Greetings from Bellevue, WA. We flew into Sea-Tac airport late on the 26th. Anya was picked up by her friend, Annaliese, and I was picked up by my friend, Janet.
Annaliese and Anya have been friends since before kindergarten. For most of their lives, they shared school, neighborhood, and church–the only friend to do so. Janet and I have known each other since 1988, when I returned to Lutheran Bible Institute to work. We have worked together, shared a house (with Diane and 2 cats), and so much of life together (including a lot of hiking, basketball, badminton, tennis, and even a round of golf, which is not my thing). She visited us in Tanzania and is planning to visit us in Sweden in the spring. After Eric died, Janet was the one who frequently moved into our house to take care of Anya when she was younger and I had to travel for my PhD. Janet is one of those dear friends who helped me learn that “hospitality” was not women in the church basement–making coffee and cleaning up after coffee hour–but rather, hospitality is the gift of letting someone be their true, unpolished selves in your presence. No wonder that after about 25 years of youth ministry, Janet honed her people-caring skills and is now a licensed therapist.
Janet had offered to loan us an extra car, but it was hit just a few days ago. While Janet has some minor to moderate head, back, and neck pain, she is otherwise fine and receiving treatments. However, her car is totaled. So, other mutual friends, Pam and Tom (Pam was the woman who intentionally put Eric and me in the same community group in the fall of 1993 at Lutheran Bible Institute!), were out of town during my visit and left their car with Janet for me. This is the tangible blessing of friendship, but I’m also savoring the intangible aspects.
I stayed with Janet that night to avoid driving after midnight while still jet lagged. With a good night’s sleep in a cozy bed, I was off to Everett to meet a friend–after changing my planned route up I-5 due to a complete closure of all lanes after a crane fell off a truck. (If you’d like to see the carnage, here’s the news story link.) I was later than planned to visit my friend, Jill, but we had a good amount of time to catch up. Then, I was off to visit another friend, Pam, who is doing her year of internship in a North Seattle Lutheran church. We had time for lunch and a good long chat, before heading off to visit 3 more friends, Pam, Charlie, and Beth. (Yes, this is the 3rd Pam in this posting! I am blessed by Pams.) Charlie and Pam, husband and wife, are Fuller Seminary professors that ended up becoming mentors and now friends. I doubt that I would have pursued a PhD without their encouragement, wisdom, and guidance. Charlie invited me to be a reading partner through most of a 2 volume series on theological anthropology by David Kelsey.
This journey helped me read very challenging texts and prepared me for my PhD engagement of portions of the hermeneutical philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer. These session with Charlie were, however, more than a theological conversations. I will be forever grateful for Charlie’s pastoral care through Eric’s cancer and death, as well as my grieving.
Pam also invested a huge amount of time and care with advising and tutorials in Hebrew. Another pre-PhD hopeful, Amy, and I met with Pam and worked through the translation of most of the Hebrew portions of the Book of Daniel. (For those who might not know, there are also a few chapters in Aramaic, which I have never studied.) Pam was writing a commentary on the book (yes, she is that level of a scholar), and she was willing to work with Amy and me in order to develop our Hebrew skills.
I headed to Kristi and Peter’s for the evening–Annaliese’s parents. This is where Anya and I are staying while in Bellevue. Four teenagers arrived shortly after I drove up. They were at the Seattle Art Museum and Seattle for the day, and then they had a fun evening together.
How renewing it is to be with wonderful friends.
With blessings,
Beth