I'm reading a book for a class on the Patristic Church Fathers called, The Rebirth of Orthodoxy by Thomas C. Oden. He's exploring the trend in the modern church toward a return to orthodoxy as defined by the early church councils and the renewed interest among various evangelical groups in the writings of the early fathers. ("New Ecumenism") He's contrasting this attitude with that of the ecumenism of the majority of the last century focusing on accommodation to modernism and negotiated lowest-common-denominator theology. ("Old Ecumenism")
I've found a quote I love (keep in mind that Oden was old enough to be a youth observer at the the second assembly of the World Council of Churches at Evanston in 1954):
"Think of the new ecumenism as analogous to the worldwide information web: it is dispersed, decisions are made mainly through local initiatives, and there is little need for central integrative control. The old ecumenism is more like defensive proprietary hardware, while the new ecumenism is like public domain software: the old guard wants to keep control. In the new ecumenism there is no desire to control the work of the Holy Spirit." [emphasis mine]
While I like his ideas, I'm more impressed that a guy who's got to be at least seventy can not only write decent history and theology, but seems to have at least a working knowledge of what a Copyleft license (the "copyright" on Open GNU/Linux software) is!
Had the Whole fam (well, Mum, Dad, Bethany and Woody) out for X-mas and they helped out like crazy--we are officially 
moved in now: all boxes emptied, all pics up on the walls, [still need to organize the library...]
We got to do some sightseeing with Bethany and Woody, both in St. Louis
and Chicago... (this was all we got to see of the Sears tower though:
visibility was at zero)
...got together with friends near Louisville, then got home to finish unpacking, begin teaching Special Ed. and begin taking classes at Covenant 
(I started with Denis Haack's Film and Theology - excellent!)
In the midst of this I was able to get out from under the umbrella of You-Know-Who's Evil Empire (I finally said good-bye to my faithful Toshiba as traveling and writing companion) and am loving the Mac family 
(still trying to get Linux dual-booting for the heck of it...)
I'm working on building a recumbent for commuting to class as it gets warmer (this isn't it, just a cool pic of another home-built "bent")
That pretty much covers it, we're enjoying settling into life in "the Lou" -- I'm enjoying classes and not yet feeling too overwhelmed (I've got Apologetics, Intro to Counseling, Reformation and Modern Church History, and Patristics and am excited about all the info!), Ab is learning her job (and would appreciate your prayers--it is a bit overwhelming) and we're loving being close to lots of friends and living in a community again!