Back Home
Actually, I've been back for a few days but I've needed a vacation from everything, including my blog. I'm in one of those places where I'm not sure what to do with this thing. I need to update the look, start uploading photos, and tell the deeper pieces of my story. All this takes time, and I'm back to campus for meetings day after tomorrow.
I will say a few things, though.
The very best thing about my trip was seeing my brother and his wife and two adorable kids. They're 4 and 1 and beautiful beyond belief. I deeply enjoyed that time. S and I spent New Year's with some wine industry friends who import French wine and our group drank bottle after bottle of boutique Champagnes, culminating with the finest I've ever had (I admit I've never had the biggies, Dom, Dame, Cristal, but I hear those are grossly overrated; our friends don't even sell them). We had oyster shooters, all that. It was great, but it didn't come close to matching one quiet evening home (well, not totally quiet) with my brother and his family. Kudos to them on their patient parenting and lovely little people.
***
Reading Walter Bruggeman's Intro to the OT is like taking in breath after breath of clean fresh air. He moves quickly and doesn't always provide all the supporting details I'd like, but the book is just what I need right now. A rational, deeply Jewish, scholarly reading of the OT by a Christian who feels free to understand the books as individual units written in different times and places, driven by the need to shape the faith of a community, sometimes based on actual events and sometimes appropriating outside literature...I can't even begin to describe the book. I've leafed through many commentaries which were mostly heavily cited regurgitations of other scholars' views, continually interspersed by the need to cling to some rigid theological paradigm. Imagination, originality, open-minded honesty? Not there. Bruggeman is something else completely. I'm a novice to biblical studies and certainly to OT studies, but if you find yourself wrestling over the OT scripture, give WB a try. He's a good starting place for me.
I continue to wonder about a larger role in the church. I don't actually know if God 'calls' anyone, actively selects a person for ministry. It seems he'd call people to all kinds of ministries if this were the case. Maybe he does. But I'm cautiously and leisurely pondering the diaconate, even, yes, the Caltech seismic monitor just wobbled, the priesthood. For me it's simply looking at my personal traits and wondering where I'd fit best. If I were 30, or an untenured adjunct scraping by, I'd think (almost, you know me) God was sending me that direction. At 41 with a family and tenure...I'm very, very careful. I haven't even told my own priest or deacon ahout these ruminations. For me they're driven by Jesus' command to use our gifts, and to use them as if the eschaton is imminent (because you never know, it might be). Certainly my own death could come in the middle of this sentence.
Whew. Made it.
Also, what do I like to do? Read theology. Study scriptural scholarship. Talk about religion. More so, I envy those whose work takes them near people in the most critical moments of their lives. I don't know if I have what it takes to sit with a dying person and her family, to adminster unction and pray with the person as she passes, but I damned sure wish I had that, wonder if I have it somewhere in me. And of course, I can't help but want to preach, even the ten minute Episcopal homily. It's second nature for all who teach for a living to like to hear themselves talk, we get used to the narcissistic beauty of the captive audience, but I've always wanted to talk about the deeply important things, life-changing things. I haven't taught in a church (actually sunday school then) in, oh, 15 years. It feels like 500. I knew then I didn't have an authentic personal faith, or not much of one. Now I'm beginning to get a few things spinning.
And sometimes I wonder...how many more crappy papers do I have to read this week? This month? This year? They are legion in my job.
It will be a long path of discernment for me, one that may result in no changes at all, or some compromise, or the whole shebang. Of course my family has to be involved. To my own lame credit, I have at least mentioned this to my wife this week. So far she's been supportive; she knows, too, I'm not running off to seminary tomorrow.
***
Breaks are usually hard for me emotionally and this one has been a bit tough, though I had a great leg work out earlier today; still finished with two working sets of 225 and going deep. I wasn't hitting the gym the way I needed to all fall semester and it's good to be back; it's something I refuse to let slip this spring.
Be well all. I know this was just a quick update. I'm bothered more and more by the 286 look of my blog (remember the old processor; I almost said 8086 XT) and one of these days I'll get current. I know when I blog surf I look closer at blogs that look nice.
Peace and genuine love
I will say a few things, though.
The very best thing about my trip was seeing my brother and his wife and two adorable kids. They're 4 and 1 and beautiful beyond belief. I deeply enjoyed that time. S and I spent New Year's with some wine industry friends who import French wine and our group drank bottle after bottle of boutique Champagnes, culminating with the finest I've ever had (I admit I've never had the biggies, Dom, Dame, Cristal, but I hear those are grossly overrated; our friends don't even sell them). We had oyster shooters, all that. It was great, but it didn't come close to matching one quiet evening home (well, not totally quiet) with my brother and his family. Kudos to them on their patient parenting and lovely little people.
***
Reading Walter Bruggeman's Intro to the OT is like taking in breath after breath of clean fresh air. He moves quickly and doesn't always provide all the supporting details I'd like, but the book is just what I need right now. A rational, deeply Jewish, scholarly reading of the OT by a Christian who feels free to understand the books as individual units written in different times and places, driven by the need to shape the faith of a community, sometimes based on actual events and sometimes appropriating outside literature...I can't even begin to describe the book. I've leafed through many commentaries which were mostly heavily cited regurgitations of other scholars' views, continually interspersed by the need to cling to some rigid theological paradigm. Imagination, originality, open-minded honesty? Not there. Bruggeman is something else completely. I'm a novice to biblical studies and certainly to OT studies, but if you find yourself wrestling over the OT scripture, give WB a try. He's a good starting place for me.
I continue to wonder about a larger role in the church. I don't actually know if God 'calls' anyone, actively selects a person for ministry. It seems he'd call people to all kinds of ministries if this were the case. Maybe he does. But I'm cautiously and leisurely pondering the diaconate, even, yes, the Caltech seismic monitor just wobbled, the priesthood. For me it's simply looking at my personal traits and wondering where I'd fit best. If I were 30, or an untenured adjunct scraping by, I'd think (almost, you know me) God was sending me that direction. At 41 with a family and tenure...I'm very, very careful. I haven't even told my own priest or deacon ahout these ruminations. For me they're driven by Jesus' command to use our gifts, and to use them as if the eschaton is imminent (because you never know, it might be). Certainly my own death could come in the middle of this sentence.
Whew. Made it.
Also, what do I like to do? Read theology. Study scriptural scholarship. Talk about religion. More so, I envy those whose work takes them near people in the most critical moments of their lives. I don't know if I have what it takes to sit with a dying person and her family, to adminster unction and pray with the person as she passes, but I damned sure wish I had that, wonder if I have it somewhere in me. And of course, I can't help but want to preach, even the ten minute Episcopal homily. It's second nature for all who teach for a living to like to hear themselves talk, we get used to the narcissistic beauty of the captive audience, but I've always wanted to talk about the deeply important things, life-changing things. I haven't taught in a church (actually sunday school then) in, oh, 15 years. It feels like 500. I knew then I didn't have an authentic personal faith, or not much of one. Now I'm beginning to get a few things spinning.
And sometimes I wonder...how many more crappy papers do I have to read this week? This month? This year? They are legion in my job.
It will be a long path of discernment for me, one that may result in no changes at all, or some compromise, or the whole shebang. Of course my family has to be involved. To my own lame credit, I have at least mentioned this to my wife this week. So far she's been supportive; she knows, too, I'm not running off to seminary tomorrow.
***
Breaks are usually hard for me emotionally and this one has been a bit tough, though I had a great leg work out earlier today; still finished with two working sets of 225 and going deep. I wasn't hitting the gym the way I needed to all fall semester and it's good to be back; it's something I refuse to let slip this spring.
Be well all. I know this was just a quick update. I'm bothered more and more by the 286 look of my blog (remember the old processor; I almost said 8086 XT) and one of these days I'll get current. I know when I blog surf I look closer at blogs that look nice.
Peace and genuine love
Comments
Your reading continues to go deeper than feebel intellect. I'm proud of myself, I read two books over break and both of them were fiction.
Blessings and peace to you and your family.
t
I just re-read my comment and noticed a typo. I meant to write 'my feeble intellect'. I know you took no offense, I just wanted to clarify.
Peace.