Ingrid Lilly's Personal Blog

making nonsense

2010-02-25T22:09:00.000-08:00

My brother asked me to write something sensical, since i've been using this blog as more of a note pad of late...well, here ya go jess: Sensical is not even a real word (unless you like the urban dictionary - but since you live in pristine, outdoorsy vermont - you kind of can't claim street-cred).

so boo-ya!

nonsensical!

A little more on education, ideology, and history

2010-02-11T12:44:00.000-08:00

"How Christian Were the Founders?" in this week's New York Times Magazine

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/magazine/14texbooks-t.html

About a month ago, I wrote a little bit on the Texas board of Education's proceedings to update the state's Social Studies curriculum. The above article continues the story - really worth checking into. As stake are such issues as Spanish/Mexican involvement in American history, the presentation of US presidents, the importance of the Right wing Moral Majority, and (*ahem*) the Christian-foundation of America. The article includes the following photo:

What a brilliant image. I am cobbling together many thoughts on the relationship between American government/national origins/founding documents/American self-image/civil religion and Christianity. I am very uncomfortable with the unthoughtful manner in which American insitutions, such as the Texas board of Education, are adopting world views and ideologies of one of the most watered down, warped, and dangerous versions of Christianity. American Christianity is a-historical (i.e., unaware of the lessons of history when it comes to nationalism and religion) and thus provincial in its concerns.

Since this is a running theme of mine - and I in no way claim to be writing brilliance here...I will leave it there...as the most recent installment of fodder for thought on the topic of history, identity, American Christianity, and nationalism.

2010-02-02T20:37:00.000-08:00

Nice - Kate as Judas...makes sense.
(although Sawyer as John, the fawning disciple doesn't - so perhaps Lost is just playing with symbols yet again...how they plan to cut through all this and bring about a conclusion that "feels like an ending" will be one tough task...worth it though!)

the iBible

2010-02-01T10:03:00.000-08:00

An infomercial about a fully-electronic bible navigation device:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBRjGUg95EY

Nothing short of hilarious. Proves the well-known suspicion that Christians are just Americans, but 2 decades late.

Pat Robertson's comments about the Haiti earthquake

2010-01-13T14:25:00.000-08:00

I post this feeling extremely somber in doing so. Never have I been more convinced that I teach the Bible for a reason. [i.e., Pat Robertson's ideas are straight from ancient Canaanite/Israelite ideas about weather - such a very godly place from which to construct your views of truth, Mr. Robertson.]

I literally cried at his comments...so I share them with you...and hold the people of Haiti ever more present in my prayers.

(Thank you to Eric and Heath for finding this clip.)

A very nice response to Pat Robinson by Donald Miller:

http://donmilleris.com/2010/01/13/1513/

Update: Whoa - Keith Olberman's pronouncement of judgment on PR. A must see as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-PEaWUduCM

poetry about winter: an addendum to "The Seasons"

2010-01-13T13:54:00.000-08:00

...lovely echoes with Galway Kinnell's (and my modest intertextual) poem posted below. Gorgeous, for those of us born in the Northern country, or those who can appreciate what it means to endure, with any modest wood, a snowy January (preferably year after year).

Robert Wallace Stevens' poem "The Snow Man"

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is

(Thanks to Ian Z. Curran for the poem)

History for the sake of Texan Identity

2010-01-12T17:47:00.001-08:00

Following on two of my recent posts on education and history comes this in the news...how apropos. The Texas Board of Education is deciding the history and social studies curriculum for Texas children for the next 10 years.

See "Hijacking History" by Brian Thevenot in the Texas Tribune:
http://www.texastribune.org/stories/2010/jan/12/hijacking-history/#ixzz0cQg1z0jv

Here it is again: what is education for? AND how do we tell history?

In the case of teaching children about history: is the goal to provide Texas children with a ready identity; or is it to help foster a child's ability to think about traditions and events that gave their world its shape? An example of the former, although not concrete, is the committee chairwoman's comment that "of course we believe Texas is better than all other states." That's just gross. And so fulfills the stereotype about Texas, right? Of course, it might be possible to just smile at the big egotistical state, except that it allegedly grossly under-represents the Hispanic history within its borders. So how on earth could you possibly make identity the main point of teaching state-history? [Caveat - I'm from the North East, and we have no problem thinking we're better than all other states, especially when it comes to history - so no mud slung from this proud Yankee. :-)]

Related to this question of state-level identity is the national question about whether to emphasize American exceptialism. Some dude named Ames (the only non-educator on the board) is all afire about teaching students that America is da sha-snizzle. Probably every person has their own independent reasons for wanting to emphasize such a view of our home nation. But here's one that boils my blood (quote from the article):

Massachusetts-based preacher Peter Marshall, supports the “urgent necessity of recovering the original American vision, and the truth about our Christian heritage,” according to his website. Appointed by conservative members Barbara Cargill and Cynthia Dunbar, Marshall was the one who launched the assaults on the inclusion of Thurgood Marshall and Cesar Chavez. (Marshall also declined to be interviewed.)

Well...nuance time again. I'm not opposed to including religion into the discussion of history - especially American history - but to combine American exceptionalism and Christian heritage seems like a dangerous move. Instead of emphasizing how Christian are our roots, perhaps better to think about how modern states grapple with establishing, say, *laws*, given the religious identities of its citizens - look at Iraq or Israel's constitutions - trying to be democratic, and yet stay connected to their currently functioning religious legal traditions. Student should learn to think about such questions as: What are the models for the way in which religion impacts state-formation? How does America look in comparison to other examples across history? No doubt, this is not the kind of "heritage" Mr. Marshall intends. I'm sure he means what one of my WKU students meant when he said "America used to be so Christian". But I shouldn't put words into his mouth.

Anyways - these issues are not dormant ones. What is education for? And how do we teach history? History is powerful, yo!

The Manhattan Declaration's Preamble (or History for the sake of Religious Identity)

2010-01-12T17:45:00.000-08:00

I was recently invited to join "The Manhattan Refutation" which stands against the Manhattan Declaration. ( http://www.manhattandeclaration.org/the-declaration). In the main, the Declaration seems to be a matter of three tenets of faith, cobbled together into a now quite familiar, but always random set: pro-life, the preservation of opposite-sex marriage, religious liberty.

The reason I bring it up tonight, when I should be polishing the conclusion to chapter 5, is that history matters! The declaration includes what I find to be a rare review of Christian history at its intro. More on that in a sec. First, more contextualization:

I'm not sure how much traction the Manhattan Declaration has, but some big names are involved like Chuck Colson and Duane Litfin (president of Wheaton college). I suspect it represents one, albeit important, attempt to preserve something some people call "traditional" or "conservative" Christianity or what have you... So while I don't know much about all the forces at work behind the Declaration, I do know that it was issued frighteningly contemporarily with the Ugandan discussion over a bill that would penalize (possibly with the death penalty) those engaged in gay-sex. This note is not really about that issue, and I'm not trying to start a religion and homosexuality debate (today! ;-)

Needless to say, there is much in the Declaration that most Christians can affirm; it's just that pesky tendency of these sorts of DECLARATIONS to link unrelated ethical issues into one grand "matter of conscience" that shades it towards ideology and away from actual conscience-motivated activity. The declaration strikes me as attempting to promote an "identity" through ideology.

However, this is precisely *why* I am interested in this document. It has an historical preamble at the head of its declaration. This historical prologue fascinated me. It certainly seems to lift up particularly exemplary moments of Christian history in order to construct an unbroken chain of "conscience", indicated by the transitional statement to the declaration: "Like those who have gone before us in the faith, Christians today..."

I recently asked a few friends to join me in thinking about this historical prologue. Chris Wogamon pointed out the relevance of the "genre" declaration in understanding what this document is. He notes

The first relevant historical contextualization of this document is its appropriation of the term "declaration" from the Barmen Declaration. I think that is clear from its referencing of "costly grace." That gives it a certain legitimacy and gravity that, I believe, it would not otherwise have, even for those who are not familiar with the Barmen Declaration

The Barmen declaration had a considerably grander basis to declare anything...as a stance against German-Christian movement supported by the Nazi party. This Manhattan Declaration hardly enjoys the same moral clarity. But Wogamon is correct: the power of genre carries much rhetorical force.

As for the review of history itself, I am especially keen to think about it through the lens of Mark Jordan's recent comments (posted below) where he rightly diagnoses the dominant stereotype of American conservative Christianity as

an all too modern selection and rearrangement of a few old elements detached from the contexts and practices that gave them meaning.

Now this is the *stereotype* (propogated by media) and not Jordan's diagnosis of conservative Christianity itself. None-the-less, never has a brand of Christianity been so detached from a history (and a tradition in any real sense) than American Christianity. In denominational life, this is quite strikingly *real*. For example, the ELCA Lutheran church was established 20 years ago (according to its website) from the fragments of three previous churches: ALC; AELC, and LCA. As this one example among many suggests, for the most part, American Christianities *do* have to rearrange and select several old elements if they want to construct a meaningful history for themselves.

What I find hilarious is the way in which the historical prologue to the Manhattan Declaration runs through early Roman Christianity and continues through examples within Europe, modeling itself on the pattern of, say, Catholic or Orthodox church history in extending its reaches so far back and through such similar periods. American Christianity has so far removed itself from this chain of Christian tradition and identity...it's ironic that the Manhattan Declaration turns to it now.

But I also note that the history is not exactly an historical review...i.e., one continuous narrative of the Christian story. Rather, it itself is a patchwork of moments in which Chrsitians can be said to have acted out of their consciences in exemplary ways. I note that most American Christian inventions need some famous historical figure to help bring an organizing principle to its identity and life (Joseph Smith's Mormonism, Stone-Campbell's Restoration movement, Emerson's Unitarianism). This person represents what history fails to provide, the notion of an heroic ancestor who saw right and made truth come into being from the shattered traditions out of which they emerged. Oh, that it were that simple! :-)

It didn't take long for me to write my way to a provisional conclusion about this Manhattan Declaration's prologue. It only highlights the failure of history and the deadening of tradition that so many American Christians experience. What it tries to do instead, is create a sense of community across time, a community united by the courage to act their conscience, despite the fact that very little else ties them together in any meaningful way.

Preamble to the Manhattan Declaration

Christians are heirs of a 2,000-year tradition of proclaiming God’s word, seeking justice in our societies, resisting tyranny, and reaching out with compassion to the poor, oppressed and suffering.

While fully acknowledging the imperfections and shortcomings of Christian institutions and communities in all ages, we claim the heritage of those Christians who defended innocent life by rescuing discarded babies from trash heaps in Roman cities and publicly denouncing the Empire’s sanctioning of infanticide. We remember with reverence those believers who sacrificed their lives by remaining in Roman cities to tend the sick and dying during the plagues, and who died bravely in the coliseums rather than deny their Lord.

After the barbarian tribes overran Europe, Christian monasteries preserved not only the Bible but also the literature and art of Western culture. It was Christians who combated the evil of slavery: Papal edicts in the 16th and 17th centuries decried the practice of slavery and first excommunicated anyone involved in the slave trade; evangelical Christians in England, led by John Wesley and William Wilberforce, put an end to the slave trade in that country. Christians under Wilberforce’s leadership also formed hundreds of societies for helping the poor, the imprisoned, and child laborers chained to machines.

In Europe, Christians challenged the divine claims of kings and successfully fought to establish the rule of law and balance of governmental powers, which made modern democracy possible. And in America, Christian women stood at the vanguard of the suffrage movement. The great civil rights crusades of the 1950s and 60s were led by Christians claiming the Scriptures and asserting the glory of the image of God in every human being regardless of race, religion, age or class.

This same devotion to human dignity has led Christians in the last decade to work to end the dehumanizing scourge of human trafficking and sexual slavery, bring compassionate care to AIDS sufferers in Africa, and assist in a myriad of other human rights causes – from providing clean water in developing nations to providing homes for tens of thousands of children orphaned by war, disease and gender discrimination.

Like those who have gone before us in the faith, Christians today are called to proclaim the Gospel of costly grace, to protect the intrinsic dignity of the human person and to stand for the common good. In being true to its own calling, the call to discipleship, the church through service to others can make a profound contribution to the public good.

Mary Daly

2010-01-11T15:00:00.000-08:00

In light of the passing of Mary Daly, it seems worth revisiting the crux of her teaching...her testimony as an advocate for women. A feminist theologian, she worked hard to reveal the patriarchy that structures society (unequal salary, opportunities, insitutional hegemonies); but perhaps more importantly, she showed how the church uncritically sanctifie(d/s) the social structures of its day and now propagate, as a tenet of faith, an institution based in the corruption of this world. I love this quote:

“I urge you to Sin... But not against these itty-bitty religions, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism—or their secular derivatives, Marxism, Maoism, Freudianism and Jungianism—which are all derivatives of the big religion of patriarchy. Sin against the infrastructure itself!" ~ Mary Daly

In case this message sounds sour, dull, and passe, it might be a nice reminder to read Nicolas Kristof's op-ed piece today in the NYTimes on "Religion and Women." (link below).

I once taught an Anthropology course at Emory with a young male professor. He mentioned in passing once, that he was a feminist. To hear him talk, it was clear that he did not mean this in some ideological sense, in some lazy advocacy sense, in some light-weight political-correctness sense...he really did embody it...he let it shift the way he taught, interacted with people, and lived. If he wasn't a Christian (which I'm quite sure he wasn't) he sure seemed to embody the types of sacrificial principles and other-focused lifestyle that the spirit-filled heart is supposed to manifest. Feminism gets right what Christianity has, for two millenia now, gotten wrong.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/opinion/10kristof.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

(Thanks to Michelle V. Roberts for the inspiration)

"Two Seasons," by Galway Kinnell and Ingrid Lilly

2010-01-09T20:56:00.000-08:00

These two seasons, one hot and wild, one cold and close, seem a good reflection this snowy Vermont night. I am an introvert, in the end. And yet, I have flashing eyes and know what it means to unleash a heart gone wild on the dance-floor of my world. I was born at the cusp of this first season...like a burst of the long day's light - endurance was always a part of my spark, though this spark, I fear, has been many times defiled...but not like you'd think. For me, this second season offers up her snow, where drifts and weighted boughs of hemlock will surely buffer all sounds; My muteness, though i could scream, is thrust upon me, like a blizzard-throw. So I shall hardly speak...hardly long. If Galway could build my bridge to spring, it would begin at "Wait."

Galway Kinnell

"Two Seasons"



I

The stars were wild that summer evening
As on the low lake shore stood you and I
And every time I caught your flashing eye
Or heard your voice discourse on anything
It seemed a star went burning down the sky.

I looked into your heart that dying summer
And found your silent woman's heart grown wild
Whereupon you turned to me and smiled
Saying you felt afraid but that you were
Weary of being mute and undefiled

II

I spoke to you that last winter morning
Watching the wind smoke snow across the ice
Told of how the beauty of your spirit, flesh,
And smile had made day break at night and spring
Burst beauty in the wasting winter's place.

You did not answer when I spoke, but stood
As if that wistful part of you, your sorrow,
Were blown about in fitful winds below;
Your eyes replied your worn heart wished it could
Again be white and silent as the snow.


("Wait" is also by Galway Kinnell.)

what is education?

2010-01-08T13:14:00.000-08:00

I want to write and think about education much much more! Now that I'm actually working to educate people, ironcally, I'm having a small crisis about what education is FOR.

I know what education has been for me, but I'm not sure I know what it is for all of my students. Very few of them will go on to study a particular subject to the depth that I have... (so that cannot be the objective!!!!)...
....few are deeply motivated by intellectual curiosity, as i know I am. I've been told that my concept of the "life of the mind" might itself be cultural (see my previous post about New England intellectualism). Now I'm forced to ask myself...what is intelligence and what does education do for students?

Thus far, the most inspiring comment I've heard from any University leader about what it is they are in the business of doing runs as follows: "American Public education equips citizens for their successful participation in democracy."

I like this statement. I can certainly shape some of my thinking about education around this principle. But I'm not sure it captures the full significance I give to education. Further, I'm not sure there is a clear way in which our democracy invites its citizens to think about the role of religion within that democracy...and since I teach religion, well...a unique pedagogical issue presents itself. I'll have to post about this occassionally - as a "topic in formation" for me. Suffice it to say for now...this piece entitled "The Meaning of Intelligence" on Speaking of Faith provided a good stimulus for me today:

Arresting Popular Ignorance about Religion

2010-01-08T11:58:00.000-08:00

The so-called culture wars are *NOT* those of secular liberals versus Christian conservatives. Rather, they are a set of debates about faith, tradition, and Scripture within religion itself. Specifically, within Christianity. - Thus claims Mark Jordan.

Mark Jordan, an old Emory Professor (now at Harvard as of about one year ago) recently wrote an insightful piece (posted below) for the on-line journal "Religion Dispatches." He critiques Peter Steinfeld (NY Times op-ed religion writer) for maintaining the false (or at least overly generalizing and not particularly helpful) rift between Christian (read: conservative traditionalists) and secular social forces. Steinfeld, Jordan claims, is not alone among journalists, who have crafted a meta-narrative that sells, one in which the term Christian is

an all too modern selection and rearrangement of a few old elements detached from the contexts and practices that gave them meaning.

The term "Christian," or the "journalist's Christian," is a false entity - designed to replicate itself like a virus within every story having anything remotely to do with modern ethics or belief. It quickly organizes a complex and multifaceted landscape of religious belief and identity in order produce a recognizable plot, and one that apparently sells. Thus, the war is constructed as if the factions were :

Christians = Fundamentalist/Traditionalist

Liberals = Secular/Humanist

Read Jordan's piece. He is spot on that these categories have little to no meaning and should be abandoned.

I love Jordan's description of how his own approach to journalists has changed, given the mounting years of frustration. It seems that Jordan used to fall, rhetorically, all too quickly into the liberal camp, a place where the contours of his faith were largely ignored. Now, he attempts to subvert the above-mentioned categories by using them in a complex blend of progressive ethics with traditional terms of faith; for example: “My belief in incarnation pushes me toward the blessing of same-sex unions.”

So many good issues emerge from Jordan's article. I have to hold myself back from spending all day writing about them here. But perhaps preeminent among them is the need for popular education about what religion even is...what Christianity and Christian tradition is, and how to situate manifestations of American Christianity within a grand sweeping history of Christianity.

‘Traditional’ Christianity vs. ‘Liberals’? It’s Not That Simple | Religion & Theology | ReligionDispatches

Submitting one half of the dissertation for committee review

2010-01-04T15:34:00.000-08:00

Today is January 3rd. Depending on how you calculate it, I am one day early, two days late, or 34 days late sumbitting the first half of my dissertation for committee review. (Originally, my adviser asked that I "get that first chunk to the committee" by December 1st. Ooops. Oh well...January 1st then - or the fourth at the absolute latest!)

It feels amazing to "pdf" (a new verbal form or the acronym) chapters of your dissertation and circulate them to a wider audience, even if that audience still only amounts to:
- the number of pieces of sand in your eye compared to all that on the beach, or
- the number of times I've won anything at slot machines compared to all the quarters inside all of the machines in the history of Vegas *and* the boats in international waters combined...or
- the number of times I plan to eat muscles compared to all of Julia Child's students' cuisine, or (etc.)

But four finished chapters (with three more not too far behind) feels really good. They are in good shape, as if I put them on the Atkins diet and they are now ready to parade around in their bikinis! Check out those ABS!!!

I ritualized the moment - when I sent the email to the committee members. I'm up here in Vermont, where family and snow and good meals have been in abundance. I've had to steal away here and there to make this all come together. Scott and my Mom were the only ones around when i was ready, for the big moment. I started a mighty "10, 9, 8..." only to be joined by their voices ...culminating in "SEND!"

"Pack it up and ship it." That's scott's motto. I usually spend no small amount of time adoring and tending to details, perfecting the conceptual whole, just holding on and on and on...but now, Scott's is my motto: get that puppy out of here!

So wine a-plenty last night...and a long cross country ski today remind me that a shipped dissertation means so much for the other parts of my life, my soul, my body....the sun was out today...fresh snow on the ground...and two extremely happy dogs ran along beside us as we cut through a sparkling winter wood.

Of course, there were small issues to attend to today. D. P. got the copies just fine...in time for his trip. phew. B. S. still wants to know what I plan to do about chapter 7. He is entitled to know. He is my adviser after all! ;-) The funniest issue was that of E. U.'s. He wrote the kindest, more gentlemanly email thanking me for the chapters, wishing good new years to all, but admitting that his computer reformatted the hebrew font such that it ran backwards and wrapped margins incorrectly and worse, that some Hebrew "defaulted to beautiful but not very meaningful rectangles." He said something about replacing Sudoku with my Hebrew morass as his mental game for the month - but I speedily converting the word doc to a pdf and resent it (OF COURSE - this is E.U. we're talking about here!)

And I wouldn't be me if i didn't need to read over chapter 1 one more time this afternoon, when everyone was napping, or reading the paper, or talking on the phone. I kind of gush...as if my dissertation were my child and I a doting mother...so pleased to watch it use its own two feet to walk away from me.

As Derrida says, texts are, innately, meant to out-live their authors. And truly...it does feel like I've born a small life...however insignificant and seemingly inert it may be to most of the rest of the world! That's okay. That is just really really okay with me!

Getting some Nashville perspective

2009-12-16T07:30:00.000-08:00

Oh my. Bowling Green, KY sure is small.

This I knew...

but I learned it again after spending the weekend in Nashville. After attending the Frist's Mountain Dulcimer Christmas, checking out the Blue Bird Cafe for the best local writer's musicians, drinking down a good one at the Greenhouse, spending the night in an artist's studio (well, Langford's house, but that's not so far form the truth), a shoppong spree at Anthropologie and Whole Foods, a visit to the Grand Ole Opry (complete with dinner in the Cascades), ...well...Bowling Green just looks small, homogeneous, and generic.

Why is "small town-America" synonymous with generic? Around these parts, people prefer to put in another TGIFriday's or Ruby Tuesday (what's with the name-of-the-week restaurant names?!?) and build up the typical shopping sprawl (which features WalMart and her minions) as opposed to refine the downtown with some interest-specific commerce. I know we're in an economic down turn, but we can reframe that as an opportunity! A down-turn can become the moment for some coming to terms with what directions our "expansionist" tendencies are taking us. Since we can't keep pace with our frenetic growth...why can't communities take the moment of quiet to come together and craft a vision of local life?

Of course, local life here will not be the kind of local life I love in Vermont, or on the North Shore of Boston, or in Portland, ME, or out in the Bay area...for example...local life in KY might not include a vibrant Co-op, or an interior design shop with urban-hipster styles...but anything besides Goody's and Shogun Japanese restaurant would do!!! I'd take a great local bourbon/cigar shop any day over another Kohls!

Be the change you seek.

Easier said than done.

In the mean time, I will be going down to Nashville for Trader Joes, for Whole Foods, for Anthropologie and the Blue Bird and whatever other little niche-shops I haven't yet discovered!!

Love,
Ingrid

still having dissertation revelations; OR - "An Intellectual Hymn of Praise"

2009-12-10T12:05:00.000-08:00

A most needed revelation occurred to me today that will drastically improve the introduction to my dissertation! It was preceded by prayer.

I don't put too much investment in divine intervention; especially when fields like neuroscience are doing an impressive job explaining the physiological-roots and psychological benefits of prayer. But I am grateful none-the-less, for the way in which talking to God about the intellectual despair I feel sometimes was transformed into a bright idea....a light bulb.

I'm so very New England to think of this "light bulb" moment more in line with Transcendentalism than with the Christian doctrine of revelation. New England Transcendentalism is said to have "begun" with Ralph Waldo Emerson's speech at Harvard entitled, "The American Scholar." He declared, as one commentator put it, America's "Intellectual Independence" from the European models of inquiry...crafting a distinctly American notion of the intellectual (hu)man. He concludes the speech with some comments on what it means to be a scholar...and situates that calling within a framework of select Christian theological categories. Among these categories is the intellectual privileging of intuition. I really get that...I trust my intellectual instincts to a huge degree. I often find myself capable of very sexy, ground-breaking thinking, simply because I do not accept intellectual paradigms, but rather sit with them and work them over in my head until my own intuitions have crafted what feels like a new thought. This is precisely what happened with my revelation this afternoon...I have been mulling on a variety of seemingly distinct issues; issues which I have always sensed were related. Then - in one beautiful, prayer-induced sweep...something crystalized. I now have a coherent conceptual framework to my project that, in hindsight, was the inevitable conclusion of all of my intellectual juggling...it's hard for me not to recognize God in this - it's just too beautiful to me for it not to be divine in some sense, in the same way that a sunset or a sparkling ocean points the romantic at heart towards increased praise of God.

I love the intellectual life...as inconvenient as it can be, sometimes...I love it. Praise the Lord.

(Excerpt from Emerson's speech; the very end reminds me so very much of the ideal described in Exodus, that all people shall become prophets):

"I learned," said the melancholy Pestalozzi, "that no man in God's wide earth is either willing or able to help any other man." Help must come from the bosom alone. The scholar is that man who must take up into himself all the ability of the time, all the contributions of the past, all the hopes of the future. He must be an university of knowledges. If there be one lesson more than another, which should pierce his ear, it is, The world is nothing, the man is all; in yourself is the law of all nature, and you know not yet how a globule of sap ascends; in yourself slumbers the whole of Reason; it is for you to know all, it is for you to dare all. Mr. President and Gentlemen, this confidence in the unsearched might of man belongs, by all motives, by all prophecy, by all preparation, to the American Scholar. We have listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe. The spirit of the American freeman is already suspected to be timid, imitative, tame. Public and private avarice make the air we breathe thick and fat. The scholar is decent, indolent, complaisant. See already the tragic consequence. The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself. There is no work for any but the decorous and the complaisant. Young men of the fairest promise, who begin life upon our shores, inflated by the mountain winds, shined upon by all the stars of God, find the earth below not in unison with these, — but are hindered from action by the disgust which the principles on which business is managed inspire, and turn drudges, or die of disgust, — some of them suicides. What is the remedy? They did not yet see, and thousands of young men as hopeful now crowding to the barriers for the career, do not yet see, that, if the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him. Patience, — patience; — with the shades of all the good and great for company; and for solace, the perspective of your own infinite life; and for work, the study and the communication of principles, the making those instincts prevalent, the conversion of the world. Is it not the chief disgrace in the world, not to be an unit; — not to be reckoned one character; — not to yield that peculiar fruit which each man was created to bear, but to be reckoned in the gross, in the hundred, or the thousand, of the party, the section, to which we belong; and our opinion predicted geographically, as the north, or the south? Not so, brothers and friends, — please God, ours shall not be so. We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds. The study of letters shall be no longer a name for pity, for doubt, and for sensual indulgence. The dread of man and the love of man shall be a wall of defence and a wreath of joy around all. A nation of men will for the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired by the Divine Soul which also inspires all men.

Coming to the end with graditude

2009-12-09T08:39:00.000-08:00

Today I give the in-class section of my final exam for RELS101 Old Testament/Hebrew Scriptures. On Monday, for our last class, we watched the Veggie Tales version of Sadrack, Meshack, and Abedneggo with impressive critical discussion following. The second half of that class period was filled with students responding to the following comment/question:

Students take courses for a variety of reasons. Humanities courses especially, and religious studies courses particularly, are likely to touch student's lives in significant ways. So I asked, how has the unfolding of this course impacted the students' personal lives and worldviews?

Students shared tremendous personal insights and stories. A few commented that they hated the course at first, which gave us pause for a good laugh...since I am so very sinister! But they hated it because of the types of challenges it posed to their faiths and understandings of the Bible as Scripture. So we talked about that. Frankly. It was such a good conversation. I left at 4:20 with a sense of fulfillment, and a deep appreciation for my students this semester. I'm not sure they know how important they've been to me. Since this was my first semester teaching undergrads at a University, they played a powerful role in what I tried, what I felt succeeded, and in what I learned about teaching the Bible in the public education of citizens. I look forward to many years of refinement. But I have the students of RELS101 Fall 2009 to thank, for their tremendous effects on this first year of my career.

I send this message out into the river of the internet, hardly expecting any of them to find it (since I in no way publicize this blog). I will have to mention it in class today as they take their final and complete one semester of their careers here at WKU as University scholars.

with graditude...Professor Lilly

BEWARE of this kind of love and its male protagonist

2009-12-06T15:54:00.001-08:00

There are all kinds of good men (and women) out there. They can listen, adapt, know how to bring subtle suprise to life, are capable of expressing their feelings, understand that the ego is not the site of their strength, and are generally interested in love as service of the other. I affirm that many many men (and women) are capable of these high callings that are central to true love and a lasting relationship.

But - some aren't.

Before I start in on this issue: I offer a personal confession about my "located" perspective on the issue of love and men. I am a hopeless romantic. I am tempted by the fairy tale and feel the force of Hollywood constructions of love. I shouldn't...Hollywood love is not a model with any fuel for the long-haul! It is effervescent, it will implode. Its initial power is the very principle that turns 180 degrees on its victims, leaving empty holes where once a powerful hope took hold. It's as fast as it is strong. Its pace runs just ahead of the heartbeat, hightening one's experience of time.

Not to get all lit.crit. on you, but I think people underestimate the power of temporality. Time is the very pulse by which we mark our existence. One sure way to try to escape the confines of that existence (for those dour existentialists out there) is to tamper with temporality. What's the best way to tamper with time? narrative!!! And Hollywood makes a killing on its temporal-magico-religious version of time's escape.

But I'm getting off track.

Basically, false love promises escape...it promises triumph to the ego. and the narrative of this false love is basically about two egos...believing (until it proves false) that they can escape together. The sure way to identify this kind of love is to focus on the ego and the negative roles it plays in fooling us into this seductive narrative.

As for the male protagonist of this dangerous version of love:

Where true love understands the proper role of the ego in love, this man values his own ego above all else and seeks only its preservation.

Where true love requires an ear, this man is always on the defense or attack. Instead of really being able to listen to the other, this man hears only what his ego tells him to hear in someone else's words.

Where true love requires adaptation or compromise, this man is self-centered and wants his world to remain perfectly intact the way he created it. Others can join him in this world only insofar as they fit conveniently.

Where true love can bring small unexpected joys to life, this man makes the promises, but fails to follow through. In other words, he summons the Hollywood promises, but peddles them like empty words, with no ability to actually fulfill them. He may go through certain motions...but the hevel of Ecclesiastes is all his actions amount to. (Anecdotally related to this: a friend once told me about a young girl whose father promised her a pony. Every saturday, she would run out to the barn hoping a pony would be there...woe the girl who finds herself in this situation...*there will never* be a pony.)

Where true love can express feelings, this man only says what he thinks someone wants to hear. He fails to actually *be* in a relationship because he is so intent on performing the role of the perfect man. This is such a trap for a man...he thinks he's being giving, but what he's really doing is withholding himself from real intimacy. In this one, I feel nothing but pity for this male protagonist.

Where true love serves the other, this man twists his self-serving actions so that they appear to include the other.

As I come to the end of this reflection, I read back and see some gender-neutrality to this wisdom. However, I think the American Hollywood male ego is specifically constructed to play these types of roles more than women. In the Hollywood version, the female ego is emptied, desperate, flimsy, and derivative (although she presents as self-possessed, assured, gorgeous, busty, and the object of male desire.)

indulging a bit in my name

2009-12-06T14:23:00.000-08:00

So I was joking with my boyfriend's family today about Kentucky women named Mary-____. i.e., Mary-Jo, Mary-Lee, Mary-Rose, Mary-Sue, Mary-Jean, etc. Unfortunately, none of us have names that really "work" in this hyphenation-sensation. Mine is Ingrid-Esther. Yeah, not so much!

But it got me to thinking about my name, which I've always rather liked (thanks, Mom and Dad!) My two names are those of my two grandmother's.

Ingrid was my maternal grandmother. She liked to go by Ginger (from one movie star name, Ingrid Bergman, to another Ginger Rogers, I think!) She was a refined woman with a strong sense of style and a hard-as-iron Swedish disposition.

Esther was my paternal grandmother. Esther Sweeney was a fantastic grandmother. She crocheted blankets, made pies, and could beat me at cards up into my adult-hood. We used to write letters back and forth about Physics...she asking me to explain questions about the physical world she'd always held (i.e., how prisms work, or what makes a bridge durable...) She was an intellectual, actually, although her educational background wouldn't necessarily indicate that.

So names. What meaning do they hold for us? I think these two women are all the meaning I need
...but I have always rather liked the Swedish background to the name Ingrid.

Ingrid is "from an Old Norse female personal name composed of the name of the fertility god Ing + fríðr ‘fair, beautiful’." So, I'm flattered that my namesake is a Norse god, Ing known for fertility! I feel pretty procreative, in the broadest sense of the term! ...and i guess I'm not sure how the "rid" in Ingrid can be derived from "frior," but I'll take beautiful any day! Right? who wouldn't like that one?!?!

So, with just a small amount of saddness, I accept my inability to really integrate into Kentucky nomenclature - Ingrid-Jo was not to be my destiny! (btw - I met a woman named Destiny the other day). But with all kinds of warmth in my breast, I take heart in the layers of meaning in my names. And how accurate is "Lilly?": "nickname for someone with very fair hair or skin, from Middle English, Old English lilie ‘lily’ (Latin lilium)."

writing

2009-11-03T06:29:00.000-08:00

Today, I am writing. Yesterday, I was writing. I will try to slip in some writing tomorrow while prepping for class.

I just asked for some aggressive deadlines for my dissertation time-line, oriented towards the defense. I was just dying with the sense of it lingering on and on in an eternal phase of editing. Ironically, what I'm writing about today (an inner-biblical philosophy of prophecy) struggled with the same thing..."The days are prolonged, every vision comes to nothing" (Ezek 12:22). That's how I was feeling, like I had once cherished a great vision of an interesting project that captured my heart, curiosity, and will...and here towards the end...it feels more like a dead sack of skin whose animating ghost has expired.

Ah writing. I haven't figured out that secret trick of how to make writing "fit" into a blanaced life-style. When the muses arrive and my focus sharpens, it's like I am in Indian summer. It's not usually this warm, and it won't last long...so you'd better make the most of it while it's here. Probably the most important aspect of that analogy is the sense that it will fade away.

Or it's like being out adrift on an ocean and finally seeing the shore-line...you realize you better get your hand on the wheel and bring the boat in safely. Once I feel my hands are on the helm, I fear taking them off and letting the ship go hay-wire.

And as for a balanced life-style: Here's my complaint. Bend you tired ear, dear God, to my plight. Do not fall asleep while I tell you what sucks about all this. (psalm 2013)

If I take my hands off the helm, I end up feeling anxious about the floating boat, worried about the nearing shoreline, and either want to spin the ship out into open ocean so i can put my hands up (woot; put your hands up, woot!) or else divide the attention of my two eyes and two hands between driving and whatever else life presents me. the former is no good for me...the latter is just stupid. (like texting while driving).

this kind of sucks, dear tired sleeping deity!

Will I get better at this? Will I be able to steer every day's ship safely to shore in time to step onto land for a dinner date? Will I softly awake the next morning to the waves lapping at my daily vessel and bidding me to another journey home?

Or do I need to get a new metaphor for writing?

Hollywood-esque tropes of "commissioning" a spiritual servant

2009-10-30T00:20:00.000-07:00

It all got started when a friend posted this short video clip to facebook:
http://www.nypriest.com/ordination_video/ordination_po.html
It's a very Hollywood-esque presentation of the ordination of five priests. I was stunned at *both* how emotional I felt (even without the music, the part where they lie face-down to the altar just kills me; and *with* the music!!! well......if I wore mascara on a regular basis - i'd be toast!) but I was also stunned at how ridiculous it all was. C'mon?!? This is not the genre for the church...this video is how Hollywood crafts its heroes. The church is filled with lovers of Christ. Surely, she cannot hollywoodize her servants' daily work.

But, as I said, the video of ordination to the priesthood soars with emotion. It plays on the chords of American individuality, heroism, and calling...perhaps the RCC is just being smart! They could use some good advertising.

For the hollywood trope of the heroic individual, called into a task greater than herself... one does not have to look far. It's practically a genre. By way of comparison, check out:

1) Superman Returns Trailer (a little too much plot of movie, but can still think about the the calling of this one man.) The fear in this trailer about whether Superman is still "good" actually reminds me of what, for some, lies beneath the surface of the Catholic priest video - the question about whether these priests will be "good" and not reinforce the recent stereotype of priests as child-molesters.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4IOoyrfi0s

2) Army Strong (vocational calling) - of course, I cannot stop thinking about how American civil religion is perfectly happy to sacrifice its young under the guise of service to the country.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9LJtggZYes&feature=PlayList&p=458A919BA7EFFD72&index=3

3) Steven Colbert for president – complete with American symbols, heroic narratives, and various authorization mythoi - Colbert is, like the Catholic priests, called to a task of great service that plucks the heart-strings of American meaning and significance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGH5jXFenFM

4) Da Vinci Code – Tom Hanks as Diviner/ critic of Temple-establishment/ breaking secret codes in search of “real" sources of truth...I especially like this one, becasue it's so much about the smart, educated man - who knows more than every pleab...he must fight the church for truth...the hollywood narrative, though, sets him up as called to uncovering a greater truth than that peddled by the church. It's almost like the enlightenment's rejoinder to the priest video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiIKxLCrNjY&feature=related

5) Sea Biscuit – the horse is the hero who resolves all cultural tensions and restores hope to a failed people. The horse!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fnYdEGeXbM

...perhaps we should take a moment to contemplate what the priesthood is...is it what Seabiscuit does, because if so, lets get all "Unbridled spirit" and support the horse-culture that surrounds us, and just abandon organized religion.

....?

(or maybe we should all become Lutheran and embrace the "priesthood of all believers" even if that priest is a horse!)

Savoring the Second Naivete that is teaching

2009-10-29T09:21:00.000-07:00

This may end up being something of a regular post-topic: The Second Naivete of Teaching.
Mostly - I want to post about a new insight I had into the prophets of Jerusalem...but let me first comment more generally:

Second Naivete:
The general field in which you study (for a decade) becomes alarmingly dull after a while. My interests are pressed into increasingly smaller and more specific lines of inquiry or areas of research. My curiosity leads me there, and my affections are reasonably well-stimulated in that work. But the sad part is: The big picture begins to take up residence in the "been there, done that" place in your brain. Sadly, that part of my brain (at least) is not alive to the curiosity and imagination that is intellect. That's why the opportunity to teach has an amazing effect on one's ability to fall in love all over again. The old material comes creeping out of its cave, enters the light, and comes alive in new ways. New affections for my chosen field are re-kindled. That's way I call it my "Second naivete" (a la Ricoeur). Yesterday's Second naivete goes out to Jeremiah:

Jeremiah's realism vs. Isaiah's confidence
Both prophets worked the streets of Jersualem. I decided to call one (for the simplicity of a 100-level course) the prophet of realism (Mr. J). The other I called the prophet with cause for confidence (Mr. I). I juxta-posed two invasions; one resulted in triumphal celebration, one resulted in destruction and exile. I tried to show how political events and religious imagination fuel one another, (then as now.)

Isaiah's career as a prophet was arguably MADE by the 701-crisis in Jerusalem. Without it, we may not have this decades' long expanse of a book about his prophetic career and the subsequent "Isaiah-school" who brought his theology down through times beyond his own.

The 701-crisis involved the then-known-world power, Assyria. Sennacharib, its king at the time, led the empires' vast army up to the gates of Jerusalem. The king in Jerusalem at the time, Hezekiah, was freaked out! Well, duh! This same empire had torn down the Northern Kingdom just 20 years previously. This same empire would conquor the city of Babylon a short 11 years later. The Assyrians were on a rampage of expansion and military dominance. And in 701, there they were on the steps of Jerusalem. Isaiah, invoking his theology of inevitable vulnerability and trust, which he'd emphatically demonstrated already by walking around naked for 3 years, gave his typical advice to king Hezekiah, "stay strong in all that is strong." That's my paraphrase, but what he meant is, empires are not inherently strong, appeals to Egypt can offer no real secutiry, capitulating to Assyria does not represent your endurance. Well...this message was radically confirmed in the MAGICAL military outcome of Sennacharib's Jerusalem invasion. Sennacharib retreated. He left. Assyria, the military machine of the time, permitted Jerusalem to stand without attack. What cause for confidence!?! No wonder Zion theology and "Jerusalem is magic" and "David's throne lasts forever" were sentiments that took deeper hold in the religion - thanks to the political context of the career and teachings of Isaiah.

Then comes Jeremiah. Different threat, different political context, different invasion.
In the meantime, Babylon reasserted itself over Assyria as the world power. In Jeremiah's time, it was the Babylonian army who stood outside Jersualem's gates. One of my favorite exchances between Jeremiah and the very worried king of Jerusalem (Zedekiah) occurs in 21:1-10. Zedekiah asks Jeremiah if perhaps, given that King Nebuchadnezzar (of babylon) is making war, "perhaps the LORD will perform a wonderful deed for us, as he has often done, and will make him withdraw from us." Zedekiah must have in mind Isaiah and the cause for confidence engenderd in Jerusalem during the 701 crisis . Obviously, the full confidence of Zedekiah's faith has hit an anxiety point given that the very real threat of military defeat lay waiting at his gates, but he clearly still grasps for the hope of that religous conviction. Zedekiah's thinking must have run something like: "Can I not expect the diety who chose my city and made promises to its line of kings and promised the land around me and gave us a covenant, can i not trust that he will hold Babylon at bay? Isn't my city and kingship magical?"

Jeremiah, the realist, has only this to say: "Thus says the Lord, 'I will bring Babylon into the center of this city. I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and mighty arm.'" (This was the same arm spoken about in the Exodus story -the same arm that swiftly slaughtered the Egyptians and whisked Israel to a better future in a promised land.)

Jeremiah 21:10 "For I have set my face against this city for evil and not for good, says the LORD: it shall be given into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire."

.

A nuke-free future

2009-10-21T06:12:00.001-07:00

A good friend of mine from Yale Divinity School has recently been honored with an interview on PBS' News Weekly: religion and ethics. Tyler Wigg-Stevenson has written and advocated for nuclear disarmament for over a decade now. I wish these interviews included some of the chilling information he often relates, incriminating the Christian West in its development of the nuclear bomb... like the Christian theological names given to historical bombs (such as the "trinity" bomb test in the 1950's.)

Chosing to highlight Christianity's better side, and more positive potential role in a future without neclear weapons...Tyler targets especially evangelical groups with his utterly non-partisan political goal - to elimnate the future where nations drop undiscerningly murderous bombs on one another's land and city-scapes.

In these videos, he talks about - well, just as the PBS site says...the post-9-11 nuclear issue, the Evanglical/biblical bases for nuclear disarmament, and what role he thinks Evangelicals can play in accomplishing this seemingly impossible goal...

I am always inspired by my friend...his wry smile and his sharp-as-a-whip ability to speak clearly and compellingly. Consider the possibility of only one future - filled with hope for human flourishing.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/episodes/by-faith/christian/october-16-2009-tyler-wigg-stevenson-on-theology-and-nuclear-weapons/4572/#

Vatican to slough off disgruntled Anglicans

2009-10-20T12:13:00.000-07:00

A very disconcerting ideological line is beginning to ossify in Christendom.

The news the other day about the Vatican and the Anglican church is like watching church-history in the making. And perhaps some will feel otherwise, but just like those raucus early church councils and the schisms and heresy accusations - this current church-history event does not look pretty!

Announced on Tuesday, the Vatican has created a channel whereby Anglicans can join the Catholic church with considerable ease. This doesn't sound so bad - given that Anglican bishops and the Catholic church have been in "reconciliation" talks over the past decades about bringing the two bodies into closer union. But it's not the actual channel that represents the problem - it's the rhetoric around its creation.

The Vatican has explicitly named this event as about views of women-leadership and human sexuality in the church. According to the vatican spokespeople, this channel was created to help ease the spiritual transition of Anglicans who have rejected their church's progressive views on women and homosexuals in the church. This comes in the midst of a pretty widely publicized schism that has, for a few decades, rented Anglicanism. Individual members and churches have defected, and in some cases, even whole dioceses have threatened to leave the Anglican communion. Those who remain are held together by a tenuous "two track" system of eccelsiology. This two track system allows for these entrenched differences of opinion regarding human sexuality and gender to remain within the wider church body.

I will not dwell on the following point - but I need to say that I resent this issue. Anglicanism offers such beautiful theology, life-giving ritual, a sense of history, and a modesty with respect to doctrine...but clearly - these gifts are overshadowed by schismatic ideologies. I am mad that we have let ourselves become so distracted from *both* the spiritual fruits of our church, AND the more fundamental problems that require discussion but that now lie too far beneath the presenting debates (an example would be a theology of scripture, most of the divisions about human sexuality reflect a deeper difference of opinion about how one reads the Bible - hermeneutically, selectively, and even reconstructively.)

But back to the Vatican...Rowan Williams (a former Yale professor of mine, and archbishop of Caterbury for the Anglican church) seems to be publically cordial about this...but Richardson, (William's proxy in rome) asks a very important question, in my mind - is this targeting *current* Anglicans...becuase if so, that definately dishonors (to say the least) the spiritual discernment process within which the Anglican church is currently engaged. Indeed, these debates within Anglicanism were once an in-house discussion. Further, they were even seen as part of the process of discerning theology/ethics as a body. The spiritual integrity of Anglicanism may be faltering as throngs continue to leave - (and to those, I say - please, find your spiritual home in the catholic church, or elsewhere...)...but for those Anglicans who remain within the communion - despite differences (within the two-track solution currently defining our body), the Catholic church's "offer" smacks of disrespect.

The Vatican disrespect for Anglican spiritual discernment and sense of history is not the only complaint I have. Instead of an in-house debate, our schism is now being played out on an inter-denominational stage for all the world to see....like a bad relationship. ... and the Catholic church is choosing sides. Are they sure they want to fuel our schism by throwing in? This seems forboding of a very large problem within all of Christendom; it now looks as though the "issue" of women and gays is going to catalyze a great sectarian line. This line will cut Christianity down the middle into what look to me to be imporverished, petulant, and ideological factions. And thanks to the Vatican - the pawns and now bishops are aligning on the board.

In case I've begun to sound like Anglicans are the victims and the Catholic church is evil; I should mention that there's a second way to read this. Anglicans and Catholics could actually be staging a swap of the political/theological non-contents within their respective bodies. The Anglican leadership could be just as happy to create a fast track OUT of "our hair." The idea would be to slowly dissolve the conservative factions of Anglicanism into the Catholic church. And on the flip side, perhaps the Catholic church would be just as happy if its various convents, like counter-forces against Catholic cultural orthodoxy, would just join the Anglicans in their heretical brand of Christianity.

But in the end, all of this is sad to me. I cherish theological and political diversity within an ecclesiological body - i even think of its nurture as part of my spiritual vocation. And yet - what we are seeing is essentially a watering down of diversity within *both* Anglicanism and Catholicism.

I end with an example. It's not about Catholics nor Anglicans (it's about a situation I was in with folks from the UCC.) But it illustrates my personal investment.

When I was interviewing with Bangor Theological Seminary for their position in Old Testament - the committee asked me if I would be able to mentor GLBT ordinands. I said "yes." But I hesitated...they jumped on that and pressed me...I actually welled up tears and cited the issue of gay-ordination as schismatic within my church and the bodies with whom I've worshipeed (my first anglican church has since split from the anglican communion - which was heart-breaking for me...). In other words, this is *Not* an ideological issue for me, at least not primarily. It's personal - and spiritual - and part of negotiating what it means to be church. Though they seemed to respect me and my weepy eyes - they did not see in me a true comrade in their fight - which is really not the case.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/world/europe/21pope.html?_r=1

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113958983

Opening the Sealed Book

2009-10-16T12:44:00.000-07:00

Today - I'm revising a section of my dissertation for an SBL presentation in the "Theology of Ezekiel" section.

The title of my talk is: "‘He Prophesies for Distant Times’: Textual Evidence for Prophetic Editing in Ezekiel 12:21-13:7."

Sounds fascinating, right?

Well, trust me! It is!! ;-)

When I began my dissertation, one of my beloved Emory professors, Dr. Petersen, gave me a book recommendation: Joseph Blenkinsopp's Opening the Sealed Book: Interpretations of the Book of Isaiah in Late Antiquity. At the time, I saw the relevance, but I could not picture how my work on textual criticism of a different prophet (Ezekiel) would be adapatible to the approach Belnkinsopp takes. He looks at the way Second Temple texts worked with the prophecies of Isaiah - how later communities received and interpreted Isaiah's book. Right in line with my general research interests - it was read with an apocalyptic hermeneutic which took Isaiah’s book as a corpus of eschatological teaching.

Now that I'm working on this SBL presentation, I've returned to Blenkinsopp's book with renewed interest - the connection to my project is now clear and strong in my mind.

Abstract of my talk: Ezekiel 12:21 to 13:7 contains two disputations on the nature of prophecy and a set of woe oracles against false prophets. These sections of Ezekiel preserve anxieties and differences of opinion about prophecy, prediction, fulfillment, and interpretation. Comparison of the versions (different textual witnesses) shows that the unit served as a site of inner-biblical interpretation and debate about the nature of prophecy in general and Ezekiel’s prophecies in particular. Through textual comparison between the Hebrew and Greek witnesses, this paper demonstrates that concerns about fulfillment and false speech characterize the diachronic editorial process evidenced in 12:21-13:7. Such editorial concerns may also be found outside of the pericope, revealing a dynamic inner-biblical discourse about Ezekiel’s prophecies.

My big shift of focus from Blenkinsopp's approach is to look at evidence for editing within the biblical book, not to an outside corpus of new (subsequent) texts.

But I really should now turn to my word document - this is, despite what it may seem, a really good procrastination technique. Come to New Orleans (SBL) - learn about Ezekiel's inner-biblical interpretation through evidence for editorial activity on the book itself! Should be better than a Thanksgiving hayride! :-)

Jesus, that son of a *$&%

2009-10-15T07:46:00.000-07:00

http://www.vimeo.com/6547492

"Jesus2000," a short video worth a thought or two.

Jesus, seems to grow up way too fast (baby to beard reminds me of that hilarious scene in Talledega Nights (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuAUI_0knfk).

As an adult, he's a "son of a *%^$" and a techno artist. He's got holy water - but can do the moon walk on it! He shows us his "pain" (brilliant French-English double-entendre) and pills of Ecstasy floating in his blood. His hat is ringed with thorns (a tip of the aesthetic hat to body-mutilation fashion). He writhes, he contorts, he might just be raving/dancing really well...until ...his body becomes the site of techno-chaos at last and he is destroyed...

...the next morning, he strewn on his couch surrounded by his (12?) friends. Resurrection.

Commentary on the sacrifice of youth in 2000? Messianism in each of us? The nature of suffering within a raving culture? what do you make of it?

Sacred Travel

2009-10-14T10:27:00.000-07:00

This website is AWESOME! I want to go to Ethiopia and visit the rock hewn churches of the Ethiopic church!

http://www.sacred-destinations.com/

Still time for a public option

2009-10-13T15:11:00.000-07:00

http://act.credoaction.com//campaign/po_harryreid/?rc=fb.connect

Thrilled about O. Snow and the Senate finance committee vote today - but I would be disappointed to see the Baucus bill kill the public option. Above is a link to sign a simple petition, calling for a *modest* public option to appear in the Senate bill!

Six Creation Portraits in the Hebrew Bible: Sanctuary, Nation, Garden, the Home, the Wildernes, Outer Space

2009-10-12T11:13:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow, I have to give a guest lecture on the Bible and the Environment for the Religion and Ecology class in my department. I thought I'd hammer out some of my thoughts here (a bit rough - but helpful)

“Creation portraits” present, not just a theology of creation (God as creator, earth as creation, etc.) but also an ethos. The ethos of each creation portrait helps to explain how that creation holds together, how relationships are construed, and how its particular notion of "dwelling" (ethos - ηθος) defines and sustains the living that occurs within it. Imagine the difference in the ethos of outer space as opposed to the home. In this way, the six Creation portraits highlight different aspects of theo-ecological thinking in the Hebrew Bible.

1. Sanctuary.
Found in Genesis 1, usually referred to as the Priestly Creation account, the description of the cosmos is that of a holy tabernacle. Order, space, time, and abundance define the characteristics of this cosmos. First, the account is orderly; in fact, the prose has a poetic cadence to it, complete with refrains and patterns. The portrait provides a systematic account of an ordered universe. Second, space is important. Spaces are seperated out and different creatures/bodies (i.e., the stars) are placed in the correct spaces fit for their kinds. Third, sacred time marks each day in its approach towards the sacred sabbath. Finally, this ordered spatially perfect cosmos is fit for abundance. Fruit and multiplying creatures participate in the earth's continued impulse to create ("let the earth spring forth"...has always struck me as distinctly supportive of evolution and the earth's role in creation.) I called this a holy tabernacle because as an ordered, spatial, sabbath-built cosmos, it adopts the same logic as a temple's where things belong in special spaces yielding the concept of "being set apart" for holiness.According to the Priestly view of creation, the earth and everything in it is rooted in ritual and the cult in a beautiful choreography of sacred space and time.

2. Nation: Crossing the Sea and the Genesis of Nationhood.
Already in Genesis and Exodus, the creation of the nation is foreshadowed. The patriarchs were repeatedly told to be fruitful and multiply, and the same language is used yet again (Exodus 1:7) to describe the increase of the Israelites in Egypt. This increase in Hebrew people both fulfills the Priestly idea of abundance, and furthers the idea of filling spaces. The land of Israel becomes a specific space in the cosmic “Sanctuary” wherein people known as Israelites may dwell.

The beginning of this nation, however, enjoys its own creation portrait, found in the Exodus. Most will not immediately think of the Exodus narrative as a creation story. However, certain mythic elements in the telling draw on creation motifs. The splitting of the sea, for instance, was a common motif in Ancient Near Eastern creation myths wherein the deity battles the chaos monster (that is the sea) and triumphs upon cutting her in two. The idea that Israel was ushered from slavery in Egypt by passing through a divided sea is borrowed from this mythic backdrop. One place where this is apparent is in Isaiah 51:9-10 where God's battle against the sea monster, Rahab, is likened to opening up dry ground upon which Israel may cross safely.In fact, (Second) Isaiah links Exodus and Creation more explicitly than anywhere else in the HB. His controlling metaphor for the new nation available for Israel is a second Exodus (from exile this time,) and his dominant rhetoric is that of creation. For instance in Isa 48:7 - the prophet says of these second exodus events, "they are created now, not long ago." Finally, Isa 43:16-21 describes the crossing of the Red Sea explicitly, calling the first one the "former thing." For the sake of the "people who I formed for myself," God will do a new thing - "make a way in the wilderness." This creation event in the life of his people is likened to the first creation event, the one that forged the people of Israel into the nation of Yahweh.

3. Garden: The Intimacy and Ephemerality of Relationships.
The idea of creation as a garden is most famously found in Genesis 2 (the Yahwist creation account.) The idea of God's garden (for it is God who plants it, humans just tend it,) fosters multiple occassions to reflect on intimacy - both needs and their fulfillment.

The intimacy is underscored right away through the Hebrew terms for ground, man, and woman. In fact, both linguistically and conceptually, connectedness is central.From the אדמה adamah (ground) God makes אדם adam (human/man.) The first human is intimately connected to the soil, the very soil which he is meant to tend and nurture. This intimacy is born from the ground's need. The ground needs moisture, and although the ground-water emerges to supply some, the human is needed to maintain the ground's capacity to flourish.

The second type of intimacy is captured in the terms אשׁ ish (man) and אשׁה isha (woman). Again, a lack is identified - it is not good that the human is alone. This solitariness is probably "not good" on two counts...both socially and vocationally. The man needs companionship, and he needs help with the work he is comissioned to do. The creation of the woman from the side/rib of man forges, once again, a connectedness that characterizes the nature of the relationship being explored. She is created for community, for companionship, as a helper and a counterpart. Together, they can tend the ground and enjoy the fruits of the garden. This enjoyment is distinctive among many Ancient Near Eastern accounts of creation, where humans work to please the deity - or the garden is there to serve the olfactory demands of the deity. Instead, the garden and its flourishing serve no ultimate purpose save to be in relationship with the humans who tend and enjoy it.

The symbol of the garden is like the life-artery of intimacy. The garden demonstrates an almost mystical connectedness among the ground, man, and woman within the context of relationships that satisfy needs. Such life-giving intimacy is underscored once again by the image of the four rivers that stem from Eden and water the known-earth...the garden is the intimate center of the forces of life.

The fall, though a tragic turn for this vision of the earth, actually helps to refine the significance of the intimacies. The fall represents four life-prohibiting breakdowns: that between man and woman (clothing and desire,) that between humans and the ground (eviction and toil,) that between humans and God (barred from walking with God,) and that within the human self (the introduction of self-awarenes and shame.) These breaks disrupt the very fabric of connectedness that was so important to the life of God's garden. Unfortunately, it was all too easy to ruin the life of the garden; the story is as much about ephemerality as it is about intimacy.

(gotta go a little faster...unfortunately :-)

4. The Home: A Playhouse for Lady Wisdom.
Proverbs 8 describes the creation of the world as a construction site - building a great home in which Lady Wisdom can play, frolic, and delight without fear. She is enamored by humans, and loves all the nooks and crannies of the earth (kind of like Annie Dillard in her Tinker Creek). Her playfulness is both the first act and the only end of creation - her counsel (we can imagine it's hella fun) is the secret to a good life.

5. Wilderness: The Untamed Earth.
The theophany in Job gives us the side of the earth that is not hospitable to humans. In it, we face the stark reality of predetor/prey relationships, of conditions which destroy human flourishing. It culminates in the great description of Leviathan - one who is given space (Psalm 104) by God but who is not in the least interested in human life.

6. (the view from) Outer Space: Entropy and an Earth Divested of Meaning.
It should never be overlooked that Ecclesiastes provides another description of creation. Just because it seems dour or pessimistic, just because it fails to offer the gifts of intimacy (in all the poetry of Genesis 1) does not mean that it is not true and real and important. In Ecclesiastes, the patterns, the horrible, dreary patterns of the earth become the backdrop to a life without meaning...a life which cannot find anything of worth with which to engage. Interstingly, Ecclesiastes, in its own special way, asserts principles of intimacy on par with Genesis 1, i.e., delight in the wife of your youth, and take pleasure in food etc. (both need-based fulfillments.)

The Theophanic Giving of the Law

2009-10-09T11:27:00.000-07:00

This painting shows Jesus giving the Constitution of the United States of America to a very divided group of Americans (on the steps) while those figures that played some sort of role in its execution stand like a cloud of witnesses, behind him.
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The role of American manifest destiny as an active mythos is not new in this country - but every time I see it, it shocks me all over again. Do people really believe that Jesus Christ handed us our country's founding document? I mean, not to detract from how freaking cool the Constitution is, but to say that it was bestowed upon us in a theophoric appearance of the resurrected Christ???!?!?!?
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The painting is one man's serious artistic response to the significance of "In God we Trust." ...and there is more to this painting than even the mere flat image above. At the link below, one can mouse over all of the figures depicted in the painting - in order to learn the secrets of its esoteric visionary code (i.e., interpretation of society.)
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In the painting and through the commentary, the artist presents a vision of American society judged according to their "proper" (or what the artist deems proper) response to the Constitution of the USA. Particularlly telling is the commentary about the immigrant (crouching in the lower left hand cluster of people.) He raises his hand because he is nearly blinded by the revealed truth - that the wonder of this country owes to the Christ-centeredness of its founding document. While free to express any religious faith, (read: ignorant,) the foreigner becomes a topos of the naive, un-schooled, slow-to-come-to-the-truth outsider. This immigrant, however, sits among the earnest mother and the Christian minister, people who receive the Constitution with open hands in right response. In contrast to the folks on the left, societal types, like the lawyer, the supreme court judge, and the professor are shown to be irreverent, incredulous, and in poor-standing with respect to the supernatural American charter.
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I am reminded of one of the units I just taught in RELS 101 (Intro to the Hebrew Scriptures) on Sinai. Perhaps later today or tomorrow, I will take some time to describe all of the issues involved in the biblical account of the Theophany at Sinai (like that fact that it was not originaly connected to the Exodus story.) But this painting reminds me of the main point of that lecture...divine authorization is used to legitimate all kinds of content...in this case - the Constitution of the USA. But one can imagine a similar painting wherein the Caucasion-American Jesus, with a shining head of golden hair, holds Roe v. Wade, or the Constitutional Ammendments, or even the current Baucus heath-care bill about to hit the Senate and House floors. In those cases, it would be more obvious how the divine theophany serves political ends - to legitimate a particular interpretation of what is good and true and right about our legal/juridical deliberations. Similarly, in the theophan-IES at Sinai (and Horeb,) the various Israelite authors and traditions inserted different content into the exchange between Moses and God: the Book of the Covenant, the Preistly legislation (tabernacle,) the 10 "words" (commandments) of (arguably) the Yahwist, or the law codes of Deuteronomy. (WE could even include the P and H versions of Leviticus in this list!) These four+ legal/juridical codes all vie (or in the case of the canonical Bible, co-participate) in the divine authorization enjoyed by the Mosaic theophany! I hope you see the connection to the empty signifier of paper held by Jesus in the painting...could be anything, the artist could have put anything there.
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This "anything" then becomes the basis (given its divine origin) for judging, dividing, and typologizing society. (According to a particular agenda, or a particular view of what is right and wrong.) The painting's artist has artistic liscence to depict all manner of sociological "types" in whatever light the artist desires - so for instance, the politician is ignoring the theophany, the Hollywood actor is shadowed by the devil, etc. What would this painting look like if Martin Luther King has painted it (who is, by the way, not depicted among the hall of American notables - which should not shock given the nature of the artistic bent!)
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anyways -have fun with this one. My students will be seeing this in class just as soon as they finish their midterms!!!
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http://www.mcnaughtonart.com/artwork/view_zoom/?artpiece_id=353

(see also, http://imgur.com/r4e2C.jpg for one farcical rendition of this painting!)

Gilead

2009-10-06T17:30:00.000-07:00

Marilynne Robinson's Gilead is a novel written as an end-of-life memoir. The main character, John Ames, is a thrid generation pastor of a Congregational church in the very small town of Gilead. He is an older man, near the end of his life, but has a 5 year old son. He writes quite stream-of-consciousness, sometimes even repeating thoughts or parts of stories, in order to provide his son with a portrait of him - for when the son is old enough to want to know the man as opposed to the paternal figure.

I have maybe never encountered a character whose Christianity I could relate to so well. His inner-monologue was repleat with snippets of theology he's picked up along the way, alongside, or better, inter-stitched into his ruminations on his life. Ames is an intelligent character, has clearly studied Christianity, the Bible, and theology more deeply than most - but he is by no means a scholar. His mind is like any human's - working to understand himself, his world, his attachments of love, his experiences of disappointment, and his responsibilities to others. To be given access to these ruminations, mixed with stories and theological reflections, is quite startlingly plain - the language felt as if it could be my own...the thought processes were soothingly enlivening.

There were countless quotes that are worth lifting out, but here is one I particularly like:
“Calvin says somewhere that each of us is an actor on a stage and God is the audience. That metaphor has always interested me, because it makes us artists of our behavior, and the reaction of God to us might be thought to be aesthetic rather than morally judgmental in the ordinary sense. … I do like Calvin’s image, though, because it suggests how God might actually enjoy us.”

This quote does nothing to show how John Ames weaves such theology into his life-story - but it expresses something about how he lives his life:

God responds to our lives aesthetically; our lives are our art.

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A wonderful essay (episode) that triggered my reflections on this recent read today: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/episodes/september-18-2009/marilynne-robinson-the-novelist-as-theologian/4258/

The Conservative Bible Project

2009-10-01T19:28:00.000-07:00

I just came across a short report in the Huffington Post about a proposed new Bible translation, "The Conservative Bible Project." Before launching the obvious attacks on this idea - I will attempt to provide a level-headed assessment of the proposal.

The Translation project seeks to stave off the effects of "liberal" scholarship on the Bible. The claim is that the liberals, while claiming to be *close* to the original Hebrew and Greek, used language that obscures the spiritual intent of the words. One interesting element of this initiative is the paucity of intelligent "conservative" translations of the Bible - the NIV, for example, using 7th grade English.

The criteria for translation they wish to adopt are as follows:

1. Framework against Liberal Bias: providing a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias

2. Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, "gender inclusive" language, and other modern emasculation of Christianity

3. Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity; the NIV is written at only the 7th grade level[3]

4. Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: using powerful new conservative terms as they develop;[4] defective translations use the word "comrade" three times as often as "volunteer"; similarly, updating words which have a change in meaning, such as "word", "peace", and "miracle".

5. Combat Harmful Addiction: combating addiction by using modern terms for it, such as "gamble" rather than "cast lots";[5] using modern political terms, such as "register" rather than "enroll" for the census

6. Accept the Logic of Hell: applying logic with its full force and effect, as in not denying or downplaying the very real existence of Hell or the Devil.

7. Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning

8. Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: excluding the later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, such as the adulteress story

9. Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples: crediting open-mindedness, often found in youngsters like the eyewitnesses Mark and John, the authors of two of the Gospels

10. Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities; prefer concise, consistent use of the word "Lord" rather than "Jehovah" or "Yahweh" or "Lord God."

(Read actual verses from the project at http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/)
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While this project raises some intriguing questions that I had not previously considered (ie. asking an economic expert to convert ancient terms into their corresponding modern equivalents)...overall, this project looks flawed in several important respects, and down-right deplorable in others.

Now, I think far more about the Hebrew Bible (Old Tetament) than I do the New Testament, so my comments are skewed towards the translation issues in the Hebrew...but several critiques about the Greek New Testament could likewise be levied against this project.

2) Gender-inclusive language is sometimes appropriate. This is an old argument; one that was staged already when the NRSV, say, sought to accurately reflect contexts in which the text implied humanity instead of the gendered male. (See James Evans' piece "Controlling the Words" at http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/sightings/) But the project claims that Christianity is being emasculated by this contextual sensitivity to gender.

The bigger problem, however is in spreading patriarchay where it doesn't exist. The project will gloss over the vitality of important gender issues in the text. For instance, the creation of humanity in Genesis 1 is explicit that God created male and female in his image. This biblical principle hardly topples the patriarchy of the Old Testament, but it does serve as a reminder that the Bible grapples with issues of gender (think Judges 19, Genesis 38, or Ruth). If every instance of the term 'adam (human) in Hebrew were translated "man," a specious patina of patriarchy would inhibit the text from its dynamism on this point.

5) Actually, "cast lots" does not mean "gamble" - not at all. Casting lots was a form of decision making believed to guide one towards fate (divination). It is far more like "rocks, papers, scissors" than it is gambling! This raises an important issue: in the hands of the ignorant, the effort to "accurately" reflect so-called "addictions" will not allow the biblical text to speak. Instead, the ignorant will reinforce the cultural structures in which Christian spirituality is currently imprisoned.

6) Hell is not a homogeneous "logic" in the Bible. More often than not, it is a rhetorical space, created for the sake of a spiritual argument. This is especially the case in the Old Testament. The "logic" of the afterlife hardly includes heaven and hell. In the Hebrew Bible, the breath returns to God from whence it came, and the body decays into the dust. Done! end of story. This idea that a systemiatic theology of hell need be maintained imposes a cosmic portrait that simply does not exist in the Bible. Should it bother those working on this project that Hell is the product of the Hellenization of Judaism...a political place borrowed from the Greek concept of hades...where the losing side of a political skirmish is sentenced, according to the winner's propoganda? I doubt the history of hell (a topic on which a good friend of mine is writing for her dissertation) matters to the "Conservative Bible Project" - though in my mind - it is essential towards understanding where this stringent rhetoric comes from.

7) Free-market parables? This is utterly anachronistic. Jesus did not live in a free-market capitalist nation. The idea of expressing economic concepts in familiar terms is intriguing, but to impose an economic system on the text that did not exist, again, just reinforces an American ideology foreign to the Bible.

In lieu of continuing this point by point refutation - I want to conclude with a few words. I do not like a lot of what is in the Bible. But I still use it as a sacred text for understanding God and the world.

I am troubled by the way in which the Bible is already read by conservative Christians, as a quaint, simple, and direct document. To add a translation that only reinforces a conservative world-view is to continue to colonize and aggressively ignore the Bible's dynamism. This project seeks to crown as holy, a Conservative, American, Patriarchal hermeneutic that has no regard for the muddy trenches of interpretation.

In my view, the Bible is a place where minds, hearts, and spirits become engaged in a classic struggle/relationship/commitment to glean the godly. Hermeneutics, not linguistic signs, is the site of God's relating to Christians through this text...so to impose *one* hermeneutic and deaden the text's potential for hermeneutical life will leave those Christians who might chose to use this new translation with only a cold and empty skeliton for faith.

Read more at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/05/conservative-bible-projec_n_310037.html

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/god-and-country/2009/10/06/conservapedia-launches-effort-to-translate-the-bible-into-conservativespeak.html

http://news.aol.com/article/bible-too-liberal-conservatives-say-yes/706054#

Israel's Purity System

2009-09-27T18:07:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is Yom Kippur. I was delighted, when I made my syllabus, that my lecture on the Priestly "Theology" perfectly coincided with this day!

I will definately do some lecture notes on holiness, Yom Kippur, food laws, sexuality laws, etc...with Mary Douglas and purity practices (a la Bourdieu)

However, I don't want to introduce the terms, "clean/unclean, pure/impure, holy/profane, and abomination" before I've gotten them to understand the concepts - and I fear the terms will ossify their minds too quickly and they will not be capable of grasping what the concepts actually are. Some innovative pedagogy is required!

So my idea:
Part I: Purity systems - I want to think about American household codes. I ask students to think about things that are *weird* within the household (ie. eating in the bathroom). After we've imagined several "weird" scenarios, spend a little bit of time thinking about what's normal and why. Talk about the relationship between these types of distinctions and moral distinctions.

Part II: Holiness - ask the class to decide together, how they would set apart a room in the house as sacred. Goal - to get them to dwell on how we set things apart. Then ask them what would ruin the sacred space. Ideally - they will disagree at different points about what is sacred and what has a profaning effect, the point being that priestly theology was not some easily established monolith - but rather a highly controversial practice involving power and control. I would hope that this exercise both opens them up to thinking about the sacred (a very important question in the study of religion), but that it would also expose them to the moral ambiguities involved in the politicized negotiation of the profane.

Clean = normal
unclean = weird
pure = normal and perfect
impure = weird and anamolous
holy = set apart
profane (defilement) = ruins the status of being set apart
abomination - something that defiles a purity category (holy, but maybe also clean and pure,)that is considered moral

I definately invite discussion on these terms, particularly from those who work with Israel's purity/cultic material more than I!

Another idea: go on a field trip....to the women's bathroom....ALL of us! (I'd go to the men's bathroom, but it's on the opposite side of the building, and I don't have the funds or permission slips to take *that* distant of a field trip! :-) I think the point of it being weird will still get across to all of us.

Dr. Shakshuka

2009-09-25T11:11:00.000-07:00

Saturday is a fun and interesting day in Bowling Green, KY. All day, Circus square is hosting the annual International Festival. http://www.bginternationalfest.com/

Apparently, it's one of those suprisingly awesome occassions in an otherwise, insular little town. I volunteered to help staff the religion department's booth, and I plan to wear my technicolor Israeli skirt. This is my attempt to bring my "international religion" to the day. I suppose I could wear Swiss gear - and claim my time studying theology in the alps, but I wasn't hired to teach Francis Schaeffer (thank God!) It'll be me in my Israeli skirt with my colleague, Bella - the African Christianity and World Religions professor here.

Afterwards, I am hosting my first dinner party here. Originally, I did not realize i was inviting new friends over on the same night as the international festival...but of course, once I realized this, I needed to promote the theme. I've decided to make Shakshuka.

Shakshuka is not exactly the most elegant Israeli dish. In fact, the name itself is telling; it means "all mixed up." It's mostly tomato and egg. You eat it on bread. You eat it straight out of the pan. Actually, the more I get into it, the even less glamorous it sounds! But I am pretty psyched about the plans...I found Doctor Shakshuka's recipe for Shakshuka on epicurious.com.

Doctor Shakshuka is a great little dive of a place in the old city of Jaffa (Tel Aviv). Meir, my Israeli friend, brought me (and Katie) there the first time. He was quite condescending about it. But the more he dismissed the cuisine, the more enamoured I became. I think he was embarassed, although he did enjoy reminiscing about eating this stuff as a kid - it sounded like weekly fair on his family's table. I imagine it might be like me making fun of the mac and cheese at Piccadilly to a foreign visiter. Perhaps.

But on my table, tomorrow night - there will be cucumbers and hummus, possibly freshly baked bread (depending on how ambitious I feel,) and a big ole' pan of "authentic" Shakshuka!

Abraham failed

2009-09-24T17:51:00.001-07:00

I gave the lecture in my Intro to the Hebrew Bible class last week on the Ancestral narratives. I could have gone so many ways with them. Genesis is one of the funnest books of the Hebrew Bible; I've done a fair amount of work on the redaction history of Genesis (and its relationship to the formation of the Penta(?)teuch - which I find fascinating! Beyond that, the topics are multiple: the idea of religion in Israel out from under the descriptive tyrrany of the Deuteronomistic ideology, great narrative criticism, texts of terror, anthropology (ie. kinship-structures,) gender readings...it's a regular playground for a biblical critic!

Among all of the options, I never thought I would want to talk about the Akedah (Binding of Isaac). For one thing, that story always felt too theological for my tastes...it raises issues within the growing relationship between God and Abraham (the father of the "faith.") Of course, I've always apprecited the way the story captures a fundamental problem in the concept of faith, that tension between observance/obedience/faith, and ethical action. Even with the rich history of attention to these sorts of issues within the story, I could not see myself taking time away from, say the story of Judah and Tamar to deal with Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac. The pay off with students (or my own intellectual passions) did not seem worth it.

BUT....given the context of my new position, in the Bible belt...I felt this fiesty draw to the story. For one thing...it permitted me to devote some of my lecture to the practice of child sacrifice in Israel. As one friend said, "those children who died deserve to have their story told." But beyond that, I saw the acute advantage of talking with students in the Bible belt about their sentimental notion of obedience and faith. These sentimental notions of simple faith and pure obedience are the same traits attributed to Abraham, this story serving to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt how faithful Abraham had become. In contrast to this reading of Abraham's character development, Isuggested to my class that the story of the binding of Isaac is about the dark side of obedience, the terror that lies behind blind faith.

For those who need a brief refresher: (others can skip this paragraph) Abraham was the first patriarch called into the promise of nationhood and covenant with the God of the Bible. He shows great courage in leaving his homeland to wander as a stranger in a strange land in response to the call of God. The big plot-tension in Abraham's story is that Sarah, his wife, the one who is to bear the progeny through which the promise can be realized, is barren. Barren and growing old. The birth of Isaac to Sarah and Abraham is nothing short of a miracle. However, where we pick up our patriarch is in Genesis 22, where he receives the message from God to go and sacrifice his son, his only son, Isaac. Abraham dutifully executes every direction given to him, and accoring to the history of art, his raised arm, gripping the knife, was ready, its taught veins already initiating the act. Only at the last second does God stay Abraham's arm, and provide a lamb as a replacement.

The Christian students in my class, who understandibly saw Christ in the lamb of redemption (literally, to redeem the first born), were not prone to quibble with the theology of the act. The strong forshadowing of Christ's death overshadowed any problematic ideas the story presents to them. So I showed them this You-Tube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqC73omSk4o. (Watch it!!!) it basically portrays Abraham as ridiculously incapable of "forming an independent thought" and God as (somewhat accurately to the diety in the Yahwist) fickle and unsure of the viabiliy of his own ideas. According to this reading, Abraham failed. His desire to obey corrupted the possibility of cultivating a rich and godly moral imagination. Only a few chapters previously, Abraham had reasoned morally with God about destroying the inhabitants in Sodom. But in Genesis 22, he reverted to unthoughtful obedience, and there's nothing in the narrative that indicates that Abraham did not fail this test miserably!!

The two narrative-elements that most strongly support this reading are God' subsequent relationships. Abraham never talks to God again. He falls out of the promise narrative. Instead, Jacob (arguably the main character of the promise narratives) gets all the focus; and it is Jacob (not Abraham) who is named Israel - the actual name of the nation.

What traits does Jacob bring to the divine relationship. Well, certainly not obedience! Jacob is a trickster, he is demanding, he reaches for blessings and interpolates himself into the narrative of promise. For this, he is not chastised by God. Rather, Jacob is renamed "Israel" - after "struggling with God and prevailing."

I am personally fascinated with these two patriarchs right now, and the way the book of Genesis narrarates the particular ways of relating to God. Most of my students still, after all this, preferred the obedience of Abraham to the opportunism of Jacob...but as for me, I take a great lesson from this. A relationship with God is dynamic; simple faith is not what is required. Simple faith is to fail the test.

the palm of my hand will yet be full again

2009-09-20T20:11:00.001-07:00

“If I could reach up and hold a star for every time you make me smile, the entire evening sky would be in the palm of my hand.” ~ Unknown

I don’t think anyone’s actually reading this blog, which is sort of freeing actually, …but if there were an audience, that audience would not be surprised to hear that I am thinking a lot about love and relationships these days. It’s hard to admit that your heart is broken, at least it always has been for me. I don’t like appearing weak, except with those I majorly trust. But I am beginning to see that having a broken heart does not at all deserve the kind of judgment I have previously rendered it. A broken heart is the beginning of the open heart…the one that, once it gets there, recognizes that control is not the same thing as choice and that a clenched hold is not the same thing as commitment.

I recently wrote a poem to a lost lover, one line of which said, “I cannot put the cover on the chest.” I think I’ve learned that it’s not actually the task…that the cover is off is not at all the problem…only fear threatens that open chest, only judgment looks on that state with such cruelty and malice. In truth, the open chest is how it should have been all along…for only an open hand collecting smiling stars can host the heavens on this earth (as per the quote above.)

This painful coming to terms with my open heart has involved several quite profound realizations for me.
1) There is more to me than I ever knew. The self-discovery that happened in my early 20’s is nothing compared to what I’m learning right now. It’s not even that I am accumulating a list of facts, traits, opinions, preferences, etc. What I am learning about myself is that I have profound resources, and many surprises within me. I’m learning that who I am is always going to reveal itself to me, even as I have several good hunches about what I’m about. Putting this in terms of the “Daily Texts” I’ve been reading (a little scripture and prayer publication I use) I am allowing fallow ground to be broken anew…places in me that have not seen the light of day, not tasted the irrigation of streams, and haven’t hosted seed-time in quite a while. I am not infinite…but there’s more ground in me than I could ever claim to know completely.
2) This goes for a partner as well. I delight in knowing people. I love to know what little things matter to them, what small pleasures make a dull day shine. But there’s something to also adopting the mind-set that these people we pal around with, they have all sorts of fallow ground as well…they may one day be willing to turn some new soil, and new sprouts become part of the bounty that is knowing them. It’s just a matter of orienting your love and knowledge of them so that this is possible.
3) Courage was never so important. Love provides many many reasons to fight or flight. Bravery is what allows us to stand, such as we are, and remain open, vulnerable, and express authentically. Bravery allows us to listen. Bravery allows us to NOT run out of the house, or turn to our books, or unleash our frustration with clenched fists. The brave warrior is most brave when standing still. (Of course, only someone who can provide top-notch treatment and love is worth being brave for…that is another aspect all together – but thankfully, I don’t feel like I’m caught in a bad pattern there.)
4) Pausing to observe makes a huge difference. Just a breath…looking at things for what they are. Being boldly honest about the various truths with which you are confronted. Just a brief moment helps draw us out of our commitments to our passions, opinions, self-protections, etc…and gives us a chance to re-commit to the team and its flourishing.
5) The nature of commitment is graded. As a single woman – I can only be committed 100% to myself. This does not mean that there will not be moments when I offer someone my whole presence. But what it does mean is that in the grand equation, I am free. My singleness is not a gift to be squandered. It is a beautiful stage of the soul, learning its boundaries, giving itself refreshment, exploring people for more than just a few appealing dates or promising comments. (This latter one is pretty key for me…I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard the talk of love and commitment, let my soul form a bond and commitment, and then see that words are not nearly as valuable as time and experience.) In addition to myself, I can also commit to wanting to be in a relationship. I can practice bravery, observation, turning over fallow ground, and letting someone else do the same.

These are valuable lessons. These are lessons I would not be learning if it weren’t for my broken heart. In this I have been brave, not in intimacy with someone else, but I’ve been forced to be brave with myself. I’ve had to stay put long enough to forswear my fight and flight reactions to myself, to my own sad soul. Being lonely pushes many of us into the world in a high-tilt. But man – do we need to sit with ourselves long enough to allow the head and the heart to have a meeting. And the more uncomfortable the better off we are likely to be in the end. Discomfort means that we will go ahead and step into the gated, feral field to see what might await us there…it requires us to express ourselves authentically to ourselves. And the more honest we are, the more likely we are to stumble on deeper courage and the most faithful of resolve.

the heart

2009-09-20T17:42:00.000-07:00

"The longest journey you will make in your life is from your head to your heart."

~ from a Sioux legend

up before the sun

2009-09-08T02:51:00.000-07:00

I am up early this morning...it feels good to beat everyone to the day...while others sleep, I am alive and kicking. This is sometimes a very needed symbol to give yourself.

I am aware this morning...of how much I can only be right here. Despite how far my memories and longings carry me, my body, my life, my heart is right here. In a new place, in a new phase of life...being present to one's self is not especially easy, and sometimes it's down right unpleasant.

...but last night was a good night. I went to an Iftar last night. Iftar is the meal that breaks the day's fast of Ramadan. My new friend, Scott, feels deep resonance with Islam, more than any other religion (that was a hard-won self-description for him, which though I've known him only a short while, I've watched him struggle to come upon...his students ask him if he's Muslim all the time, and he cringes to answer in the terms that they seem to demand...anyways...) so Scott invited me to the Mosque that he hasn't even attended yet. Women and men did everythign seperately...but I was with Rachel, so I at least had a partner through it all.

Stepping into a mosque to pray is quite a beautiful thing. Removing your shoes, sitting on a rug in a beautiful, sparse room, wearing a head covering...i felt transported in a way that I've needed since being here. Not even the Episcopal church managed to carry my heart the distance it needed to go, spiritually speaking. But in the mosque, it was not just the transport...it was also the experience of being SO totally present to myself. Kneeling, bowing, standing, and putting your head on the floor will give you back your body in a way most prayer cannot. So while my heart connected with the sparse beauty and sense of God, I felt embodied.

I need more of that...embodyment. As I said just above, I am having trouble feeling present here. My stomache feels sick and my heart burns sometimes at the feeling of being locked down here. I fear losing years of my life in a town that is enamored more with their suv's and clean coal and hunting liscenses than they are with bike trails, or the gorgeous river in town, or a vibrant down-town, or healthy eating.

But here I am. This is where life put me. I worked hard for some of what's here. I didn't ask for other things that are here. Accepting this and calming down just enough to get a life going here is what work lies before me. As my friend sarah said...(ironically since I live in the stripmall section of town - which is most of hte town, incidentally,) as sarah said...stay put and God will find you (advice to children who are lost in the mall.) Well...God...I'm here. I could use an antacid to deal with the anxiety of being locked down in this place...but i cannot be anywhere I am not. I give you my "here". Let's make something great, k?

iftar - http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/eboo_patel/2009/09/white_house_iftar.html?hpid=talkbox1

(un)clean coal - http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=580

huh?!?! - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_in_the_mall_technique

a little poem about presence - http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/burning-oneself-out/

Obama's Education Speech

2009-09-07T14:33:00.000-07:00

This week, Obama plans to address willing school children across the country. Some significant levels of outrage have swelled in talk radio and blog-sites over the past few weeks about the idea of a president addressing school children. It has been compared to Kim Jung-Il, Hitler, or tyrants who use education as a means of social brainwashing. More modest concerns appropriately feared that Obama would use the speech as an opportunity to plug his policies.

The text of the speech is posted below. It should vindicate Obama from his critics, even his modest ones. The speech is totally what I hope most parents are telling their children about their educations. I think it's amazing for someone in such a position (the president) to directly address children. He's their president too, and if it offers hope to a child, hope and confidence that they are worth being addressed...then this is a good end.

While a great speech and a very good gesture filled with all kinds of good and powerful symbolism, I will go ahead and name one aspect of uneasiness that does exist around the president's speech. I'm not worried about brain-washing, or socialist means of exerting state control...but there is somehting just a little bit strange about asking young people to work for their country at such a young age. Yes - there are problems, and yes - they *will* be a generation filled with innovators, leaders, servants, etc...but the idea that they must do so for the sake of the state is just a little off-base. That they should find their gifts and develop them for their country...hmmm...not quite right.

Children and education should not exist for the sole purpose of serving the future of the state. The definition of the "child" as that potential citizen is an unfortunate reduction. They *will* be adults one day, and they should be taught by their families and communities how to marshall their energies to be good citizens...but again..something just doesn't sit well. The "child" is not the same as an investment. A "child" is not the same thing as a product for generating future wealth and maintaining a dominant position on the globe.

Adults should not be either.

We find ourselves at a funny place in our country. We really are staring down the pipe of our own insignificance...watching as other countries vie for more powerful roles across the globe...and we are rightly worried about our future freedoms and powers. I support Obama's forsight in trying to make difficult decisions today (energy, education, transportation) in order to anticipate future challenges before they hit us square in the face and knock us flat in the ring without the wii gift of a new circle of energy! ...but the pragmatism of such a phase of American history should not distort our ideas about what citizens are and what the state is. A citizen cannot exist to serve the state alone.

All that said, I still think the speech is appropriate. We individuals in this country would do well to accept the fact that our actions affect others...our free pursuits can have negative consequence that we do not feel becuase the of the buffer of capitalism. The state is one body in which we participate, and we help ourselves and those we love by supporting the health and well-being of that body. Go children! Do your best! May opportunity open for you when you knock...and may you be a generation that betters the future.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/MediaResources/PreparedSchoolRemarks/

The Sunday Thought

2009-09-06T09:58:00.000-07:00

God can do nothing with apathy.

That was the sermon at church this morning. Our adoration, while totally appropriate, is not sufficient to establish a relationship with the living God...rather - adoration alone often masks a deep or else donned apathy about one's life.

God desires the vigorous soul. God desires to be bested, to be talked back to, to be suprised by our actions. HE promises always to walk with those who call on him, but he is psyched to go places with those who participate in the process.

This makes me ask myself this morning, what do *I* want. I will put down the saying, "Not what I want, Lord, but your will alone." Instead, what do I want? What do I want today? What do I want this semester? What do I want out of my life?

Ask yourself this question too. Be bold. Make what you want a constant demand on God. Speak with earnesty, ask with singular commitment, look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.

Ingrid Lilly on Google - the big dream!

2009-09-04T14:39:00.000-07:00

I'm listing a few url's that come up with a google search of my name. I'm trying to become spider-webbed into the internet so that google will pick up my blog in its search engine...mystifying, this whole thing. But kinda fun. Excuse the post.

http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/107878.html
http://www.jesslilly.com/journeys.html
http://www.wku.edu/pcal/uploads/Philosophy%20and%20Religion/WKU_P&R_newsletter_May_09.pdf
http://sitzimleben.com/2009/07/30/emory-participants-at-sbl-2009/
http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/sightings/

Actually - this one is totally worth linking to! http://www.sparkyland.com/professor/prof1.html
Jess made the video...I wrote the story (it was a Birthday card -the more random the better with my bros!)

okay - to add a few more urls...generally, I like the following websites:
www.nbc.com
www.comedycentral.com (daily show)
www.homestarrunner.com
www.theonion.com
http://www.mymysteryparty.com/adult.html
http://www.addictinggames.com/theimpossiblequiz.html
http://www.thebarefootpastor.blogspot.com/

Maine

2009-09-04T13:02:00.000-07:00

In a few days - I am jetting out of this land-locked life and flying up to POrtland, Maine. I grew up part of my life in Maine...on the coast. Maine is truly one of the most beautiful places on earth...rocky-coast, arctic-cold waters, die-hard evergreens, foggy streets, sea-salt smells, warm summer sun, clap-board seafood joints, island-hopping, fresh air, sun rises, and the eternity that is a massive and gray-blue ocean kissing every inlet of Maine's hostile and jagged shores.

I am lucky enough to have a sister-in-law who makes things happen! She knows how much my family loves Maine (they all moved to Vermont, so we have no ties to the state anymore.) She and my brother rented a cottage on Higgin's beach in Scarborough (next-door to Cape Elizabeth where I came of age.) We are all descending (except Sammy Jawhammy - who lives in Japan :-(, ) on this little slice of heaven for the week. I have to teach on Wednesday, so my visit will be shorter - but it's been probablly 8 years since I've been back. I feel like I am about to go retrieve a piece of myself that has been evading me all these years.

I got really attached to the ocean. There's nothing like walking over rocks, staring into tidepools, perching on an outcrop and watching the waves roll in towards the rocks. So much is happening right in front of you - so much more stretches out beyond what the mind can even imagine. I think topography accounts for a great deal of the way we imagine as adults...and I am convinced that the ocean gave me my love of mystery, my capacity to observe, and my sense of forever.

Glimmer and Dart - INTRODUCTION TO THIS BLOG

2009-09-03T06:52:00.000-07:00

My name is Ingrid Lilly and I am beginning this blog because I like to write, and I enjoy contemplating truth, and I have a big soul. Big souls hold the universe..or are willing to try. My universe (for a number of years now) has been study of the Bible.... academically, theologically, cynically, linguistically, culturally, historically, faithfully, ecologically, and all with good humor. And I try to do it all, all at once...all for the sake of contemplating truth. Goodness, where else can all that go but into a blog?!?! ;-)

So I have a large soul, which is not anything like saying I have an important soul, or a brilliant soul, or a better soul, or even a blessed soul. It’s not size that matters! ;-) But me and my big soul take a lot to heart and get a lot on our minds, like a giant bottom-feeder’s mouth that strains through pounds and pounds of sand for the occasional minnow-meal. My huge soul exposes my heart and mind to a lot more than the average Type-A personality. And we big souls – we tend to feel a lot more. (can we say, INFP!) We tend to feel a lot more and get stuck on things that smaller, more compact sized-souls walk all over on their way to other important things…and these other important things are, or at least can be, truly very very important – and in the equation of fallible moral-reasoning, can be *way* more important than the minnow that the bottow-feeder drudged up in its life on the ocean’s floor.

Nevertheless, a minnow is sometimes worth it!

So I started a blog, as a place to process these soulful-rabbit trails…explore the interface of my acedemic training and my creative juices. I am going to share my minnows...and all of the sand that comes with them. Glimmer and dart! This is truth to me...and I am persistant with it!

Love is...

2009-09-02T06:43:00.000-07:00

Love is....

loose. It's an open hand...an open heart. Love is letting. Love is not knowing. Love is praying and hoping. Love is never done. Love is always growing. Love is moving. Love is right where you are. Love is the needle that threads through time. Love pokes. Love stitches together. Love opens the windows. Love messes up your hair. Love can't hear over the music. Love finds its way home. Love holds your hand. Love makes room. Love believes all things, hopes all things, and says stuff you don't understand. Love cuts through darkness. Love disappears around corners. Love bellows through a trumpet. Love whispers too softly to hear. Love hides from ill-seekers. Love stands in plain sight. Love has good posture. Love lifts heads high. Love finds a way. Love looks beyond immediate barriers. Love massages your back. Love takes one for the team. Love hurts unintentionally. Love isn't looking where its going. Love knows the way. Love listens through tears. Love lifts up your meekness. Love heals sickness. Love frees the captives. Love counsels the wayward. Love gets angry at evil. Love doesn't play fair cause love's not a game. Love moves toward hope. Love shines in faith. Love lets him go. Love will never let you go. Love has plenty of stories. But love wont' let you stay up past your bedtime. Love knows you need rest. Love doesn't leave your side. Love cherishes you. Love really really cares about you. Love hopes you have a good day. Love does something special for you. Love hears the worst news. Love glistens in the sunlight. Love covers the earth at night. Love proteccts her children. Love heals pain. Love expands your feeble heart. Love readies a table. Love winks at your jokes. Love finds humor. Love laughs out loud. Love dances everywhere it goes. Love embarrasses teenagers. Love blushes at flattery. Love is shy around adults. Love never leaves you hanging. Love can't help itself. Love cries at sappy commercials. Love is your bff. Love gets disappointed. Love tries hard. Love tries again. Love askes you a question. Love accepts your faults. Loves is strong in weakness. Love wants to know you. Love doesn't put up with bull-shit. Love forgets fear. Love gets up from a fall. Love forgives hurt. Love certainly does get angry. Love always finds more to love about you. Love wakes you up for breakfast. Love unlocks its door. Love makes new memories. Love likes action. Love doesn't care about red tape. Love understands stone walls. Love helps you pile up the stones. Love likes your laugh. Love makes do. Love works with what it's got. Love doesn't waste a scrap. Love has great timing. Love does its own thing. Love stands at attention. Love never takes a day off. Love doesn't have a cell phone. Love doesn't text. Love will find you without them.

The Episcopal Church

2009-09-01T13:35:00.000-07:00

I am an Episcopalian now of 13 years. I was originally drawn to a small Episcopalian church in West Newbury, Mass called All Saints. I was drawn there because it was so foreign to the praise music/Bible-thumping that surrounded me while I was at Gordon College. I had come to this particular school as an earnest young person, interested in the life of the mind AND the life of faith. However, the evangelicalism at my school, which, if I'd done my research as a 17-year old, I should have known to expect, was both wonderful and awful. By the time I was a junior, though, I had stopped trying to live into this very foreign expression of faith, and was near to falling away into cynicism, were it not for this little stone church.

All Saints offered a completely new experience of worship and God to me. It was one piece of a several-year puzzle that helped to preserve and even deeped my faith, even as I worked through the confusion and criticism I had adopted as a result of my experiences at Gordon.

Initially, as a 21-year old, I liked three things. First, I liked the physicality. I liked, as it turned out, kneeling, and genuflecting, and turning to face the gospel reading, placing my thumb to my head and lips and heart to signify the three places which would receive gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. I liked it when on ash wednesday, the ashes that were placed on my head formed the vary cross that the oil of my baptism formed, this time reminding me not of my unity with Christ, but of my mortality. I liked smelling insence. I liked hearing bells right before the eucharist. I liked the old man who always waited until the very end to receive the elements, and wandered up the aisle giving everyone thumbs-ups on his way back to his seat.

Second, I liked the intellegence I met. For instance, when I attended the new members sessions to learn more about the church, I discovered a sense of history that I'd not experienced in the evangelicalism at Gordon, nor for that matter, the liberal-PCUSA church I grew up in. All Saints understood itself within a line of tradition...with an albeit complicated relationship to institutional Catholicism, but the notion of catholic tradition none-the-less. This historical perspective included a sense that theology was not simply an abstract pursuit of the universal enlightened mind, but rather a temporal process in specific locations of history. The benefit to this is a very special kind of humility about doctrine. Fallible people with material and profane concerns are always responsible for thinking through the sacred ideas that are developed within the church. This does not eschew the role of God, or the Spirit, in the process of such sacred thinking. However, God does not go it alone when it comes to *HUMAN* ideas about God.

There were several more examples of intellegence in this little church. The adult Bible study was unexpected, difficult, rigorous, and unshy.

Third, I liked the joy. I could not get over how amazing it was to walk into the parish hall on a Friday night, only to be greeted by piping hot casseroles, glasses of delicious wine, tables of good cheerful faces, and a floor for swing dancing. Yes - this was a once-a-month occurrance at this little stone church...a Pot-luck swing dance evening. I was spun by the rector; he was an amazing dancer!!!

Now, 13 years later, I'd like to add one more thing to this list: the Eucharist. The eucharist was always an appeal for me. But it was appealing becuase it fell into the category of the physical. I got to move up to the altar, kneel before the chalice, wait for the old guy to pass me with his thumb's up at the end! But now, my appreciation for the eucharist has developed its own distinctive meanings. It is no small or timid thing to commune with God and your brothers and sisters. And for the episcopal church, such communion is the central aspect of our identity. We take and eat with anyone who calls on the name of Christ. We put down our sectarian ideas and egotistical roles in order to break bread together. Ideally, the eucharist becomes the transcendent ground of our living and being together. We take and eat, and by this act, receive grace and the spiritual gift of renewal and reunion. All the rest (the sectarian debates, the theologizing, the incense, the swing dancing) are just fora for working out these mysteries in our communities, church, lives, and hearts!

On Mad Libs of Ancient Near Eastern Literature

2009-09-01T12:50:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, I taught my first University class at WKU: RELS101, "Old Testament/Hebrew Scriptures." I began the class with an excercise called "Baal Cycle Mad Libs." I chose a section of the Baal cycle that i thought would be especially fun to work with. I chose the scene of Baal's death in the mouth of Mot (Death) and Anat's reaction. I then omitted sections of text and replaced them with blank lines. I did this in provacative places, intending that students would fill in outrageous, hilarious, somber, and otherwise imaginative elements to the story.

The excercise had two pedagogical intentions. First, it was intended to break the ice. I grouped students in fours (roughly.) Thus, they had to start right in with a creative and intellectual project with one another.

Second, it was intended to break the impenatrable and inaccessible nature of ANE literature to young University students. I find that a source text from 4,000 years ago tend to be dreaded by the modern young person's mind. They are alienated from its literary conventions. They cannot access the imagery. Sometimes, it is difficult to relate with the issues or plots described. They cannot get "into" the train of its thought. Thus, I asked them to engage the material - quite literally. They had to read what was there in order to produce material for what was not there....this promotes an active readership, one that askes questions of the text, attends to its conventions (however minimally,) and anticipates its themes and meanings. I think it was a great idea.

So on its execution: The exercise fulfilled #2, and only somewhat fulfilled #1. In hindsight, its not the best way to begin the entire semester. Students had two fears to overcome at once: 1) fear of their fellow students. and 2) fear of this task at which they felt they could fail, despite my every effort to assure them otherwise. A different ice-breaker would have been better.

Finally - I will not use the title "Mad Libs" in association with this exercise. They seemed to be thrown by the fact that there were no little indications beneath the lines for "noun" "adjective" or "verb" to guide them along. This took some time to get over, before they could approach the blank lines freely.