And so now, I wait.
Cue the 'cricket' sound effects.
I seem to have worked through my work-related issues. I haven't complained about it online or elsewhere in, oh let's see, two months or so. Truthfully, I have to admit that I have really seen it as a blessing. A very unlooked-for and unexpected blessing. And I suspect that God has given me the grace I need (as my excellent mom-in-law would say) to deal with it and change. Thanks be to God.
I am trying to read books and listen to audio that will prep me for my coming internment at St. Vlad's. (Editor's note: I should say that I hope to be interred at St. Vlad's...I don't want to presume too much). Last week I started Fr John Behr's "The Mystery of Christ", which I am enjoying very much as a lunch-and-break read. I have also devoted much listening time at work (while turning posts on the lathe) to Fr Tarazi's lecture from SVS's summer institute on the subject of death. He gave a presentation on death in the Old Testament that is quite good and somewhat (at moments) far over my head. You can download this lecture for free from SVS press's website. You actually order the download as if it were a purchasable item, but it costs nothing. Additionally, Peter Bouteneff's lecture from the same summer institute is quite good as well.
Fr Tom Hopko's "Lord's Prayer" and "Praying with Icons" has gotten much repeated playtime on my iPod as well. He also has a lecture on the Theotokos that is reeaally long, but is broken down into parts, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about the Theotokos. You can download it on ancient faith radio.
All this is to say that my new job has blessed me with the possibility of educating myself as I work, which I enjoy quite a lot.
Speaking of that new job, I was recently given the opportunity to repeatedly lift a 100-pound log-shaped chunk of wood, for the purpose of shaping it into a beautiful pillar.
Here we see the original gigantic glue-up, which was originally 12 3/4" x 12 3/4" x 48". Here, I have wacked the four corners off with a circular saw, an electric planer, a chisel and a hammer (did I mention the chain saw?). We didn't have a saw large enough to handle this thing, so sized it down the old fashioned way.
Here, I am posing with the thing in order to give it some scale. It's big and heavy, and it barely fit into our lathe.
Here I am turning the log, as I affectionately named it.
And here you can see the finished center section of the pillar, complete with flutes. How did I flute it, you ask? Well, I'm not gonna tell ya. Mostly because I'm tired and don't want to type anything else.
So that is how I spent last week: lifting a log over and over again, and thereby turned it into a beautiful pillar. How is seminary ever going to compare?
