For the last 5 years, I have spent the weekend before Thanksgiving at the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) conference, which is partnered with the American Academy of Religion (AAR). It is sort of a nerd camp for adults in fancy hotels. Together, the conferences total over 11,000 people most years.
It was at the SBL conference in San Diego in 2014 that I heard of the position opening at Johannelund through one of my annual conference roommates, a Swedish woman who was on their advisory council. Many of my colleagues and friends are there on the final hours of the Friday through Tuesday morning conference.
Hopefully next year I can attend, but it will mean submitting a paper and getting it accepted. Then my travel expenses will be covered by Johannelund. However, my sub-discipline is intercultural hermeneutics (hermeneutics is the philosophy of interpretation) and there isn’t a group for us. I can try to get a slot in the African Biblical Hermeneutics (ABH) session, as I interface with the African biblical scholars. However, it might mean taking a slot from an African scholar–if they have an adequate amount of submissions. I could submit in the contextual hermeneutics session, but then I won’t be able to engage the African scholars in the discussion of my paper. However, there are probably more slots available here and less chance of displacing a scholar who needs the slot in ABH. I can only submit a paper once to the entire conference, so I have to plan strategically. The one chance of getting into the ABH session might be worth trying, as one of the session organizers was on my dissertation defense committee. I believe it was a good connection, and she was very supportive of my work.
This morning, I got up early to be all set for class at 8:30 am. It was going to be a full day, as I was also assigned to lead the morning chapel.
As I was getting ready at home, I spilled my tea! Yes, gravity still is working! I salvaged my clothing enough and mopped up the floor. The throw rugs are still drying in the tub from a quick rinse.
A colleague was able to review the Swedish on the PowerPoint slides for half of the first sessions. So, we went with these slides. In the portion that wasn’t revised, there was only one way-off Google translate translation that the students identified, which I’ve asked them to do. The court in the Book of Esther should have been a royal court, but it was translated with the word for a court of law. I also discovered that with the two main Swedish translations, there are two different ways of rendering Cyrus, the Persian king.
The sessions were going well, but I was behind at the mid-way mark. I left them 10 minutes before the end of the first session with an assignment to compare some biblical texts with the Cyrus cylinder (translated into English), and then went to set up for chapel.
During the set up, I managed to demonstrate the effects of gravity again, and dumped all my colored pencils on the floor! Ugh! At least I had just enough time to get things all settled.
All my students arrived at chapel. It is voluntary attendance (which I support). I did give them a hint that it would be creative and probably a bit different for Johannelund. We did the spiritual exercise of praying in color, or sort of doodling while praying. We started with the praying one of the name of God, and since I’m the Old Testament teacher, I put up suggestions from the Old Testament, i.e., the LORD Provides, The LORD Shalom/Peace. I invited them to choose a name that speaks into their needs today. Several students commented afterwards how meaningful this was for them. One is going to bring this to the youth group he works with.
I stopped by for a quick cup of tea with my basket of colored pencils in hand. They brought many inquisitive looks. I had the book Praying in Color with me, so I showed it to some colleagues.
Jean, you can tell Meg that what she introduced to me years ago I have passed on at Trinity, CofC, and Sweden! I’ll also be introducing this at Mount Carmel in July.
However, I still had 90 minutes of class time left and catch up from the content I didn’t cover in my first session. Somehow, I made it through the material with a couple short but meaningful exercises to engage the text. I did have to sprint through poetic devices in Hebrew poetry, but since they don’t have an assignment where they have to use them (I didn’t design the course assessments), I felt I could quickly introduce a few. Oh, there is so much more I’d like to do!
I’ve been biking a different way to and from Johannelund since Sunday morning, when we discovered that the underpass was flooded. They have been doing some renovations, such as removing graffiti and giving a new paint job, but removing the weeds along the bank probably caused major run-off and soil erosion that filled the storm drains with even a modest rain. On Sunday, Anya went ahead of me and plowed through the puddle, pulling her legs up to avoid splashing. I went through slowly to avoid splashing, but then the water was coming up to the pedals at the nadir of the revolution. I had to pull the foot off the pedal at the bottom half of the rotation and push with the foot at the top on the other side. I did get though without getting too wet.
Anya is back from pole vaulting practice. Time for a few minutes of ping pong to keep our streak of daily playing going!
With blessings,
Beth
YES, I will tell Meg about your use of PRAYING IN COLOR. I’ll see her tomorrow at SA’s bible study.
“nadir” – now, that’s a new one on me. See how educational your blogs are?
Glad to hear gravity works in Sweden as well. Pole sana kwa chai! Marv has told me it means my brain is going faster than my body; I lose some coordination when I’ve just been very intense mentally!! You’re normal! Sounded like a great teaching/learning session. . . that’s why you are there. . . Pole pia kwa SBL. Where was it this year? I’d choose the topic that best suits you and your teaching at Johan…. that will further your specialty, not just not to prevent an African scholar from coming. I do appreciate the sensitivity.