I’m not only catching up on this blog, but I’m catching up on a pile of papers, exams, and bachelor’s theses that I have to grade! Fortunately, the weather looks like it will cooperate for me to be doing some of this on the balcony today.
Later, I will add the highlights from my travels to Tanzania and giving a message in Swedish, but for now, I will post a recent event.
On Thursday, my New Testament colleague, Jim, and I went to a special event for biblical scholars at the Uppsala University library, the Carolina Rediviva. There was a scholar in town from the Copenhagen, and with a local scholar, we looked at some of the ancient Greek manuscripts at the library and on loan to the library. We had special VIP tags that allowed us back into the recesses of this beautiful 1841 building.
The Uppsala University library, the Carolina Rediviva. (Photo credit: Dr. Mirko Junge; https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolina_Rediviva#/media/File:Carolina_Rediviva_in_summer.jpg)Barbara was our host.Jim, looking a Byzantine Greek manuscript from the 12th centuryI believe this is #902 from the 12th century. See digitized versions of the pages at: https://www.manuscripta.se/uub-gr-013The binding. Anya is fascinated with book binding, so I took this photo for her.The oldest manuscript was from the 11th century. It was a lectionary (here an Old Testament portion), which is believed to have come from Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. The faded red ink (top right column on left page) describes the day for this reading.Beautiful frontispiece for the Gospel according to Matthew on a later (14th century?) manuscript.Yes, we were able to touch them with our bare hands. Here’s an interesting layout.
If you want to check out the digitizing of manuscripts in Sweden, here’s the link: https://www.manuscripta.se/
It was fascinating, but unfortunately, I couldn’t keep the manuscripts straight. It is a nice problem to have, due to seeing several together at one time.
The most famous manuscript in Uppsala, the Silver Bible, from the 6th century, is currently not on display, as the library museum is undergoing renovations.
Our host also provided a link to recent news about returning one of the ancient manuscripts that was at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.
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.
The Uppsala castle is reddish, below the horizon and to the right of the tall pine.
But the most beautiful thing of the evening was the hand-knit sweater in the final stages of reinforcing the button holes.
Amazing!
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.
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.
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.
A beautiful evening with sunshineWonderful hosts, who are encouragersSundown at 9:30 PM
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:
Heavenly epidermis sounds wonderful!With heavenly arrogance!?! Not so wonderful!
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 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.
A beautiful day at the Cathedral
In the evening, we had another cultural event as we were invited to our German friends to watch the Eurovision song contest.
Eurovision was previously unknown to Carol and Greg.
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.
The water side
Here are a couple highlights from the inside.
The library is quite impressive!The queens bedroom
Then we strolled the gardens.
Very beautiful on a beautiful day
There is a Chinese pavilion, as Chinese culture was stylish in the 1700s.
It is also on the World Heritage Site list.
However, there are some design issues in this early cultural appropriation.
I’m guessing that some are fake characters. Any help on confirming this?
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.
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.
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 paper trail
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.
That is a moving backho.The cloud even rained (when water was poured into its reservoir).
There are water gun battles between some of the rafts.
Last year, there was a Trump raft, but this year, his wall appeared.Approaching the waterfall by the cathedral for a glimpse of the crowd and frenzy.
We then walked through town, heading to the library.
The center of town, by the river, looking up to the university libraryFrom the library, looking back toward town.
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.
OD singing many traditional songs welcoming 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.
Oh, it’s been a while since my last post. Things are a bit busier. Here’s the overview:
The manuscript for my revised version of my dissertation is due on 15 May. However, I have friends coming to visit on the 11th. So, I’m working to get things done before the 11th. There are a lot of formatting issues. I need to have endnotes and bibliography for each chapter. Ugh! I’m glad that I used to put format catalogs for Trinity Lutheran College in my Director of Communication days, so I’m not stressed with some aspects–like style palettes. I have yet to tackle the endnotes and bibliography though.
Monday: I picked up one bicycle from the bike shop, after having the tires switched from the winter studded version back to the normal tires. Then, I made an appointment for another repair of Anya’s bike that was vandalized on Saturday evening. Yes, this is a busy time of year for bike shops switching from winter to standard tires, so one needs to make an appointment about 4 days out!
Monday evening was a nice gathering of current and former women staff from Johannedund at my new pastor’s home. It was filled with laughter, and the majority of the evening was in English for my sake. However, at the gathering, the conversation turned to my learning Swedish. I said that I thought about having a Swedish day once a week. They all encouraged me on this. So, Wednesdays are Swedish days for me.
And Wednesday had me speaking quite a bit of basic Swedish. I even gave my announcements in the weekly staff announcement time in Swedish. Yes, it was simple–and far from perfect–but I was told that I was comprehendable.
Some of the day was in English, because there are major changes coming with a library move, and there is much to talk about that is beyond my Swedish capabilities.
However, I did attend 4 hours of lectures in Swedish this week. A research seminar about theories about the secularization of Sweden was given by a PhD candidate who is from the Norwegian school where I did my PhD. My predecessor, Loe, gave 3 hours of lectures on preaching the Old Testament. I wanted to see how he approached this topic.
Loe’s lecture
In the evening, I biked to IKEA to pick up things that will help us host friends, as well as put light blocking curtains on Anya’s windows, as the sun rises before 5:00 am now.
This week included a meeting with my boss’ boss, related to speaking at a conference in June. And I had three great conversations with students, supporting them on their research. Fortunately all are good in English. One is even an English teacher in a Swedish middle school.
I’m making a list of the American TV programs that students have told me that they learned English by watching them: Simpsons, Friends, and Days of Our Lives!
I made another trip to the bike shop today to pick up the bike with a repaired wheel and spring tires. Fortunately it is only about 2 blocks away!
I spent the evening with a break from formatting manuscript stuff to hem and iron curtains.
Previously, I mentioned that during the Easter morning service and at the end of the sermon, the pastor invited those with other mother tongues to write “Jesus is risen!” in their language on a small banner. The banners were posted on the entry doors after the service.
Jesus is risen! In about 18 languages.A sampling from 3 continents
Last Bible School Lesson Takes the Cake
On Thursday, I had my last session with the Bible school students. We were looking at apocalyptic literature and the Book of Daniel. I played a little bit on the theme. I had just over-viewed chapter 1, where Daniel and his 3 friends refuse to defile themselves with rich food, and instead asked for vegetables. Then at the break time, I brought out a chocolate cake and some celery and carrot sticks. I didn’t do a guilt trip, but I just playfully mentioned the rich food or veggies motif. I wondered if any would feel that the cake would not be appropriate then. It turns out that all the students, except the gluten intolerant student, took the cake. And while the veggies weren’t special, at least there was something for him. Then, I commended them all on their interpretive ability to understand that eating chocolate cake in 21st century Sweden is not defiling!
Friday was Full
After a morning workout at the gym (and reading interpretive issues for how the New Testament uses the Old Testament while on the exercise bike), I biked off to my Swedish lesson with Lennart. He is helping me check the rough draft of a message I’ll give at an upcoming speaking engagement. I’m seeing again how Google translate is far from perfect! I’m hoping to prepare and internalize the message in Swedish enough to speak it (not just read it) in Swedish. We’ll see how this goes, but at least Lennart is encouraging me on the topic, saying that this is a message that needs to be heard (theology of the cross versus the theology of glory).
In Lennart’s neighborhood, they are spring cleaning the streets to sweep up all the fine gravel left from sanding the icy roads at winter time. This is serious cleaning! There were some temporary no parking signs, and many cars had been removed by their owners, but the cars that remained were moved a bit down the block so the street sweepers could clean the entire street. This was the best street sweeping I have ever seen with both machine and men with brooms.
This is serious street cleaning!
After my Swedish lesson, I met Maria for lunch. We are both part-time, so we arranged our time to take a long lunch with a walk. She is a great blessing to me.
I learned that these (can’t remember the name) are protected and cannot be picked.
We got back for me to meet a student, Rebecka, to discuss a class that she is taking with me called, “Case Studies in African Exegetical Theology.” Anya can’t imagine a course like this, but Rebecka is really engaging it well. She is a very bright student with very insightful questions and critique. These are the kind of conversations that bring great joy to a teacher.
While Anya was off at youth group, I streamed the sequel movie to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It was just a nice little escape, though I did turn on and read the Swedish sub-titles.
Saturday Chores
“Chores” is a word that Swedes don’t have in their English vocabulary. Today, it meant Anya did the laundry, while I did computer work and emailing to plan for travels. I am invited to Tanzania in June for a conference related to my PhD adviser’s research group on Maasai biblical interpretation. So, I get to go with travel expenses paid for by Norwegian tax payers.
It also means that I need to get a new passport here in Sweden; I’m running out of pages! We will be in Minnesota and Wisconsin this summer, but I won’t have enough time to process a passport without the expedited costs. I’m just a bit concerned that the guy at the post office desk in the grocery store didn’t put enough postage on the return envelope, though I specified that it needed to cover 250 grams on the secure mail return. One more little thing to worry about.
One chore was collecting Anya’s bike. After youth group last night, she found a rack of bikes that were vandalized with bent rims. She walked home last evening, and this morning, I claimed it and rolled it home on its back tire . Then I made an appointment for some repairs and getting the studded tires off for the spring.
The evidence
There was some grocery shopping and other shopping as part of the chores that continued after lunch.
The rest of the day has been working on my dissertation to get it ready for publishing. I learned today that my 1191 footnotes will have to be turned into endnotes at the end of each chapter. UGH! I originally wrote the dissertation in a research software called NotaBene, but it is not formatting friendly. So, I’ve been working in an exported copy in Word. I’m wondering if I can import it back into NotaBene and have it automatically switch from footnotes to endnotes with some changed settings. Perhaps I’m dreaming!
Off to dreamland–after some a little Swedish lesson.
A belated Happy Easter! Glad Påsk! as they say here.
I’ve been at home with a cold for the past few days, but I was able to make it to a Good Friday (Long Friday) service.
The past few days have been full of dissertation revisions. I made it through the entire 100,000 words by the end of Monday with an initial overview. There are some notes and additional comments to review, but nothing of content that will be major redevelopment. I have to get through the formatting requirements, including bibliographic references at the end of each chapter.
Anya’s Easter basket
I repurposed my one basket that seems the right shape for an Easter basket. It is actually black, and was part of the Christmas gift basket that we all got at work. So, perhaps it represents the goodies coming out of the tomb—and ties in Christmas and Easter! Fortunately, the Easter candy here is Lindt! None of the yucky, waxy cheap chocolate eggs.
I was in pretty good shape at the end of my cold to enjoy a very nice Easter worship in the morning. I didn’t sing much in order to not provoke coughing, but that meant it was easier to hear my coworker, Maria, singing behind me. She is in one of the elite choirs, which I think sang at an early service at the cathedral.
One highlight of the service was at the end of the sermon, the pastor asked anyone who had a different mother tongue to come up and write on a streamer of paper and then say “Jesus is risen.” “Jesus är uppstånden” in Swedish. There were about 20 different languages, including Chinese, Arabic, Farsi, Icelandic, Romanian, Spanish, Greek, Amharic, Oromifa (last two from Ethiopia), Afrikaans, one I never heard of, and English (not me, as I understood the basics of the instruction, but not the details). It was a wonderful celebration of voices from around the world!
After the service, I made a new connection with some women at the coffee hour. One woman, Anna, teaches in the computer science department at the University of Uppsala, and she has collaborated on a project with a woman who teaches at UW Bothell. I guess the research is looking at data to understand why we learn better as active learners–or something like that. She was amazingly animated for a Swede in expressing her love of the Seattle area! She’ll be visiting again in August!
Anya and I had an Easter dinner of favorites, as Anya is not a big fan of ham. She requested chicken pot pie, and I made deviled eggs. We had tapioca, that I found on Tuesday in Stockholm. So, a bit of a strange meal in the same color palate but all favorite comfort foods. So, perhaps comfort foods are a good theme for the ultimate comfort that comes with the good news of Easter!
