March Madness!

Sorry if that just manipulated you into looking at this post!  It's not so much about basketball as it is some of our meanderings during Reading Week where we were able to visit some of the folks in Chi-town.  We were bummed not to get to see all of you but we hope to be able to visit again soon and to pick up with some of you whom we were unable to see!  We miss the area where we spent so much of our lives.  But I'm glad that we are still going back and we pray we will continue to get to do so.

Maybe you don't all want see photos of yourselves but it is our pensieve (please see Harry Potter references if you are looking at this dumbfoundedly or just take our nerdy words for it) as well and we cherish these memories and want to be able to withdraw the watery, ethereal substance of anamnesis into the forefronts of our reflections, so here we go:

anticipating a good SAGA run!

Best College Salad Bar in the U.S. 8 years and counting!

nothing reminds me of the good ol' days in SAGA like their abundant gourmet mayonnaise section.
yes, it made all of those days in the ugly BGC worth it (not that I disliked the job, just the building!)

SAGA group date!

Amigos Locos, more like it...

The LOVE!!!!!

Worst...and yet best celebration of Pi Day ever

Dinner with our hospitable hosts!  We miss you all dearly.  Except Scott, we see him all the time.

Because there must always be a goofy portrait to accompany a serious one.
It is pointed out that Noel's presence is represented here by the Guinness bottle.

A Palm Sunday blessing

Look! Our names are appearing in our Church bulletin as real seminarians! Woo hoo! We are so thankful for this church that we are a part of...yesterday was truly a beautiful Palm Sunday and they are a church who loves God and sees Him at work all the time and choose to be thankful and pray for all of His body.

Happy Shriving!

Noel wrote this blog many years ago (remember when we all had Xanga's?) to first introduce a lot of her Resurrection friends to an old tradition of Pancake Suppering for Shrove Tuesday.  This year, we are not responsible for creating our own familial occasion but rather will be fellowshiping with the others at our church over pancakes.  Woohoo!  Most of you now probably know about this tradition now, but I thought it'd be funny to review something written ages ago....

"ok, so I am going to introduce you all to the Shrove Tuesday (Mardi Gras) pancake supper tradition of the Catholic and Anglican (and probably other) churches as well, I'm sure but hey, that's what I know. I was shocked and dismayed to find out that hardly
any of you had heard of, let alone participated in one such tradition...all you non and new anglicans out there!

As we all know, today is the day before Ash Wednesday and the inauguration of Lent. We all usually give up something for Lent...often foods or the like...as have countless number of saints before us. And back in the day, Christians would give up eating things fatty, eggs and dairy stuff, but in order to not be wasteful (yay for stewardship) they would eat all of the things that would go bad in the forty days of Lent on tuesday night. And it just so happens that pancakes are comprised of these aformentioned ingredients the Christians were giving up for Lent. Thus,
the pancake supper tradition and while some have taken this to absurd extremes-races,
olympics, even changing it to an enchilada dinner in a church in New Mexico, etc...
Consequently, Mardi Gras comes from this eating all the fat business, getting it's
name "Fat Tuesday".

Etymology lesson of the day: "shrove" comes
from the old christian practice of "shriving" which literally means "taking
off". And it was marked as a day of confession before entering Lent as well
as of feasting before entering this penitent season.  

For you Church History buffs out there, here's a link to some interesting legends on traditions of pancake suppering:
http://www.cptryon.org/prayer/season/fusco.html

And here's a prayer from our Eastern Orthodox siblings for this day of shriving.  We'll be praying this for you all and ask that you pray for us as well that the Lord will show us the cruciform way through which He transforms us into His likeness this Lent:

My dear Saviour who is Love, fill me with Your love that embraces and holds not back,
that accepts and not condemns, that forgives and not retaliates, that stretches out and not stagnates.

Make this Lent a positive time, a growing time but also a reflective time to see myself as You see me.
It is only when my soul is stripped and naked that I can begin once again. Help me to shed all my wrappings this Lent so that I may stand before You as You know me. Amen and Amen.

Pfile Phileo

So, this is like 2 weeks overdue but we have a Valentine's Day shout out to make for the love that was shown to us from some Chicagolanders.  Once upon a February, a decently young lady ventured to stick her head out the door of her warm-ish Pittsburgh abode for the sheer thrill of checking the mail...truly a bright spot in the often grey and freezing weather but the screen door was stuck shut.  Hmm...what's a girl to do?  Look down, of course!  And lo, and behold:

A Box o' Love!

Love in the form of...

Play-doh!

Microfiber Towels

...and fruit roll-ups and chocolates

 

and gift cards to our favorite places!!!

 

 and redemptive coffee

We apologize that the above yumminess...yummy as in awesome chocolate chip cookies did not make it to the photo shoot and were consumed within a matter of days after the box was opened. 
Fear not, they were consumed with love :)

Here's some of the fun we've had so far with the Valentine's treats! ;)

Thanks for the LOVE.

 WE

YOU

where you'll find us

So, we're now into our third week of classes or so and we thought you might like to know about our classes for this semester.  Classes do occupy about oh, let's see 75% of our time and about 98% of our mental energy (the rest given to things like studying Whedon's "Firefly" and how to get to the next age in Myst III).  But, we're having a good time and though this semester is much more of a doozie than last semester, we have a lot of fun things we're learning, researching and writing on.

Plus, we thought in case anyone calls or wants to get in touch with us, you can see where we're at and why we're not answering!  Though, this of course, does not include sleeping, working, etc.  We also have morning and evening prayer and are required to attend the one prior or after if we are on campus for class.  It's great.  Noel just officiated for the first time last week and did well, she even found a cassock about the right length and she didn't trip once!

Greg's days
Monday morning: Pastoral Leadership -pastoral care and servant leadership

*he almost always works from 2-10:30 pm on this day

Tuesday afternoon:  Christian Ethics - all things methodological and Biblical re: Ethics and morality

Thursday morning:  Medieval and Reformation Church History (lovingly dubbed "Mr. Church") - fabulous class on the church both on "the continent" and in Britain from about 500-1650ish

Thursday afternoon:  The Gospels - that is, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John

Noel's days

Monday evening: Hebrew - learning Hebrew, quiz every week, learn at least 10 new words per class, very difficult

Tuesday afternoon: Christian Ethics - Read Hays "Moral Vision of the NT", it's great

Thursday morning:  MR. Church 

Thursday afternoon: The Gospels - learning the whole book of John for a final exam? priceless.

Hope your days go well also.  Greg works at least 3 8-hr shifts a week, some combo of M-W-F-Sat/Sun.  Noel is doing odd jobs as they are presented to her.  Please pray for Greg as he is sleeping (at noon) while I publish this blog as he now has the cold that I had last week and is quite under the weather.  Thanks, dear 'pfiles!

just another Superbowl Sunday

GO BEARS!

  

That's right, we're stickin' to our guns on this one.  Well, sort of...I guess we'll mostly be watching for the commercials but this was how happy we were two weeks ago when the Bears still had a shot.

This is dedicated especially to all of you with whom we had our regular Bears game small group fellowship ;)

We miss you and wish we could be with you and at least criticize the commercials and laugh at Clay Matthews' hair and watch Benny R eat turf over and over.  And please pray for us because well, Pittsburgh is not joking about being "Steelers nation".  

This is a direct quote from church this morning (where everyone was decked out in their finest black and yellow):

"Alleluia, let us go forth into the world, rejoicing in the power of the Spirit.
Thanks be to God. Alleluia.  Go Steelers!"

May the Lord be with all of us who loathe the Steelers but are stuck here in Purgatory, every one.

2010 in a nutshell

Hola Pfiles!

Winter “Break” has come and gone, and your favorite Seminarian Duet is ready to start singing odes and odes to you. 2011 has found us determined to get organized, with God's help. To that end, we're getting ready to put a bow on 2010 and call it a success. We'll tie that off with some shots of our Christmas (see below, wonderpful photography by Noel), which was spent in snowy Ambridge, minus a great blitz to Maryland on Christmas Day where we got to hang out with Greg's mom (hi mom!), and a spontaneous family reunion with Grandparents, and Aunts and Uncles and Cousins of yore...good times, so good to see everyone and catch up after so many crazy years!

Our first semester was challenging in terms of getting back into “school mode” and finding a healthy and doable balance of work and class. Financially, we held up okay... many thousands of thanks to the Pfiles out there who, anonymously or not-so anonymously supported us last semester, we sure needed you and felt so blessed by your support. Also to those who stayed in touch, what a refreshing joy to hear from you (or see you!)... please keep us in the loop as we loop you in as we are able (and organized!). The end of the semester gave us a chance to look back and reflect and marvel at the hand of God en accion. Refreshed and rejuvenated and inspired to get organized, and with yet another class already under our belts (thank you Extension Ministries for Jan Term wherein we can take a full semester's worth of class in 5 wild days of learning!) We sat under Bill Taylor for our Intro to Missions: best Missions class we've ever had. We have the privilege of continuing our friendship with Bill (Moody grad, what-what!?!) and working on a Top Secret project which we will keep....a secret.

Since we're getting so organized, be on the lookout for more and better communication on our end (like regular e-mail updates and invites to RSS feeds and Facebook and Skype prayer sessions and all the wonders of computer-aided telecommunication, muhahahahahaha!!!!) Boy howdy, that's a good coffee pot we got for Christmas! With the way it keeps coffee hot and delicious and flowing like rivers of caffeinated goodness, coursing through my veins... my eye is twitching, I should probably cut back.. but Lent is still many weeks away

Blessing to you Pfriends, thanks for reading and writing and arthimetic-ing(?). We love you dearly and look forward to staying in touch this organized 2011!

Fiber-optic Christmas Tree! 3 ft tall and an adequate temporary replacement for the one we may have left in the Isemans' basement in Chicagoland

She's not faking that smile, Pfiles! Snuggie is a pfreezing grad's student's best friend

"The cave is collapsing!  This is no cave."

Highly Recommended reading for the living and undead alike

DahnTahn Picksberg