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Lucas and I swore that when we had a baby we wouldn’t let our blog become a baby only blog. However, it’s hard to do that when Owen is just so cute. :) So for this post we depart from Owen news to announce that Lucas is now published! Earlier this year Lucas had an article published in the academic journal, Methodist History. They even chose the cover based on Lucas article…
I am so proud of Lucas for working hard academically and getting this published. He puts a lot of time into the area of Methodist history and it is nice to have his peers appreciate it.
So here’s to Owen’s daddy being a published author!
-Shannon
When we visited Vancouver we had to make it back to Regent to take at look at our school.
And a big reason for visiting Regent was to make a quick trip down to the library.
Oh look what we found…
It was quite rewarding to see Lucas’ thesis there on the shelves of the library. Obviously he’s still intrigued by this stuff. :)
-Shannon
A couple months ago we visited Ithaca to see our friends Matt & Tracy who live there and do campus ministry at Cornell. Well this past Friday and Saturday we made the trip again. This time we went up because Matt & Tracy invited Lucas to come and speak to their students for an event they call Solid Food. It is a time where the talk a little more theology and this time they had Lucas speak of missiology and evangelism. It was great to see Lucas in a group setting leading discussion and presenting new ideas to them.
After the event Matt & Tracy took us out to dinner and then we headed back to New Jersey. It was a quick trip but it was great to see our friends again.
-Shannon
This year was the first year we included a Christmas Letter in our Christmas cards. And since I couldn’t send a Christmas card to everyone I know and love I thought I would share our Christmas Letter with my lovely blog world. As an added bonus you get to see a picture for every month…and let me tell you how hard it is for me to only pick one pictures for each month. :)
Merry Christmas!
We pray this letter finds you well as we are in the midst of the Christmas season! This past year has brought many changes for us and we thought we’d share with a month by month report.
In January we spent part of the month home in Missouri as we celebrated Christmas before heading back to Vancouver where Lucas and I were both finishing school at Regent College.
February brought the news that Lucas had been accepted into Princeton Theological Seminary and we enjoyed time on Galiano Island with friends from Regent.
The month of March brought many baby related events as several of our close friends welcomed new babies or news of upcoming arrivals.
In April we celebrated as Lucas and I both graduated from Regent College, a place that formed us in ways seen and unseen.
May was a month of goodbyes as we left Vancouver, the city we called home for 2 1/2 years. There were many tearful goodbyes but it only reminded us of the wonderful friendships we developed while we were there. We then made the 40 hour drive home to Missouri to spend the summer with family
During the month of June Lucas was at Duke as a summer research fellow. In his absence my mom and I enjoyed a girls weekend in Branson and I spent a lot of time by my pool.
July was spent catching up with friends in Springfield & Tulsa as well as celebrating the 4th in West Plains and Kansas City.
In August we celebrated 5 years of marriage by taking a trip to Mexico with our good friends Spencer & Abby.
Early September we made the 18 hour drive to Princeton, NJ and set up our new life. I found two great jobs and celebrated my birthday with a day in NYC.
October brought our friends Ryan, Vanya & Ciara to us all the way from Vancouver. We also spent some time exploring our new surroundings.
In November we had another visitor when my mom came to stay with us. We also celebrated Thanksgiving as Lucas roasted his first turkey…it turned out great
December brings Lucas’ birthday! It also brought our friend Katie all the way from Scotland. We will stick around Princeton until Christmas Eve and then drive home to be with family for a week.
It has been a great year and we look forward to the New Year to come. Always know that you are welcome to come and stay with us if you are in the area. Again we wish you a very, merry Christmas!
Lucas & Shannon
Although I took a few pictures the first night I was in North Carolina, I decided to dedicate an entire afternoon to taking pictures as well. So while Lucas met with his fellow Methodist scholars I wandered around Duke…
These are the dorms where the students live…I just can’t get over how beautiful it is…
Since I had the entire afternoon to myself I spent quite a bit of it in the chapel. We went to church there while we were in Durham and it was fun to explore the place all by myself…
Of course…John Wesley…
And finally to the inside…the doors leading into the actually chapel…
The organ…
Some intricate door work…
Then I made my way over to the Divinity School to peek around the chapel there…
Richard Heitzenrater, who Lucas worked with while he was there, designed this logo when he was a student at Duke Divinity School…
This is part of the Divinity School building…
It’s a pretty beautiful place…I sure was amazed. And all the stone you see is from North Carolina and looks like this up close…
If you ever get a chance to be in Durham make sure you stop by Duke because it is definitely the prettiest place in town…
-Shannon
Dear Durham (North Carolina that is-not you UKers),
I know today has been tough for you. West Virginia??? I thought it was a football school too. Sorry to hear about your loss, speaking as a Missouri State Bear I can assure you that it gets easier as the years go on.
Anyway, I am writing you fair citizens because we will probably meet in the near future. I will be in town on June 2nd at three p.m. As you have probably guessed by now I am coming to be a part of Duke Divinity’s Summer Wesley Seminar. I am really looking forward to some humidity, sweet tea, and good conversation about Methodist history. I haven’t had time to put together my public relations package with posters, stickers, and sound bites for local radio stations but here are the broad strokes of what I am doing:
What: Condense the findings my master’s thesis on Methodist publishing into a piece of writing suitable for publication in an academic journal.
Where: Duke Divinity School
When: June 2-26 (I already told you the first part of that)
Who: With 5 senior level researchers and 4 other junior level researchers all led by Dr. Richard Heitzenrater.
Why: To be a part of Methodist historiography more broadly because that is what all the cool kids are into these days.
Needless to say I am very honored and excited to get the opportunity to visit you and your fair city for the month of June. I look forward to meeting you, until then go devils.
Love,
Lucas
p.s. My first order of business will be to find out why a Methodist school’s mascot is a devil. Second order of business, why is it blue?
Friends,
I know many of you haven’t been able to sleep at night wondering what would happen next in the lives of Lucas and Shannon. Will they ever finish school? Will they ever become gainfully employed? Have they been lured by the siren song of Canada and decided that we truly are all Canucks???
Well, it looks like Shannon and I do have a plan post-Regent. We both graduate in April-me with an MCS in Church History and Shannon with a DipCS. I originally intended to apply to enter phd programs in fall of ’08, but I really didn’t feel like I was in a place to put my best application forward when the deadlines came up. That said, I have also wanted to become ordained as a deacon in the United Methodist Church for a few years now which would require study that would not be included in a phd in American Religious History. I have explained some of this in an earlier blog and so I won’t bore you with the details here.
The long story short is I decided it would be in my best interest to try to get into a school (the UMC will only accept classes from certain ‘approved’ schools) to work on my ordination requirements for the ’08/’09 school year. Likewise, being enrolled in a school next year would hopefully further prepare me for phd study. That said, I applied and have been accepted at Princeton Seminary’s mdiv program for next year. Better yet, they have offered me a 90% scholarship and provide housing at significantly subsidized cost. So, it looks like next year we are headed to Einstein’s hometown!
We see this as a really big blessing and are excited to move to Princeton. Ivy League and Lucas… ha! God has a sense of humor!
-lucas
p.s. I hope Princeton is better to us than it was to Jonathan Edwards…
In the seventh grade I had a particularly prudish English teacher by the name of Mrs. Thornberry. Mrs. Thornberry sat in a chair at the top of the stairs to the second floor of Joplin Junior High and harassed all the kids in between classes. Anyway, though I had the great misfortune of having her as my teacher, I quickly honed in on an irritation the way only teenagers can. I learned that when I finished an assignment and turned it in on her desk and said, “I’m done,” it would send her through the roof. Invariably she would say “You are not a turkey. You are not done. You are finished.” Well, Mrs. Thornberry, (because no doubt you read this blog) I’m done.
All that to say that I have officially handed in my thesis! Yes, I can hear your applause over the internets. Today I printed off my 153 page friend. I call it my friend because I have spent over a year with it-hanging out on the weekends, spending time with it late into the night, and going to different places (coffee shops, libraries, movies-okay maybe not movies) and even towns with it- heck, we spent Christmas and New Year’s together! All of this was only encouraged when I saw people and they said, “Hey, Lucas you cool guy, how’s the thesis?” It took on a personality all its own.
In the end it feels a little wierd to be done. I would have liked to have added a few more things to it, changed some stuff around, but alas- I just had to turn it in and move on; and I guess that was just a couple of hours ago.
The official title of the thesis was: “The Methodist Episcopal Book Concern 1789-1820: Adopting Yet Adapting John Wesley’s Publishing Practice;” watch for it on Oprah’s book list. I argued that the American Methodists agreed that publishing devotional books beyond the Bible was important but they adapted Wesley’s practice in response to the ecclesiastical, political, financial and geographical context of the US. Sounds pretty common sense, but nobody had really looked at the Book Concern in comparison to Wesley; now I have and I quite enjoyed it.
If you have been dying to ask any questions about early American Methodist publishing you better ask me soon while it is still fresh in my mind- I plan on watching a lot of tv.
Adios amigos,
Lucas
p.s. This post is dedicated to my long-suffering and much neglected wife who has put up with me and my “friend” for over a year. I could not have written it without her. But, since I dedicated this post to her, we are probably about even… Well, maybe I will dedicate a couple more posts to her. Three cheers for Shannon! Hurray! Hurray! Hurray! I love you Shannon.
This past weekend was spent doing a whole lot of nothing. :) Well we did a little bit of something but overall we didn’t do a lot. When I say we didn’t do a lot I really mean we didn’t go too many places. Lucas holed himself up working on his thesis…
…and I spent some time cooking…
I made black beans with chicken served over rice and it turned out great!
We did do a few things including celebrating our friend Tim’s engagement and 30th birthday. We came into Regent with Tim in January of 2006 and he has been a friend of ours ever since. Some other Regent folks had a big party for him and Cindy (his fiancee). Here’s the happy couple as Tim tells the story of asking Cindy’s dad for her hand in marriage…
The yummy table of food…
Joe (from Alaska) & Carla (from Brasil)…
Sunday was another day of hard work for Lucas but thankfully he was able to pull himself away from his thesis so we could enjoy some time with our good friends Ryan & Vanya. I made a new recipe of chickpea pasta with parmesan and it turned out pretty darn well (thanks to Real Simple). Ryan & Vanya are about to have their first child so I thought Vanya could use some reading so I packaged up some of my old Real Simple magazines for her…
Some belly shots…
It was great to have some time with friends this weekend and thankfully Lucas’ thesis is due on January 31 so I won’t be without my husband for too much longer. :)
-Shannon
