Claimed, gathered and sent

Philemon 1:1 Παῦλος δέσμιος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ καὶ Τιμόθεος ὁ ἀδελφὸς Φιλήμονι τῷ ἀγαπητῷ καὶ συνεργῷ ἡμῶν 2 καὶ Ἀπφίᾳ τῇ ἀδελφῇ καὶ Ἀρχίππῳ τῷ συστρατιώτῃ ἡμῶν καὶ τῇ κατ᾽ οἶκόν σου ἐκκλησίᾳ, (Phm 1:1-2 BGT) Yup, that's Greek and the new semester has begun. Boy, I feel so rusty and so emotionally unprepared to be back at school. Part of my heart is still in Garrett County, MD. The transition from even a brief 2 weeks of full time ministry to full time classes again is difficult. Now that I have been in Epistles class all morning and then our small group this afternoon, I feel like it will be ok. It was absolutely amazing how much theology is in the greeting of Philemon. We all seemed to enjoy the class and it was good to have our prof back from sabbatical. By the way, LTSGers, doesn't this picture of Paul look a little bit like Dr. Carlson? It's been a good day and we had some social time together as well tonight. So...........WE'RE BAAAAAAAAAAACK!!!

Every two weeks, a small group of us who are older seminarians (second career or third, fourth whatever) get together for lunch on Friday at one of the local restaurants (that has good food cheap). We did this yesterday, much to my husband's delight since the refectory was serving fish and chips for lunch and Ray is not a fish aficionado. We had been there a while eating and talking. Each of us was quite relaxed because although there was lots to be done this weekend for teaching parish and classes, we were finished with classes for the week and could let our hair down. Friday after classes is sacrosanct for this group. We do not do schoolwork on Fridays after class. That's what Saturday is for! After a while, a gentleman approached us and asked if he had heard correctly that we are involved with church and faith. We responded in the affirmative. He proceeded to ask prayer for someone he knew of that just had a baby and was in critical condition. We assured him she would be ad...