Thesis Tidbit

For those following my academic exploits (all one or two of you) I have an interesting tidbit to pass along. Coming up soon I will begin full scale work on my thesis. The full proposal is due in May and then research really gets rolling. The working title of this 100 page research paper is "This Side of Sunday: Natural Theology in GK Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday". That title could change of course, but you get the drift.

(Natural theology is the practice of theology from general rather than special revelation, i.e. from nature and experience rather than exclusively from the Bible. Far as I can tell it is similar to apologetics. Anyway, there is a fascinating stream of it flowing throughout Thursday and I'm hoping to 'flesh it out')

Anyway, the interesting and amazing thing that has come up is that the literature prof in the college is teaching a course on Chesterton in the fall. This is uncanny since its never been done here before and as far as I know he only heard about my thesis after deciding to do this class. In fact I've never seen a class like this anywhere (besides major universities that wouldn't have fallen within the scope of possibility for me). Had I known this was going to be offered here I would have come here for sure. So this will be cool because it looks like I'll get to take the class (with the college 'kids', as we seminarians call them) and do extra work to bump it up to seminary credit.

So this all fairly awesome and exciting for me. And today, coincidentally enough, I was introduced to this prof for the first time and I told him I was thrilled about the class and he suggested I "collaborate" with him, maybe even teach a bit!

Obviously this is all up in the air and will require some hammering out on the details, but it sure is exciting for me. It makes me wonder what is in store this coming year. I've often wondered if my thesis will really have anything to offer the world. Sure it is interesting to me personally, but what good will it do? Maybe none. But without reading into things too much I still have to wonder if God really is happy to have me do it and is even trying to help me out. Mind-boggling to think God would care to do something like that, but stranger things have happened, haven't they?