Month: May 2017

I distinctly remember my 30th birthday. For the first time, my birthday party was not predominantly attended by young singles. Instead, the majority of the people seemed to be families with kids! There was a very different feel.

I had a very different feel on Friday night. I was invited to a “girls” gathering, and I was probably the youngest one there. This group of women has been meeting for over 25 years. They said when they first started meeting, there was always someone breastfeeding. Now the youngest offspring are in college and the conversation includes pending retirements.

They were warm, and often the conversation turned to English for me. I am getting more of the conversation, but when they talk in an excited way, the words come to fast. (Yes, sometimes Swedes get excited, but the one who talks the fastest is an American.)

The view was nice from our hosts apartment, up about 5 flights of stairs.

But the most beautiful thing of the evening was the hand-knit sweater in the final stages of reinforcing the button holes.

The pattern is from Norway. The Swedes admit the Norwegians have better sweater patterns. The other beauty of this sweater is that it is made for the EX-daughter-in-law for her 40th birthday. The knitter says that she still wants to keep connected to this woman they shared 15 years with and is the mother of her grandchildren. (The knitter also used to live in Tanzania, and she was excited to learn that I will be going there on Wednesday.)

Saturday morning at the gym, I was reading a student’s essay on the exercise bike. To the left of me was a guy, I’d say about 30, who was doing multiple pull-ups with a 12 kg (26.5 lbs) weight between his knees! He was finishing up as I was wiping down the bike, and in that moment, I said, “Wow!” His response in Swedish, was “Thanks! The same… (I couldn’t understand this part) …exercising.” So, I assumed it was something like. “The same goes to you to see old people exercising.” After all, how could he say “Wow” to me by just being on an exercise bike? As I left the gym, we saw each other and smiled.

Anya is mortified to know that I’m talking to strangers in Sweden. It is so un-Swedish. But my sense is that Swedes, by culture, are not going to initiate a conversation, but they don’t mind it when a conversation is broached. And the one woman I talk to whenever I see her at the gym (mostly in simple Swedish!), was actually the one who initiated the conversation.

Speaking of Swedish… This past week, I worked through my message that I’m planning to give in Swedish on the 5th of June with both a young woman co-worker, Elin, and again with my Swedish tutor, Lennart. I asked Elin to check that it was language that would connect with young adults. She was very careful to understand what I wanted to say, and then she made some word tweaks. Lennart helped me with the pronunciation, checking the correct emphasis of the syllables and the clumping of words. Elin will also make an audio recording, so I can hear her pronunciation when I practice. This is a lot of work for something I won’t get paid for, but it is a good Swedish learning project.

Finally, I’ve spent a huge amount of the last few days reading student essays. I’ve now come to realize that I prefer reading the ones in Swedish (with some help from Google Translate), because I’m exempted from having to evaluate the grammar. There will be a second reader. The Swedish guy who is writing in English has understandable challenges writing in English. I’ve put in a lot of amount of time correcting the verb agreement, punctuation, etc. (Swedes do punctuation very differently, which makes phrasing difficult for me. And I won’t even begin to gripe about different Swedish word order after an adverbial clause!) I know that all the notes and comments are important for developing his skills in writing English for his planned masters program in Scotland. (Fortunately, I will not have to write papers in academic Swedish. Even the theological conferences here include papers written in English. Oh that’s right, I still will have messages to give in Swedish!)

Amazingly, it was actually too hot to read the essays in the hammock, so it meant reading indoors, with windows shut to try to keep the cool air in. This was one of the few days we got beyond 70 degrees, and it actually got up to 80.

With blessings,

Beth

Today is Ascension Day, which is a national holiday in Sweden. Friday is the gap day between a Thursday holiday and the weekend, so it is also a de facto holiday. This is good for a catch up day. Here’s what I did.

• 50 minutes of reading an article on African biblical studies while on the exercise bicycle and 6 minutes of praying on the rowing machine at the gym.
• Careful editing of my colleague’s paper. Hoyce is writing in her 3rd language, so I help out with polishing the English. She will be giving this paper in Tanzania on 1 June, so I scanned it and emailed it back right away for her to work through the edits and suggestions.
• I’m also giving a presentation, though shorter than Hoyce’s presentation. I’m responding from the perspective of the Western academy with regard to biblical studies. So, I analyzed my notes that I’ve collected over the past three weeks and was able to put them into a framework that seemed to come together better than I expected. I won’t really have enough time to develop these reflections, so this may become a paper someday.
• I also wrote an abstract for a to-be-written paper, which will be submitted for consideration for a collection of essays on classical religious texts in global contexts. My working title is, “Recovering and Integrating Ontology:
  Multi-epistemological Exegesis for Intercultural Biblical Interpretation.” (Doesn’t that sound nerdy?!?)
• The message that I give on 5 June in western Sweden (on the way back from Tanzania) needs practice of the Swedish pronunciation. So, I’ll go over that in preparation for the session with my Swedish tutor tomorrow. I’ll see if I craft a PowerPoint to help illustrate my message. If my Swedish is bad, I may just “close caption” it.

 

 

The good news is that I was able to read Hoyce’s paper in the hammock on the balcony. It was neither warm nor sunny, but it was nice to be outside, even with a few layers on.

With my upcoming trip to Tanzania, with a departure on Wednesday, I have begun the packing process.

With blessings,

Beth

Sunday’s highlight was dinner with Tone (pronounced like TU-nah) and Lars-Göran (pronounced like Larsh-YORE-an) at their condo and then a simple, short hike to Lake Mälaren (pronounced like MEL-a-ren). This is the large lake that stretches from Uppsala to Stockholm (42 miles) and even farther to the west. This rocky coast is Tone’s favorite place in the area, it reminds her a bit of her growing up on the coast in south-east Norway.

Tone and Lars-Göran are both retired and both worked in part of their professional lives at Johannelund. So, I get to ask some historical questions of the place and get a better understanding of theological education in Sweden.

Today, I had my first class in a month! Yes, it is a bit of a strange schedule since the Bible school gets out early and I am only .75 FTE this year. I still meet with students for mentoring for their bachelors’ theses, and I have other reading and course preparations that keep me busy, but it was good to have a little less pressure during the preparation of the manuscript for publishing. I’m not very good with boundaries anyway, but I’m enjoying what is filling life.

My Swedish language learning continues, and I arranged for a conversation partner for about 1 month this summer between her time home and my time in the USA (departing 29 June for the Twin Cities; 1 July for Alexandria, MN, where I’ll be leading a week of Bible studies on “The Spirituality of the Psalms” at a Mount Carmel family camp; 7 July to Wisconsin to see friends and visit Eric’s beloved family farm and his grave; returning to Sweden on 11 July).

There are some funny translation things I run into. If you didn’t know, the Google Translate app has a phone that can give a rough translation in real-time, just by holding the phone over text. I use this sometimes to fill in words in the hymnal (in block text) that I don’t know. Sometimes the mis-translations are funny. For example:

Obviously, this was not a common word. Sometimes, there are words distinctive to the Christian tradition or words that are more classic (read “old”) Swedish that are memorialized in favorite hymns. I still don’t know what this word means.

The unfortunate event was once during “mass” (the Lord’s Supper service on Tuesdays) in the church, I was using the Google Translate camera app, but as Lutheran do, it was time to stand during the service. My phone was knocked off the pew as I stood, dropped onto the tile floor, and cracked the glass screen. (I can imagine Marv now making some pun about glass “broken for you,” and Jean giving him a gentle admonition, as a retired chaplain would do. I miss you two–and your blog–as you read from Tiberias; assuming that is you on the location stats!)

Keep Anya in your prayers. Two more days of exams, and she is pushing through in spite of being tired.

With blessings,

Beth

With friends, Greg and Carol, arriving on Friday evening, we’ve had several days of great experiences (and a couple days of me working and letting them play tourist).

On Saturday, we visited Uppsala, starting with fika (coffee or tea with pastries or other delicacies). Then a visit to the cathedral, where we listened to the 50th anniversary concert of the cathedral girls choir with an organ solo. We walked around the rune stone garden, the castle, overviews of the botanical garden, and a walk through the pedestrian street. The route went quite well for my first hosting of friends in Uppsala.

In the evening, we had another cultural event as we were invited to our German friends to watch the Eurovision song contest.

A fun night, but we all were incredulous over the winner. Seriously, the winner was at the bottom of our lists!

On Sunday, we went to the second service where the president of the main Lutheran seminary in Ethiopia was preaching. I met him in Addis in February. Then, we were off to Gamla (“Old”) Uppsala and the viking grave mounds for the afternoon–with a fika. In the evening, I finished the last details, and I submitted my manuscript to the printer (as stated on my previous post).

On Monday, I took some comp time and took Greg and Carol to Stockholm to show them around. The day included the changing of the guards at the palace, walking around Gamla (“Old”) Stan (“Town”), the vasa ship museum, a ferry ride back to the Gamla Stan (including fika), where Greg bought an antique map of Scandinavia, a walk around the shopping area, and home for a late dinner. Greg has come to appreciate Swedish fika!

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Greg and Carol revisited one day to Stockholm and one day to Gamla Uppsala and Uppsala. Another day to Stockhom for a canal trip. They are having a great time.

Today, I took another comp day and went with Greg and Carol to Drottningholm Palace, which is west of Stockholm about 30 minutes by subway and bus. This “Queen’s” palace is a world heritage site. My bucket list includes traveling to world heritage sites, and I had not been here before.

Here are a couple highlights from the inside.

Then we strolled the gardens.

There is a Chinese pavilion, as Chinese culture was stylish in the 1700s.

However, there are some design issues in this early cultural appropriation.

We did make sure we had a little lunch and fika here too!

We visited Saint Clara’s church, which is close to the Stockholm train station, before heading home. There was an informal service of praise songs and a short but enthusiastic homily.

Life has been full, so I’m just catching up a bit to let people know that I’ve been busy. Anya started her test week today. She has been extremely diligent it her studying all year and especially the weeks up to today. Keep her in your prayers with math on Friday, physics on Monday, and more through Wednesday.

With blessings,

Beth

On Mother’s Day, I delivered another creation. I just sent my manuscript to the printer! There is some excitement, lots of relief that it is over, but also, a little bit of fear and trepidation that I have now given up control (no more edits). Let’s hope I sleep better tonight than the first night with a newborn!

There is much else to write, as my friends, Carol and Greg, are visiting for a week, having arrived Friday night. There are some nice picture too, so come back soon to see the catch-up postings.

With blessings,

Beth

I haven’t posted in a while. Life is full. I’m not distressed–yet. I even have taken a 20-minute break in a hammock on a couple of the nicest days. Most of the non-work time is filled with getting my manuscript ready for print.

The recent work has been getting all the series abbreviations right, and then getting the bibliography ready for dividing into an end of chapter bibliography for each of the 5 chapters. But because I must submit one Word document per chapter, if I find a change that needs to be made in formatting, I have to go through 5 documents. Fortunately, my tricks from my days as Director of Communications and “cleaning up” text for catalog production at Trinity Lutheran College has been put to use now.

Last Sunday, Anya and I spent part of Sunday with our American-married-to-a-Swede-friend, Donna. She took us around Uppsala for “Sista April” (last April) or Valborgsmässoafton. This former holy day, recognizing Saint Valborg, has turned into “Sweden’s biggest party” celebrating spring. We avoided the champagne and strawberry breakfast and the champagne shower run in the afternoon, but this and much other partying kept this university city–and the police–active. Donna said that they set up military tents as a place to care for people with medical supervision for those who are dangerously drunk.

Aside from the alcohol, there are other traditions that make this a fascinating day. We joined Donna and a couple other friends on the bank of the river that runs through town. We watched about 85 of the 120 homemade rafts float down the river. The excitement–and massive crowd–is farther down the river by the two waterfalls, watching to see if they will fall apart on the descent. Divers are ready to rescue the mishaps.

Here are some of our favorite rafts.

We then walked through town, heading to the library.

Last year, they estimated 35,000 people, and some felt this gathering was bigger this year.

At the university library, the big wigs of town–including the archbishop (in a purple shirt)–come out and wave their white caps–their high school graduation cap. This is a long tradition in a land of palpable traditions.

However, the new twist on the tradition–only two years old–was that the most famous men’s choir in Sweden, Orphei Drängar, sings on the steps of the library. This started when the concert hall was undergoing renovations. With some serious amplification in a park-sized area, many more could enjoy the wonderful odes to spring.

We skipped the evening bonfire, as we are not night owls. Perhaps, I’ll consider going next year, but Anya already knows that it will occur during test week, so she will opt out.

With blessings,

Beth