A Morning Trip to Downtown DC, An Afternoon of Biblical Storytelling

I am happy to report that yesterday went well.  I had so many jitters and worries, but one of the nice things about being older is that I recognize my anxiety, and I know how to keep moving forward, in spite of it.  And yes, I do realize that I'm lucky to have that kind of anxiety and not the crippling kind of anxiety.

I got to seminary campus yesterday after a morning commute that isn't exactly hard (stop and go traffic followed by traffic at full speed and lots of merging here and there).  I parked the car, got organized for the morning expedition, and walked to the Metro station that's a mile away in Tenleytown.  I've been enjoying these neighborhood walks in the morning, and this was no different.

Two years ago when I took the Metro places, it was very deserted.  Not yesterday.  I did manage to get a seat, and it was an easy trip to downtown DC.  I was an hour and a half early, and I thought I might get a coffee, but the coffee places I saw didn't really have a place to sit, so I kept going.

I ended up walking around the Mall, which was delightful.  I do wish the museums opened earlier, but I enjoyed exploring the outdoor attractions.  The Hirshhorn Museum has a sculpture garden that is under construction, but some of the sculptures are now outside around the museum.

The gardens around the National Museum of the American Indian were even more of a delight.  Each section of the garden represents a different habitat (except for polar or desert) of the American Indian.  I loved these sculptures, created when the museum was first built.

The artist created these sculptures with the idea that the natural elements would interact with them and transform them.  Now they are home to birds and small creatures.

Finally I made my way to the Museum of African American History.  Faithful readers of this blog know that I went to this museum two years ago, and I'm glad that I did.  Yesterday I didn't have as much time, but I did go up to see the art, and then I did a quick walk through the lower history levels.

I caught a ride back to seminary with a fellow student who also had an afternoon class, and we got back in time for the lunch that was offered by the seminary.  

My afternoon class is called Parables and Parallels, which is a class in Biblical storytelling.  Yesterday was the day for our first offerings.  I had chosen Luke 8:  43-48, the story of the bleeding woman who touches the fringe of Jesus' cloak and is healed.  I chose that text back in early September and while my mind returned to it, I didn't really work on it.  On Sunday, I thought that it was time to get serious, since we were going to present it on Wednesday.  There were moments where I thought I would never get it pulled together.

Happily, my teacher is not the kind of person who is looking at the original text and seeing how many words we missed.  We had the latitude to make judicious changes.  We had the opportunity to be dramatic in so many ways.

We all did a great job, at least from my point of view as a fellow student.  It was both familiar to me, yet completely different.  It's not at all like a sermon, and vaguely similar to various drama projects, yet different.  We're supposed to engage with the audience, which is different from most drama projects.

I felt a weariness as the afternoon went on, so it was nice to end up at the house of my sister and brother-in-law for supper.  Then I went home and went almost immediately to bed.

And now, day four of the intensive--let me take a shower and get ready for the day.

Wednesday: The Most Intense Day of the Onground Intensive Week

I only have time for a quick post today, which will be the most intense day of the onground intensive.  This morning, I'll make that drive to campus, then walk to the Metro to go downtown.  My Race, Gender, and Religious Imagination class is going to the Museum of African American History!  And then I come back to campus for my afternoon Biblical Storytelling class, where it is our turn to tell our Biblical stories.

I chose the story of Jesus and the bleeding woman who touches the fringe of his cloak and is healed.  I felt like I already knew the story inside and out, but it's still a little unnerving and nervous making to be telling it in this way.  I've practiced and practiced, and I think I am ready.

Still, I will be glad when this day is over.  It's full of things I've done before, like taking the Metro downtown, so I shouldn't be afraid.  I still feel a bit on edge.  In part, it's because I need to be back for afternoon class to tell my story.

Let me go ahead and get ready.  Let me breathe.  Let me remember that all shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well (thanks, Julian of Norwich!).

Ideas for Introductions and First Small Group Reaction Teams

I will write a longer post later about this onground intensive week.  I'm still trying to figure out the best approach to commuting, so today I'm leaving a bit earlier.  I hope to avoid some traffic, get to campus early, and take a walk.

But I did want to remember a few techniques that we used in class yesterday that might work for other classes, especially classes that I teach.

In both classes, we did introductions.  In one class, though, our teacher had spread cards across a table, index cards with images on them.  We were to choose one that we felt most represented who we are.  The images ranged from images of items from the natural world, historic pictures, illustrations from books,  pictures of people doing things like working at a pottery wheel, singing, exercising.  We divided into pairs to talk about what the picture meant and why we chose it.  Then we introduced our partners.

It was interesting to see what people remembered about what we said about ourselves.  And we got some interesting nuggets that we probably wouldn't have gotten with the standard go around the room and introduce yourself.

In the other class, we discussed Isabel Wilkerson's book Caste.  Our teacher had put signs around the room, signs like "Ecstatic," "Mildly Enthusiastic," "Bored," "Negative," and some responses in between.  She had us get up and move to the sign that most captured the way we felt about the reading and the book.  Then we talked for five minutes in our groups, and then we talked for the rest of the class as a whole class.  

It was great to see how everyone felt.  It was great to be put into a small group, but only for a short period of time.  I think this could work in any literature class, and I plan to use it.  I'm always looking for a way to get people away from staring at their phones.

Columbus Day, Indigenous People's Day, Onground Intensive Day

I am feeling a bit scattered this morning, so let me collect some fragments and see if they cohere into a whole.  Even if they don't, fragments are interesting in their own right.

--Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Hastings, where poor Harold was killed by an arrow.  Legend has it that the arrow hit him in the eye and went into his brain.  Why is this battle important?  Back in my teaching days, I talked about how the English language changed, with the French taking control of the island of Britain.  It's why English has so many adjectives, and also why the linguistics are much more complicated than a straight forward Romance language like French.

--Those days of teaching the Brit Lit Survey class seem so far away, and also, like it was just last year.

--Similarly, when I returned to preaching and presiding at Faith Lutheran yesterday, I thought about how it felt like years since I had been at the church, even though it had only been 3 weeks.  It was good to be back, even as I'm not sure about the future, less sure than I was 3 weeks ago.  I want to believe that roads will be rebuilt quickly, but until I 26 is rebuilt, it will still be a 3+ hour trip to Bristol.

--Today begins the first day of the onground intensive week of my 2 seminary classes that have an onground intensive.  It feels surreal to be here.  I'm not on campus; I asked for campus housing too late.  Word came back that they were full.  I'll be interested to see if my old building, Carroll Hall, is indeed full.  I'll understand if they're not using that building anymore; I was willing to have housing for this week in that building and willing to bring my own bedding and towels.

--So, I am staying in a Fairfield Inn near my sister.  I looked at possibilities slightly nearer to campus, but honestly, there's not lodging much closer to campus.  Being close to my sister has additional perks--we can have dinner together each day.

--Today will be less traffic during my commute because it's a federal holiday, the one that originally celebrated Columbus, but now may celebrate Indigenous people or explorers or colonization.  Most places I've ever lived never celebrated it at all, but federal workers have today off, as do many non-federal workers in this area.  I will still leave at 7 to give myself plenty of time.  There will be coffee on campus, and it will be a pleasant week for walking if I get there early.  The neighborhoods around seminary are gorgeous, after all.

--Yesterday's traffic here was dreadful, all along the way.  I found myself thinking, this is why people hate driving on vacations.

Season of Washed Out Roads

I have spent many hours this week looking at a variety of maps and websites about travel--not the glamorous kind of travel, but the department of transportation kind of travel:  which roads are closed, where are the accidents, which roads are gone.  I stopped at the North Carolina welcome center during a trip back from Columbia to get a paper map.  I was sure there must be another way to get from Arden, North Carolina (near Asheville) to Bristol, Tennessee, where I preach and preside at Faith Lutheran church.  I have felt sadness in thinking about how easy it used to be, and then I have felt guilt about my sadness, because a washed out interstate is so much less than so many people need to think about now.

On Friday, I accepted the fact that our trip would be much, much longer than it used to be.  We used to get to Bristol in just under two hours.  Yesterday it took us five hours.

Long ago, before there was a hurricane, my church asked if I would come for their chili fest event on Saturday, October 12.  They offered to pay for a hotel, and that made it easier to figure out logistics.  When my stepmom-in-law said that a chili fest sounded like fun, we invited them to come and stay over for church the next day.  We both bought hotel rooms that are non-refundable.  And then a hurricane came and devastated the mountains.

They live on the Tennessee side, between Chattanooga and Knoxville, and they had a much easier trip.  We went east and then north and then west. 

We were there in time for lunch.  We ate at Delta Blues BBQ in downtown Bristol and then walked a bit.  There was a Tri Cities pride event in the park, which meant we couldn't park close to the Birthplace of Country Music Museum, so we'll save that for another day.

The chili fest was great:  so many options, and yet I was still full from lunch.  There was a hayride; I thought it would be around the parking lot, but it was across the big field that the church owns:

It was great to see everyone and to be in a place that's functioning in a near-normal way.  It was great to be around autumnal events:  chili, a hayride, decorations, college football.

Today after worship, I drive another 6 hours up the road to Maryland.  This week is the onground intensive for two of my seminary classes.  When I signed up for them, back in March, I was excited.  I had a vision for the classes in the week before I left, how I would prepare my students for my week away.  I've adjusted those plans.

I'm trying not to focus on all that has been lost this autumn, all that did not/will not take place.  I don't want that grief to detract from the joy of all the things that will take place this autumn.

Hurricane Lessons

Yesterday I got an e-mail from Spectrum telling me that because I had used over 5 GB of data, my data would be slowed.  I have never used 5 GB of data, but then again, I've never had my home internet disrupted for 2 weeks resulting in my need to use my phone as a hotspot.  I don't have unlimited data, but I thought that as long as I wanted to pay for the extra GB I used, not a problem.  I had resigned myself to a larger monthly cell phone charge.

Because I'm traveling soon, and because I have no idea when our home internet will be restored, I spent time on the phone with Spectrum to find out what my options were.  I upgraded my phone to unlimited data, which is why I can write a blog post, here in the early morning hours, with my phone as a hotspot.  I can go back to my cheaper by-the-gig plan at whatever point in the future our home internet is restored.

I don't fault Spectrum exactly.  It was an unexpected event, and our neighborhood was hard hit.  I feel lucky to get power, which was restored on Thursday night.  It does remind me of one of the basic rules of hurricane recovery, which is that it will take longer than we think.

Yesterday I went back to campus, where my classes were half full.  I mainly checked in with my students and discussed next week, where I will be out of town.  Long ago, I enrolled in two seminary classes that have an onground intensive week Oct. 14-18.  It's not ideal timing in terms of getting students back into a routine, but I don't have options.

Frankly, I think that students can use the time to catch up.  I'm feeling a bit of hurricane brain fog.  But I expected that.  I've gone through hurricanes before.  I expect that recovery will take a long time and years from now, I'll find myself feeling weepy about the autumn I thought I would have and the autumn of 2024 that I actually had.

It puts me in mind of a poem I wrote.  I've posted it before, but it's worth reposting.  Paper Nautilus published my poem "What They Don't Tell You About Hurricanes," but I'm fairly sure that this title is not my original creation. I'm almost sure there's an essay with the same title in the wonderful book Writing Creative Nonfiction. The essay stays with me even now, the writer who bought his dream boat, only to see it destroyed by Hurricane Fran. I'd look it up, except that I don't own the book.

So, here's the poem, all of it true, except for the reference to an industrial wasteland. I wouldn't have written it at all, except for the strange incident of weeping in the parking garage some 4 or 5 years after Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma. The industrial wasteland is actually a water treatment plant, but I changed it for some dramatic impact.


What They Don’t Tell You About Hurricanes


You expected the ache in your lazy
muscles, as you hauled debris
to the curb, day after day.

You expected your insurance
agent to treat
you like a lover spurned.

You expected to curse
your bad luck,
but then feel grateful
when you met someone suffering
an even more devastating loss.

You did not expect
that months, even years afterwards,
you would find yourself inexplicably
weeping in your car, parked
in a garage that overlooks
an industrial wasteland.

Partial Restorations

I wrote this post earlier this morning, but had no way to post it, since I still have no internet:

I sit here writing on this desk that was damaged by Hurricane Irma, almost exactly 2 weeks to the day and time we lost power in Hurricane Helene. What’s remarkable about that sentence is that we went through Hurricane Helene in the mountains of North Carolina.

We are just south of Asheville, so we have been spared the worst. We did go without electricity for two weeks, and we still can’t drink our water right out of the tap. But water does come out of the tap, and we can flush the toilets without a bucket. We still don’t have house internet restored, but the phone can work as a hot spot.

If I didn’t live so much of my life online, with classes that I teach and classes that I’m taking for seminary, this might have been an enjoyable time off. But I’ve needed to have an internet connection almost daily, so twice I’ve gone to a friend’s house in Columbia, SC to stay for 48 hours, and this week, my local church, Lutheran Church of the Nativity, opened up their fellowship hall from 10-2 to offer the community a place to charge devices, free wi-fi, and free water, both drinkable and not. It’s been a great service to members and the community.

As I reflect on our experience, I’m realizing how many parts of our lives have prepared us for these weeks that have been somewhat off the grid. We’ve kept some of our hurricane supplies and equipment, like the French press coffee pot. When we remodeled the kitchen, we chose a gas stove, thinking that if the power went off in an ice storm, we could still cook or heat water. Through the years, we’ve lived in various houses in various states of remodel and those experiences have given us skills in doing without modern conveniences.

I will be the first to admit that I did not take this storm seriously, and I won’t make that mistake again. It was my spouse who filled up our first round of water containers and captured rain water in every five gallon bucket he could find. We had both cars full of gas, but that was a fluke. I thought I’d be commuting, and I wanted to fill our cars up on Wednesday night, not Thursday when it would be raining. We had some cash on hand; we’d have had more if I hadn’t spent it at the farmer’s market a week earlier. It was a fluke that we had it at all.

Today I return to work at Spartanburg Methodist College. This past week, both the schools where I teach were closed due to different hurricanes, and today they will both be open.. Tomorrow we make the trip to Bristol, and then on Sunday, from Bristol I go to DC for the onground intensive week for two of my seminary classes. I hate that I will be missing my onground classes for a week so soon after this long hurricane break, but it can’t be helped. I had planned to spend this past week getting the students prepped for my week away, but now I’ll have them write about their hurricane experience.