The good, the bad, and the ugly

The bad: Tuesday when I rode to the library, I saw THIS. Where there was once an old, decrepit but charming house across from the library, there were now bulldozers ripping out trees and moving earth.

The entire neighborhood seemed dazed--this fellow biker, like me, just stopped and stared, and cars crawled by. There had been no sign that anything was up.

The ugly: This devastation is the fault of my beloved library. Bill the English Professor and I were talking about the ugly eye-sore yesterday, at which point the site had been completely stripped and leveled (the Blade article has a picture). He had heard that someone was putting up apartments. Somehow a library parking lot seems even worse.

Ah, but life goes on, and here's the good:

1. Wednesday morning I headed Chicago- ward to join Paul and Teri for the Willow Creek Leadership Summit, at their generous invitation. My friend Dusty rode with me to Toledo and then drove my car back while I took a Greyhound to downtown Chicago. The Summit, hosted in Willow Creek's massive new sanctuary (referred to in this recent NPR piece), consisted of two and a half packed days of presentations, interviews, and worship with some impressively high-powered and refreshingly real people, including Rick Warren (of record-breaking "40 Days of Purpose" fame), Southwest Airlines president Colleen Barrett, the hilarious Dr. Jack Groppel, and Dr. Henry Cloud. I'll admit to being skeptical about how spiritual such a slick mega- church could be, but I was deeply struck by the authenticity and humbleness of Willow senior pastor Bill Hybels in particular, and was blessed by the Summit experience.

2. When the Summit ended Saturday afternoon, Paul and Ter drove me back to BG, where they got to stay with me in my little apartment and get the tour of the town before they had to head back Sunday for Ter to catch her flight out of Chicago. Here is the beautiful Italian-themed quilt Ter made for my birthday.

3. I think I have a job for next semester! Rebecca called me last night to say that Lourdes College had contacted her, desperately trying to find an instructor for their online Art of the Western World course, which starts in a week. Rebecca told me she wanted to give them my name, and this morning the chair of the department called to offer me the position! I have to turn in a resume, college transcripts, and three letters of recommendation, which the chair says are a formality since Rebecca "strongly recommended" me. I just hope they don't mind that I haven't technically taken the class I'll be teaching, have never taught a college class, and am slightly terrified. Well, they're desperate.