Hello Ohio

Tonight I am home alone. I've been told that being home alone, doing homework, on a Friday night is a sure sign of losership, but I'm kind of enjoying it. I'm listening to Over the Rhine right now, in honor of Katy. Before that, I listened to Carbon Leaf, in honor of Rachel. And before that, in honor of hundreds of years of Spanish tradition, I listened to Carlos Montoya lay down some sweet Flamenco guitar tracks.

This upcoming week is Passion Week, which is my favorite eight days of the year. No kidding. Better than Christmas, better than the first week of summer, better than Spring Break. Not because it's necessarily ice-cream-sundaes-and-balloon-animals fun, but because this week is so important to the Christian faith. While I know I should be thinking about these things year-round, the Lenten season and especially Holy Week is when I refocus, remembering the agony Christ suffered, but even more the glory He claimed and promises me through his resurrection. I don't let myself get bogged down with the debate on campus about having Good Friday off, because I can observe Holy Week while I'm in school, and (not to slight the beliefs of anyone who reads this) I think that too frequently this debate is voiced mostly by people who just don't want to have school any more than they have to. But I am excited about this upcoming week, and I hope that you will all be especially mindful and reflective about the life of Christ and his sacrifice which assures us salvation and eternal life.

On a somewhat related note, during Praise and Worship the other night, I sang the line "Jesus, you're all this heart [referring to my heart] is living for." I sang it once, then couldn't sing it anymore, because it's not true. I live for many other things besides Christ and His Kingdom. While this is something that is worked out through sanctification, is it something that we can really sing? None of us will reach that point in this lifetime. I don't know, any thoughts would be welcome.

The tone of this post is more sober than usual, for which I do not apologize. But if any of you need some zany observation or experience to make this a complete blog-reading experience, In zoology the other day, when my students were dissecting fetal pigs, I felt something on my shoulder and turned to see a somewhat distorted pig face smiling at me. One of the students had completely skinned his pig, taking the skin off in one piece, and was displaying it like a hand puppet. After a little internal freakout session, I told him he should become a taxidermist. He responded by saying he wished he could tan the skin and make pig leather out of it. He was dead serious. Oh Iowa.