Abi's "One Sentence Summary"

I am always fascinated by the pathways the Spirit leads me down!  Today's led me to the blog of Andrew Perriman, to whom I was introduced during the work of producing Wikiklesia, Volume One: Voices of the Virtual World.

Anyway, I found my way to this post, which I found interesting. The challenge was to capture the message of the Bible in one sentence. So I decided to make a wee attempt [after two years of processing, Baxter!], which ended up in their spam filter...but I copied it so I could paste it here:

Hello, Andrew! Very late to the convo, but here's my wee attempt:

From Eternity, God has dwelt as Father, Son and Spirit in 3-in-1 Perichoretic cHesed, and chose to create in order to include Their Imago Dei, male and female, in Their relationship, though the "already/not yet" process was long, counter-intuitive, difficult, subversive and traumatic, as well as intimate, gracious, merciful, loving and joyous; and it would, from Eternity, require the Incarnation of the Son as Jesus the Christ--fully God and fully Human--to "finish/begin" the recreation/adoption/inclusion process via his birth, life, ministry, death, burial, resurrection, ascension and sending of the Spirit as indwelling guide and advocate for the new brothers and sisters until Chronos ceases and Kairos is our Now/Forever reality.

From an older, white, post-evangelical, Trinitarian, American "virtual abbess"...taking a page from the Apostle Paul's "run-on-sentence" playbook.  ;^)

The first time it was blocked, it erased my "sentence" ... and I was appalled because it felt like one of those times when what I wrote could not be repeated.  But then I felt like, if this was something that was really jelled in my heart, I could repeat it.  So I did...and that is what I pasted above.  And it is close...but, I think, even better than the first attempt.  So, thanks, Spam Blocker, for the help!  ;^)

Feel free to take the challenge yourself. You can go and read all the attempts at Andrew's blog first, if you want. Or you can just jump in without being influenced (other than my wee attempt above). You can put your attempt in my comments section...I will check the Spam file and rescue you if you end up there.  :^)

This was a fine exercise for this crisp, cold and blue sky day! 

Hallelujah!

Be blessed....

Abi
 

Abi and the Already/Not Yet Paradox

One of the things that never ceases to amaze me is the way something deep and important is revealed to me by the Spirit, but it takes another 20 years for me to "get" it.  More than just that, the process of "getting it" usually involves coming to the point where I just don't believe it anymore.  It is as if what was first revealed was a taste of the truth...but the context of my reality was such that the full flavor of the truth was blocked. It was as if that intriguing taste compelled me to slowly begin to move away from those ideas and practices of my contextual reality that were out of sync with the truth.

I love and am consistently drawn to paradox.  Perhaps that's why I enjoy space/time paradox books and movies....

I have recently finished reading Wayne Jacobsen's new book, Finding Church. It describes exactly where I find myself these days. I have gone through the deconstruction and rubble-clearing stages and have begun looking for the pattern of healthy reconstruction. So, his book is a helpful bit of confirmation of what the Spirit has been on about these past eight years.  Just as all his earlier books have been important steps along the path of my journey.  I am so grateful to God for Wayne.

I just started reading Kathy Escobar's new book, Faith Shift.  I am looking forward to finding new ways to understand what I have been experiencing, looking through her eyes and trying on her words.  Stay tuned....

I know that Wayne's book is one that I will need to give to friends and family who just don't understand my current experience outside of institutional Christianity.  I have a feeling Kathy's book may need to join it.  I am grateful to God for this brother and sister, their lives, ministry, blogs and books. I was blessed to spend time with Wayne five years ago, and I'm looking forward with hope to meeting Kathy in a couple of months.  Stay tuned for that, too....

What this added up to this morning is the realization that I have come around...again!....to the power of the simple/complex concept of covenant keeping centered in the Hebrew concept of cHesed.

I know you're surprised.  Not.

There is a Covenant Formulary that Dr. Mont Smith made in his book What the Bible Says About Covenant.  [Note:  this book is out of print, but copies can be found through various internet sources.  I have a couple dozen of them myself for use in teaching situations. Someday I hope to reformat it for digital distribution.] It is the definition of what it means to faithfully keep covenant. The formulary goes like this:  In Christ + Like Christ = With Christ.

When I first learned this over 20 years ago, it was presented as a kind of two-sides-to-a-coin thing.  The In Christ side was the faith side and the Like Christ side was the works side.  The Faith plus the Works added up to the fullness of life With Christ.  And that fit with my thinking at that time.

But that was before the deconstruction began...and as my mindset broke apart, it could no longer hold that concept. What was I going to do now? 

I had to let it go...and trust that the Spirit would return it to me when the time was right.

Apparently, that was this morning!

Because in the meantime, the Spirit was immersing me in the spoken and written words of Dr. C. Baxter Kruger...hammering out the concept of perichoresis that has been floating around in my brain for quite some time.  And while that was happening, the other shoe dropped, as it were. I found that Perichoresis remained "out there" -- just beyond reach -- until it was connected with cHesed.

So, I have been processing Perichoretic cHesed through most of 2013 and 2014. Today the old formulary was transformed so that it is real again.  It looks like this:

• Perichoresis is that wonderful dance of mutual interpenetration without loss of distinct individuality, where the Father and Son are in one another through the power of the Spirit. It is into this Great Dance that we (all of the cosmos, actually) have been drawn by the finished work of Jesus, the Father's Eternal Son. It is this reality that is represented by the component of the formulary known as "In Christ".  Everything is now In Christ, who holds all things together. This is true whether we know it or not...whether we accept it or not. It is Reality.
• cHesed is the attitudes and actions of perichoresis.  It is the very steps of the dance. We learn them by dancing with Father, Son and Spirit.  Their attitudes toward each other and us are revealed as we partner with them, as they lead us in the dance, as we relax and follow their lead. These attitudes of cHesed are gracious loving-kindness toward one another and manifest in specific actions:  deliberate affection (love that submits), unmerited favor (grace that serves), and kindness mutually owed (mercy that leads). To follow Jesus' lead and dance the steps of gracious loving-kindness with him is to be "Like Christ".
• Perichoretic cHesed is the Great Dance in its fullness...the dance of covenant keeping. It is a covenant dance where everything depends on the very nature and character of God as Father, Son and Spirit.  They dance the covenant faithfully with each other -- submitting, serving and leading according to the best interest of the Other -- and have done so for Eternity...from before Creation. And by creating the Cosmos, they widened the scope of the dance so that we may join them. This is what it means to be "With Christ" -- to know the love, grace and mercy of Father, Son and Spirit intimately and to dance the steps of submission, service and leading in step with them.  When we are "With Christ", his faithful covenant keeping becomes ours. We cannot do it on our own, we do it with him.  It's a gift we share, not a skill we hone. It is not about us...it is all about Jesus Christ and his relationship with the Father in the Spirit...and our inclusion in that relationship.

The paradox remains...we have already been included In Christ. It is not our choice or reward, but the Eternal will of God which was completed through the birth, life, ministry, death, resurrection and ascension of the Incarnate One, the Father's Eternal Son, Jesus Christ.  But we do not yet experience it fully, because we can't get our brains around what it means to live Like Christ...we have a hard time relaxing and letting him lead us in the dance.

But as we learn to accept that we are fully included -- done deal -- In Christ, and relax into the arms of Jesus and let him lead us in the Dance -- Like Christ, we will finally have peace and rest -- With Christ. 

We will be Home.

Listen to Aslan as he calls the faithful into Narnia...to come further up, come further in.  [Time to read The Last Battle again. ;^)]

My journey seems to be one of climbing a spiral staircase.  As I go further up and further in, it seems like things I've recognized in lower rungs become clearer as I climb higher.  They are not new things I am seeing, but each time I come back around, I see things with better -- renewed -- vision.  The more that I am confident of my place In Christ, the more I begin to see and perceive Like Christ, the more I am at peace With Christ.

The Already/Not Yet Paradox.  It will remain until all things are made new.  But I don't have to wait until then to dwell in the Shalom of Perichoretic cHesed and participate in the Great Dance.

I am already a New Creation In Christ...I am participating in the Dance Like Christ...but I have not yet arrived at the top of the spiral staircase that is my Journey. The Spirit, however, is continually calling me to repentance for my poor theology, renewing my mind, and cleaning the mist off my glasses, so that I see more and more clearly.

It is an awesome view...one that I want to share with those God brings across my path.  It's a process of hope and courage.  Stay tuned!

With immense gratitude as we American's approach our Thanksgiving....

Be blessed!

Abi

Abi and May's Synchroblog..."What the hell?"

Update 6/10/14 -- interesting chart over at Jesus Creed.  Why am I not surprised that I don't seem to fit any of the options?

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Update 4/25/14 -- added another blogger at the bottom...

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This post of part of May's Synchroblog.  Please see the listing of other bloggers at the bottom of this post, and take the time to read the variety of responses with as much openness as your heart and mind will allow.  

I encourage you to follow J.R.R. Tolkien's advise and "suspend disbelief" long enough to enter into the narrative and let the Spirit speak--either to confirm what you have come to suspect (but thought you were the only one) or to challenge your own belief in what you have been taught.

If there were ever a time to be Berean, it would be for such a time at this!

Be blessed....

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As with just about everything else, my ideas about wrath and hell have changed significantly over the past five years. It has been a slow and confusing process of looking at things that I hadn't really thought about--just taken them for granted as they had been taught.

When one's foundational ideas shift, the whole house shifts....

So I need to start with wrath as an aspect of love. I started thinking about this after reading The Shack and meeting Wayne Jacobsen. There was plenty to ponder about in these conversations...and ponder I did.

But there was something that just wasn't setting right...and it wouldn't be until I finally took the time to read and listen to C. Baxter Kruger that things began to fall into place in a way that really helped my ideas about wrath and hell shift. I started sharing that shift in the April Synchroblog. A shift that I have begun to talk about as Perichoretic cHesed.

Perichoretic cHesed is all about the very nature of God as Father, Son and Spirit. But that nature has been clouded by an infiltration of pagan Greek philosophy by some of the most influential church fathers--like St. Augustine and Martin Luther.

Baxter Kruger has done a tremendous job of documenting this subtle infiltration--and I'm so very grateful to him! In a nutshell it comes down to this:

• A Deistic GOD which is basically solitary, distant, impersonal, disappointed and angry--among other things--is mostly a reflection of Greek ideas about god. Those ideas made a lot of sense to people steeped in the Greco-Roman culture of Western Civilization. But those ideas appeal to the fallen mind...and that is problematic. A solitary God does not love by nature. 
• A Trinitarian God which exists in the loving relationship of the Father and the Son in the Spirit, that I have come to describe as Perichoretic cHesed, is consistent with the realities of the Hebraic culture of covenant that God developed as part of what Baxter calls "the womb of the Incarnation." This Triune God loves by nature.

And this is where all the troubles arise....

When God does not love by nature and is cast in the most of humanity's fallen mind, we're going to get an angry judge, offended and looking to punish sinners.  Jonathan Edwards did an unfortunately great job describing that God.... It is this God of wrath who condemns sinners to a Hell of eternal punishment and torment, as Dante's Inferno popularized.

But what if that God is not what God is really like?

What if God, dwelling eternally as Father, Son and Spirit, are a community of self-giving and other-centered love that always looks out for the best interest of the other? What if they planned, from before they even created, to include their creation in their relationship of Perichoretic cHesed? What if that is what Jesus took on human flesh to accomplish--our adoption? What if the task of the Spirit, for all these centuries, has been one of educating the human race concerning their inclusive adoption into the very Family of God? And what is part of that education is the pruning away of ideas and habits that hurt and destroy us and keep us from living in the truth of who we are in Jesus? What if the things we have build in this world have been made from wood or straw or stubble rather than gold and silver and precious stones...and when the fires of trials in this world burn up that which is flammable?

What if the fires of hell are not ones of eternal torment and punishment but rather are ones of purification and restoration? (HT: Wm. Paul Young and C. Baxter Kruger)

What if hell is what we experience when we separate ourselves from the love of God...and the fires around us are a way of herding us back to the Shepherd?

Hour #33, starting in minute 43:35, in Baxter's "Big Picture" series of lectures gets to this definition of hell:  "...it is the form of human existence that takes shape in wrong-headed believing...it takes shape in the "I am not".  It is false religion. It's the misery of your own soul because of what you believed under the lie and harassment of the Evil One. And that can be extended indefinitely. But even though we suffer eternal  hell and misery, it doesn't change the fact of who we are. Who we are is beloved children of the Father. The Spirit's been sent to us to help us know the truth.  Whether we believe it or not doesn't change the Real World. It just means we are living in an illusion. And, to me, as the New Testament testifies, we can live in that illusion for eternity. That's the scary part."

That means that heaven is living in the reality of the Good News that Jesus has laid hold of us and brought us to live with with him and his Father and the Spirit. We hear and receive by faith what Jesus has done, and if we believe it and repent (change our minds), we experience heaven.  If we don't believe it--because "I am not" ... you fill in the blank--then we experience hell, because of what Baxter calls "our stinking thinking."

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I think there is a lot of room for more thinking about this, especially because we just do not have that much really clear teaching about hell and a lot of murky teaching has resulted ... and I am looking forward to the rest of the folks writing about this.

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Here's the collection of links from the May participants in this Synchroblog:

Jeremy Myers – Does Jesus Talk About Hell More Than Heaven?
Wesley Rostoll – Hell, thoughts on annihilationism
K. W. Leslie – Dark Christians
Angie Benjamin – Hell Is For Real
Paul Meier – Hell Is For Real – I’ve Been There and Came Back
Glenn Hager – Abusing Hell
The Virtual Abbess – What The Hell?
Kimbery Klein – Hell, if I know.
Michael Donahoe - Hell Yes…or No?
Liz Dyer – Hell? No!
Margaret Boelman - Hell No I Won’t Go
Loveday Anyim – Why the hell do you believe in hell?
Linda - If you died today, where would you go?
Edwin Aldrich – What the Hell do we really know.
Mallory Pickering -- The Time I Blogged About Hell
Elaine – What The Hell?

Abi and Brokenness....

Updated...see below!

I have written about Oprah a couple of times.  I have tremendous respect for her, although I do not agree with everything she says or does.  That's normal, I think.  If you have problems with Oprah, I humbly ask you to suspend disbelief (J.R.R. Tolkien's lovely term) long enough to hear what I'm saying.  You'll be okay.

Anyway, today's lead article in her Spirit Newsletter struck me as timely.  It came as an answer to a fervent prayer.  It is not perfect, either; but it gave me several bits of encouragement.  These I will share with you. Some come right out of the article, others are my thoughts that came from reading.  Please read the original article first, if you haven't already ... the rest of this post will still be here when you get back.  Go ahead; it's not very long.  ;^)

Here's the stream of consciousness that made me get out my pen and paper and capture some thoughts:

• Everyone is broken from time to time.  Um, this would resonate with the abbess of the purple martyrdom.
• Breaking is necessary for enlargement.  I could write an entire series on this profound thought.
• Enlargement comes by being present in all ways, in all directions. I struggle with this and I am astounded by the variety of ways this little gem keeps popping up in my journey.
• Being present is the practice of holding nothing back.  Dr. Brown would call this part of the courage that comes from being wholehearted.  Her thoughts have been echoing Dr. Kruger's thoughts, especially his teaching on the "I am not..." problem, which she states as "Never enough."  Profound.

He then gives four steps to finding wholeness and health and growth:

Accept the weather

• It is what it is....
• Every "crack" is an opening
• ...The Light of Jesus, there in the deepest darkness in our souls, shines out through our cracks.  Makes me think of this passage.
• ...What is opened is always more important that what breaks us.
• ...Don't get stuck in your list of legitimate grievances.  Yeah, this is very big.

Lean into the tender places

• Letting the wind of life rush in and tough the tender spots is the beginning of resilience.  This is very deep and I'm still processing it....

What kind of "part" am I in what kind of "whole"?  This is the whole "identity crisis" issue, right here!

• My response:  I am a daughter of the Heavenly Father, sister to Jesus, the Father's Eternal Son, and dancing partner with the Holy Spirit in the Life of the Blessed Trinity.
• This Truth is foundational and is what has been undermined by the "I am not..." and "Never enough" curse of human culture.  Sigh...it is pernicious!
• When blinded by the pain and darkness, I need to remember to look for the Light shining through those broken, cracked spots.
• ...Embrace what can emerge by allowing Jesus to clean away the broken bits.
• ...Sometimes we emerge like those beautiful Oriental bowls that have been repaired with gold....
• ...Sometimes we emerge like butterflies struggling to escape from their cocoon. Transformation is often mistaken for rejection or heresy by those who do not have eyes to see what the Spirit has been doing.

Look beyond the broken

• In each of us, the Holy Spirit has planted a unique seed.  Different seeds go through different processes of germination.  They remain dormant until the time and environment are right ... the fullness of time, as it were.
• ...what is too dry for some is just right for others
• ...what is to warm for some is not hot enough for others
• ...what is nutrient-dense to some is too rich for others

Sometimes I think I am one of those seeds that need a hot fire to neutralize my cocoon of enzymes and allow the seed to germinate.  Yeah, burning down the forest is not a good time. but if that is the only way to awaken the sleeping life inside my soul....

Be blessed as you persevere on your journey.  

• May the Light shine through the cracks of your broken heart. 

• May the Light that is in you overpower the whispered evil of the "I am not...never enough" that has flourished in your darkened soul.

• May the sweet burn of the cleaning pool restore you to your True Identity after Aslan's powerfully sharp claws have torn away the knobby dragon hide that imprisoned you.  Love C.S. Lewis!  Do you know Eustace?  (And, yes, I will forever be sorry that they did not put that powerful scene in the movie of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader....)   Update:  you can listen to the chapter here!

• May the great I AM embrace you in Their cHesed and gently lead you into Their Great Dance.

Year Seven Begins!

Well...I was so busy listening to Baxter and Paul and John from the Open Table Conference, that my Sixth Blogiversary passed on October 19th without my notice.

It is impossible to express what an important thing it has been for me to write my wee purple posts here in my little corner of the Interwebs, as my friend Bill Kinnon would say.  Whether or not it has been of use to anyone else, I cannot say...but it has been good for me to process my journey.

I am in such a different place, in just about every way, than I was back then.  But that is the whole point of a journey, isn't it?  To travel from where you are along the meandering path that life takes is how we participate in the life of God in Jesus.

There is quite a bit of dancing along the way.  I've gotten a good deal of use out of my purple dancing shoes. ;^)

Be blessed, precious companions!

Abi and Perichoretic cHesed

You've listened to me talk for quite a while now about Dr. C. Baxter Kruger. I just listened to the recordings from the North Carolina Open Table Conference (from Labor Day weekend) ... and he said that it has been his goal for the last few decades to make the Greek word perichoresis a household word. Well, I have had a similar goal these past 15 years -- to make the Hebrew term cHesed a household word.

Baxter defines perichoresis basically as mutual indwelling without loss of identity. He goes on to say that perichoresis is the reality of the interpenetrating relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They are three who have always been one -- they are "in" each other without becoming each other.  They are so together that they can only be described as One.  The Trinity -- three who are one.

From all eternity they have dwelt together -- and together they dreamed of sharing the wonder of their life -- which Baxter calls The Great Dance -- together with us...even before the Cosmos was created!

The great Good News is that, after all the years of waiting and wading through the chaos of human blindness and darkness brought on by The Fall, in the fullness of time, they accomplished their dream of our adoption in and through the Incarnation of Jesus, the Father's eternal Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Through his death, burial, resurrection and ascension, Jesus has gathered all of humanity -- indeed, the entire Creation -- and brought us with him into their relationship. We are in Jesus -- and they are in us.  Done deal.

Many people do not yet know this Good News.  This does not change the Reality, however!

Baxter suggests that the relationship that is perichoresis is one of altruism -- other-centered, self-giving, mutual submission.  But I believe that it is in describing the actions of this relationship that the beautiful concept of cHesed serves more fully.

Most often translated as loving-kindness or mercy, I define cHesed (following Dr. Mont Smith) as looking out for the best interest of the other, according to the covenant. While that may sound like altruism, it is a much richer concept.  cHesed was too rich for just a single Greek word...and so the Septuagint and the New Testament use a variety of words to describe the covenant keeping attitudes and actions of cHesed -- love (agape) as deliberate affection that submits to the need of the other, grace (charis) as unmerited favor that serves the best interest of the other, and mercy (eleos) as kindness mutually owed that leads the other toward success.  And that not all there is to this beautiful concept....

Who knew that they would merge, these two foundational words!?!  Below is crude drawing of what is known as the Trinity Knot.  I have colored and labeled it to help me get my brain around this ... and perhaps help you see what I'm talking about more clearly.

I can't tell you the number of different diagrams I've played with these many years to try to capture the essence of cHesed. Now that my mind has been reconnected with the Good News of the Blessed Trinity through the beauty of perichoresis, it was obvious where cHesed fit.  Thank you, Baxter!

We will have plenty more to unpack, don't worry!  But this weary abbess is finished for today....

Be blessed ...

Abi and The Open Table Conference

It has been almost seven years since I attended the Missional Orders conference at Seabeck, Washington -- out of which this blog was birthed!  To say that I have gone through enormous changes during these seven years would be the grossest of understatements.

What is interesting, though, it to see how much I "knew" -- even just a few months ago, even -- that seems, well, rather Greek in it's knowing about ... instead of Hebrew and it's knowing by experience. We never do stop growing in our understanding.  There is so much to be experienced on this journey in Jesus -- in ways that we have not experienced before.  I am learning, still, to relax....

I spent this past weekend in Oregon's central desert with an interesting and eclectic group of folks at The Open Table Conference.  This was my first conference since Seabeck ... and it was just as (if not more, actually) life changing.

I did not know what to expect.  I only knew that Papa was asking me to just go.  I'm not sure exactly what my expectations were, but I tried to lean into the living verb and wait in expectancy for what Grandmother had waiting for me.

One of the things I learned at Seabeck, which was sponsored by Alan Roxburg's Allelon, was the importance of listening to one another.  (Allelon is Greek for "one another".)  They had a saying that remains so meaningful to me:  "Listening one another into free speech."

I don't know about you, but sometimes this very extroverted Abbess doesn't really know what she thinks about something until she is able to talk out loud.  This requires someone to listen.  And we humans tend to be less than stellar listeners.  Sigh....

One of the things I received this past weekend was the opportunity to listen and be listened to.

First thing Saturday morning, I was talking with Marilyn and Gordon ... and the next thing I knew, I was telling them things most would not be comfortable hearing.  Especially as related to my string of horrible injuries leading up the the last one four years ago.  The one I affectionately call The Fall...

Marilyn's ears perked up and she said:  "You haven't had just a concussion.  You have a TBI."  She and Gordon began to ask about problems that I was having without my saying anything.  Wow...it is truly rare to talk with someone who knows what I'm dealing with.  Their son fell from a horse 17 years ago, and they have been walking this harrowing journey with him.  Their encouragement alone made the trip worthwhile....

The worst part of most of my injuries has been that they are not necessarily visible -- or not for long.  But the cumulative effect of these injuries over the past 13 years has been fairly overwhelming ... because folks have a hard time understanding that the process of healing can be very slow.  I am in year four of this particular mid-brain TBI ... and have realized that I had suffered seven head injuries in my life -- at least two of which would also be considered mild TBIs.  It sometimes takes 10 years for even a mild TBI to resolve.  If you know someone suffering this way, be gentle with them....

Under the wonderful care of my homeopath and my chiropractic neurologist, I have truly made remarkable progress.  But I have come to a kind of crossroad of my own:  my level of stress has been so high that my brain is unable to heal...and it actually being damaged by the over-stimulation that comes from being in a fairly constant mode of Fight or Flight.  The reasons are many and I'll not burden you with them...but I did have to do something to bring the stress down.

Into this place of chaos, Papa brought Baxter Kruger and his series called "In".  I have already shared about his amazing book, The Shack Revisited.  Now he has released his Study Guide.  I can't wait to work through it!

Anyway, please download his "In" series -- I don't know how long it will remain up on his website -- I have been listening to it since the end of February.  Sometimes daily.  Do this while you're waiting for your copy of the book to be delivered (unless, like me, you got the Kindle version)....

Building on the important work of Wayne Jacobsen, Paul's and Baxter's work have helped Sarayu make another significant shift in my journey.  What I so appreciate about all three of these men is that they are humble and hold their knowledge and experience gently.  They want to encourage you in your journey with Father, Son and Spirit -- they don't want to be your leader.

Baxter, in person and in his writings, is my kind of folk:  say it simple with as little religious jargon as possible.  Having listened to him for so long, I can "hear" him in his books.  Love that....  I am so very grateful for you, Brother Baxter!

Anyway ... I am processing so much right now that I am a bit in overload -- and my brain is complaining!  But I did want to post this update and let you know how grateful I am for the faithful cHesed of the blessed Trinity.

More later....

...oh, yeah -- my eldest son graduates from high school this Friday, so it's a little busy around here.

Be blessed!