Dad's icon, UVA, Epiphaneia, and church history

My dad just came upstairs to tell me that an icon he painted for a church in north Philly is on their webpage! You can check it out here.

I just came up today from a wonderful trip down south to visit some FOCUS volunteers at UVA. A delightful young girl from Emma Willard School hatched the whole idea and I provided transport! Aside from tye-dying, hiking, and attending some classes - we spent a lot of time catching up with people there we know and love. Two of the girls I hung out with are pictured below in the bottom left from the FOCUS camp they led with me this summer:

This weekend I fly up to Toronto to attend my friend's conference on social justice and Christianity - specifically focusing this year on the relevance of our faith to issues of war, recession, food, sex, economics, and the Sabbath. You can read about it all here. More personally, this conference is hosted by my friend who accompanied me in the West Bank last year. Many others from our grad school cohort are coming as well!! Here's a pic from our graduation a year and a half ago.

Then I get back to Philly, gather with other FOCUS 'fellows' (1st and 2nd year staff) and participate in a seminar training us to answer students' "tough questions." I'm designated to tackle the question, "Why is church history so violent?"

I chose this question because I remember sitting in my dorm room sophomore year of college weeping over eyewitness accounts of the era of the Spanish colonization of America. I never thoroughly researched the question before, although I'd come to grips with it at different times in my faith.

Perhaps I'll post my findings on this question in a later blog entry...

For now, it's off to Canada!!