School and Stuff . . .

Well, it's been a while since I've posted. School started up again last week. Both my classes look rigorous, so I'm really going to have to stay on top of things.

My first class is "Justification and Grace" with Dr. Michael Root, a former ELCA theologian for 39 years and now Roman Catholic. This is looking at the 16th century disputes and modern ecumenical attempts to come to agreement. With his background, knowledge, and perspective, this should be quite interesting. A big class - 11 of us, so the discussion should be good. I'm the only Lutheran (of course), but there are a couple of Reformed guys too.

My second class is "Sacramental Treatises" with the former dean of the school, Kevin Irwin. We'll be reading various treatises from church fathers, I'm assuming on *various* sacraments. This prof will expect a lot, so I'll have to be on my toes. A smaller class, only 5 or 6 of us.

The good news is that with both these classes, I believe I'll be able to research and write about Private Absolution, which is what I want to write my dissertation about. So these classes should be quite helpful in my investigation and framing what I want to ultimately write.

In other news, we had some new birds at our feeder these past few days: some Bluebirds and a Cedar Waxwing. This picture shows a male and female bluebird. We actually had two pairs. Very cool to watch. Don't have a picture of the Cedar Waxwing yet . . .

My son is also working on a science project, to determine if the length of parachute cords have an effect on how quickly they drop. So yesterday afternoon, a cold day indeed, I was outside timing his drops as he performed his trials. Boy were my hands cold at the end! But he got some interesting results. Once he firms up his conclusions and figures it all out, I'll have to report what he found.

And finally: reading late Medieval philosophical writings still makes my head explode!  :-)