To  my surprise, I stumbled onto Brian K. Blount's recent work True to Our Native Land: An African American New Testament Commentary at the Family Christian Bookstore (!). Of course, it came home with me. Then a few faces popped up in my head. Princetonians of the past and present, you are in my thoughts.

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Here is a third annual wishlist from yours truly. I am happy when people ask me about this, because it gives me a reason to think about it and put it on this blog. :)

A subscription to New Yorker Magazine - thanks, J!

A good read from Barth

A good read on Family Systems Theory

A good read on Family Genealogy and Pastoral Counseling

Preaching commentaries

The Land: Place as Gift, Promise and Challenge in Biblical Faith by Walter Bruggemann

CDs

C.S. Lewis books

A new pair of glasses - umma & abba

A watch - thank you, JS, AL and WPCA!

Fictions - I am so behind

A membership to 24 hour fitness

Flowers

Something for my face so I don't age hideously

Words, words. I love words of affirmation.

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Going to be a very full month ahead. Glad to go through it with many of you.

I have not been able to blog for the life of me, main reason being my life - it's full and enjoyable. The other more annoying reason was that the stupid blog was totally off center on my screen and I couldn't see half the things I had written in the past entries. Today, as I tried to access the PTSEM blogring and failed (why?!), I found that my blog has miraculously recentered itself. Centering oneself is a very good thing indeed.

David or Monks as some would like to call him has warned that facebook is a blackhole of a sort and I am finding that it is relatively manageable. It's nice to reconnect with little effort and receive light updates. I happen to be selective about who I add - I almost always have some sort of an order to everything I do - and sometimes spend one too many seconds about whether to click that confirm button or not.

God's presence has been so sweet every day and I have been praying many prayers of gratitude and declaration of trust in faith. It's going to be a season that I look back on when ministry wears me down or I'm called to make a bold step. The relationships are a bit more stubborn than I had imagined, requiring me to be strengthend and centered and rested in God in the secret. God knows my fear-full and thought-full self and is gently working to establish me. It's an awesome thing to be called by God.

Lots of other things of importance, like sister-roommate, the new apt, friends, finance, torrance skies and the long drives to PV. Lots of many things under God's sovereignty. Nice.

 And, this CD made me tear up one too many times.