicely for a tasty meal, however.



3. it is hot here! what happened to fall? temps in the high 80s is not fall. i am sick of this weather and very ready to see some leaves changing colors.

4. dr. purves is the coolest man alive. welcome back to the burgh, dr. purves!

I think that it is for now. i will be back again soon.

cheers,
jw <><

yay for shea!

wow! it is hard to believe shea has come and gone already. i think time literally flies here... i always knew there was something odd about the eastern time zone. anyway... i will try to capture all the fun. we were not good about taking pictures either. sorry, i know the pictures usually give the blog a spectacular boost of fun!

pittsburgh is having a great event going on called radical days. these radical days have been going on for the past 2 weeks. it is a city funded program where each of the attractions in pittsburgh are open for one day each year for FREE!!! they are really awesome places... the zoo, tours of heinz field and pnc park, art, science and history museums, andy warhol... the list goes on. so the saturday that shea arrived, the art and history museums were on the schedule for the free day. it was a toss up between kyaking and museums. shea picked museums, so we did not waste any time! it is really just a tease to go for a day. you cannot possible see everything. it was great!


here i am in the modern movement of the art museum. i am mostly confused in this gallery, but somethings are pretty sweet... like this dandelion.


after all that fun, we went back to the apartment for a tour of the seminary and a little grilling out. we decied not to go to the pirates game because dave and andy's ice cream and watching the game from mt. washington was like "having our ice cream and eating it too!" back at the apartment, we decide to check out what is going on over in the dorm (better known as the seminary hilton!) boy were we in for it! i have not stayed up that late in a long time. we hung out with james and kelsey in the kitchen while she was baking cookies for the movie nighters in the game room. it got a little crazy for sure! i think the night ended sometime around 1 am, and we were all sore from laughing. conversations can get so twisted late at night. i will spare you the hilarious talk, but be sure to ask me to explain it sometime. here is a quote from the evening, "it's ok everyone. jan's pregnant." - shea

sunday was shea's big trip to shadyside presbyterian church. the day was full of surprises. we are being ushered up to the front row because the dude told me he had saved us some good seats ( i did not think he meant the very first row, but he did!) it is a little scarier than the first row at fpc in starkville! on the way up, shea notices dr. purves (jon's hero) sitting in one of the pews. side note here: shea has never met dr. purves, yet pointed him out to jon and me... hahaha!!! so after the wonderful shadyside experience we chatted outside with jon's professors for almost an hour! it was uncle dee's birthday, so dee and marsha joined us for worship as well. they took us out for a lovely italian lunch at joe mama's (pretty much our favorite place to eat here in the burgh, YUM!)

jon and shea played for worship at the night service we attend ( the open door), so they were tied up all afternoon with practice and setup. we actually gathered a crew of friends from the seminary to go to church with us that night. kelsey, james and lisa came to pick me up and vanessa was over hanging out, so kelsey drove this crazy bunch to the open door. afterwards, it was late so we just made pizzas to feed our growling tummies.

once the week started, it was not as easy to sight see and play around all day because jon and i had tests. jon and shea did check out the sharp edge monday night after class. we also made sure to take shea to our favorite park and parmanti brothers to hit some hot spots while he was here!

and before we knew it... it was wednesday!

sorry we are so behind on the blog... like i said- time flies!

e l i z a b e t h