Since we moved to Pasadena, my wife and I have been living with an elderly couple (they just turned 96 and 99 recently) in an apartment within their home. The health of the 99-year-old wife has been on the decline for some time, especially in the last week or so. Just yesterday, she passed away. If you count the year that they dated before getting married, they’d been together for 70 years. 70 years!

This week I’ve been poring over websites about doctoral admission procedures and communicating with the people who are writing me letters of recommendation. Each program that I am applying to is wonderful and, I feel, is a good fit for my interests and personality. In order to apply to each school, particularly write the admissions essay, I have to really believe that I will be going there. Not just believe that I could get accepted, but I have to imagine myself setting foot on that campus as my home for the next five or six years. It’s quite an emotional roller coaster if you think about it. In a sense, I am psychologically packing up and moving to about eight different states in the country. This time next year, my wife and I will be in one of those eight states (assuming at least one school will have me).

Additionally, I am entrenched in the study of the Gospel of John. I am reading Meeks, Borgen, Brown, Lincoln, Beasley-Murray, Thompson, and of course many others. I am reading Philo and Josephus and 2 Baruch. I am thinking about “I am” and Logos and wisdom and manna. I was a little standoffish about the Gospel of John before, with my Anabaptist tendencies for the Matthew and Luke. But diving in like this, taking two courses from a world class Johannine scholar, has reoriented my thinking about the Gospel. I’m probably not going to write a dissertation on John or anything, but my mind has been expanded. I could probably even say that I’ve learned more this quarter than any other quarter of seminary.

I am going to SBL/AAR this weekend. Actually, since I am the new On-campus Student Representative for SBL at Fuller, I should probably be involved in something with the Student Advisory Group, but I haven’t heard anything yet. I am saddened that, just as I am getting started as a scholar, this will be the last meeting with both organizations together for awhile. I am a member of both SBL and AAR because I have interdisciplinary interests. But since, I guess I’d “land” more in the Bible area, I’m going to have to choose SBL for conferences. Sorry AAR. Why you gotta do this anyway? Also, at the meeting, I’m going to try to meet up with professors at the schools I’m applying to. I may be meeting people with whom I will have a very close relationship with for the next 5-6 years. Perhaps even for decades to come.

For next quarter, I’ve been green-lighted to take Don Hagner’s doctoral seminar on the History of New Testament Scholarship. Apparently, I’m the first masters-level student to take the course in 10 years or so. They don’t even have call letters for it in the system, so there are two or three departments at Fuller working to set up those call letters for next quarter. I am honored and astounded that so much effort is taking place so that little old me can take a seminar.

I am grading Hebrew exegesis and the academic fates of about thirty students rest in my hands. Okay, that’s overly dramatic, but it’s part of what I’m thinking about lately.

My Dad, my brother (not by blood–long story) and his Honduran wife are coming out to have Thanksgiving with my wife and me. They are driving from Austin to LA to get here. It will be the first time the five of us have been together, not including their schedule-hectic wedding in Honduras. It is going to be so wonderful I cannot even begin to express it.

We got a new cat about a month ago. Sometimes she stands up on her hind legs and it makes me happy.

After finals week, I’m going in for jury duty. Which will it be: prayer to not get chosen or dedicated attention to some specific case of civic justice?

Those are some thoughts on life right now.