The past week has been full.
In addition to teaching, I gave one final exam and one mid-term (for the Hebrew course that is going “half speed”). The last day of Intro to the Old Testament included a “Gallery,” where student had 4 minutes to present their creative interpretation—after completing 10 steps in traditional inductive exegetical methods. It was fun, with a wonderful representation of many different ways of expressing an interpretation, including, music composition, Lego dioramas, paintings, photography, PowerPoints, plaster face masks, poetry, drama, food, and interpretive sign language (of Hannah’s song celebrating her pregnancy by a woman 8 months pregnant!). A couple were over the top amazing video animations! It was celebratory, exciting, and at times funny. Here are some examples.
Video animation link (2:15) Totally worth the 2 and a quarter minutes, even if your don’t understand Swedish!
It took extra work, but it was worth it!
I had notified my boss over the weekend that I was trying to arrange an extended time after the conference in Boston (16-21 Nov) that I had planned to attend since last spring. However, the days after the conference are American Thanksgiving time. There were no plane tickets available for rescheduling, even with all the first class tickets I checked. Then on Monday, the email came stating that my mother was declining fast. By Tuesday, she was no longer speaking. On Wednesday, I talked with my boss about leaving early. My colleague, with whom I’m co-teaching a course, was gracious to rework the schedule and flip our teaching times, after I discovered that I could arrange my ticket to fly out earlier. So, then there was the flurry of trying to prepare everything before I left for Oslo for the weekend. It is wonderful to be part of a compassionate community. My colleagues were encouraging me to go and not worry about things, as they shared hugs and even tears.
I decided to keep the plans to go to Oslo this weekend, because Anya was coming along. It is impossible to make every right decision, but I know that it was important to have this time together, as this last year before she goes off to university.
We arrived on Friday, and we walked through the city center, through some interesting places and stores, and on to the harbor. (Norway is expensive, so we aren’t doing a lot of shopping.) We ascended the amazing Oslo Opera and Ballet House. It is a white marble mountain that arises out of the water.
On Saturday, I walked 32 minutes to Menighetsfakultet (“MF”), or the Oslo University theological faculty, for the seminar.
I presented half of what I presented at Lund University, a bit tailored for this context. The response was actually better than I expected, in comparison with Lund. The one guy who was pretty harsh at my mid-way evaluation was first to compliment my approach for integrating western traditional methods with other ways of knowing in a cogent framework. Another reflected that I am laying out what they are now expecting to be wrestling with in the next generation of biblical studies.
Tomorrow, Anya and I fly back to Uppsala. I will prepare for travel to the USA on Monday morning, and try to grade as many papers as possible in the limited time. I hope to avoid carrying about a ream’s worth of papers to grade to and from USA.
Please add a little prayer for a gracious transition for my mom in her last days on this side of eternity with Jesus and comfort for my dad.
With blessings,
Beth