The Coming of the Wise Men - Christmas is Over

All those new red poinsettias were put in a new plastic box.

On Epiphany (which no one talked about--in church, on Twitter or here in the cave) the fake Christmas tree was stripped down and the nativity set with the three olive wood wisemen, along with the baby Jesus, was packed up and put back on the basement shelf.

I also got my car back from the tire shop (which happens to have a couple of Subaru mechanics). Although I reluctantly emerged from my state of home-hibernation, it was good to drive again. The car seemed happy, steered well, purred with fresh oil and sported a couple of new windshield wiper blades--much to my surprise. My snow tires with their rusting wheels are back on, and I am ready for winter. The husband is upset that it took over a week and that the bill was large. I was the one who had the conversations with the mechanic and I think he was probably fair with me. It just needed a lot of labor-intensive work.

Today I took the branches off the Christmas tree and stuffed them in the Costco Gel Memory Foam mattress box. Christmas is finally over here. I want a real tree next year. The bare fake tree looked really sad in the harsh daylight. At least I didn't have to vacuum pine needles.

I also listened to the audio only of the January Series of Calvin College. Three old geezer (two are 83) former philosophy professors, and one retired history professor (who bored me in a 101 course as a freshman back in 1967-68) spoke. My old history professor was one of only three at that time on the college faculty that were not from the church tradition, a surprising fact to me now. It was a bit of a scandal that he dated and subsequently married someone from an adjoining dorm to mine. (He didn't mention that in his talk.)

 One of the professors moved on to teach at Yale, two took positions at Notre Dame and one became the President of Fuller Theological Seminary in California for 20 years--spreading their scholarship and faith to new communities. They spoke with appreciation of their years at Calvin, the importance of the weekly colloquia, how they helped organize the Association of Christian Philosophers, and how they came to find the Catholic scholars to be some of their best allies in the promotion of Christian ideas in the broader philosophical community.

Next week's lectures will include David Brooks of the NY Times. We read his latest book for Book Club last year, The Road to Character, and at least one other person other than the husband really enjoyed it.

Every January I receive a free refresher liberal arts education--sort of a booster shot, for better or for worse--all while hibernating in my "cave." Fifteen lectures are available to me on my laptop or smart phone. Some are archived.

That's about it for now with news from the cave. (I had to edit out three so's.)