from The Anchor

This is a rambling post, void of substance or thought. Just a forewarning.

I'm at The Anchor. Drinking coffee and bundled up in my hoodie. I love autumn. It's already getting dark out, and after I post this, I'm heading home. Blake's in Nashville for the weekend. I don't know where Andy is. I may get some Amos time tonight. We'll see.

I accidentally took a 2-hour nap after work and dreamt that I was, well, at work.

So glad the weekend's here.

I've spent my time at The Anchor today doing 2 things: (a) updating my blog, and (b) researching Master's degrees and graduate certificates.

You may notice that 2008 has few if any blog posts. That's because I foolishly switched over to xanga during that time, primarily because my blog was stalked by an ex whom I didn't want to bear my soul to. So I switched over to xanga, only to be stalked there yet again. Eventually I switched back to blogger, but the gap remained. Because this blog is far more than just "something I do", but also a chronological retelling of my life for nostalgic purposes, I've been taking many of the posts from my old xanga account and reposting them here. Thus over the next few weeks, 2008 will be littered with posts written during my days dating Karen, interning in Minnesota, and befriending people like Jessie Myers (now Heckenmueller).

Regarding the Master's degrees, I've been looking into some more online universities. I've found several offering degrees in American Revolution and Civil War history. As tantalizing as that sounds, I just can't seem to stomach getting another degree with little practicality. Looking through the courses, I'm seeing, however, how much I'd excel: it's all research and writing, which is my forte. Maybe that's why I cruised so easily through C.C.U.? There are some "graduate certificates" (the younger and much less useful sibling of the Master's degree) in these subjects, and they're far cheaper. It'd be another thing to tack onto my resume, and it's all done online. So, yes, that's tempting. 

There's a couple in the booth across from me talking about witchcraft and how to cast spells of protection. It's creepy and unnerving.

I told Dylan out in Africa, "I don't really want to do vocational ministry, and the struggle now is figuring out what 'living the Christian life' looks like outside the pale of vocational ministry." It's a challenge, it really is. I've been finding that I've interpreted the nature and scope of devotion to God principally through the lens of vocational ministry, the result being a categorization of Christian devotion dependent upon how much one does for God; and those who make a career out of ministry are intrinsically closer to God and more pleasing to him. That's absolute bullshit, and the seeds of such a conviction are nothing less than the birthplace of a crippling legalism. I've found, ironically, that putting "vocational ministry" (not to be confused with ministry per se) has inspired a greater desire for prayer, for reading scripture, for continually realigning my life with the cross. The burden of having to know everything has been lifted, and I've been finding great rewards in slowly savoring the scriptures like southern molasses rather than trying to gorge myself in the pursuit of some ministerial career. I think this is precisely what I've needed: freedom from that crippling legalism, freedom to simply be a child of God as a child of God.

I just had a craving to read about the French & Indian War.

It came out of nowhere.