Triangles: Six

More than twenty-five years ago, I spent the month of September learning Greek. I was a first-year seminary student and the very first thing we did was spend four weeks learning one year's worth of Koine Greek. We worked from 8 or 9 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon. There were optional evening and Saturday morning sessions. After mastering the Greek alphabet, the next task was to learn the rules for which syllable of a word gets accented. I've long since forgotten the rules (and most of the Greek, sad to say), but I do remember and cherish a word I learned in this class. 

There are three possible syllables to take the accent in Greek: the last, the penultimate, and -- here it comes! -- the antepenultimate. Yes! The antepenult (as our teaching assistant Tracy was fond of abbreviating it) is the syllable before the next to last! The next to next to last! A glorious word, I think, and one I have precious few occasions to summon.

I woke at 5:38 this morning and never did get back to sleep. So after trying, I got up, snuck downstairs, and began putting triangles together, all the while thinking joyfully about that month of Greek where I first met and bonded with Sharon and Vetch and Ingrid and Kurt D. Abrahamson, and remembered Tracy's coming to class near the end of the third week wearing a dress (when pressed for an explanation she sheepishly responded, "Laundry day"). I remembered getting to know, respect, and admire Dr. Reumann and marveling at how quickly Craig and Patrick seemed to catch on. But mostly I thought about those syllables and those accents. Because I was assembling the antepenultimate row of triangles!      

δόξα τω θεώ!*

*Thanks be to God!