Platypus of Truth

Come Thou fount of every blessing Tune my heart to sing Thy grace. Streams of mercy never ceasing Call for songs of loudest praise. Teach me some melodious sonnet Sung by flaming tongues above. Praise the mount I'm fixed upon it Mount of God's redeeming Love. Tune my heart to sing Thy praise this morning, Lord. Amen.

My conference on Ancient Persia went very well today (if you don't count being lost for two hours in Corona and missing dinner with the other panelists). I had the privilege of opening the conference with a lecture on the Greco/Barbarian Dichotomy in Greek literature. I spent the rest of the day listening to some truly wonderful lectures, hob-knobbing with Phd.s from Fullerton, UCLA, Dartmouth, Berkeley, and Claremont and answering many enthusiastic questions from all manner of people. Praise God for giving me and my grad student colleges such a wonderful opportunity and taking my nervous, scrambling speech and letting it find favour in the eyes of so many people. And now, the Platypus rests.... oh such rest will he have!

From Church Today: And, Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight, The clouds be rolled back as a scroll. The trump shall resound And the Lord shall descend, "Even so"- it is well with my soul. The Platypus thinks that the words speak for themselves.

I found out yesterday that my supervising professor liked the first chapter of my thesis and is confident that I can finish it well and on time. This is a major praise, and my thanks to all of you who have prayed and supported me in this time. I have another month or so to finish up the rest, and the work is going much faster now in spite of continued ill health. I will also be presenting my thesis at a formal academic seminar on March 25th! We'll see how that goes. ;-) Until next time, best wishes to you all!