Shalom, y'all!
After a stressful shopping week, Elise and I really wanted to just spend some quality time with our new friends. For those of you unfamiliar with our rhetoric, "shopping" is the first week of every semester where one sits in on various classes in an effort to narrow down what it is one would like to take. Some, like myself, shop six classes. Some *ahem* shop as many as ten (Charlie...). Anyway, even without a snow day right in the middle of the week, the whole process is rather stressful in trying to get books together, visiting classes, getting back into the swing of things, etc.... Fortunately, we had something to celebrate last week: Luna's second birthday, January 11th. So we emailed a few friends, and a potluck formed at our house last Friday night. Below are a few pictures, which I will document in a minute, but mostly I want to state how lucky I am to get to be in divinity school with these people. Being where we are is not always easy--the weather is atrocious, life's purpose is still unclear, we are all juggling many different balls... but the earnestness with which YDS students by and large face each day inspires me. I find myself often caught up in a conversation with someone knew about their accomplishments before they arrived here, their hopes for the future, and their views on how to make this world a better place. I'm still in a process of discerning my own place in that vision, but I find something in each of these people that I lack in some way, and I'm lucky enough to be in the presence of whatever that is, even for a short time. If a sacrament is indeed an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, then the fellowship I'm apart of daily is sacramental for each of these people enacts upon me a kind of internal change that is, in it's essence, divine. Their truths are graceful.
This is will, he's from South Carolina. We commiserate over being from the South. He's seeking ordination in the Methodist Church.
Allysa (who went to NYU!) is on the left, and Katie (who went to Princeton... Ivy League, much?) is on the right. Katie is one of my swimming buddies.
Megan and Whitney. Megan's an MAR student like Elise, and Whitney is an ordination-seeking Texan in the Disciples of Christ.
These are just hilarious pictures of Leonard and Helen. Elise and I decided we would be friends with Leonard during BTFO when we saw him in the info book because he did his undergraduate degree at Rhodes and an MA at CBU. Helen is my age--she's English and just graduated from Cambridge in May.
Two handsome men: Will again, this time with Alex Peterson. Alex is featured in the previous post as one of the Alexs jumping into the snow in their skivvies...
Liz and Kai, they're both in the Institute of Sacred Music. Liz is into film (she also did her undergraduate degree here at Yale) and Kai has spent the last couple years working on an organic farm out west for people with disabilities.
This is Sabrina- she is A-W-E-S-O-M-E. How awesome? Well, lemme tell you... she's an Ultra Runner. With a sponsor. Seriously. She runs for 24 hours at a time. We're talking 120 miles in a go. She's an athlete. And also really smart.
Megan and Sabrina candid. HOLLA.
Michelle and Kara. Michelle has been a wonderful, wonderful friend since Admitted Students Day--she was Hillary's (for those of you who know who Hillary is) sorority sisters at Wash U! AND Kara is a Tar Heel!
Christian, enjoying a glass of wine. He was my orientation leader during BTFO and is an exchange student from Hiedelberg.
LEONARD!
Silly menfolk
Everyone was a supppppper good sport and sang "Happy Birthday" to Luna!
Charlie, one of my favorite people on this planet, and Helen
Mike, making the cheesy potatoes.... that nobody got to eat.... I'm sure they were delicious?
Just another excellent evening with a few good friends... Elise and I are iced in at the moment (it was a treacherous, treacherous trudge home, I almost wiped out at least twice), but looking at the pictures warms out house... which is a good thing, considering we don't like paying for heat!
Love and Stuff!
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