Happy Thanksgiving!

My friends from the Orvieto trip. Looks like they are posing for their new album cover, huh?

I've had quite a week. I flew to San Diego to present a paper at the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS), which has about 2% women attending. While there I was interviewed for some research about what it's like to be a woman in the ETS world. Not only were women underrepresented, but all minorities were missing from the conversation. I'm working on some ideas to help change that.

While there, I heard some great presentations and shared meals with a couple of authors whose books I use in my class that traces the role of women in the church, home, and society. Some of the men, in advocating fearlessly for women, have paid big prices professionally. It was an honor to hear their stories.

While in San Diego, I drove up to Anaheim to meet my Italy reunion group (they all live in California) to go together to Disneyland and California Adventure for the day. One of our group (pictured, on far right) is a Disney animation supervisor, and she got us in for free, so we had fun getting a behind-the-scenes perspective. But the best part was being together after sharing such meaningful experiences last summer.

Pacific sunrise from my room in San Diego at AAR.

Back in San Diego, I attended a day at the AAR conference—American Academy of Religion. That group was much larger than the thousands at ETS, and it included people from all religious perspectives, including atheism. I attended an interesting panel discussion on climate change as well as heard a wonderful speech by Makoto Fujimura as he received AAR's 2014 Religion and the Arts Award. I loved getting to meet him and seeing more friends from the Orvieto, Italy, adventure.

I arrived home to a clean house and a stocked fridge (my husband rocks!), and four members of my husband's family arrived the next day from Washington, DC, for Thanksgiving. We spent one morning at the Gaylord Texan show, "Ice," featuring Frosty the Snowman this year. We also had some movie marathons watching "Live, Die, Repeat," "November Man," and "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit." I liked all of these.

I also had a chance to preview "The Red Tent," which is coming to Lifetime television in early December. More about that soon.

I received a jury summons—so I guess I'll spend half of December on call. Considering what so many endured to give women the right to participate in the process, I'm trying to see this as a blessing rather than as punishment for being one of the few people in Dallas County to vote in the last election.

Last night we had dessert with my younger sister's family, and today is our final Thanksgiving feast in Frisco with more family (Carlos and Karla). We are really grateful for meaningful work and time with friends and family. I'm also thankful for a West Coast "beauty fix." Happy Thanksgiving!