Scary Stories in a Pandemic Year

Here we are, at the second Halloween in a year of pandemic.  Of course, you might not know anything is out of the ordinary, depending on where you live.  I am not seeing nearly as many masks as I once did, but my county has a vaccination rate of 82% and a low positivity rate of 3%, according the county school board which will stop requiring high school students to wear masks on Monday, All Saints Day.

I wish I trusted their numbers.  I have this vision of an animation of this disease laughing and saying, "Sure, it's a low positivity rate now.  Take those masks off and see what happens."

I am still keeping my mask on in stores and trying to remember to wash my hands whenever I return from someplace outside my home or office.  And I try to go to stores early in the morning, when there are less people there.  Of course, I did that before the pandemic too.

Yesterday I went to the grocery store early.  We live in a new place this year, so I wanted to get some Halloween candy, just in case.  I'm glad I did.  Yesterday at 3, there was a knock on the door--trick or treaters!  I gave them candy.  I wondered if I missed the memo about trick or treating in the building.  I went down to check the mail, just in case a notice was put in our boxes.  Nope.  I admired the ambition of the children and waited for more to follow their lead, but so far, they are our only trick or treaters.

I am trying not to think about past Halloweens, when we would have had different plans.  Today we will go to church, where I will do something different with the altar, because it is Reformation Sunday.  At Trader Joe's on Friday, I bought some mums, which we can use both today and next week, for All Saints.  

And then we'll see if we get more trick or treaters, if they get to us before we finish up all the candy.  I will bake a chocolate cake for work tomorrow, where we'll be celebrating a colleague's birthday.  We won't be carving pumpkins or doing anything seasonal.  We watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown last week, so we may not even have much in the way of seasonal viewing; I don't want to fill my brain with the typical Halloween movie fare. 

So, it will be a low-key Halloween, more like a typical Sunday that a holiday.  But that will be O.K. too.

Notes on a Trauma Conference

I spent much of yesterday "at" a conference on trauma; because it was a virtual conference, I could be on campus, taking care of school business (typically light on Fridays), while hearing interesting presentations on trauma research, on trauma in texts, on how to remake our spaces to make them safer for people who have suffered trauma.

I joined the Zoom meeting prepared to turn off my camera and my microphone, but we were never allowed those controls, which is fine with me.  If we wanted to interact, we wrote in the chat, and people did.  In some ways, it was more interactive than a traditional conference.  At a traditional conference, only a few people get to pose a question at the end of a presentation.  That was not the case yesterday.  From what I could tell, almost every question was answered.

All of the presentations were compelling, although the last presenter did talk a bit fast.  I liked that I could control the volume, because his voice would have been hard to hear in a big conference room.  All attendees will get access to the recording.

The presentations had a nice balance.  For example, the first presenter talked about compassion fatigue, but also compassion satisfaction, the good feelings we get from helping people.  Although the conference was sponsored by Wesley Theological Seminary, the presentations seemed applicable to many professions.

I was even able to use some ideas from the presentation in my writing for seminary.  I had been wrestling with how to end my discussion post on God hardening Pharaoh's heart in the Exodus story, so it was interesting to hear a speaker talk about how some of the aspects of God that I find comforting--like the idea of God holding us in a loving gaze--might be difficult for someone who has been abused by someone who claims to love them.  The presenter talked about how a God who saves some people while destroying the oppressor might be useful for a trauma victim.

It's the kind of conference I wouldn't have been able to attend in my regular life, if it was offered in a face to face way.  I don't know that I would have felt I could justify the time away, the expense.  But a free conference that I could watch from my office?  Perfect.  If it had turned out to be less useful, I could have shifted my attention to something else.  

But how delightful that it turned out to be such a good experience.

Last Days of Daylight Savings Time

I almost always take my morning walk at the same time, around 6 a.m.  These days, there's only a hint of sunrise when I get to the lake; we are far from the blazing sunrise of summer.  In some ways, it means I'm not distracted by those intense colors of the morning.  There's still much to see in the dark:

--Yesterday morning on my walk, I saw a shooting star.  Yes, I know I should be scientifically accurate and call it a meteor.  Frankly, my poet self doesn't think either of those terms accurately describe what I saw.  I saw a slender sliver of a shooting star, a silver thread.  I knew it wasn't a plane because of its descent and disappearance.  Did I make a wish?  

--I saw a solitary bird fly overhead, and if it hadn't made a sound, I wouldn't have looked up..  When I looked back down, I saw a feather on the grass.  It was wet when I picked it up, so it probably wasn't from that bird.  I thought about flight and falling and the Emily Dickinson quote, about hope being a thing with feathers.

--From the distance of several blocks, I saw the neighborhood fox trot across the street, fully lit by the streetlamps.  You might ask, "How do you know it was a fox, not a cat?"  In part because of the confidence of the walk, and in part because the tail was held up--most cats don't hold their tails up in that way when they walk.  You might ask, "How do you know it was a fox and not a coyote?"  I can't be sure, because I couldn't see the shape of the tail.  

I am already feeling a bit sad about the end of daylight savings time, about how light it will be when I walk.  I am feeling sad that all these Halloween lights and decorations will be banished soon.  I am sad about how it is still warm, humid, and windless.

But I am happy about the wonders of nature, about feeling like I'm the only one out and about, about having time to ramble, and having mobility, even with the aches and pains that come with middle age and arthritic feet.

Fall Festivals, Past and Present

Yesterday, we had a Fall Festival at school.  As with many parts of life (all of life?), I found that if I didn't compare it to past events, the current event was lovely.

My first day at my current job was October 31.  I arrived on campus at 10:30 expecting to meet all the people who would be reporting to me, and for many of them, I thought it would be the first time they knew their old boss was gone.  I went into the conference room, we all introduced ourselves, and then someone knocked, opened the door, and said, "The costume contest is starting.  Can we take a break?"  I nodded, and off we went.

It was an amazing sight to behold, especially since I had just come from a very sad school that was in the process of a very slow motion, very long closing.  I loved the energy and the enthusiasm.  It was a great first day.

Until last year, we had a costume contest each year.  We had treats.  In the weeks leading up to the big day, we had pumpkin decorating.  This year, we just had treats, with costumes optional, since most students are in lab and need to wear scrubs.

I didn't get to choose the treats, so it was an odd assortment of pre-wrapped stuff:  Skinny-Pop popcorn, Lays Potato Chips (the classic kind, nothing interestingly flavored), cotton candy, and very small pieces of candy (Twix, Snickers, and Milky Ways).  We had small bottles of water.  I had found some cookies on sale at Wal-Mart and some mini cupcakes, so I spent $10, and set those treats up in the break room with fresh coffee and hot water and hot cocoa packets.  People squealed with delight about the cocoa, but they didn't drink much of it--but that was fine with me.  We also had a game that someone else chose:  a big block Jenga kind of game.  We set it up, but no one played.

Many students expressed thanks and happiness about the treats, so that was good.  A few students wore costumes, and our library assistant wore a witch hat.  We had decorated the campus earlier, but having treats boosted the happy energy level in a way that surprised me.

I worried, as I always do, that we would run out of treats, but we didn't.  And now, we have snacks for today and probably tomorrow and into next week.  We got more Lays chips than anything else, and it's hard for me to imagine that we can ever eat them all.

I chose Wednesday for our festival because we have more students here on a Wednesday than any other day.  It's sobering to me to realize how many fewer students we have than we did in 2016, when I first saw the campus in festive action.

But again, let me remember this lesson that I will spend the rest of my life learning:  if we don't compare our current circumstances to any other circumstances, we will be far happier.  Let me relish the happiness of a Fall Festival that came together with very little lead time.  Let me be happy that we can do a pandemic-safe, socially distanced festival. 

Seminary Studies, Week 9

It has been a week/month/season of frustrations.  Our house sale is progressing, but we hit a snag because inspectors are backed up.  My spouse and I have had such a wide variety of tech issues that I can't begin to list them.  Our condo has a beautiful rooftop pool that is inaccessible because there's a leak somewhere and all the structural engineers who might be able to advise the best way to fix the leak are in high demand with the collapse of the condo in Surfside in June.

I could continue with this list, but you get the idea.  I am trying not to get bogged down in despair, so I've been focusing on what's going right.  In my 9th week of seminary classes, I'm happy to report that I'm still thrilled to be a seminary student.  I've written one purple legal pad full of notes from classes.  

I imagine that years from now, when I look back on this time period, the thrill of seminary classes will be what I remember.  And to help me remember, let me list a few high notes from this point in my progress:

--Last night, in my New Testament class, I heard the BEST analysis of the Mary and Martha story that I've ever heard.  What if Mary is not the purpose of the story, not the role model that so many of us have heard that she is?  If we see Martha as a weary disciple, does the story change?  The story is positioned between the Good Samaritan story and the teaching of the disciples to pray--how does this positioning help us analyze the story?

--In my Hebrew Bible class (what we used to call Old Testament), we've gotten to the Exodus story.  As I read these stories, many of them familiar from childhood, but not recently familiar, it's very strange to reflect and dive deep.  It feels disrespectful to my Jewish friends and colleagues to air my criticisms.  At the same time, my modern sensibilities recoils at some of the capriciousness of this God and at the actions of these ancient people.  I still haven't sorted out my discomfort.

--My Hebrew Bible class is completely online, so I have my professor's lectures on video to watch.  While she doesn't completely allay my discomforts, she helps me imagine that there might be a path if I continue to wrestle.  Wrestling and arguing--these are good verbs for Hebrew Bible class.  My favorite quote from this week's lectures:  "God does not call prophets to be puppets."

--While I imagine I would feel a tighter sense of community if we were all taking classes in person, I am beginning to feel like I'm getting to know some of my classmates.  In my Spiritual Formation class, we were divided into groups that would meet once a week.  Our time availability was how the class was split up.  Each small group has a discussion thread that only they contribute to, along with the discussion thread for the whole class.  In my virtual classes, we break out into small groups every week, which also helps me feel like I'm getting to know people.

--I do feel lucky that all of the tech woes haven't impacted my ability to go to seminary classes or get the work done.  I have the best internet connectivity in our condo that I've ever had in a living space, and I have some back up plans if I need them:  connectivity at school, connectivity at the public library, connectivity at my church.  I can't imagine how people do distance learning if internet coverage is spotty.

I am now closer to the end of my first semester than the beginning.  I'm happy that I'm still excited about these classes, that I'm still learning so much, that I'm still getting so much joy from this experience. 

Sorcery and Enchantment in the Modern Setting

Recently, I have made these Facebook posts, which I have made into Tweets once I reduced the word count.  They seem worth preserving in an easier to find format.  I feel a poem brewing out of them:  witchery, enchantment, the modern office, etc.  Or maybe they are just comments on modern life in 2021--still worth preserving.

Ordering supplies for Vet Tech, and it feels very appropriate for Halloween, even though we make these kinds of orders year round: sheep's blood, brains, that kind of thing. All in a day's work! And still I find myself leaving notes that I never expected to make in my professional life: "The sheep's blood won't arrive until Nov. 8." Am I a campus director, a spy, or a witch?

As I walked home from the grocery store, a couple walking their dog said, "It's not raining." I said, "Not yet." Four minutes later, I was at home, and it was pouring rain, and I am thinking of changing careers to meteorologist or witch.

Dark clouds scud across the sky, but it's still close to 90 degrees outside. I will drink hot tea for as long as the dark clouds help me maintain the illusion of fall. And having the office AC set on arctic helps too, as does the pot of mums on my desk and the autumn lights strung across the fairy trees. And pumpkins--pumpkins help too.

My New Testament professor greets us all by name as we enter the classroom space. Of course, it's on Zoom, so she has the benefit of our names being on the screen. But it's so welcoming and so simple to do, and I wanted to remember.

Exegetical Writing

I have spent the last two weeks working on two different exegetical papers, one for my New Testament class and one for Hebrew Bible (what we used to call Old Testament).  An exegesis is a close reading.  It was some of the most intense reading and writing that I've ever done.  You might say, "Wait, didn't you earn a Ph.D. in British Literature?  And you didn't do the same kind of close reading?"

No, we really didn't.  It was a different kind of close reading, and many of us did more close readings of the secondary sources than the primary texts.  I felt that twinge during the past week when I looked at secondary sources that explored the book of Joshua.  I thought, I'll never be able to look at a critical mass of these secondary sources.  Then I reminded myself that a review of secondary sources was not part of this assignment.

Let me describe the process for the exegesis for my New Testament class.  From a choice of 3 passages, I chose Matthew 3:1-17, the passage that describes the appearance of John the Baptist and the baptism of Jesus.  Step 1 was to write about myself and what attracted me to the passage.  

In Step 2, we turned to the text for our first close reading.  We made a list of  “'speed bumps'—details that slow you down, demand your attention, evoke strong feelings, seem out of place or confusing—such as specific words, actions, characters, situations."  I made a list that included items like these:  

--What made John the Baptist so appealing to his contemporaries? It sounds like they would have had to make significant effort to see/hear him. What made the people go out to the wilderness?

--Do others see the dove? Do others hear the voice?

Step 3 was a different kind of close reading of the passage.  We chose three different translations, and we had instructions about the spectrum of translations needed.  One needed to be a word for word translation (I used the NASB), one thought for thought (I used the CEV), and one in the middle (I used the NRSV).  I looked at them side by side, and happily, the Bible Gateway site makes this easy.  I found the word choices fascinating, and I could have spent twenty pages noting and analyzing those choices.  But again, that would not have been the purpose of this exegetical assignment.

We outlined the passage and made a list of key words.

We then did work with the concordance, and again, I felt fortunate to be doing this in a time of so many online tools that are free.  I could lose the rest of my life wandering through Blue Letter Bible.  We chose one word; I chose "wilderness."  We looked to see meanings of the word in Greek and where it shows up elsewhere.

For my New Testament exegetical assignment, we then moved to step 4, which was a comparison of the same story in a different gospel, so I looked at Mark 1:2-11.  We looked at the order of events in each gospel, and at where the story falls in each gospel, what's going on before and after the story.  We looked at the differences in each version.  We thought about why we had each gospel and what the story provides to each gospel.

Then we wrote a conclusion, met as a class, met in small groups, and then wrote another conclusion.  It was intense all along the way, and I learned a lot, not only from my own work, but from having the small group meeting with my classmates who studied the same passage.  It was a passage that I have read and heard proclaimed from pulpits for my whole life, so it's intriguing to me that I can learn so much new from such a familiar text.

I say that I've never had that experience of close reading before, but that's not exactly true.  In my undergraduate English classes, my favorite English teacher would do something similar.  I took a Romantics class, and we spent weeks on one Wordsworth poem.  But she did much of the work, the digging for meaning, the presentation of the background information that helped us understand the poem.

I had forgotten how it makes me feel alive in such a unique way, to be doing this kind of deep dive.  I hope I get to keep experiencing this on a regular basis.