(xaris and shalom)

In Humanities 101, we memorized John Donne's Holy Sonnet X .  I no longer can quote the whole thing, yet I often find the opening and closing lines running through my mind. Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me. ... One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die. Audrey Assad has done a beautiful musical adaptation of this poem.  It's utterly appropriate right now.  This year has brought the death of several dear saints, and while I rejoice for them ending their races well, I mourn for our loss.  Saturday (morning in the US, evening in China) brought the horrific news of a shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh .  While shootings in America have become a sickeningly common occurrence in my own living memory, there's something especially awful to me about this one,

I'm a little embarrassed at how quiet my blog has been this semester.  It's not for lack of stories, certainly; more for lack of time and any functioning brain cells left at the end of the day.  The fall semester has swung out of the season of me feeling like I was waiting for everything to start into the jam-packed busyness that I normally associate with spring semester.  Mom and Ben came and traveled with me and met a lot of my dear friends and students. I have about 320 new students this year.  It's a lot of new names and faces to learn, especially when I only teach each of them once a week.  They're a fun and friendly bunch, eager to talk and learn and share stories and eat meals together.  Each of the three years that I've taught at Chuan Wai I've been in a different building and different department -- this year gives me the furthest walk from my apartment to the building where I teach (about ten minutes) and the most sophisticated technology (