Open House

As it has now become the custom, we will be hosting the Duns Family Open House on Tuesday, December 26th. If you will be in the Cleveland area, please put this date on your calendar - the past two years have been great fun and I believe that this year we will have a good Jesuit representation (Drew and Adam and, hopefully, their mothers!). There will be food, there will be music, and there will be good cheer - please consider attending!

It's been a very busy week. In addition to the tin whistle course I'm teaching next term, I am also running two independent studies on the history of Irish music. I'll also be taking four courses: St. Augustine, Fundamental Moral Theology, Christology, and Philosophy and Contemporary Theology. It'll be a busy term, to be sure, but I'm excited for my courses.

The consequence of my first round through graduate school is that I learned, due to a heavy travel schedule, how to manage my time efficiently. So I'm proud to say that I have basically the next ten days relatively free, save only for a final exam in my Aristotle class. My final project for theological anthropology should top out at 35-pages of Trinitarian goodness (I have a few touches yet to add, but I know what I want to do) and my other papers are now handed in.

Being done early gives me a great opportunity to enter into the Advent season in a manner to which I'm somewhat unaccustomed. I often enough treat Christmas as a deadline for getting stuff done, and I'm finding that I can see this Advent more as a season of journeying toward Christmas, a season where I'm coming to know the birth of the child Christ as the destination of the liturgical season. I've had time for extra prayer and reflection, time that allows me to dig deeper and examine more fully my own spiritual journey during this season. I quite like not having the stress of last-minute paper writing, so I'm glad to spend my time on more interesting pursuits, such as a biography of Theresa of Avila and yet another book on Rahner!

On a cultural note, the provincial of the Chicago Province (Ed Schmidt, SJ) took several of us to see "A Chorus Line" on Wednesday. This is a revival show, drawing on its original music from the 1975 show, known best perhaps for the song "One" (Singular Sensation) which I recall being used in a commercial for coffee or sweetener. A lover of musicals, I thoroughly enjoyed this show, although my seat was a bit uncomfortable (rogue spring poking me in the rear!). While in Chicago for the Oireachtas, I also saw The Pirate Queen. This was also a fine show, all things considered, and I look forward to seeing it after it has been re-tooled for its Broadway debut.