Today was the first day of classes for the fall semester — marking the beginning of my first (junior) year as a seminary student at Princeton Theological Seminary. Since I last posted about my fall schedule, I’ve made a few changes: I dropped my Old Testament class (placed out of it, actually, since I had an OT course as an undergraduate at Oral Roberts), and added a one-credit class called Readings in Patristic Greek. This takes my course load down to a meager 10 credit hours this semester — which is a good thing, because I also got a work-study job with the Seminary’s Institute for Youth Ministry doing web-development type stuff.
Grady has started school, too — he’s attending the Dupree Center (it’s the seminary sponsored pre-school) two half-days a week, and seems to be having a great time with his classmates and his teacher, Mr. Allan. His birthday was on his second day of school, so he took muffins to class and they had a party. He also likes looking through the school microsope at their collection of shellacked bugs (so I taught him how to say “entomologist”).
Not to be outdone, Abby is starting, too…starting to crawl. Everywhere. She has a funny sort of crawl, too that almost seems like it involves more work than doing it the regular way (I hope that’s not indicative of future personality type).
And amidst it all, Amy has been the glue that holds all of us together as we walk, run, and crawl in new directions. She’s also discovered a new love for the ocean and the beach, as somehow we managed to spend three of the past four weekends before classes started at various beaches on the New Jersey shore.
Looking backwards at our departure from Texas, our journey to the East Coast, and the past few months here in New Jersey, I’m glad we decided to come early for Summer Greek. Today was a day of beginnings for most students in my class, but for me (and for my family, too, I think) it feels comfortable. Familiar. I know that we’re still a whole lot closer to the “beginning” than to the middle or end, and there will still be plenty of unfamiliar situations, experiences, and even trials to come, but for now things are good. I’m confident that these years will be a special time for our family — one that we’ll look back on nostalgically in lifetimes to come.
1 Response to At the Beginning of the Road