Anya and I left home at the same time. I literally ran to the bus stop–the one down the hill–so I could catch a bus to Stavanger Sentrum and switch to the #2 bus going up to MHS. However, there was a spot inspection of passengers with their tickets. It took about 3 minutes, but I missed two #2 buses by 15 seconds! So, I had to wait for 15 minutes for the next one, which made me 10 minutes late to our Maasai research group seminar. I had notified Knut by text, apologized, and later brought out chocolate for the group.
Zephania facilitated a book review on a Maasai ethnography. Then we reviewed the progress of the developing projects for Hoyce and Zephania. I get to see how PhD projects beyond my own are developed, which helps me see what I need to accomplish in my writing.
I ate lunch at my desk and worked on getting some content from books in order to return them to the library. There are a couple quotes to help support some argumentation, but in the game of academia, I wanted to expand my bibliography with these two sources. I have two other sources from each of these two authors, so I’m demonstrating my more thorough engagement of their work. One is an anthropologist who researched the Maasai, Paul Spencer. One is an African theologian, John Mbiti.
Then I reviewed some resources that I scanned at Makumira seminary. These are documents from the archives of earlier writing on the Maasai which are out of print. I tried to put them in a reasonable shape to share with Knut and review some of their content.
There was a trial lecture today of a PhD candidate. What is interesting is that I just met this guy in Uppsala on Monday, and had dinner with him and 2 other faculty from Johannelund, where he teaches. The other person representing Johannelund, was one of the other faculty I had dinner with, their OT prof, LarsOlof. He also attended my presentation and had some nice conversations. So, after the trial lecture. Knut invited our Maasai research group to have dinner with LarsOlof to talk about our projects and OT biblical studies in Sweden. It was a rich conversation. Here are two elder statesmen of Scandinavian OT studies, and we sat for at least 2 hours talking. I gathered some great insights, so it was a privilege to hear and participate in this dialogue.
Unfortunately, I have no great photos of the day, but here is one to share with part of an insight I learned tonight.
Knut relayed that the Stavanger Cathedral is one of the best examples of a medieval cathedral. Why? Because Stavanger was so poor that it couldn’t keep remodeling and upgrading the cathedral! The Uppsala Cathedral was updated last in the 1800s, putting on the tall spires. The national cathedral of Norway in Tronheim was similarly updated recently. So, maybe there is something good about not being awash in money! Perhaps a bit of encouragement today!
With blessings,
Beth