Since You Asked….
In the comments on the last post, Mike wondered whether the question Moriah said “Yes” to wasn’t “Will you marry me?” but “Should I stop blogging?” Well, no, that wasn’t the question and I haven’t stopped blogging. But the “Yes” did lead to a couple blog-less weeks nevertheless.
Here’s what’s been happening. On January 2, I flew down to Oregon to spend a week with Moriah and her family. That Wednesday, after the whole family had been to see The Return of the King (loved it, including the long endings that bored some reviewers), I kidnapped Moriah. The rest of the family was going to eat at Red Robin, but I took Moriah to Porter’s, an old train station converted into a very nice restaurant, where we had a private booth and where I asked her to marry me.
On January 9, we flew together to Grande Prairie. Moriah stayed at Jamie & Val Soles‘s place, and we spent most of that week together. And then, last Friday, I watched as she walked through security and then out the door to the plane….
Thank you to all of you who have sent us congratulations! Our wedding is scheduled for June 25, 2004, in Moscow, Idaho. Dr. Peter Leithart has agreed to do the service. I’ve updated the stuff in the right hand column on this page. You’ll find our wedding page there, as well as links to various places where we are registered.
Let’s see … what other news can I tell you? I’m currently reading N. T. Wright‘s massive Jesus and the Victory of God, and I’m enjoying it greatly. I recently finished Ray Bradbury’s rather melancholy The Martian Chronicles and now I’m halfway through Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time (which is a pretty fun story, though hardly orthodox in its theology).
As for music, Emmylou Harris’s new Stumble Into Grace is good, though not, I think, quite as good as her earlier Red Dirt Girl. Daniel Lanois’s “Falling at Your Feet,” in which Bono joins Lanois in singing praise to God, is excellent; the rest of the album, Shine, hasn’t grabbed me (yet).
The weather? Well, when Moriah was here, it was quite decent for January in Grande Prairie: just a little below freezing. On Thursday morning, we had freezing rain (so much that they cancelled mail delivery), followed by light but persistent snow. That snow continued through last night. On Friday morning, I went out to shovel the driveway but discovered that when you stand on sheer ice and shovel, your feet have no traction. Having wiped out once, I gave up and went in.
Today, it cleared off a bit, giving us glimpses of Grande Prairie’s usual bright blue sky. But the removal of the cloud cover went hand in hand with a drop in temperature. It’s about -35 this evening, and even for us winter-hardened Canadians, that’s cold. We cancelled congregational singing this evening and, though I’ve been invited to join Tym at Alex, Calvin, and Steve‘s place tonight, I think I’ll stay inside where it’s warm, eat some good food (or whatever I can cook), drink some hot tea, wear the sweater my fiancee bought me, read a bit, and then … make a phone call.