"God blessed my little Bible Study tonight"

...were Fr. Daniel's words when we wrapped up this evening. And who could blame him, with all the classes canceled by or subjected to bad weather this winter? Despite some light rain in the morning, I encountered blindingly bright sun on the way to church this afternoon. (To us Seattle winter troglodytes, "blindingly bright" is probably what everyone else considers normal sun.) It wound up a beautiful day -- though after the class ended this evening, about a mile down Avondale Road I was briefly blinded and buffeted by a rain squall that seemed to come out of nowhere. Probably just more rain coming in.

After Evensong, during which I kept hearing an unfamiliar but knowledgeable and skilled voice behind me (welcome, George!!), we headed down for a light supper prepared by Josephine and Kathy. (Wonderful potato leek soup: to quote a previous appraiser of Josephine's culinary skills, "Josephine rocks!")

Once supper was cleared and the dishwasher filled to capacity (are our numbers growing?), the class began. It was clear Fr. Daniel was prepared, with an almost precarious-looking stack of books on the lecturn. And so we reviewed John 1-5 from last week and extended our way into John 6. This is quite a bit of a faster pace than we took last year through Ephesians.

For my part I wish we'd hear more from the Church Fathers on this, but we simply have less time. And besides, even if we did I'd be missing Deacon Ed's readings from the Fathers, which he did so well for the Sunday morning Ephesians class. You'd almost think you were hearing them directly.