On December 1, I was invited to Donna and Lennart’s home for their annual “Light Party.” Donna’s American heritage is seen in her warm, friendly, and chatty personality, as well as American style Christmas lights. The Swedes typically have either one large lighted star or an electric candle with about 7 candles in pyramid-shaped holder.
Here’s the American version at Donna and Lennart’s.
They have Christmas traditional treats (pictured below) with Donna’s famous cheesecake.
This year, I stayed at the party and did not head to church for the First of Advent concert, which is always packed. I thought that interaction with friends was probably better for my spirit.
The next day, I went to Stockholm, where my colleague invited me to join him and his wife for worship at the Evangelical Free Church. It was a festive service with their annual Advent Choir with a small orchestra. It was very worshipful, and I–as a low-church Lutheran–have a lot of appreciation for their style of vibrant worship. I realize that this was one of the most festive services of the year, so not the typical worship Sunday. I joked with Lars-Göran that it was so kind of him to coordinate a choir for my visit!
I had dinner with them in their home, where I learned that his wife is a wonderful watercolor artist. I was enamored with her work and took joy in seeing some of her paintings in their home.
I am teaching a course on “Gender and Equality” though it only has about 8 hours of lessons in 3 sessions. That gets divided into 1) Intro and Old Testament; 2) New Testament; 3) paper presentations, ministry aspects, and cultural issues (like #MeToo). For the New Testament portion, I invited 2 short presentations (15 minutes each) from other NT perspectives. Our NT teacher/rektor and a student each gave a guest presentation. The student is the one who came with me to the conference in Denver last month. She did her bachelor’s thesis on the difficult 1 Timothy 2 text, and her advisor was the NT teacher. She wrote very well and earned the annual prize in exegetical theology. So, I asked her to present the summary of her paper, which she also did well.
On Friday, I went to a PhD “disputation” at the University. My PhD adviser (doctor father), Knut Holter, was the “opponent.” It was on theological education at Makumira Seminary in Tanzania. Knut did well as opponent. The process isn’t as rigorous or as long as the Norwegian PhD disputations.
The disputation was packed! I was sitting in a row with a bunch of Johannelund personnel (the PhD student did his bachelor’s degree at Johannelund). I said to a former rektor how amazed I was at the packed room of perhaps 200 people. I commented that mine didn’t have so many. He said that his PhD defense had a good turnout like this. So, then I started to feel like dogmeat! I said that perhaps being an American in Norway results in less of a network. Then, he replied that there usually is good turn out (reinforcing the dogmeat theory), but then he tried to dig himself out of the hole and made a comment about perhaps depending upon the discipline. I’m not really believing the dogmeat theory; I was an American in Norway with limited connections at a smaller institution.
I arranged for my boss, the rektor, and me to have breakfast with Knut on Saturday morning before he flew back to Norway. It was good to see Knut, but it would have been wonderful to have had an hour just with him to catch up. We did have some conversations in Denver last month, but there is never enough time.
After breakfast, I walked Knut to the train station to get to the airport. Then back to my bike, pick up some fika treats, and head to my Swedish conversation partner, Lennart (a different Lennart). I stopped by my favorite fika place, Güntherska, and bought two smårknut (butter knot) pastries.
After fika and 1.5 hours of Swedish conversation (mostly in Swedish with a handful of clarifying word definitions in English), Lennart invited me to stay for lunch. He made a quiche that he was going to use at a church event, but that didn’t happen. So, I was blessed with a home cooked meal!
As yesterday was a Sabbath through Sunday morning worship this morning, I planned to read some student papers this afternoon after a fika at my colleague’s apartment. (She and her husband have 2 special needs kids, so it is easier to meet at their home). I just couldn’t muster the energy after returning home, so my Sabbath is extending. I will have to tackle them tomorrow!
With blessings,
Beth