Beargrass Creek

I got out on Saturday for a walk along Beargrass Creek in Cherokee Park. It was a nice day, although a little cool. I was hoping to see a little Spring weather and surprise the trees and plants as they were waking up for the year. But everything was still naked brown. Spring comes late here it seems.

Just down the trail I was looking upstream and noticed a couple of ducks washing themselves in the shallow water near the bank of the creek. I swapped lenses on the camera and started clicking away. They really refused to cooperate with me though. Most of the time they had their heads under water or (somehow) tucked into their bodies. I had the polarizing filter on the lens, but I must’ve not been using it correctly, because every photo came out really dark. For all that, I got a couple of okay shots. Here’s one (I increased the saturation to make the blue stand out):

After that I went walking down the creek. It was really muddy from all the recent rains we’ve had. I took about 130 pictures, but most of them were not very good. That’s always frustrating. I’m just really thankful I didn’t have to pay to develop bad pictures. However, I was able to salvage some of them by cropping them into detail shots. So instead of reducing the size of the images for upload, I just grabbed a small piece of each one. Here’s one of my favorites:

Here’s one that actually came out as a whole picture (larger size; super-size):

Spring will probably arrive when I’m out of town on break.
That will be okay, I guess.

Book Reviews

It’s been a busy week at school. I turned my first writing assignment in this week: a book review. I may post it here in the future, once I find out how well I did. But it was probably the most rewarding thing I’ve done so far this semester. I struggled with it, though. It has been a long time since I had to write anything for a grade. But the struggling was good. Because I actually had to think about the author’s argument and goals and method, well, I got way more out of the book than I would have otherwise. Normally I read something and and say to myself, “I really need to think more about that.” But then I never do. Writing a review makes me wrestle with it.

My teacher gave us a helpful format for doing the book review. It involves asking only three questions:

1. What is the author’s goal for writing?
2. How does the author try to achieve that goal?
3. Does the author succeed in achieving that goal?

That’s it. But that produces some really fruitful thoughts. The first question helps me to keep the big picture in mind as I read. The second question not only helps me to come up with a summary of the material, it also helps me to consider the method the author is using to reach his goal. Is it just laying out information? Or using examples? Is he arguing from experience? How much does he cite other authors? How does he use the Bible in his arguments? Etc., etc. I can’t explain why this is so helpful, but it opened up a new view of reading for me. The final question forces me to do some critical thinking and come to some conclusions. I have to decide if the method was helpful or correct. And I have to decide if the argument was a convincing one.

Children’s Stories and Narrative Arcs

Before I left my job in Atlanta to start at seminary, one of my co-workers told me a strategy her brother had used while at school to help him deal with the complexities of theological education: he read Winnie the Pooh. I think that’s outstanding. So, in my own way I’m starting to copy him. I’ve been visiting the library near my house and going into the children’s section and checking out Roald Dahl books. I’m not embarrassed. I’m already reading his short stories for adults. So it kind of fits with what I was already doing. It’s nice though. I missed all these books when I was growing up. I saw Willy Wonka, of course, but I never knew the book it was based upon. The simplicity and straightforwardness of the children’s story helps me just to decompress from the weightyness of all the other reading. Next up: James and the Giant Peach.

Has anyone out there read Dahl? What is your favorite book by him?

—   —   —

In hermeneutics class this past week we’ve been talking about interpreting narrative portions of Scripture. One of the things we’ve talked about is just being able to see Bible stories as stories. They follow the basic rules for stories that are encapsulated in this illustration:

I find this incredibly interesting, not just in understanding the Bible, but also in other stories I’m reading. I’ve never really read stories with this kind of thing in mind before. I think I might begin practicing on the Dahl stories as a kind of game. Maybe it will be fun.

—   —   —

(On another note, I haven’t given up reading War & Peace yet. I’m still plodding along. I expect to have another section completed by next week.)

Obviously Almost Nothing

I had a topic in mind to write for my first music post, but waking up with a splitting headache and the makings of a rather fine sinus infection have caused me to postpone that one. It was making my head hurt to think about it. But since I don’t want to stumble just out of the gate, I thought I’d write instead on my own musical history and my qualifications for writing about music. Ready? Here goes…

6th & 7th Grade Orchestra – Trumpet
For about six months in college – Piano
Randomly – Harmonica
Present – Guitar

So, yeah. You can tell from that list just how much I know about music. The answer is obviously almost nothing. I used to listen to the guys in the church band talk about their songs and it was literally like another language. (Yes, literally. Why else would people talk about reading music?)

But, for all that, I still love to listen to music. Maybe I love it more because it’s such a mystery to me how the musicians pull it off.

I love the voices and the instruments and the way they combine to create an atmosphere and bring out emotion. I love trying to figure out what the lyrics mean (sometimes the more puzzling the better). But I also love it when the song says exactly what I’m thinking and helps with that stuttering attempt to say just what I want to say.

I’ve seen through the walls of this kingdom of dust…
   felt the crucial revelation.
But the broad streets of the heart and the day-to-day
   meet at a blind intersection.

I don’t want to be lonely, I don’t want to feel pain.
I don’t want to draw straws with the sons of Cain.
You can take it as a prayer if you’ll remember my name.
You can take it as the penance of a profane saint.

   Knock the scales from my eyes.
   Knock the words from my lungs.
   I want to cry out;
   It’s on the tip of my tongue     [here]

Sometimes a song can do just that. I guess I just want to think more about it, and write about it if I can.
 
 
 

Reading the Old Testament

We learned last week in my hermeneutics class that the Hebrew Bible, what we call our Old Testament, is arranged in a different order than our standard English translations. I’ve decided to read it in this order for my trip through the Bible this semester. I thought others might be interested to see this order as well.

Moses
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy

The Prophets
Joshua, Judges, Samuel/Kings, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, The Twelve (“minor” prophets)

Hagiographa (“Holy Writings”)
Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Daniel, Esther, Ezra/Nehemiah, Chronicles

Two notes from this order that I thought were particularly interesting:

• One had to do with the book of Ruth. In this order it comes just before the book of Psalms. Why? Because it serves as an introduction to the Psalms, ending with a genealogy of David, who wrote most of the Psalms.
• The second is the placement of the book of Chronicles. It always seemed somewhat oppressive to have to read Chronicles immediately after Samuel/Kings. It repeats much of the same information and it seems like the history of Israel drags on and on. But it is different than Samuel/Kings. It begins not with the story of Israel in Canaan after the Exodus, but back at Adam in the garden. It’s almost like a summary recap of everything that has gone on in the whole of the Old Testament. And it restates the whole as a single story, which looks ahead to the fulfillment that we find in the New Testament.

So I’ll give this order a try this semester and see how it works out. I think that putting Chronicles at the end will be extremely helpful, not just in keeping me reading but also in really understanding and remembering the content of the Old Testament.
 
 
 

Spring Lawnmower Brain

The second week of classes is over, and I think this one flowed a little more smoothly than the last. My calcified brain is starting to remember how to study again, but I still have a ways to go before all the neurons are firing in sequence.

It’s like trying to start the lawnmower for the first time in the Spring. It’s been sitting all winter and the gas has gone bad; the cord seems stuck in the case; and you wrench your back trying to get the engine to turn over. Maybe it does turn over a few times and bellows thick smoke from the exhaust. But then it dies and you repeat the process again. Prime. Pull. Don’t over prime or you’ll flood the engine. Pull. Eventually (if you’re lucky) it’ll start and you can get down to the business of lawn maintenance. If only you’d done a little better job of lawnmower maintenance you wouldn’t have to suffer every year. But once you do get it started, it usually works fine all Summer.

Okay. So that’s how my mind is right now. I think it might have been flooded last week with more information than is good for it.

———————

I’m hoping my posts here won’t always be so lame. So far they have mostly been subjective and vague reports of what’s been going on in my life and how I’m adapting to school. Those kinds of posts are not unvaluable. I like being free to talk about my experience of life and what’s happening in the moment. But there’s only so much I can say about me. “I’m at school… and, um, I’m at school. Yeah.” I’m exaggerating, of course, but…

…my goal is to post something about something in the next week that doesn’t have anything to do with me. A book. (That would be novel.) An idea. An argument. An event. Something. Something that’s not me. A story. A joke. A review. Who knows. I need to branch out. Maybe once the crazy Spring lawnmower brain stops sputtering…
 
 
 

1

My last hospital shift is now over. Fifteen years at the hospital and now I’m unemployed. It’s a happy and a sad feeling together – Happy to be moving, changing, (growing?). Sad to be leaving behind friends.

I wasn’t sure when it would finally hit me that I was actually leaving. Now I know. It was yesterday morning when I had to say goodbye to Tanya, our department secretary. She has to be one of the nicest people on the face of the earth. She would get there early in the morning, and I would go and raid her office of chocolate. We’d talk about books we were both reading (Anna Karenina), her kids, my house. It got to be kind of a ritual for me. (5:15! Tanya’s here!) I’m really going to miss her.

And then last night they had a small going away party for me. It was nice, although I hate being the center of attention. I know I’m terrible at goodbyes, but I didn’t realize just how bad I really was. It was awful. I didn’t know what to say to anyone. It was embarrassing and I wanted to just slink off and not let anyone see me going.

This morning I was okay until it came time to say goodbye to Jerry and Brandon. I still can’t really find the words to say about it. They are friends. And it’s hard to say goodbye to friends. And words are impossible when eyes sting and throats close.

It reminds me of Paul, writing of his last visit with the Ephesian elders in the book of Acts. Perhaps I understand that passage a little better now. And it makes me think of other goodbyes I’ll almost surely have to say in my life’s journey… of how I’m not ready for them to happen… of how I hope the words won’t fail me then… of all the things I hope I’ll be able to say beforehand…

God! Please bless my friends that I’m leaving behind. Have mercy on them! Guide them along the paths of their lives until they rest in you. Amen