The Feast of the Visitation

 Today we celebrate the Feast of the Visitation, the day when Mary goes to her cousin Elizabeth. Both are miraculously pregnant, Mary with Jesus, Elizabeth with John the Baptist. As they approach each other, they recognize each other, as mothers, as miracles--even the babies in their wombs understand what's happening.

I'm a good Lutheran girl, so growing up, we never celebrated these feast days. As I've gotten older and explored monasticism, and to be honest, as I've blogged more and needed more to write about, I've been doing all sorts of research into feast days.

Some feast days leave me shaking my head and wondering what modern folks are to do with them. Some feast days, like today's, make me wish I'd known about them earlier. I think about my younger self who was enraged that so much femaleness seemed to be erased from Christianity. What would my raging feminist self have done with this festival?

I'm not sure she'd have been appeased. I was also in the process of trying to assert that biology isn't destiny, while also acknowledging that I was one of the first generations to be able to assert that idea.

My middle-aged self is willing to admit that biology is often destiny, although not in the womb-centric way that the phrase is often bandied about. I'm seeing too many people at the mercy of bodies that they have increasingly less control over.

I love this story of new life being held in unlikely wombs.  I love this message that biology is not destiny, that our bodies can do all sorts of wondrous things, like heal, generate new life, or learning new ways of being in the world.

There are other aspects of this story that aren't immediately apparent.  I love the intergenerational care that's present in this story.  I am fondly remembering female members of my own extended family and offering thanks for their support. I remember the family stories they told and the ways they included me in family gatherings. I remember the rides to the airport, and memorably, one time that my cousin Barbara (my mom's first cousin) came to Augusta, 60 miles away, at night, to help me out of a jam caused by the breakdown of a car. I remember that she treated it as a grand adventure. No castigating, no lecturing.

This year, I'm thinking about the elements of discernment, call, and retreat.  God calls both Mary and Elizabeth, and both say yes to a radical change of direction to what they might have planned.  And it's a change that will have an impact on the rest of their lives, not just a year or two.  I love the idea of taking some time away to support each other and to prepare.

On this feast day of the Visitation, let's take a few minutes to listen for God's call.  What new life waits to be born?  What new project of God's can only proceed if we say yes?  And how can we nourish ourselves so that we're ready?


Here are the readings for today:

First Reading: 1 Samuel 2:1-10

Psalm: Psalm 113

Second Reading: Romans 12:9-16b

Gospel: Luke 1:39-57

Here's a prayer that I wrote for today:

Creator God, today we offer thanks for Elizabeth and Mary, women who were willing to follow your invitation into adventures that must have seemed impossible.  Open our hearts so that we hear the invitations you offer to us.  Give us the courage to say yes to you.  Plant in us the gifts that the world needs.

Meditating on Memorial Day

I never got Memorial Day off as an adult, until we moved down here to South Florida. In South Carolina, in the 1990's, Memorial Day was often not celebrated because it started out life as a holiday to honor the Union dead.

I realize that some of you will be saying, "Union dead? The Civil War? That war that happened over 100 years ago?"

Oh, yes. For some folks, that war isn't really over. They celebrate Confederate Memorial Day.

And in terms of state and federal holidays, my community college employers were a bit stingy. We didn't get Presidents' Day off either.

So, it was a joy to move down here and to have the day off. But soon, enough, it felt a bit empty.

I've spent all of my life before moving down here living in places that had a military base in the community--sometimes two or three. Memorial Day has a different flavor in places with a military presence.

Now I live in a place that feels more like a future U.S., where English isn't the dominant language, where there are more recent arrivals than people with ancestors buried in the soil. Most days, I'm cool with this, and invigorated by it.

Today, I'd like to be at a national monument, listening to one of the service bands perform. Or maybe I'd rather be in a contemplative spot, saying a thank you.

So, on this day which has become for so many of us just an excuse to have a barbecue, let us pause to reflect and remember. If we're safe right now, let us say a prayer of gratitude. Let us remember that we've still got lots of military people serving in dangerous places.

Let us remember how often the world zooms into war. Let us pray to be preserved from those horrors.

Here's a prayer I wrote for Memorial Day:


God of comfort, on this Memorial Day, we remember those souls whom we have lost to war. We pray for those who mourn. We pray for military members who have died and been forgotten. We pray for all those sites where human blood has soaked the soil. God of Peace, on this Memorial Day, please renew in us the determination to be peacemakers. On this Memorial Day,we offer a prayer of hope that military people across the world will find themselves with no warmaking jobs to do. We offer our pleading prayers that you would plant in our leaders the seeds that will sprout into saplings of peace.

Deadlines and a Sense of Grace

 A student wrote to apologize for not getting her work done this week. She said she had been in the hospital after giving birth to a baby but that she would catch up on work this week.  I told her to take all the time she needed.

I know that some teachers would require documentation; I was once one of those teachers. But my experience during spring of 2020 has changed me a bit. In March of 2020, facing enormous disruptions, I wrote to my students and told them I had suspended all deadlines and that all they had to do was to do their best to get their work done by the end of the term. I would keep writing weekly emails as if the deadlines still applied, and in fact I encouraged them to try to meet the deadlines so that they wouldn't have impossible tasks at the end of the term. But I could tell early on that we were going to be facing a variety of challenges, and I didn't need to hear all the details to grant people grace. My goal was to get them to the end of the term as successfully as possible.

That's always my goal of course. I was surprised by how many people stayed on track even though I had given them blanket permission to turn in everything late. It made me wonder if the punitive approach to missing deadlines is the best. We talk about training people to be good workers later, good professionals, people who will get the work done on time. I'm not sure they really learn that by me taking 20 points off if they turn in a paper late.  Perhaps it's more accurate to say that the ones who learn the lesson that way have already learned it by the time they get to my college English classes.

I also thought about different approaches to grades with my own grades that I earned as a student this term in seminary. In one class, I earned an 89.7. On a 100 point scale, would you give me an A or a B for the class? As a teacher I would round up, but I know many teachers who don't.  I'm happy that my seminary professor did round  up, and I got an A minus for my term grade.

When I broke my wrist, I did write to all of my professors just to let them know, and they all wrote back to say that they were willing to do whatever I needed. I decided to push forward and finish my work before the surgery. This morning I looked at the calendar and thought that if it was a month ago, I would be deep in a variety of papers.  I thought that pushing ahead was easier than taking incompletes, and that turned out to be a good decision.

There's this strange emptiness in my days where seminary work once was and where it will be again. It makes sense to take this summer off for a variety of reasons:  wrist surgery recovery, moving across multiple states, and the fact that seminary scheduling didn't quite work for me for this summer. Today I will connect with old friends, one of the joys of having some extra time.

Coastal Ministry

Last week, I saw this tweet from @revpaulwhite, which I'm still thinking about a week later:

"Just had an interesting talk about rural ministry. 

However, in my new context, it would be interesting to think about coastal ministry: fishing industry, seaside tourism, end of the road poverty, seasonal work in leisure. Feels like an area not much talked about..."

I thought about commenting, but as I scrolled through the comments, I reflected that my perspective in southeast Florida might not align with the English context of the tweet and its responses. For example, we don't have much of a fishing industry.  Much of our economy is rooted in tourism, which means that many people are working in all sorts of hospitality industries.  But I'm guessing that's true of many (most?) coastal areas.

My comment would have talked about climate change and how coastal communities will face very difficult challenges in the coming decades.  How will coastal ministries help communities face the enormous losses that are coming?

That's an issue in coastal ministry that's not talked about much . . . 

The Feast Day of the Ascension

Today is the Feast Day of the Ascension, 40 days after Easter, 10 days before Pentecost. This feast day commemorates Jesus being taken up into Heaven.

Imagine it from the eyes of those who have followed Christ from traipsing around Galilee, Crucifixion, and then Resurrection. You have just gotten your beloved Messiah returned to you, and then, poof, he's gone again. What a whipsawed feeling they must have had.

How do we celebrate this day, so many thousands of years later? Many churches have chosen to simply ignore it. We march on to Pentecost.

But let us take a minute to acknowledge the wonder of the Ascension. It's a fate reserved for very few in the Bible. And let us take a minute to think about Jesus, who has already suffered death, the fate which an ascension spared for the few others who experienced it.

Just like the first followers, just like Jesus, we don't get to stand around waiting for our chance to go to Heaven. There's work to be done on Earth. The coming Sundays of the Pentecost season remind us that we’re not put on Earth to wait to die. We are here to help God in the ultimate redemption of creation. Jesus began that work of that redemption. We are here to further it along, at least as much as we can during our very short time here.

And how do we do that? The possible answers to that question are as varied as humanity. Some of us will pray without ceasing. Some of us will fight for social justice. Some of us will create works (of art, of science, of theology, of gardens) that point others to God. Some of us will visit the lonely and the sick. Some of us will give away our money so that others have the resources to do the creation redeeming work that needs to be done.

Whatever we choose, it’s important that we get to work. We don’t want to get to the end of our time here, only to be asked, “Why did you stand there gaping, when there was so much work to do?”

For those of us who feel like we can't do much, consider this language from today's Gospel, the latter part of Luke 24:9: "so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high."

I love that language: clothed with power from on high--how would we behave if we truly believed we had been clothed with power from on high?

Pentecost will be here soon, the holiday that commemorates the first clothing with fire. But we've all been clothed in that way. We have all been clothed with power. Believe in that force--and then get to work in the claiming of creation.

Prayer for the Feast of the Ascension:

Ascending God, you understand our desire to escape our earthly bonds, to hover above it all, to head to Heaven now instead of later. Remind us of our earthly purpose. Reassure us that we have gifts and talents that are equal to the tasks that you need us to do. Help us close our gaping mouths and get to work.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, May 29, 2022:

First Reading: Acts 16:16-34

Psalm: Psalm 97

Second Reading: Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21

Gospel: John 17:20-26


In this Gospel reading, we get a glimpse of the prayer life of Christ. I find it deeply moving to think of Christ praying for me. I think of him praying for those that will come later (in our case, much later, 2000 years later) and want to weep in amazement. To the very end, Christ prays for his followers, for those that have been and those that will be. In these last prayers, he continues to focus on his central message of showing God's love to the world.

Christ also reminds God that he wants to share the glory that God has given him. He wants to give that glory to his followers. Think on that for a minute. What if you actually were capable of being like Jesus?

Here, too, we get a vision of success the way that Jesus defines it. It's not about claiming all the glory for himself and translating that glory into wealth or ruling the Roman empire or beauty. It's about glory that spills over to those who come later. It's a sharing economy that we don't often see in our human-made world.

It's a radical vision of love. But how do regular humans, who often operate from a space of greed or loss, how do we move towards that space of love? The good news: the more we practice being Christlike vessels of radical love, the better we'll become at it.

Here, as with any change, it's better to start with the tiniest of baby steps. Maybe this summer is a good time to increase your charitable giving. Maybe you want to donate some time to work with the poor and the oppressed. Maybe you want to remember to pray for those who aren't as fortunate as you are. Maybe you want to clean out your closets and give your surplus to those who have little. Maybe you want to adopt an artistic practice that will help you notice the presence of God.

Maybe you don't want to add an additional task, but you want some quiet time, a time without the constant blaring of the sorts of media that feed our space of separation and hate.

Christ's prayer that we may all be as one resonates even more in these days of deep division. How can we be part of the healing mission of Jesus.

We are surrounded by people who are poor in spirit, people who are suffering terrible blows. You could be there for them. You could be the person in the office who always has a smile and a kind word and reassurance that all will be well and all manner of things will be well (to use mystic Julian of Norwich's words). You could sow the seeds of hope and help fight despair. You could be the person that makes people wonder and whisper, "I wonder what his secret is? What makes her so capable of being happy?" Maybe they'll ask and they'll really want to know, and you can talk about your faith. Maybe they'll just be drawn to you and hang out with you, and you can minister that way.

Theologian Richard Rohr had these words of wisdom in a daily meditation several years ago: "Rather than consuming spiritual gifts for yourself alone, you must receive all words of God so that you can speak them to others tenderly and with subtlety."

Begin today.

Sea of Tranquility, World of Turmoil

During my April travels, I heard this interview with Emily St. John Mandel on the NPR show 1A. The interviewer and the author discussed the new book Sea of Tranquility, which sounded interesting. I first read Station Eleven and enjoyed it thoroughly, so I was predisposed to like this book.

In fact, I loved this book. I’d go so far as to say it's one of the best I've read in a long time. I started it Friday afternoon and got up early Saturday morning to finish it. I don't want to say too much about it because I don't want to ruin it for those who haven't read it, so let me just say that it was satisfying in so many ways, particularly in ways that pleased me as a writer. I was so impressed with what she managed to pull off.

This interview on the Ezra Klein podcast also inspired me to want to read this book. This morning I went back and listened to both interviews again. Emily St. John Mandel is a wonderful guest with a wide range of knowledge.  I’m glad that she’s younger, that we might have many more books from her to enjoy.

I was sad yesterday when I learned that Rosemary Radford Ruether had died. She, too, had a wide range of knowledge. She was one of the feminist theologians who helped change how we talk about God. She did groundbreaking, revolutionary work on gender issues and God talk. She's not one of the theologians whose work I go back to reread, but her work forms a foundation for many of the works of theology that have sustained me.

I wish I could say that her work was done, that it seems part of an earlier age and no longer relevant.  Sadly, that is not the case. Just last month I was part of an interesting conversation about changing references to God as a father. We talked about translation issues and gender issues and whether or not it was appropriate to have a more expansive language when talking about the creator.

The person who was most opposed to changing God the Father language was not in his 90s. I looked him up later to be sure. He's roughly my age, at the far side of mid life. I thought that most people in more liberal church denominations had accepted the need for careful language when it comes to the creator, a need to move beyond tradition. I was surprised by the ferocity of the conversation.

I held my own, while at the same time thinking of the decades of work that had been done on this issue of the language of God talk. It's also interesting to think of these issues in a week where the Southern Baptist Convention has had revelations of all sorts of horrible abuse. It reminded me of one of my undergraduate friends who went on to seminary in the late 80’s, right at the time at the Southern Baptists decided to stop ordaining women. I felt sad that the church world would lose her gifts.  I feel that sadness still.

We live in a time when the church world is losing the gifts of all sorts of people who turn away for all sorts of reasons. Some people scoff at the idea of language making a difference, but theologians like Ruether knew that change doesn't happen at the larger macro level without change happening at the micro language level. Maybe we need to return to some of those revelations.

This morning I took delight in reading this tribute to Ruether. Come to find out, the academic dean at Wesley Theological Seminary, where I am a student, studied under Ruether, and she directed his MA thesis. I have been so pleased this past year to be at this seminary, and discovering that the seminary has connections back to Ruether makes me even more happy to have made this choice.

Farewell Florida Motorcycle Tour

I did not exactly plan to spend 22 hours on a motorcycle this weekend. My spouse and his brother have thought of an overnight trip since they first got their motorcycles as men in their 50s (as opposed to the motorcycles they had as men in their teens).  My spouse's brother is part of a motorcycle club, and they organized a trip over to Reddington Beach on the Gulf Coast of Florida near St Pete.

My spouse wanted me to come, and I said I would only come if he rented a 3 wheel motorcycle, a trike not a slingshot.  This was back in late March; I had not yet broken my wrist. Much of the trip was planned and nonrefundable, so we asked my hand surgeon if I could go.  He said I could as long as I didn't operate the motorcycle--no chance of that.

So off we went early on Saturday morning. The group of 20 motorcycles made its way north on US 27, stopping for lunch at a great barbecue place that I will never be able to find again. In the afternoon we took a winding tour of Florida mines--I was never able to determine what was being mined aside from “minerals.”  Then we made our way, our long way, west towards Tampa.  After making our way through some traffic, we continued on towards Clearwater and Reddington Beach.

We stayed at a resort (I use that word loosely0 that had once been a motor lodge kind of place. They had done their best to update it--it was comfortable enough for one night, and while I was shocked at the price, it's clearly compatible with other similar places. It had the advantage of a pizza kitchen restaurant in the front of the property, where we got a good meal outside, with fairly cheap beer and wine. 

We left very early the next morning, and in a way that was good. When 20 to 22 people descend on a restaurant, it takes a while to get service, and we stopped for both breakfast and lunch.  On our way back on Sunday, we did a loop that is called the Tail of the Gecko because it winds and twists, although it was less twisty than I was afraid it would be.

As we made our way across the state and back again, I thought about the fact that this is likely my last trip on a motorcycle in Florida.  The heat shimmered up from the pavement and blazed down from the sun in the sky, and I remembered that I don't really like motorcycle trips in the summer, and much of Florida has summer weather year round. For much of the trip I felt a bit heat sick.  Having a broken wrist and a cast made the trip less optimal as well.

It was a great way to say farewell. I will be headed off to DC in August to live at seminary, so the trip felt like one last hurrah. We saw Florida in all its shapes:  urban skylines, vast fields of crops,  all sorts of livestock, undeveloped fields, land literally staked out for development, forests and rivers and beaches.  People hear about Florida and they think orange groves, but Florida has always had a very diverse agriculture industry. Much of the beef you are likely to eat comes from Florida, as does much of the sugar. 

This is not the kind of trip I would want to take a lot:  too many hours on the bike.  But I'm glad we had a chance to do what my spouse and his brother have been dreaming about for almost a decade.  It's not the kind of trip that will make me wish that it was a week ago when I could experience it all again. It's not my dream vacation. But I'm glad I had a chance to do it.

Toronto Godspell, Fifty Years Later

I have written before of my love of Godspell, most notably in this blog post.   This morning, I came across an interesting article in The Washington Post about a Toronto production of the show back in 1972.

Why on earth should we care?  The Toronto production was a starting point for so many show biz folks who would go on to become very famous, people like Martin Short and Gilda Radner.  It's intriguing to think of these gifted performers as young kids just starting out.

The article both seems like a snapshot of a time long gone as well as an interesting window into the hiring/casting process. It reminds us that sometimes it's not our talent that gets us the job, but dumb luck or someone else dropping out of the position we might have had our eye on or being able to step in at the very last minute. I'm thinking of Paul Shaffer and his story of showing up to fill in for two days playing for the actors who came to audition.   He impressed everyone so much that they asked him to stay and be the show's conductor.  As he recounts, he had just planned to show up and make 20 bucks, and then he got a much larger position.

I'm also intrigued, of course, by the storyline of the musical itself. It seems like such a distant country to think of a time when actors signed up to play Jesus and the disciples. Each show is different because each cast gets to put their own spin on parables. The Toronto production had parables rooted in the 1970s, with references to Nixon and Agnew.

About 20 years ago, I saw a revival of the show on tour, and that's when I first realized that cast members had liberties and that this show was rewritten in many ways. I remember one of their parables was set in the TV show Cops.  Unfortunately I don't remember much more about the parable than that.

It would be interesting to see what a revival of this show looked like now. I think of the movie version of Godspell, the parts of it that were filmed as the World Trade Center was being constructed. Would a current revival reference 9/11, or the pandemic, or the Soviet invasion of Ukraine? There are so many ways to make this musical and the larger gospel message relevant. 

I'd love to see what happened if a revival tried to do just that.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The lessons for Sunday, May 22, 2022:

Acts 16:9-15

Psalm 67 (4)

Revelation 21:10, 22--22:5

John 14:23-29 or John 5:1-9


I find these post-Easter, pre-Ascension, pre-Pentecost lessons poignant. I feel this ache for both the disciples and Jesus. They've suffered an almost inconceivable trauma, a wrenching death--and now, some time for them to be together again, to have barbecues on the beach and a few last instructions. But Jesus must know that soon he'll be gone again. The older I get, the more this seems one of life's central lessons: our loved ones will soon enough be ripped away.

This Gospel lesson addresses that dilemma of being a biological being. Jesus promises us a Holy Spirit, a Counselor. He promises us His peace. He tells us that it is not peace as the world understands it, but a different kind of peace.

Of course, that's the central message of Christianity. The world offers us many false comforts. Feeling like someone's ripped a hole in your life? Buy more stuff. Feeling so rushed that you can't hear yourself think? All you need is a new cellphone that costs several hundred/thousand dollars to keep you more in touch. Hurry, hurry, busy, busy--all to keep earning money so that we can keep buying more stuff that doesn't fill our deep emptiness.

Christ came to show us the way to deal with the pain, loss, and emptiness of being human. Fix food for each other and then eat together. Again and again and again. Invite people who don't have enough food. Share our goods. Don't hoard our money for the future, but invest in community. Don't save up treasures on earth. Trust in God, who will not leave you orphaned and alone. Instead of hiding from pain, face the pain of our own lives and sit with the pain of others.

Jesus tells us plainly: "Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid." That's a tough commandment for most of us these days. But Christ clearly tells us not to give in to our anxiety, to resist fear-based thinking, to cultivate a consciousness of abundance, instead of focusing on scarcity. There's enough for us all, and we will not be abandoned. Act like you believe Christ's words, and eventually you won't have to work so hard to believe it.

Jesus doesn't give us a view of a God who waves a magic wand to get rid of all our troubles. Jesus shows us a God that wants to be there with us, through all of life's events, both joyous and sad. Jesus shows us a God that will help us in our troubles if we ask, but not necessarily make them go away. Jesus shows us the idea of God as a partner, a partner with tremendous resources so that we need not be afraid or troubled.

Five Duplexes

 Yesterday, I wrote this blog post about my process in writing duplexes. For those of you new to this poetic form, you might think of it as an exploded sonnet. It's a form created by the poet Jericho brown; to see one of his duplexes go here, and to read about how he came to create this form, go here.

For my seminary class, I wrote 5 duplexes, which I have pasted below.  Duplex #1 is the first one that I wrote, #2 is the second and so on, in chronological oreder.  I wanted to see which lines were from my collection of evocative lines that weren't used in poems of mine, lines from the last 10 years of writing. Those lines I have highlighted in green. I got more experimental as I continued writing each duplex. I believe I stayed true to the spirit of the duplex, even when I didn't follow the form specifically. However, I do worry that I'm like someone who says, "I'm writing sonnets only they have 13 lines and nothing rhymes"--my silent response has always been, you may be writing something but it ain't a sonnet.

Let me also stress that this effort is my first attempt at the form, so I'm judging them through that lens.  In no way do I mean to claim that my duplexes are in the same league as Jericho Brown's.

I want to remember that as I wrote these duplexes, I did move lines around, but I don't have those very first drafts to compare with the finished drafts. I am now experimenting with using abandoned lines in a looser framework, and I'll post one of those poems later. 

This writing process has been great for a number of reasons, but primarily because part of the work is done. I have enough distance from these evocative lines that I don't remember what I originally planned to do with most of them, and that's part of the process that seems essential to me.  Having a broken wrist means I can't write by hand on a purple legal pad which has been my process for several decades. I've always wanted to experiment with a different process, and I'm trying to look on this as an opportunity, not a burden.

Duplex #1

 This body, a country with no maps,

A patchwork of loose scraps and poor stitches.

 

                                                I keep the quilts made by a spinster aunt.

                                                At night, they whisper secrets while I sleep.

               

Quilts keep watch over every yearning.

All our hopes tucked into dense batting.

 

                                                How do we sense a pale hope obscured?

           Smell of decomposing cedar stumps,

 

Some days the backyard garden explodes.

I wanted stars or sacraments in my hair.

 

                                               Instead I'm stuck with scraps of bread dough.

                                               My very bones cry out to make peach cobbler.

 

Box of recipes and a rolling pin,

Every map routes back to the body.

 

Duplex #2

 I have a canoe, and you have a gun.

I have memorized the tide charts.

 

                                                I know how to navigate at night.

                                                I have a system of hidey-holes.

 

I can food for the hard times coming.

You dream of harsher firepower.

 

                                                But killing doesn’t need such drama.

            I know which plants heal and which ones poison.

 

Overlooked nursery, needled forest floor.

I see a path ahead hidden to most.

 

                                                Bread crumbs and bird seeds blaze a true trail.                   

            Faint thread of tiny tracks and stitches.

 

I thread the needle between extremes:

Paddle faster, duck and cover.

 Duplex #3

 Does the anchor resent the always tugging ship?

Think of the caretaker yearning to break free.

 

                                                She sings the ancient lullabies each night.

                                                By day, she hums the whaling songs.

 

We wail at every indignity.

The prophet rails at the ships frozen in the harbor.

 

                                                Old men and their gods and endless labor

           She has no time for the ancient lies.

 

With scarves and lighting, we cast our spells.

Each swirl in the atmosphere spells out our doom.

 

                                                We move inland, far from the threats of the sea.

                                                We ignore the petulant pleas and curses.

 

Cartographers of a new climate,

We anchor ourselves to a new ship.

Duplex #4 

House of justice built in hurricane country,

Sturdy enough until the storm hits.

 

                                               The storm hits with a careful cunning.

                                               It knows how to find the sweetest spots.

 

The storm reveals the structural weakness.

My joints predict the barometric truth.

 

          The floor joists will never be the same.

          Society’s feet ache with arthritis.

 

We stepped carefully around the rot.

Bones ground to dust, beyond recognition.

 

                                              The house has good bones, such potential,

                                              If only a contractor would call.

 

We have signed the contract, mortgaged all

To make the repairs to this house we share.

 

Duplex #5

I sew hole in my heart with birdsong threads

This is not the angel song I strained to hear.

 

     Other spirits keep company at night.

    The harmony of pain and potential.

 

Pain beats the battered pot with a wooden spoon.

Potential plucks your grandma’s dulcimer.

 

                                         I collect the lonely instruments.

                                         I whisper a lonely lullaby.

 

The lonely have their own time signature.

I no longer recognize my own.

 

                                         I see the blurry shapes of past loves.

                                         Blurred by time, burnished with threads of dreams.

 

Threads of dreams, threads of birdsong, stitches sure.

My heart, a monastery, a homeless shelter.

 

 

 

The Process of the Duplex Project

I have been somewhat superstitious about writing a blog post about my seminary project that involved writing duplexes in the style of Jericho Brown. I didn't want to write until I got feedback and until the work was graded--I'm not really sure why. But yesterday, our teacher returned our work, and so I wanted to write this follow up.

I wrote a series of duplexes for my Religion and the Arts class, Speaking of God in a Secular Age. Throughout the semester, we circled back to the work of Jericho Brown, and I remembered various articles I had read about his process in writing the duplex.  I remember reading that he went back through all of his old notebooks and copied out lines that he hadn't been able to use in publishable poems. At the time, I thought that was a marvelous idea. I loved the idea of cutting out the lines and strips of paper that I could then arrange and see how they spoke to each other. I wanted to do something similar.  But life being what it was at the time, I never got around to trying it.

For our final paper in my seminary class, we could do a creative project, so early on I proposed writing duplexes, and happily my professor approved. I spent a few hours going through poetry notebooks from the past 10 years looking for evocative lines of 9 to 13 syllables, which I typed into a Word document.  I had every intention of cutting them into slips and arranging them. My rough draft process for poetry has always been a handwritten process, and that's what I envisioned with this project.

I did not anticipate breaking the wrist of my dominant hand three weeks before the end of the term.  I had papers due for a different seminary class at the time that I had my injury, and I experimented with the voice recognition software that's part of my Word program.  I was able to write those papers more easily than I anticipated, so I chose not to ask for any extensions.

I decided that I needed to try a different way of writing these duplexes. I was not going to be able to cut my lines into strips and hand write other lines around them.  I decided to try writing with a combination of cutting and pasting lines into a Word document and using the dictate function to speak lines that would join them. 

I looked through the document of lines that I had created and chose one that spoke to me.  I started with this line:

This body, a country with no maps,

Then this line came to me:

A patchwork of loose scraps and poor stitches.

I continued to create this way. I would go back to the document of evocative lines when I got stuck. I consulted a few of the duplexes written by Jericho Brown, but it became clear I wasn't following his model exactly. However, I liked the work I was creating, so I continued.

We had to write an essay to go along with our creative project, an essay where we showed how are creative work was informed by the theological work that we did. I decided to make it clear that I knew that I wasn't following the duplex model as precisely:

“As I have been working on writing duplexes of my own, my brain has come back to the difficulties of writing both duplexes and theology. I think that I understand the form, but the longer I work with individual pieces, the less sure I am. I take risks and go in different directions--am I writing a new form of theology/duplex or am I demonstrating my lack of understanding? Each line of my duplex speaks to the previous line, but it's in a different way than the way that Jericho Brown does it. I am following the model, yet I am not following the model. In the end, I am pleased with my poems, and I have stayed true to the idea of a duplex as Jericho Brown has explained it in numerous places.  Similarly, we think we know how to talk about God, but the more we do it, the more we discover all there is to say and what must be left unsaid. We work within a form like the duplex, and we find it both liberating and maddeningly--much like writing theology, much like talking about God in a secular age.”

I am happy to report that I got a good grade on my project. In fact my teacher said, "While these 5 duplexes may not conform to Jericho’s rules with exactitude, the more impressive achievement here is that you have melded your own unique writerly voice with the haunting-ness of the duplex form. And while each poem stands well on its own, what makes the series particularly impressive is the way you weave them together through common threads, themes, and images.”

Since this post is already quite long I won't post the 5 duplexes here. Later I'll create a separate blog post around them--something to look forward to!

The Sorting of the Books

I spent the better part of yesterday sorting books.  It is clear to me that we are moving into a phase of life with more moves and less book shelf space, so it’s time.  I started the day feeling a powerful sense of catharsis as I sorted through books, and I ended the day in tears and exhaustion. It's a strange process the sorting of books. Let me record a few reflections.

--I used to keep books thinking that I would reread them, but it's become clear to me that I usually check out new books from the library rather than read my old books.  I used to think that I would have complete collections of authors’ books, and in my 20s that seemed perfectly reasonable. Now that plan will require a lot of bookshelf space. All of this to say, I've been hanging on to a lot of books that I no longer need to hang on to.  Getting rid of those was the easy part.

--Lots of books have sentimental value for lots of reasons, and I tried to sort out the reasons as I sorted books. I kept a few of them, a representative from each of my major life phases. I was able to get rid of a lot of them.

--I have hung on to lots of books for the teaching career that it is now clear I am not going to have. I am not going to be teaching in an MFA program, so I don't need various works that once seemed cutting edge. I don't really need all of these books of literary criticism to teach literature. I am not going to be reworking my dissertation into an academic book. A lot of those books are headed off to live with someone else.

--I am now comfortable getting rid of books even though I once spent lots of money on all these books. I supported individual artists by buying the books, but it doesn't mean I need to hang on to them forever.

--Along the way there were sadnesses as I looked at inscriptions and thought about the people who once bought me books as presents. I tried to feel gratitude for all the people who have loved me in this way while also letting those books go.

--Every so often I saw the handwriting of people who had borrowed my books, people who had permission to write in them. One of my best friends, who has since died, borrowed my Norton anthologies when she returned to school to finish her BA, and her writing is all over the books. Those are tougher to let go.

--A lot of these books represent hopes and dreams, even though I've moved on to different hopes and dreams. There's a sadness to seeing them, even though I'm fairly satisfied with how my life is turning out. Those books are going away. Perhaps they will help someone else who has those hopes and dreams of my younger self.

--I had a small crying jag meltdown when my spouse held a battered recipe box with recipes that I had copied from my mother's recipe box and said that he didn't know why I wanted to keep either the box or the recipes. In a way he's right--we don't cook those things much. But I thought of my 21 year old self copying those recipes imagining what adult life would look like and the thought of just trashing them made me sad. It's a small box, and I'll likely be keeping it.

 --Part of what makes letting go of books so hard is wondering what will happen to them. I'll take them to the local library where they will probably end up in a friends of the library sale. I want to believe that readers will find them. I wish the library would keep them but I know that they don't really have room for the resources that they have right now, and the move is on to more electronic resources and less paper.

--It’s the largest sadness: realizing that we are not part of a culture that values books very much and an even larger sadness in realizing how little we value ideas, book length ideas.

 

The Feast Day of Julian of Norwich

 May 8 is the feast day of Julian of Norwich in the Anglican and the Lutheran church; in the Catholic church, it's May 13.

Ah, Julian of Norwich! What an amazing woman she was. She was a 14th century anchoress, a woman who lived in a small cell attached to a cathedral, in almost complete isolation, spending her time in contemplation. She had a series of visions, which she wrote down, and spent her life elaborating upon. She is likely the first woman to write a book-length work in English.

And what a book it is, what visions she had. She wrote about Christ as a mother--what a bold move! After all, Christ is the only one of the Trinity with a definite gender. She also stressed God is both mother and father. Her visions showed her that God is love and compassion, an important message during the time of the Black Death.

She is probably most famous for this quote, "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well," which she claimed that God said to her. It certainly sounds like the God that I know too.

Although she was a medieval mystic, her work seems fresh and current, even these many centuries later. How many writers can make such a claim?

Julian of Norwich would be astonished if she came back today and saw the importance that people like me have accorded her. She likely had no idea that her writings would survive. She was certainly not writing and saying, "I will be one of the earliest female writers in English history. I will depict a feminine face of God. I will create a theology that will still be important centuries after I'm dead."

That's the frustration for people like me: we cannot know which work is going to be most important. That e-mail that seems unimportant today . . . will likely be unimportant hundreds of years from now, but who knows. The poem that seems strange and bizarre and something that must be hidden from one's grandmother may turn out to be the poem that touches the most readers. Being kind to those who cluck and fuss and flutter about matters that seem so terribly unimportant is no small accomplishment either.

I think of Julian of Norwich’s most famous quote: “All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.” Would Julian of Norwich be pleased that so many of us derive comfort by repeating those words? Or would she shake her head and be annoyed that we have missed what she considered to be the most important ideas?

I remind myself that she would have such a different outlook than I do. She was a medieval woman who served God; she likely would not even view her ideas as her own, but as visitations from the Divine. If I could adopt more of that kind of attitude, it could serve me well on some of my more stressful days when divesting situations of my ego could be the most helpful thing that I could do.

Today, I shall try.  And tomorrow too.  And by this trying, I will embody the Julian of Norwich quote about all being well.

Post-Op Follow Up

Yesterday, I went back to the hand surgeon for my post-op follow up.  Overall, everything is looking good. The hand surgeon told me that my surgery was more complicated than he was expecting it to be, and he was expecting it to be complicated. He had to use a different kind of a plate to hold everything in place where it should be, but it seems to have worked.

When I saw the X rays, I was surprised by how the plate looked. I was expecting it to look like a rectangle laying horizontally across my wrist. Instead it looked more like an interesting cocktail toothpick, more like an artificial bone, which is probably closer to what it is.

I was surprised by my reaction to the taking off of all of the material that has swaddled my wrist since the surgery of Monday, May 2. There's always some part of me that expects with surgical dressings removed, all of the stuff that's supposed to be inside will fall outside. I felt the same way when my spouse had back surgery--the bandages came off and I was expecting to be able to see his spine, but of course that's not how it works. 

The X ray tech reassured me that I was not going to be able to move my hand and undo all of the surgery. It was a message that I needed to hear. As I moved through the appointment, I compared my experience post surgery with my experience of April 28th when I first went to the office. Even though I still feel some pain, I'm not feeling the same kind of pain when I move my arm.

I now have a different kind of wrist protector. Now I have a cast. The person who does the casting asked me what color I wanted, and I said purple. As she was wrapping my arm, I thought wait it's the wrong liturgical color--I should have chosen green. But I do love purple, so it's fine.

I had hoped that when all of the postsurgery swaddling was removed, my finger mobility would come back. I still have stiff and swollen fingers, and I have trouble straightening them. The good news is that it's fixable. Off I will go to the person who specializes in hand physical therapy which will be different from the wrist physical therapy that I will do later.

I am still disturbed by all of the destruction that happened from a tiny fall. It's not like I went skydiving. I fell the distance of maybe two feet onto grass. I am trying not to feel spooked about it all. At some point I need to get back into my habit of daily walking. At some point I hope my digestive system is recovered enough from the antibiotics that I can do that. I went out yesterday to get some of those special yogurts with extra probiotics, so hopefully I can rebuild my gut biome.

It's getting easier for me to sleep with a cast and easier to go about regular life with a cast. Yesterday my doctor told me I can exercise and drive get back to regular life as long as take care to keep the cast dry. I have found that having a cast on my arm (or a splint, or a bunch of post surgeries stuff swaddling) is an interesting conversation starter. I am amazed by how many people have broken their wrists and how many people have had to have surgery. Again I am trying not to feel spooked about it all.

But I do feel a little spooked by it all.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

 The readings for Sunday, May 15, 2022:

First Reading: Acts 11:1-18

Psalm: Psalm 148

Second Reading: Revelation 21:1-6

Gospel: John 13:31-35 


In today's Gospel, Jesus gives what may be the hardest commandment yet:  he tells us to love each other.    I think of all the other things Jesus could have required of us, and some part of me wishes for one of those.  Give me some dietary laws!  I can follow those.  But loving each other?  How do we do that?

Jesus isn't instructing us to manage our emotions--we must also be outwardly obvious that we're loving each other.  Jesus says "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." (35).  It's not enough to say we love each other--it's a public declaration, by our actions.  For how else will everyone know?

I want to protest--I want to tell Jesus how busy we all are.  But I know that Jesus will have none of it.  Jesus tells us firmly that we are to love each other. He doesn't tell us how, but he shows us. This Gospel lesson comes after the washing of the disciples' feet and a leisurely dinner.

Here are two ways we can show love:  by serving (the washing of very dirty feet) and by slowing down to be present for each other (the dinner).  I'm not suggesting that we be too literal.  The ways of doing this are as varied as our personalities.

Refusing to bash others verbally could be our modern equivalent of foot washing. We could show our care not by lavishing attention on physical bodies, but by lavishing our attention on the good qualities of others.

We live in a culture that prefers to argue, to fight, to tear down. Focusing on the good qualities of others seems as intimate in our current climate as foot washing must have seemed in the time of Jesus.

We could send notes of appreciation, so that people feel seen and loved.  We could send care packages.  We can donate food to food pantries.  On and on I could go with these suggestions.

Choose the one that calls to you and decide that this will be your ministry. Know that you will have to gently refocus your efforts time and time again, as you move along. Fortify your efforts by asking God to help you, so that you can glorify God, so that everyone will know the God you serve by the efforts you make to serve others, by the love that you show.

In this way, we can repair the world.

Island Recuperation

 A week ago, we would soon be on the road--yes even after wrist surgery the day before. We had planned to join my parents at Hilton Head on Sunday May 1st, but the surgery needed to happen as soon as it could to minimize nerve damage. However the doctor said I could recuperate as easily at Hilton Head is anywhere else, so off we went.

It's strange taking a trip when I can't help with the driving, but I was grateful that we could go. It was a fairly subdued vacation, but our last several trips to Hilton Head with my folks have been somewhat subdued.  We stay in a condo at a Marriott resort, a condo with a full kitchen, so we cook. We all enjoy reading by the pool, so we did a lot of that.  We made a pre-Mother's Day brunch:

Unlike past years, pre-COVID years, we did not go out to eat. But that's OK. since we're all pretty good cooks.  I did not even take many walks on the beach; I had a reaction to the antibiotics that meant I shouldn't get too far away from the bathroom. That, too, was OK.  At least I didn't feel ill or in pain.  And we had planned to have a low key vacation anyway even before knowing I would be recovering from surgery, so at least I didn't feel like I was holding everybody back from having a great time somewhere else.

We were able to go to the bar that is part of the resort, where we could relax and look out across the dunes to the ocean beyond. 

We did that almost every day. I was glad I had gotten my seminary work finished before my operation. While I probably could have worked on those papers, I was glad to be done so that I could just focus on recovering.

There were moments when I felt slightly guilty about having such a nice place where I could recuperate. I could look around the resort and see how much work it takes to keep the resort looking lovely--I do hope those jobs are good ones for the local folks. I live in a hospitality dependent area down in South Florida so I know that sometimes workers are exploited. There is also that guilt of thinking about being on the islands of the Lowcountry of South Carolina, that knowledge of slave labor that built the place, that knowledge of all of the displacement that occurred over the centuries. I took care to thank everyone who works for the resort, while at the same time knowing that my thanks are a meager offering. 

I am grateful to my parents who invited us--we would have far fewer vacations than we do without their invitations. I am grateful to my spouse who said yes:  yes to doing all the driving, yes to getting away.  The last few years have taught me to be grateful for time together. Once I thought that only death would complicate our together times but now I know that it could be many possibilities.

 

Thinking Back to Wrist Surgery a Week Ago

A week ago, I would have been getting ready for my wrist surgery. I was proofreading my papers for seminary one last time to submit them--that was a wise decision. I took a shower, tried to not think about the fact that I wasn't allowed to eat or drink, and sent some emails.

The only surgery I had ever had in the past was having my wisdom teeth removed the summer after my senior year of high school. It was a surgical operation, not just a dental procedure. But unlike many women, I've never had a child, I've never broken a bone, and I've never had trouble with my inner organs. So yes I was a bit anxious, but my general mood was one of wanting to get the whole thing over with.

We gave ourselves getting lost time, so we got to the surgical center early.  That ended up being a good thing, since I was the last surgery of the day, and the surgeon was running early.  I didn't have time to sit around and fret. I was whisked back into a curtained area, where I changed it into a gown, and prep work was done on me.

They did have some trouble finding a good vein for the IV, and in the end they used the vein in my inner elbow.  That was mildly unpleasant, but not as bad as giving blood. Before I knew it, I was emerging from the sedative, with a very nice nurse to help me get ready to go home. This surgery was over.

It lasted longer than expected but was a success; I'll go in on Wednesday to have a follow up and see if everything is progressing as it should. The surgeon told us that the night of the surgery would be the most pain, and he was right. I had opioids for the pain, but they didn't do much except make it easier for me to sleep, and that was no small thing. I would take one, sleep deeply for a few hours, and then take another. But by morning I was feeling pretty good for a woman who had just had her wrist operated on.

As I think back to the surgery, I am amazed at the kindness of everyone connected to the surgical center, and I am surprised at how amazed I am. I have read so many stories about how health care workers are fried to a crisp, so I was a bit fretful about that.  But everyone was extremely compassionate, which made the experience much less gruesome.

I know all the ways that I am lucky. If I was a woman in the 1880s who had fallen and broken her wrist in the way that I did, I would just make do with a less than functional hand for the rest of my life--and I would expect that my life would be shorter because of it. I am a woman with health insurance and access to good medical care, and I do realize that access to good medical care is really a game of chance no matter where we live in the US. I am lucky because I have funds so I could pay my deductible. I am lucky that I have a spouse who is good at this kind of care and patient.

I am also rich in friends. I made a Facebook post or two to keep people up to date, and I was overwhelmed by the support that came in: from childhood friends, high school friends, college friends, family, former colleagues, retreat buddies, and so on. I know all the ways that Facebook can be damaging, but I was heartened to feel support a week ago.

And I have felt heartened to feel continuing support.  It's a long road ahead of me back to full functionality for my right hand and wrist. But today let me focus on feeling grateful for the surgery of a week ago.

  

Thinking of Nurturing on Mother's Day

Here we are at Mother's Day, a strange time in the life of our nation to think about mothering and the choice not to birth a child and the ways that society supports parents or does not.  I feel I should say something, even though I'm not a mom.  Perhaps I should talk about how we all nurture.  And yet, some of us do more nurturing than others.

I've thought of posting a picture of my favorite moms.  Here's one of my mom and sister, who is also a great mom; it's one of my mom's favorites too:

I think of all the other moms I know, and how few pictures I have in my files of moms with their daughters.  I'm thinking of the Create in Me retreat and how many of us bring our moms--to me that's a sign of a successful retreat.

I should have written a blog post earlier this month recommending that we buy our moms the gift of a retreat, instead of flowers or brunch.  Ah well--next year.

Of course, what most moms need is not this kind of gift.  Most moms of younger children need better policies so that families can have better work-life balance, so that moms don't have to make such wrenching choices.

Perhaps I should issue a call for us to support more moms, through policy and legislation.  On the congressional level, right now we should save our efforts.  Hopefully the day will come when we have politicians who want to make those kinds of positive changes, but right now, I don't see it.  Sadly, I've felt this way for years.

I think of my political science teachers who would tell us that we'll be more effective working on the local level anyway.  So let's think of our individual lives--how can we make it easier for people to do the nurturing that needs to be done?

Regardless of our gender, I'd urge us all to nurture all of creation. We live in a broken world, a world in desperate need of  care. Some of us are good at caring for children. Some of us are better at caring for animals. Others of us are mourning the larger picture, as we see our planet in perils of every sort.  The world is not short of opportunities to nurture.

So on this mother's day, as we think of all the people who have nurtured us, let us resolve to return that gift, in whatever way best fits our skills, talents, and gifts. 

Broken Wrist Dispatches

 Still healing nicely. Still not used to using the voice recognition software to make a blog post but I'll get better at that in the weeks to come when my routine normalizes. Here are two dispatches from the past days:

--Thursday post-surgery wrist update: all is still well. No real pain. I am feeling incredibly lucky

--Last night I dreamed I was making a to-do list--I put calling a realtor on that to-do List about getting our last two houses sold. Yes in my dreams I still owned the last two properties, which I thought were on their way to being sold, but I realized we had never actually closed on the deals. What a treat--a grown up anxiety dream--better or worse than dreaming I've been enrolled in a class and forgotten to go to it and now I have to take a final exam?

--A week ago, I was finishing my Theology and the Arts paper and putting the finishing touches on my duplexes* that I wrote for the project. Maybe tomorrow I'll fashion a blog post out of those.

 

* Because our work in the class kept circling back to Jericho Brown’s poetry and this particular form/format, I proposed writing some duplexes of my own. I learned a lot, both about the duplex and about my abandoned lines. More tomorrow.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, May 8, 2022:

First Reading: Acts 9:36-43

Psalm: Psalm 23

Second Reading: Revelation 7:9-17

Gospel: John 10:22-30

This week's Gospel reading takes us back to the metaphor of the sheep. Those of us living post-agricultural lives probably don't know how stupid sheep are. The idea that we are sheep is not attractive. And yet we have a shepherd who loves us and calls to us, no matter how many times we wander away and get into scrapes.

What would a more modern metaphor be? That of the clueless student, who nonetheless can respond to a specific voice? That of a computer that is just a dumb box of electronics until the right programmer comes along? The electrical circuits that are mute until electricity flows from the power plant?

We might consider all the ways that Christ calls to us and we refuse to hear. Christ tells us to give away our wealth, and we rationalize: surely he didn't mean all of it. Jesus tells us to care for the sick, and we do a good job of that, some of us, as long as we liked the sick person back when that person was well. Jesus tells us to visit those in prison. I haven't done that--have you? In short, Jesus tells us to care for the poor and oppressed and to work for a more just society. How many of us do that?

This idea that we should focus on the poor and the oppressed is revolutionary. Jesus knows that if we do that, we can change the world. But even if that change takes awhile (and it does), in the process, we change ourselves in essential ways.

Jesus reminds us again and again that we're not just doing charity work, but we're also trying to create a more just world. We don't share our food just to fill the hungry stomachs, although that's important. We should also work to transform the social structure that keeps people hungry.

We have many opportunities to work for justice. Most of us don't because we lead lives that leave us tired. But often, a group that works for good in the world can energize us. Find a group that works to alleviate a social injustice that particularly pains you and join it. Write letters to your elected officials. Help build a Habitat house. At the very least, you can give food (real food, not just the castaways from your pantry) to a food bank. At the very least, you can clean out your closets and give your perfectly good clothes to the poor.

In this way, we can help God, who is making a new creation. In this way, we respond to the call of our shepherd.

Wrist Surgery Day

My wrist surgery is this afternoon. If you are the praying sort, the sending healing light sort, the here are some good wishes sort of person, all are appreciated. 

April's End

A week ago, the Create in Me retreat would be ending. Let me create a blog post of a few things that have been happening since then.

--On Thursday, I went to see the hand and wrist surgeon, and I spent time getting organized for surgery on Monday.

--I am still not feeling pain in my wrist, but I have been getting pain in my right bicep and my shoulder. It feels like I had a hard workout, back in the days when I was doing weight lifting and whole body workouts. And then there are the times when I move in a certain direction and my arm makes it clear I should not.

--It's not the upper body workout that I had in mind, back in the days when I would look at my arms and despair at their flabbiness.

--I am intrigued with how little I am eating these days. It takes a lot of energy to feed myself the first serving of anything with my left hand. I usually say no to seconds. I've quit snacking because it takes so much effort to cut slices of cheese for cheese and crackers. It's not the diet plan I had in mind.

--It's been an interesting time being in the condo, with lots of concerts in the arts park. The one I might have most wanted to see, Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn, was on Thursday night when I had my last seminary class for the semester. But we did walk over earlier in the afternoon to watch them rehearse, which was really cool.

--I have been working hard to get my seminary papers written before surgery on Monday. I am in the homestretch. It will be a relief to be done with seminary work even though I am enjoying it.

--I am working on a final project for a seminary class that requires me to chart important historical developments, leaders, ideas, and books, a history of the Jews from the return from Babylonian Exile in 538 BCE to the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. No, it's not a 50 page paper; we're supposed to do all of this in just 7 pages. I am trying to sum up the importance of Alexander the Great. Philosopher spouse says “He was a student of Aristotle.” Somehow I don't think my Hebrew Bible teacher would see this as the most significant reason why we remember Alexander the Great.

--I am glad I am not taking seminary classes this summer. I will focus on the online classes I am teaching, the physical therapy that lies ahead of me, and getting ready for the fall.