...thoughts expressed here are not necessarily final.

March 14-19,2005 Blogification interruptus

Man, reading and pondering in preparation for writing my midterm exam has cut into the happy blogging mode I sought to establish. But first things first...

Yah, I must needs dump some stuff from my Charter site to upload any more content, so I will judiciously cut something since I am not ready to go with a domain.

More March Madness! Here is the final stage of the Anthony makeover- featuring the darker, more sinister look. Beware the Ides of March! I'm not ready or qualified for the Gandalf the White look- it's Gandalf theGrey for me. OK for now, The Chronicles of Anthony's Hair must desist! This has been quite an interesting, if hectic week. It is spring break at work and midterms at Seminary, which is cause for a bit of consternation on my part. Spring break is typically a very busy time for me at the college.

Monday I went to buy another vehicle since my old 93 Saturn was giving up the ghost. Small wonder at 205k miles. It has been an old standby for many years now and still LOOKS great. It didn’t make it into the dealership to be my trade in. The clutch burned out completely and Earnie picked me up and we proceeded to the Saturn dealer, who had the car towed to the lot.

I bought another nifty Saturn for my work car- at 80k miles, it should last for a while. This is the first RED car I have ever owned. Ten minutes before the purchase became final, the lights went out at the dealership and two hours later, I was able to close the deal. By that time it was too late to go into the office, and the license bureau is closed on Monday. I went home and exercised to decompress and de-stress.

Tuesday I downloaded the systematic theology midterm exam and perused it briefly, I just could not get focused on it during the evening. Went to an Adobe seminar at Forest Park and saw some features and uses of Acrobat and InDesign I had not seen before. I also got THREE calls from headhunters this week, but ALL wanted my services in St. Louis. Think I will give MONSTER a Kentucky address just in case on monster and Careerbuilder.

A Tribute to a Friend

We got word recently that a dear friend from Dallas is not doing well at all. Last time Earnie was in Dallas she made a special effort to visit with Forrest Bryant, one of our heroes of the faith. If he heard that he would blush. So it goes with godly men. On that occasion, Forrest was lucid and wanted to pray over Earnie from there in the hospital bed in his son’s home. Amazing!

I remember the time I realized the book I was reading – Keep in Step With the Spirit by J. I. Packer was dedicated to Forrest and his lovely wife Richie (who preceded him in homegoing) how impressed I was. Not with the dedication of the book, but with the way God works in mighty ways in the humble.

Forrest is a hero to us for many reasons- he is one of that rare breed of men who survived the Argonne Forest in WW2 and lived to not want to speak of it. He built a family business into a successful venture. He raised a godly family and instilled the values he lived his life by in a very obvious way in those children. I remember meeting one of his sons and was instantly cognizant of the character of the man- when I found out who he was, I immediately thought- of course, how else for a son of Forrest to turn out?

I hope Forrest lingers long enough for us to get to visit with him again. I know he would much prefer to be with Richie. Several of our friends form those days are gone now: Richie, of course, but also Clark and Edith Breeding, and others as well. It was a distinct privilege to have sojourned among these folk and we owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to them for what they taught us and how they embraced and encouraged us in the faith. Knowing them changed my whole perspective on what it means to be active agents of redemption in the kingdom of Heaven.

March 16, 2005 It was staff development day today.

We had a motivational speaker to spend the day with and I am amazed at the admixture of pseudo-spiritual talk, feel-good cheerleading and psychological manipulation we were put through. Somebody thought this was a good idea I suppose. I kept feeling I was in the Crystal Cathedral or listening to Benny Hinn..

I was told we about the five steps to embracing change- like I needed to hear THAT. In the Foster household, embracing change is like holding onto the handles of the rollerocoaster- we hold on for dear life!

I learned I am supposed to Live by the law of the slight edge Keep a positive attitude Listen and communicate effectively Imagine my greatness and create it Celebrate my accomplishments.

Then I will learn the essence of effective leadership!

I tried to disconnect and have a positive attitude but the folks around me were not having any of it. We were supposed to share our challenges and changes with each other- actually we were experiencing crowd manipulation techniques- can I hear an Amen- like a Jack Hayford sermon- so I couldn’t blame them.

Anyway, it made for a curious sense of irony as I took the afternoon off to write my one hour midterm essay on the problem of evil. I’ll post it here after the grades are all in…

Thursday was a day spent in wrestling with the powers that be to get through a check up and labwork, then on to the tax man to file with Uncle Sam, then on to the DMV to take care of sales tax and licensing my car. That made for a total of 8 hours shot. At least UK beat EKU today, I hear. And Illinois looks less daunting every time I see them play.

Friday- I hope to take the second hour essay this evening after pondering and praying this week- even with the distractions, I have been unusually lucid and organized in my thought life- partly because the topic I will write on is something that has consumed much of my teaching over the past year- the doctrine of Sin. We shall see how it goes.