An Advent Update from the Clemmons, on Mission
One Semester Down, at Beeson Divinity & the Clemmons Academy
Dear friends and family,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
This week in the Book of Common Prayer, we pray one of my favorite collects, a meditation and thanksgiving on the nourishing Word of God. Here it is in full:
Blessed Lord, who caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to heart them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and the comfort of your holy Word we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen.
I was reminded this morning that the word “comfort” comes from a Latin root meaning “strengthen.” In this season of long expectancy, when steadfast faith and patient hope don’t necessarily come easy, God’s Word strengthens us. I’m grateful for the opportunity we’ve had to live under and live with God’s Word more intensely these past few months. Some reflection on the semester (and what’s next for the Clemmons on Mission) below.
Peace of Christ,
Zack
The Semester at Beeson
Last week, I wrapped up my first seminary semester with two finals and a 15-pager on Spiritual Formation. It was actually a mercifully simple way to end the semester, which really hit its intensity stride shortly after Election Day. Somewhere between tracing a biblical theology of suffering, parsing the syntax of a stubborn passage in Paul, sorting out the protagonists and antagonists of pre- and post-Chalcedonian Christology, and trying to finally memorize a comprehensive timeline of all the kings and prophets of the Old Testament, I about hit my limit. But God was faithful, the work got done, and I learned a lot.
There’s everything and nothing to say about this semester. I still feel, at the moment, a bit shell-shocked. There’s the sheer fact that our life is now in a different place, tuned to new frequencies. The new friends (classmates, church folks, neighbors), the new enemies (cockroaches, hurricanes, imposter syndrome, needless financial anxieties). The wide and wooly glory of the Old Testament, canonically considered. The dense history of God’s patience with his people, in the Bible and reiterated in the early Church. The exhilaration of really digging into the Greek of Titus and exegeting chapter 3 verses 3-7 (I hope to post some Titus reflections on the blog sometime later this month). The long struggle to see that God can teach me in ways that aren’t strictly intellectual. That God always and everywhere exceeds my categories, my understanding, and yet makes Himself intensely present in the minute details of my life. The hum-drum grind of flashcards and long chapters. The abject weirdness of regularly hanging out in Gerald Bray’s living room.
All this to say, I’m grateful. Exceeding grateful, that I get to do this. Get to have this season of intentional formation and training for a life devoted to God’s Kingdom. Grateful that all my family’s needs have been provided for (not least by many of you, more gratitude to come in the coming weeks). It’s a semester on which I’ll continue to ruminate, hopefully in writing (really, do hold me accountable to making use of that blog).
The Semester at Clemmons Academy
That’s my academic recap (in brief). What have Ames and Eleanor been up to?
In the long days of study when I’m away at school, Erin has diligently developed a mini-curriculum for Eleanor and Ames’ mornings. It’s called “Clemmons Academy,” and involves a daily and a weekly rotation of what a bad book might call “educational activities.”
Daily, the routine is something like this:
Breakfast + Birding (this isn’t officially step one, but Erin put her birthday birdfeeders outside our window and the wrens, finches, thrashers, cardinals, woodpeckers, nuthatches, and jays have been all over them)
Bible Memory Verse (song + discussion)
Bible story (primarily from The Jesus Storybook Bible)
Reading Lesson (Eleanor has been crushing these, while Ames mostly spends the time ripping the paper off of crayons and making up songs)
Activity of the Day (Monday | Wordsearches, Mazes, etc. || Tuesday | High-Five Magazine || Wednesday | Craft || Thursday | Reading Game, Puzzles || Friday | Color + Draw)
Outside Time (Planting Acorns | Composting 101 | General Digging | Advanced Snail-Watching | etc.)
On days that I’m home, and more often now that the semester is over, I’ve taken on Morning Lessons while Erin gets more studio time (except when Eleanor wants to save her reading lesson to do with Mama). Already I’m working on my patience, my own ability to pay attention. Already I’m amazed at the ways my children have been quietly growing and maturing. Already I’m impressed and grateful for the creative, devoted work of my wife.
For a long time we’ve planned on homeschooling (part of our life on mission, which I should really write about sometime), but we’ve felt some trepidation at the prospect. Clemmons Academy has been a perfect small-scale trial-run confidence-booster. By God’s grace and with God’s help, we’re going to produce some well-formed children.
What Lies Ahead
December is upon us, then, and with it another quiet before another storm. It’s been all of a few days of “December Break” and I’m entirely disoriented. It’s strange how quickly you can accustom yourself to the structure of a work-week, and how petrified you can get when that structure is removed. Officially, we have no pressing responsibilities this month. Unofficially, we have three weeks left to make plans, test budgets, study up, write letters, make pots, get a nursery together, and prepare for the mad rush of 2021.
God has not yet seen fit to lead me into official part-time work, so I’m doing a little Latin tutoring and trying to sell my humble labor on Nextdoor while I continue to buff up my Greek and fill in some of the manifold gaps in my reading. I’m also (at last!) starting up official diaconal duties at Christ the King. More on these as they develop.
Perhaps most significantly, Erin and I are actually doing a lot of planning and work to prepare to (re)launch her ceramics business in 2021, which, Deo volente, could become our family’s primary source of income. Erin’s designing and throwing and repairing kilns and exploring small commissions while I’m trying to teach myself basic accounting (cool, helpful) and marketing (bad, dumb).
No wait, most significantly, there’s that January baby still in the works, due the week after my J-term class ends and the day before my spring semester begins. Kyrie Eleison.
Status Board
Reading: As an end-of-semester treat, I let myself read some novels. I was particularly excited by Paul Kingsnorth’s The Wake, a near-nihilistic tale of the Norman conquest written in a hybrid Old English-Contemporary English language. Having now finished it, I don’t know if I’d recommend the book as a whole (it’s a bleak read, and my take is that it’s mostly about demon possession), but overall it was a pretty exhilarating reading experience. Also, I’ve been getting into David Macaulay’s work (especially Mill and Cathedral) with Eleanor and Ames (with the not-too-secret hope of convincing them both to become architects), and it’s amazing.
Listening: I’ve been listening to more lofi as I write and organize, and have started to compile a short playlist with just the right vibe. If you happen to use Spotify (more power to you if you don’t), you can check it out here. Also, I tried to be an Advent purist a few years ago, and save Christmas music for actual Christmastide, but found it made rather less holy and rather more a grinch. Can you truly let a December of your one life go by without Vince Guaraldi? The whole album is eternal, but this track is, IMO, the best non-hymn Christmas tune of all time.
Watching: We broke out the television for Thanksgiving Week and enjoyed a few films (don’t worry, it’s back in the box now for Advent and beyond). I showed Eleanor and Ames Sylvain Chomet’s L’Illusionniste, less because I want my children to know its bittersweet story and more because I want some of its magnificent animation forming their earliest aesthetic sensibilities. And I really enjoyed the deceptively simple story of Kelly Reichardt’s latest, First Cow.
Food & Drink: It’s Advent, which we try to treat as a fasting season, so I’m trying not to think too much about the culinary wonders with which God has gifted this world, and think instead about “inwardly digesting” God’s Word. ;)
Prayer Requests
The best way to support us is to join with the Son in remembering us before the Father. If you’d like to pray with and for us, here are some things you can remember:
a healthy final trimester for Erin and our child
that Eleanor would fully embrace her role as big sister, and that Erin and I would learn how best to encourage her as she grows up and takes on new responsibility
that Ames would and treat his sibling(s) with care
that Erin’s business would prosper and scale at the right time; that we would take the long view
that God would give Zack wisdom as he weighs potential job opportunities
that we would be presented with more opportunities to witness to our neighbors
that our financial needs would be met, and that Zack in particular would be at peace
We’d also like to pray with and for you! If you’re reading this, you’re probably already in our prayers, but we’d love to know more specifically what we can pray for. You can text us, of course, or you can email us prayer requests at clemmonsonmission@gmail.com
We’re the Clemmons family–-Zack, Erin, Eleanor, and Ames–-living & studying & working in Birmingham, Alabama for sake of God’s Kingdom.
If you’d like, you can support us financially as we navigate this new season on mission, without incomes.
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