For nearly two years I haven't had an office in which to set up my books. The reason for this is that Central was selling the building in which my previous office was housed. I liked the other building. In fact, I pushed to try an sell the "real" church building and keep the office building because it's a more flexible space (it would actually be cheaper to rent a worship space each week given current heating and repair costs). No one liked my idea and so we put the office/sunday school/youth group building up for sale.

The loss of the other building's space meant that Central was going to have to renovate certain areas of the church building in order to continue ministry. The first presumption among several members of the congregation was that the Church Office and Pastor's Study get top priority and every other space needed to wait until we got the money from the building sale. Other voices (including mine) said that was a bad idea because our youth group has the potential to really impact our town and if the youth were taking over the space for the nursery we'd need a space for that as well. So those two projects got top billing, and the Church Office was moved but not renovated (that's next).

This past month our school district voted to adopt a uniform policy. It's not wonderfully thought out (look, I'm glad people want to pay tribute to the school colors but there isn't too much out there that's plain red), but my wife and I aren't fundamentally opposed to the idea. We live in a community with a wide disparity between the "haves" and the "have nots" in terms of material wealth are happen to be friends with people who, frankly are ruining their present and future because they feel the need to "keep up with the Jones.'" Helping people cut some clothing costs isn't a bad idea (running financial seminars that force people to live under a budget is a better idea, but that's another blog entry). In the High School this takes on another aspect as girls clothing seems to be getting more and more sexualized and guys can't seem to find pants that don't cause them to inadvertently moon everyone in school (I have not idea why the "intentional boxer wedgie" look hasn't faded away around here, but it hasn't). So, no worries. The "uniform" is really a narrow dress-code with three or four options (which is part of the reason it's not well-designed but I didn't get to that meeting so shame on me), and it's just what's going to happen.

I just completed reading The Children of Hurin, it's the latest work of J.R.R. Tolkien to be compiled and released by his son, Christopher. All in all, it's a rewarding read - almost like a "click here to zoom" link on an Internet map. The Children of Hurin is a "zoomed in" version of the tale of Hurin as found in The Silmarillion, adding detail (and expanding the knowledge of Turin's tragic life).

As the subject reads, this book reads like a Greek Tragedy (complete with incest borne of ignorance and people showing up repeating the theme of the tale, which is that the Children of Hurin seem to be unable to accept wise counsel), so it's not a "good book" in that is makes the reader feel happy for reading it. There is no real moment of "tragic triumph" at the end of the book (as there is at the end of ROTK) - this book is just sad, but it's sad with a point and that's what makes it rewarding. If you can stomach a book that has very little hope (any tale that begins with the "Battle of Unnumbered Tears" isn't going to have a surplus of this), yet manages to point the reader towards hope, then go out and this book.