Finished The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship by Paul Bradshaw this morning. it was a very helpful update to scholarship in this area.I like Bradshaw’s skeptical approach. He ends the book with this great quote from Robert Taft who is another teacher I studied with in grad school.

“Knowledge is not the accumulation of data, not even new data,  but the perception of relationships in the data, the creation of hypothetical frameworks to explain new data, or to explain in new ways the old.”

This is typical of Taft’s rigorous mind.

This book, Thomas Cranmer by MacCulloch, and The Later Reformation in England 1547-1603 also by MacCulloch filled in gaps in my knowledge and understanding.

Thomas Cranmer helped me better understand how the Anglican church emerged from the Roman Catholic church and the Reformation. The Later Reformation helped me understand how the Anglican church stabilized after this transition.

I’m thinking my next serious non-fiction book will not be religious.  Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 should fill in some more gaps.

I spent a good amount of time solving a question I had about my Greek studies this morning. I have been pondering some answers to an exercise. My texts provide a key to all exercises. I couldn’t quite understand two answers but figured out this morning I was misinterpreting an answer. Excellent.

I have designated today as the day to finish the program for Monday nights AGO installation service. Yesterday I actually helped the financial secretary at work with the publisher software in between meetings. I forget that I have these kinds of skills or that they might be recognizable to others.

This morning I managed to sleep in a bit. Got up later than usual and worked on Greek and read. Eileen got up and we had breakfast then took her Mini over to get worked on. Its battery seems to have died last Sunday. Everything is expensive with the Mini. But I think they’ll get it running today. Eileen then took off to get her hair done.

I have been thinking that we should contact our bank and credit card to let them know we will be in China. It seems to me like last time I was out of the country they got all weird about that when we just starting using them on the other side of the world.

This week is a very full week for me. I also have a funeral on Friday and a wedding on Saturday. It’s a bit odd to look forward to a trip to China as a reprieve from the usual but that’s how it’s shaping up.

Yesterday I didn’t play a note in class until after 11 AM. While it might seem cool to just sit and get paid, I think it might have been more tiring to do nothing and keep an ear out in case the teacher decided she needed music. I got some reading in, but by the end of the day was too tired to treadmill.