Back at the library, checking emails, trying to get some quiet, fighting various temptations, picking up a couple of movies.

We finally have a closing for Monday. Hopefully we can load the truck on Sunday and get out of the crap hole early. Have already gotten a couple of nasty notes from the apartment (which seems to have already changed managers after only a week of having a new one). We are excited, but a bit anxious. After all the roadblocks, I suppose we keep expecting a call that says the whole thing is off.

The whole ordeal has been, and continues to be, an exercise of faith. We have prayed and trusted that this move is the will of God. I've wondered if I was blinded by the house, and that these roadblocks might be confirmation that we are not to proceed. But faith untested is not faith worth having. We must have trials and difficulties to prove the faith real, not for God who knows us, but for ourselves, who cannot fathom the depths of our possibilities.

About a third through The Greatest Story Ever Told, and despite a couple of nagging problems, I am enjoying it. A couple of notes: first, I noticed in the Prologue that a chief motivation for writing the book was that so few people were reading the Bible, that biblical phrase in conversation brought stares and blank expressions. Mr. Oursler seems to have been sad that such an important document was fading from (my expression) cultural literacy. The book was published in 1949! Well, Mr. Oursler, it hasn't gotten any better.

Second, in the Prologue, the author explains that he took great pains, when the story would be made into a radio serial, to be sure that the story was accurate and would not offend (and I presume appeal to) Protestants or Catholics. He writes nothing of how it would be received by Jews. There are pains taken, it seems to my ignorant mind, to faithfully reproduce the people and times. However, there are little things that might stand out as inaccurate or even offensive, such as Jesus being described not only as having a perfect body (not a problem in itself), but coupling the image with notes that his skin was "lighter" than his companions. I don't know that a lot of people would notice it, but it did bug me a little. However, the story is still interesting. I'm sorry, actually, that I am past the part with Joseph's role in the story. I liked reading about his as a man of faith. However, I'm confident I will find similar tales of others in the novel.