preparation

I think it's always a challenge for teachers to stay motivated during the summer, but I did a decent job today, I think. I was able to get a couple of solid hours of sermon preparation in this morning. I'm preaching at college church this Sunday. It's Mother's Day, of course, so I'm trying to do something along that theme. I'm focusing on Naomi, who is more famous as a mother-in-law than a mother, and about whom very little is explicitly said. So, I'm having to infer things about her culture from Ruth's response to her. This is a bit stretching for me, but I think it's starting to come together. Hopefully, tomorrow I can put a little more meat on the skeleton and polish it up a little.

I'm teaching philosophy this next semester, so I'm reading a real entry-level text to brush up on the basics of the material. The book I'm reading approaches philosophy from a chronological standpoint, so I've read up to the medieval philosophers right now. The text that has been used in that course in the past is arranged topically, so I'm trying to figure out how to integrate the two. I've actually toyed with doing a history of philosophy for half the semester and a more conceptual look during the second half, but I'm not sure I have the time or the skill to make both halves cohesive without being redundant. A lot of my reading done today was done on the move, as I followed Elijah on his wanderings around campus and frequently interrupted by "No. Elijah. No. No. Stop. No." Such talent for cruelty to cats at such a young age!

I think I'm really getting a more crystallized idea of what to do with my Missions 1 course.