Janathan Grace Reflections   This is my journey of self discovery shared with you

So does anyone else feel like amateurs next to Jen’s philosophical blogs?  She writes well and has thought provoking ideas… Some of the things it made me ponder: what is the relationship between wishing and prayer (e.g. what turns a wish into a prayer, what’s the difference between the two, can you pray for anything you wish for, how is God related to my wishes–like does he inspire them, criticize them, fulfill them when He knows better….)?  Where do wishes come from?  Is it better to wish than not wish?  What’s the dif b/w wishing and hoping?  Can you really consider it a wish if it is something you can grant yourself?  Does wishing make life better, even if it isn’t fulfilled?  Does wishing for something make it more likely that you will get it?  I wish I knew.

I joined birthday girl Jen and friends at Screen on the Green last night.  I left early but found the Smithsonian metro stop closed, so I walked up to federal triangle.  At Metro Central (is that the name?) a huge crowd pushed into the cars, apparently flooding out from a recent Nationals game.  People kept jamming in and blocking the door.  The doors would reopen as the digitized female repeated, “please keep clear of the door… doors closing,” and more would elbow in.  It became very irritating by about the 10th time this happened (since there was an endless mass of people disgorging from the escalators).  So why do some things make me angry and others don’t?

Hey, so I just finished reading everybody’s blog on the b242 blogring and it was inspirational!  John is the only one who showed up to join me for the “men’s breakfast” this morning, and afterwards he took me down to see his lab.  All very interesting, but a lot of it way above my head.  I haven’t looked into a microscope since college!  We have to get John to join the blogring–send him an email! 

Kimberly has 4 classmates from college that get together every summer for a weekend–they’ve come to Lynchburg this weekend (from across the country), but they don’t bring their ‘primary other,’ so I’m left out.  I didn’t get to see her last weekend either (because of another friend visiting her), and the weekend before that we were having a fight (well, not really a fight–just some hard stuff we had to work through, we’re better for it now).  Living 3 1/2 hours apart really sucks!  In spite of that, today feels good for some strange reason.

Okay folks, so I finally joined the Bridgeway blogring and I’m finally doing a blog update.  I’m sure everyone has stopped checking my blog since I haven’t updated it from the time I started it.  I will be stepping down from pastoring at Bridgeway242 on August 31 and will be moving to Lynchburg where my girlfriend Kimberly lives.  I plan to finish my doctoral dissertation… maybe finish my University of Chicago Master’s thesis (20 years after the coursework!) and maybe revise my book “Overwhelmed by Grace.”  There are all sorts of maybes in my life right now.  I’m thinking of going back to grad school to earn my Ph.D. so I can teach.  I don’t plan to go back to pastoring (though one never knows).  I don’t know how long I can survive without a job, but I’ll try to stretch it out.  Trying out different part-time jobs might be fun… maybe I could sign up with a temp agency.  I’ve thought about getting into the public school system as a substitute teacher.  I’ve thought about delivering mail on a rural route.  I’ve thought about cashing in my retirement fund and not working for a while (since the more I work, the less I can do on my dissertation).  Well, that’s all for today.