Summer Vibes on Halloween

Yesterday I spent a chunk of time sorting through photos for a haiku creating module that I'm doing with my English 101 students.  Although I took this picture in late August, this one leapt out at me as having a spooky, Halloweeny vibe:

But as I looked through the file this morning, I thought others might work better:

The first picture will give students more to write about--more about this project later.  Back to today's writing vibe, which is more late summer than autumnal.

Here I am, astonished at the fact that it is Halloween.  In past years, I've spent more time in stores that have costumes, bags of candy for trick-or-treaters, and decorations, and these displays often go up in August.  This year, there is a Helene shaped hole in my October.  I went to a few stores in Columbia, SC, when I went down to get internet access and electricity at a friend's house, and I remember feeling astonished that the calendar had kept rollicking along without me.  The grocery stores here have very small displays of candy.

Plus, it's been a very warm autumn.  In fact, the last few nights, I've had the windows open, and yesterday, I went for an afternoon walk in a sleeveless shirt.

How long ago it seems now, back in early September, when I bought my first pumpkin to create a pile of pumpkins that I like to have at the end of the driveway, by my mailbox:

Last year, we were well into 2024, months after I tossed the pumpkins in the back yard to make room for Christmas displays before the squirrels began to nibble on them.  This year, they've begun--and that's fine with me.

It's rattling to think that in a month, I'll need to be thinking about those Christmas decorations for the fence line.  My favorite time of year, from late August to December 24 is quick slipping away.  Let me try to be more present in the current moment.

Our First Attempt at Voting Early

We planned to vote early yesterday.  I looked up the wait times at the Buncombe county website, and at our closest location, the wait time was 25 people.  That seemed manageable, so off we went.

Our county has early voting at local libraries, and our closest branch doesn't have much parking, even when there's no voting happening.  It's also beside one of the bigger local high schools, so I worried a bit about getting in the way of carpools.  But I thought that we could park there, if need be.

Ha!  The kindly traffic directing person told me that the overflow parking across the street at the church was full, and that all the traffic clogging the main road was voting traffic, not carpool traffic.  So off we went, across back roads, and we will try again later.

I wanted to vote early yesterday in case we couldn't cast our votes--we'd still have other chances.  But I didn't really expect that we wouldn't be able to vote yesterday.  Happily, I have several back up plans.  We'll try to go to a different library branch on Thursday.  If all else fails, polls open at 6:30 a.m. on Tuesday, and I can vote before I head down the mountain to Spartanburg.  I don't want to wait until after work on election day, for fear of being unable to get there.

I am not unhappy that we couldn't vote yesterday, although I did want to get it done.  But I am thrilled that so many are voting.

Halloween Approaches: Haunted by the Ghosts of Halloweens Past

Halloween approaches.  I have been having slightly scary dreams, the kind where I know that something bad is about to happen, so when I jerk awake, I decide not to drift back off.  Last night it was a sparkling ocean with moving walkways on slender spires far above the ocean, heading off to some final destination that seemed unlikely, but my mom had gone on ahead and didn't have her phone.

When I write it out, it doesn't seem as slightly scary as I thought it was when I was dreaming.  Let me capture a few moments that seem to crystallize what this late October feels like:

--I heard a banging on the deck--something was clearly out there.  I wasn't worried that it was a murderer or a burglar. Here in the mountains, I'm much more worried about bears.  But it was a raccoon.  I wasn't quick enough with my camera/phone.  Now all is quiet on the deck.

--Last night, we saw one of the numerous ads for other Roku channels that run on the Roku channel we've chosen.  The ad was for the Haunted channel, which reminded me that Halloween approaches, and I've barely noticed.  Last year I was sketching witches and cats and big moons and haunted houses and pumpkins, like this sketch:

--This year, I spent my sketching time in October sketching broken trees:

--As we watched the promo for the Haunted channel, I realized that what I really want is a Halloween Lite channel, where we could watch It's the Great Pumpkin, Charley Brown and every Halloween special episode of Roseanne and other sitcoms.

--In past Halloweens, I've written poems about being the ghost haunting the house.  This line popped into my head:  "I am the haunted house."  It doesn't feel particularly original, but it does seem like it would take me interesting places.

--As I looked through my camera files on the phone, I realize I've taken lots of photos.  On my Saturday walk, I found this weaving of dried vines, still slightly curved from where it had been around a tree trunk.  

I carried it with me and put it in various places as I thought about how it reminded me of a corset.  If I had to title this photo, it would be "The Tree Removes Her Corset":

--Yesterday I noticed the shape of leaves on pavement from where they had been before.  The brown is actually mud/dirt, which made me think of God or a storm painting in mud.  

--I also thought of ghosts and hauntings:

--Today we will make our first attempt at early voting; if something should happen, we will make our second attempt on Thursday.  The juxtaposition of voting and Halloween--lots of haunting possible symbolism there.

Wreckage and Ruin on the Way to Church

Yesterday I made the trip to Bristol, Tennessee, where I preach and preside at Faith Lutheran each Sunday.  Yesterday I left at 6:50 a.m.; I took a book with me, in case I got there very early and needed something to do.  Google Maps told me that the optimum route would take me 2 hours and 10 minutes; it took me 2 hours and 45 minutes.

My spouse couldn't go with me yesterday because he's been recovering from the ways his body has been protesting all the chain saw work he did earlier in the week.  I was feeling anxious, so I decided to print the Google Maps directions, in case I got to a part of the backcountry roads and lost cell phone service, which I assumed would mean losing GPS.

I started on I 26, with signs that said the road was closed at exit 3.  I took the exit that got me to US 19, and that road was a 4 lane highway, straight and wide, with only one truck on it.  I thought, well, this isn't too bad. There were trees blazing with autumnal color, and I thought, you wanted to experience autumn in the mountains--here you go.

Then I got on NC197, a two lane road, but still not bad.  There were piles of debris here and there, a tree down here and there.  I was behind an 18 wheeler and a box truck, but that was fine--I wasn't going to be zipping down these roads because I knew that they had only just been restored.

I got to Green Mountain, where the road ran by the North Toe River, and I saw so much devastation.  I know I didn't take in the full extent of it because I was focusing on the road, which looked like it might crumble out from under us at any moment.  The road had stacks of trees on either side, and I am fairly sure that crews just cut out the middle parts of fallen trees to be able to access the roads.  On the other side of the river, railroad tracks had buckled and twisted, like some huge child had a temper tantrum.

As I went up NC226, up and up the mountain, I saw portions of the mountains where every tree had been flattened.  Yet there were other sections in the next curve of the road that hadn't been touched, trees in full autumnal glory.  The road got curvier, and I felt increasingly anxious--there was no shoulder at all, and the 18 wheeler truck ahead of me felt free to use both lanes to navigate the curves.  What if there had been oncoming traffic?

Eventually, I pulled into the parking lot of Faith Lutheran.  I felt frazzled, but took some deep breaths and pulled myself back together again.  Just 20 miles earlier, I had been in Elizabethton, Tennessee, where a different river had overswept its banks and destroyed everything in its path.  And here I was in Bristol, where the community was largely unharmed. 

When I think of October, I think I'll remember this feeling more than any other:  how can some of us suffer so much damage, while others of us (me, for example) emerge relatively unscathed?  

On the way home, my smart phone routed me down I 26, and I decided to follow its instructions.  If I was turned away and had to backtrack, I had time.  The road was closed at exit 3, at Irwin, NC, but the detour was clearly marked.  I got back on I 26 and went back across the mountains that way.

The damage at Irwin was as catastrophic as the news reports made it seem, with wrecked roads and houses no longer there, swept away when the Nolichucky River rose.  I remember last winter when all the leaves were down, and I realized what the true contours of the river were, how some of the houses weren't too far away from that wide river.  I think those houses are gone now.  

There weren't many of us going across the mountains, but as I got closer to Asheville, traffic increased.  I got gas at the station near my house.  It's always crowded, because the price is cheap, but yesterday was worse than usual.  I was glad to get home; I've been through hurricanes before, and I know there's a point when the "we're all in this together" phase of recovery shifts to despair and rage as the pace of recovery takes so very long.

At the end of the afternoon, with no fanfare at all, we realized that our internet had been restored. I spent the rest of the day, expecting it to go out again, but so far, it has held.  I'm still boiling several pots of water a day, but that inconvenience is so minor, compared to the wreckage and ruin I witnessed yesterday.

A single picture and even a series of pictures can't really do justice to the scale of the wreckage and ruin.  Neither can these words.  I've seen article after article that tells of people swept away in the raging rivers.  Those words, also, can't make sense of it all.

On some level, humans aren't equipped to make sense of destruction on this scale, whether caused by nature or caused by humans.  But as with the pandemic, it makes sense to create a record of what I've seen.  It may never be important to historians, but it's important to me to bear witness.

Writing, Sketching, Writing

In my office, I have a bag of leaves.  In mid-September, they were brilliantly colored when I picked them up off the ground.  By afternoon, when I used them in class, they had started to fade.  I had my English 100 students write descriptions.

I thought about having them sketch and then write again--would the writing change?  I didn't have pencils, so I decided to revisit that idea later.

The day after the hurricane, I noticed all the acorns and pine cones on the ground.  I decided to pick them up.  I made sure to pick up enough so that each student could have an object.  When I picked them up, I had no idea it would be so long before I returned to my in-person classes.

This week, I tried an experiment.  On the first day, I had them choose either a pine cone or an acorn off the desk.  They wrote a basic description of the object.  I then had them write a creative type of approach:  write in the voice of the object--what does it have to say to us?

I then made a list of items on the board:  weather related (hurricane, rain), places in nature (mountains, volcanoes), other objects from nature (stone, river).  I had them write again--choose an item from the board and have it speak to your object or create a dialogue.

Then I had them choose six of the most interesting words from all the day's writing and hand them in.  I have created a word list that we'll use next week.  

The next class day, I had them choose the same object from the table.  I had white paper and pencils for them.  We began by drawing the object.

The room was amazingly quiet.  For the first chunk of class time, everyone concentrated on sketching.  And here's what really astonished me:  no one reached for their phones.  It is the only--and I mean the only--time in the class where no one even considered reaching for their phone.

We did a variety of sketches.  My favorite was a variation on an exercise that we did in a seminary class (which I wrote about in a blog post).  I had them divide the paper into 6 squares.  We sketched for 30-40 seconds and then switched squares--quick, quick, quick.

And then I had them write a description of the object again.  I had the students compare the two writings, and we discussed what they saw.  Some of them said they wrote in more detail after sketching.  Some did not.

We talked about the value of doing something else, like sketching, an activity that wasn't going to be part of the grade.  I talked about the value of taking a break from intense studying or writing.

In English 101 class, from October 21-Nov. 1, we're doing a variety of these kinds of approaches, and then students will write an essay about what we did, what they experienced, and analyzing the effectiveness of these activities.  I've done variations of this kind of writing project before, and the writing has been phenomenally better than more "standard" essays.

But more important, watching my students sketch and write helps me feel less exhausted.  It helps me feel like we're doing something post-hurricane to return to normalcy and to affirm the value of writing, sketching, and other endeavors.

Hurricane Helene Leaves New Vistas

Another day without in-home internet access.  My phone-as-hotspot workaround is working, but I'm much more careful.  Yesterday morning, I listened to a conversation on video that's required for one of my seminary classes.  In pre-hurricane days, I might have assumed I could do that in the evening, but I got it done early in the morning, when I can be sure that the hotspot will work.  On Monday, it worked for my Zoom session that is required for a different seminary class, but it did freeze several times, and I had to sign off and log back on.  Happily, my professors know my situation, and they let me back in.

But it could be worse.  One of my colleagues at Spartanburg Methodist College still doesn't have running water.  Another's spouse lost her very successful business at Biltmore Village and is reassessing what the future looks like.  

It was four weeks ago that Hurricane Helene blew through our area, and I am still astonished at the amount of the damage that was done.  After all, this was just a tropical storm, not really a hurricane when it came to us.

Yesterday I walked up to the chapel.  I didn't have much time to walk, so I stayed up there, taking pictures as the light changed.  I wanted to be there when the sun finally rose over the mountain.

I am sad about the loss of trees.  I'd give up the beautiful mountain views that are left behind if we could magically have the trees back.  But since that's not possible, let me appreciate what has been left behind.

I know that other trees will now have a chance to grow and take their place.  Future generations will have a different view.  

Hopefully this cross and meditation space will still be here for them.

The Death of a Great Liberation Theologian

Gustavo Gutierrez, one of the great liberation theologians, has died.  It's really not a surprise--he lived into his 90's, after all.  Dr. Wingeier-Rayo, one of my seminary professors, contributed to an article in The Washington Post:  "Father Gutiérrez’s approach was 'substantially different from earlier church practice,' Wingeier-Rayo wrote in an email, 'because it took into account the local context and interpreted the Bible from the perspective of the poor and marginalized.' Among other tenets, it emphasized the 'preferential option for the poor,' a belief in giving priority to the powerless; and promoted a broad concept of sin, in which it is unjust not only to lie or steal but to participate in social structures that contribute to inequality."

As we read these words today, they may not seem so radical to us.  We've had 50 years of studying this type of theology, 50 years of hearing these basic ideas, 50 years of going deeper.  We've seen people like Archbishop Romero murdered for these ideas, and he has gone from being controversial to being made a saint.

Some people may reject these ideas for being too political, and liberation theologians come down on different political sides.  The Washington Post article notes:  "The central question of liberation theology, he [Gutierrez] said, was, 'How do you say to the poor, the oppressed, the insignificant person, ‘God loves you?’”

Gutierrez told us again and again that Christians must be in solidarity with the poor, and that solidarity went further than charity dollars and donations.  Liberation theology looks at structural issues that keep people in poverty.  Liberation theology calls us to dismantle these systems of oppression.

I have already seen some social media posts that remind us of how far we have to go in terms of this theology, and that is true.  Still, it is good to remember how far we have come--and how much of that progress is because of liberation theologians like Gustavo Gutierrez.  

Some Other Beginning's End

I am not walking this morning; it's still a bit scary to walk in the pre-dawn hours, because if a car comes, there's no easy way along the whole route to get out of the way.  The Lutheridge roads were never wide to begin with, and now they have downed trees beside them.  For the next 6 weeks when I will still be commuting down to Spartanburg Methodist College, I will pay attention to when folks are at camp, and if it's a morning like this one, where there's a group who might be going out to make a Starbucks run before the day's events, I'll stay put in the dark morning.

Of course, in another 2 weeks, we'll have shifted away from Daylight Savings Time, so there will be more light in the morning.

Before I close this blog post I want to note that yesterday's English 101 class went well.  On the morning after the storm, I picked up pine cones and acorns.  

I had an idea for our next project, but also, I was struck by the beauty of them and by how many there were on the ground.

Yesterday I had students choose one item from the front table.  

Our first task was to write a description.  At our next class, I'm going to have them try to sketch the pine cone or acorn and then write the description again.

Yesterday, I also had them freewrite, beginning with saying something in the voice of the pine cone or acorn.  Then we listed some items on the board:  elements of nature, elements of weather, a geographical city or place--and I had them write about what that item would say, either to us or to the pine cone or acorn.

I had them choose 6 of the most interesting words from all the writing we had done and put them on a piece of paper--I collected those, and next week, we may do something poetic with them.

It felt good to get back in a teaching routine again, good to be doing something creative and generative.

Autumnal Grief, Autumn Gratitude

Yesterday I went back to the campus of Spartanburg Methodist College.  I am determined to give my students opportunities to get back on track:  for my English 100 students, we'll spend this week and possibly next writing the missing paragraphs and for my English 101 students, we'll write one less essay and their highest essay grade will count 20%, not 10%.

As I was going over deadlines in my English 100 classes, I wrote Nov. 1 on the board and realized that it's a week from Friday.  Some part of me wanted to sob.  I feel like I've missed one of my favorite months and one of my favorite seasons.

Of course, I haven't.  I went on plenty of walks during the weeks just after the hurricane.  However, I wasn't marveling at beautiful leaves on the trees, but trying to avoid all the trees on the ground.  I've been noticing all the changes in the weather, as I always do.  I've made some autumnal treats and enjoyed those made by others.

When I say I've missed autumn, I mean that I mean is that this autumn has been so very different than the autumn I was expecting.  Hopefully I will be able to look back and savor the unexpected good:  I had many more opportunities to have meals with my neighbors than I had planned, for example.

I think of the poems I haven't written, the poems I didn't send out in the increasingly brief window of time that many publications are open for submissions.  But there will be other poems to come out of all of this.  Traditional publication is increasingly precarious, so missing a submission season isn't really a huge deal.

I could continue telling myself to look on the bright side, and I will, but I also want to remember that it's O.K. to feel some grief.  I feel grief mixed with survivor's guilt--my house is fine, and eventually I'll be able to use the water without boiling it, and eventually I'll have in-home internet again.  I'm not trying to navigate contractors and insurance and home repairs, the way I have with past hurricanes.  It could be so, so much worse.

I feel grief, though, not for just myself and the ways that autumn will be different, but grief for the whole region.  I feel grief for my students and colleagues--we're still struggling, and I can see the weariness on our faces.  I feel grief for all the artists and farmers and restaurant owners and others who have lost their whole livelihood--and all the ways that loss will transform the region.

I think it's important to acknowledge the grief, to let myself feel these losses, to let them move through my body--for all the reasons we know why it's important to do that.  It's important to feel what I feel, while trying hard not to bog down, not to be able to move forward.

Above all, I'm trying to remain present, in this present moment--never an easy task for me.  I'm trying to remember the practices that can help me:  counting my gratitudes/blessings, praying for those who are not as fortunate, extending grace to one and all because we're all going through a lot.

Back from the Seminary Onground Intensive

Day 25 with no in-house internet—later I will turn my phone into a hotspot for a brief moment to post this and to do Morning Watch on my Florida church’s Facebook page, which I’ve been doing since the earliest days of Covid. Then I will be back to a familiar post-hurricane routine: how many of the activities that require internet connectivity can I get done at the office? We’re supposed to have unlimited hotspot access at some point, but I don’t know how long it will be before that help ticket gets processed. It may already be processed, but in case it’s not, I need to save that bit of connectivity for my seminary class that meets tonight.

Yesterday’s journey back across I-40 was a sobering reminder of how much worse it could be. Sure, I began the day by boiling water, but at least it’s clear water, so I can have a hot shower later—some people still have water with so much sediment that they can flush toilets but not use the hot water heater. I still have a house where I can boil water and sit in safety, with electric lights and heat.

Yesterday’s trip across the mountains was much better than the one I had a week ago. Of course, I left at 5 a.m. to better my chances of having a better trip. Back in the before-hurricane time, I had planned to come back on Saturday, thinking I would need to go to Bristol to preach on Sunday. When it was clear that roads would not be clear by yesterday, I made the call to send in my sermon. I stayed an extra day because my folks were in town, and with my sister in Maryland, we had a mini-family reunion.

A week ago, I’d have been getting ready to make the drive to the seminary campus in DC for the onground intensive. I didn’t leave quite as early because I thought the traffic would be lighter because of the Monday holiday. Friday turned out to be the easiest commute. Traveling back and forth to campus every day made me very glad that I don’t have to travel back and forth to campus every day.

It was good to be on campus having in-person discussions. It was good to go on a field trip to the Museum of African American History. Our Biblical Storytelling class benefited from being together to have the experience of performing in front of a live audience. And of course, I enjoyed the return to the campus itself—I saw a few faculty members and friends from the time when I lived on campus and took classes.

But I don’t know that I would do an onground intensive again, especially not if I had the kind of job that would require me to take vacation/leave time to do it. I can accomplish most of the same things by way of virtual classes meeting in real time, and it’s less disruptive. And of course, there’s the cost (of travel, of lodging, of food), which I almost always forget to factor in.

This week, I need to help my Spartanburg Methodist students back on track. I have a plan, and I will be gentle with us all. One day at the intensive, I was startled to realize how little time there is left, what a gaping hole in the schedule we have had. I tried to keep my attention focused on the seminary class I had traveled so far to take, but it was an effort.

I imagine that much of the next two months will be like that: trying to stay focused on the task at hand, trying not to be overwhelmed by all that is still left to do. Of all the things that I thought might disrupt my jam-packed schedule, I did not think it would be the remnants of a hurricane blowing through the North Carolina mountains!

Tech Weariness

I decided to do the tech things before the writing things this morning:  getting essays graded for my online classes, getting material submitted for seminary classes.  When I return to North Carolina tomorrow, I won't have in-home internet.  My smart phone can function as a hotspot, but this is the week I discovered that unlimited data doesn't mean a) unlimited data or b) unlimited hotspot.

So, once again, I spent time on the phone with Spectrum, my internet, home phone, and cell phone provider.  I have requested unlimited hot spot use, in light of the fact that Spectrum hasn't restored my internet.  The very nice customer service person put in a help ticket.  Will it work?  I don't know.

That's why I decided to do the tech things this morning.  At some point soon, I'll write about the whole onground intensive week.  But not this morning.  I am weary:  because of grading, because of the need to work ahead, because it's an intensive week, not a week for relaxing.

I'm trying not to feel stressed about all the work that needs to be done in the coming weeks.  Most of the time, I'm successful.  Of all the things that I thought might make my jam-packed schedule difficult this term, having a hurricane in the mountains of North Carolina was not one of those things.

And yes, I see the life lesson here.

Thinking about health on the Feast Day of Saint Luke

On October 18, we celebrate the life of St. Luke, an evangelist and a doctor, or perhaps a healer would be a more accurate way of thinking about the ancient approach to medical care.  But St. Luke was so much more: he’s also the patron saint of artists, students, and butchers. He’s given credit as one of the founders of iconography. And of course, he was a writer--both of one of the Gospels and the book of Acts. As we think about the life of St. Luke, let us use his life as a guide for how we can bring ourselves back to health and wholeness.

The feast day of St. Luke offers us a reason to evaluate our own health—why wait until the more traditional time of the new year like the start of a new year? Using St. Luke as our inspiration, let’s think about the ways we can promote health of all kinds.

Do we need to schedule some check-ups? October is perhaps most famous for breast cancer awareness month, but there are other doctors that many of us should see on a regular basis. For example, if you get a lot of sun exposure, or if you live in southern states, you should get a baseline check up from your dermatologist. If we've put off medical care, this feast day is a good opportunity to think about how to get that health care safely.  

We could think about what vaccines and booster shots we need.  We might think about flu shots and Covid boosters, but I also encourage us to get a shingles vaccine the first moment we're eligible.  There are hepatitis vaccines that will protect our livers from this disease which is so easily transmissible. 

Many of us don’t need to visit a doctor to find out what we can do to promote better health for ourselves. We can eat more fruits and vegetables. We can drink less alcohol. We can get more sleep. We can exercise and stretch more.

Maybe we need to look to our mental or spiritual health. If so, Luke can show us the way again.

Luke is famous as the writer of the Gospel of Luke and Acts, but it’s important to realize that he likely didn’t see himself as writing straight history. He was maintaining a record of amazing events that showed evidence of God’s salvation.

It’s far too easy to ignore evidence of God’s presence in the world. We get bogged down in our own disappointments and our deeper depressions. But we could follow the example of Luke and write down events that we see in our own lives and the life of our churches that remind us of God’s grace. Even if it’s a practice as simple as a gratitude journal where each day we write down several things for which we’re grateful, we can write our way back to right thinking.

As we think about St. Luke, we can look for ways to deepen our spiritual health. In popular imagination, Luke gets credit for creating the first icon of the Virgin Mary. Maybe it’s time for us to try something new.

We could experiment with the visual arts to see how they could enrich our spiritual health. We might choose something historical and traditional, like iconography. Or we might decide that we want to experiment with something that requires less concentration and training. Maybe we want to create a collage of images that remind us of God’s abundance. Maybe we want to meditate on images, like icons, like photographs, that call us to healthy living.

St. Luke knew that there are many paths to health of all sorts. Now, on his feast day, let us resolve to spend the coming year following his example and restoring our lives to a place of better health.

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.

FEMA Exit Interview

As I've thought about all the hurricane poems I've written, I've gone to the blog to see how often I've posted them.  So, rather than repeat one, let me offer a new one here.

In the Asheville area, we're in a time period where lots of folks are applying for FEMA assistance.  I will likely not apply; we haven't had any damage, after all.

But in part, I won't apply because of how past hurricanes have shaped me.  We've had damage that wasn't covered by insurance, so I applied for FEMA money.  Each time, each hurricane, we were turned down because we had insurance.  Different administrations, same result.

In 2017, after Hurricane Irma, we applied for assistance, and even though we were turned down, I still had an exit interview.  My memory is that it was a phone interview.  Did I know it was an exit interview?  Did I complete it hoping there was a chance of some money?  Probably.

It was later, after seeing how the poet Oliver de la Paz transformed screening questions for autism into a poem, that I thought about doing the same with the FEMA exit interview.  I probably gave a simple answer to the question that begins the poem, the lack of money and supplies answer.

I have other hurricane poems that I like better.  But this one might be one of the more honest hurricane poems I've ever written

FEMA Exit Interview



“What factor has been most important
In your inability
To fully recover?”


a. Lack of money

b. Lack of supplies

c. Your inability to find a contractor or other workers

d. Your insurance company has been non-responsive

e. Your mortgage company is a cosigner and has unreasonable requirements before they will release the funds from the insurance company

f. Not wanting to invest any more resources in this house that has betrayed you

g. Your exhaustion

h. Your irrational fear of the phone

i. All of your friends have decided to move and you cannot make any decisions because of your mournful state

j. You realize you have made a dreadful mistake by moving to the coast in a time of sea level rise

k. This house was the cornerstone of your retirement plans, and the storm has made you realize that these plans are untenable and you don’t want to invest more into this sunk cost, but if you don’t invest the money, you will never sell the house, and your sunk cost will be lost forever

 

Hurricane Helene Breaking Points

One week ago, I would be sitting in the dark.  I would have gotten up early, as I always do, and when I made the coffee, I thought, let me make this now, before the power goes out.  But I didn't expect the power to go out so early.  I didn't think it would still be out a week later, at least not back a week ago when the lights first went out.

I had just made this Facebook post at 3:27 a.m., when I got up to check on the progress of the storm:  "Why I could never be a forecaster for the National Hurricane Center. I would say something like, "Hurricane Helene is in Flannery O'Connor country now. Beware of odd men in black cars, Helene. If a Bible salesman tries to seduce you, just keep going. You're in strange territory now, but you'll emerge able to tell stories of grace and salvation in new and terrifying ways."

The power went out, and I sat there for a few minutes.  I went to get a flashlight, and then I assembled our other battery run lights, which are mostly strings of fairy lights.  Happily, we have lots and lots of AA batteries to keep them running:

I've had a few breaking points along the way.  It's surreal to be experiencing a hurricane so far inland.  But we've done this before, and we know what to do and how to endure.  I felt a brief moment of panic the first time that water didn't come out of the tap.  But I reminded myself that other communities aren't impacted, and I can get to them to buy what I need.

My latest gulp/grief moment came last night when I looked up ways to get to Bristol, Tennessee, where I usually preach and preside on Sundays.  I saw a post that said the most direct way, across I 26, would be closed until March of 2025.  I tried to find information on alternate routes.

Not for the first time, I wish I had a paper map.  But even a paper map won't tell me which roads are washed away.  I can't find a website that tells me either--and yes, I've gone to the obvious ones, and they tell me the information might not be accurate because roads may have been washed away.

I will not be making the trip this Sunday.  We are still being asked to stay off those roads, which may or may not be there, so that emergency crews and restoration teams can get to where they are needed.  I will try making the trip next week-end, and then I'll see what the future brings.

Hurricane Helene Aftermath: The Overview

I don't have time to write a long post today.  I'm at a friend's house who has power, water, and internet, which I don't have at my house.  I need to make the most of this time with those things to catch up on seminary work, get some grading done for my online classes, and then I need to do some shopping and banking before heading up the mountain on Friday.

Last Friday, we lost electric at 4:30 a.m.,  as I was writing a blog post about how I didn't expect to suffer many effects from Hurricane Helene beyond some additional rain.  I didn't worry too much until a few hours later when trees started to fall.

Hurricane Helene's Position when the Power Went Out

We are fortunate.  No trees fell on our property or our house, like the 3 that fell on a neighbor's house:

We have spent the last week trying to help our less fortunate neighbors.  

We haven't had much internet access and spotty cell phone service, so it's been good to have a purpose.

Yesterday I headed to a friend's house in Columbia.  I needed to get to a place that had power and enough cell phone service that I could use my phone as a hotspot.  Happily, last night her internet was restored.  Today I plan to write and grade and try to regroup.

Spartanburg Methodist College still doesn't have power, so I don't know if classes will resume on Monday as previously planned.  My friend has offered to have me come back next week, and I may take her up on it if SMC doesn't have power.  I will need to do some additional class work, both for my seminary classes and the online classes that I teach.

I am still stunned by this storm.  I still find it surreal that I moved hundreds of miles inland and still found myself in this situation, and I'm still surprised, as I always am, that a tropical storm strength event can do this amount of damage.  I am hopeful that this will be a once a century storm, and I won't have to see this kind of storm in the mountains again.  But I am also suffering under no delusions that past planetary performance can predict future performance.

But let me once again stress that overall, I am in good spirits.  I know that I am lucky:  I have friends, family, support, a great neighborhood, resources of all kinds.

What I was writing when the power went out on Friday morning, Sept. 27

If there wasn't a huge hurricane to our south, I'd be making last preparations for a trip to Williamsburg, where I'll be leading workshops during my mom's women's group at St. Stephen Lutheran Church.  I'm still hoping to get there today, but I'll wait to leave until later in the morning--or perhaps even noon or 1.

I woke up an hour ago and wondered if I should go ahead and leave.  Now I am very glad that I didn't.  The rain sounds intense.  As I thought about leaving, I reminded myself that I didn't want to be on the road trying to outrun the storm when the storm arrived.

It's been raining steadily since Wednesday night.  I am still thinking we will be O.K. in terms of flooding. We are not near any rivers.  The rain will run down our hill.  I am glad that I am not in charge of Wal-Mart, which is down the hill beneath us, surrounded by non-porous surfaces.

We do have high winds in our forecast, and I do worry about the trees staying upright in the saturated soil.  I don't see that we can do much about that.

Yesterday I went down the mountain to Spartanburg Methodist College.  I had a day of student conferences planned, and the thought of rescheduling 30 students just made my head hurt.  As I was driving down, more than once I thought about the stupidity of my choice.  This morning, I reminded myself of how I felt yesterday, how I resolved not to leave for Williamsburg until full daylight--daylight behind clouds, but daylight.

It was a quiet morning on campus, but most of my students did come for morning interviews.  I sent an e-mail and follow up phone calls to the 8 students with an afternoon conference because I knew that weather conditions would deteriorate.  I was back on the road by 12:45.