Mr. Locke’s Classroom

At this summer’s PC(USA) General Assembly, I was frequently asked the question “What church do you belong to?” This question always gave me some pause, and I’m not sure I ever figured out the best way to answer, other than saying “Which one?” At the moment, I belong to four different church communities with varying [...]

It occurs to me that a general status update post (or any post for that matter) is long overdue.  When I started writing this one, I actually *was* midway through Hebrew.  Now with only two weeks left in the class, and fall quickly approaching, the title is a bit outdated, but the rest still holds [...]

The day I was born (according to my mother) one of the doctors listened to my loud cries and quipped, “That kid’s ALL mouth!” And somehow that characterization has followed me ever since. I have an old cassette tape recording of myself in the 3rd grade, talking to the tape recorder. It was a pretty [...]

Well, we’ve survived a week here in Princeton, and it hasn’t even seemed that difficult (yet).  Of course, Summer Greek hasn’t started yet, tuition bills and grocery bills and other bills haven’t found their way to our new address yet, and we haven’t really looked inside all the boxes stacked against the walls yet.  Still, [...]

You may remember me ranting about a psychological evaluation I had to undergo a few weeks ago, as part of my journey to become an ordained Presbyterian minister. I still think the pre-meeting questions were insanely long and inquisition-like, but the actual meeting with the psychologist turned out to be fairly pleasant. And I just [...]

When I was a hormonal teenager, love songs were pretty much all I wrote. When I look back on them now (or worse, listen to them) I’m struck by how grandiose (but shallow) they seem, and how I spoke of an impossible ideal I could not possibly have understood. Just as an example, I had [...]