Bith 325

This semester I'm also taking a hermeneutics class with threatens sometimes to eat up my life. It's probably my favorite class of the semester, but our professor seems to think it's the only class we're taking or else has very extravagant ideas about what Wheaton students can accomplish. As B quad has progressed, those of us in the class have been united with a sort of miserable camaraderie. We spend late hours together in the library each Wednesday night, passing around copies of Kittel's Theological Dictionary of the New Testament and directing each other to helpful excerpts in Josephus, Herodotus, Polybius, and others. Reference works and a sizable percentage of the library's Loeb collection are taken off the shelves and spread across tables. We think we should tip the library workers for the re-shelving they do.

There are times, particularly the night before a paper is due, that I find myself on the verge of very angry with Dr. Green, but never completely. He's too darn charming.

The big project of the course is a 10-12 page research paper, exegeting the passage of our choice. In preparation for this, we've had reading due on Tuesdays, and short papers due each Thursday. Each paper covers an aspect of what we'll have to cover in our longer paper, in order to teach us how to do it. Use of commentaries is strictly prohibited.

According to the syllabus, our research paper is due the Tuesday after the final short paper is due. Dr. Green's reasoning is that while we prepare for those short papers, we do the same work for the long paper. The trouble is the short papers were demanding 6-8 hours of work, and sometimes more, because we're newbies at this business. (And it's hard to look up a word in a Greek lexicon if you don't know Greek. Very hard.)

So, with furrowed, concerned eyebrows, my friend Kristen and I headed to Dr. Green's office. We got the paper's deadline pushed a week later, the news of which was greeted with applause and a standing ovation in class the next day.

Here's a little glimpse of Dr. Green:

"You see, what I want you to do, girls, is write a commentary."

"The trouble with you Wheaton students is that you want things to be perfect. You want your paper to be all shiny and pretty. You wanna shine it up so it's glossy like chrome. . . . This is gonna be a messy paper! I know that. I want to see blood, sweat, and toil. It's gonna be yucky. This is your first time doing this."

This was followed by a description of how to go about writing the paper:

"It's due on Tuesday so you should finish writing it by, say, Sunday. Then you leave it alone. You let it cool. It'll be simmering in your brain even when you aren't thinking about it. And then you come back to it on Monday afternoon. Then you polish it, and you make it all shiny. You make that paper sing. It'll be beautiful."

I think most of the irony was lost on him.

So now you understand why I feel like that cat in the picture.

Doppelganger?

I've been mistaken for this girl once, and asked if I was related for her even more times.

I can sort of see a resemblance, but I don't think it's that striking.
This is what I look like, just as a refresher. (the one the right, of course)

What's the verdict?

Allegory is Wheaton covenant-friendly.

I'm taking a class this quad called Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers. So far, we've read mostly Origen and Didymus the Blind who are of the Alexandrian school and thus very into allegorizing Scripture. Today Dr. Graves brought into class a copy of Didymus' book The Life of Moses. He understands that we may be too busy to read it now, but perhaps over Christmas break, if we are looking to read something spiritual and got hooked on allegory that we might enjoy it. "It's better than doing heroine or marijuana. It won't hurt your brain, and you'll enjoy it just as much."

It comes bite-sized.

You can buy encouragement too. They sell it at Trader Joe's (and other places) for good prices.

My friend Arwen has gotten me into the habit of referring to food in terms of its ability to encourage or discourage. Bad nights at SAGA are discouraging. Good dark chocolate is encouraging. The first time I cooked lemon thyme chicken for her this summer was very, very encouraging.

I house-sat and dog-sat for the last week and took advantage of access to a car by stopping at Trader Joe's yesterday for some special treats. Now I have dried apple pieces, among other tasty things, to help me through the week.

I needed a little bit of cibarious encouragement towards the end of the week because Truman got sick, and oh so sad, with a very nasty infection. It breaks my heart to see an animal in pain.

A word from Dinesh

I wrote this for the weekly email that I send to Voice for Life club members. I also post those emails on the Voice for Life blog.)

This past Thursday, I had the privilege of attending CareNet’s annual fund-raising banquet at which Christian apologist Dinesh D’Souza spoke. Dinesh D’Souza is a talented speaker – engaging, compelling, lucid, intelligent, at times very funny. (The talks that he gave last year at Wheaton College on the new atheism are available here.) I’ll do my best summarize what he said at the banquet here, which will mean a longer email than usual.

Regarding the abortion issue, Dinesh D’Souza pointed out, that, as we well know, the side that is clearly in the right has been having a tough time of it. The strategy of the movement has been to provide people with the information regarding abortion, believing that once they know the reality, the debate is over. And it’s true, that eyes have been opened and lives changed on an individual level. However, there has been resistance on the cultural level.

The question the pro-life must ask is, “What if it is actually the case that most people do know what’s going on in an abortion? Why do they tenaciously hold onto this so called ‘right?’” D’Souza suggests that there may be a dim recognition that abortion is debris of the sexual revolution. As the expression goes, “If you wanna make an omelet, you gotta break some eggs.”

The sexual revolution began in tiny sectors of society, but over time that Bohemian lifestyle of a few has become mainstream. How that happened is a clue to understanding the “moral engine” that keeps abortion going. The debate isn’t just our morals versus their convenience. They have a rival “moral ethic.” (Though, in fact, their conscience is on our side.)

Before World War II, there was a consensus across US society that there is an external moral order that makes a claim on us. Our job is to live up to its edicts. Any debate centered around what was actually in the moral code. D’Souza says that society hasn’t abandoned morality. Instead, what we are seeing is the emergence of a new morality. The source of that morality comes from within the individual. In effect, you look to yourself to see how you should act.

In America, we exalt a “moral freedom” – freedom for self-realization ultimately, the right to self-determination and autonomy. This has legitimized a way of life that has considered external morality a burden. This cultural war is a part of the great abortion debate. Both sides are appealing to two completely different moral codes.

D’Souza pointed to a second factor to explain why the pro-life cause is struggling. This is that our society has rapidly become more secular. It is in a Christian society that something like abortion becomes controversial. D’Souza says, “The fate of the abortion debate is intrinsically tied to America’s fate as a Christian nation.” The idea that life is sacred came into our culture because of Christianity. (Recall from last week’s post that even the great philosophers saw nothing wrong with infanticide.)

This is sobering business. D’Souza, who is from India, brought up an Indian expression, “After crossing the mountains. . . more mountains.” But he had encouragement for those pro-life supporters at the CareNet banquet too. CareNet, he said, is in the trenches, tackling the issue in a comprehensive way. For many, many years there was no debate about slavery. It was only when small groups of Christians joined together and pressed forward that massive change could happen. We may not know it, but the tide may be shifting underneath us. Perhaps some day abortion too will be unthinkable. Be realistic, but but press forward til that day.

Mountains!

I was really glad to get a beautiful view of Mount Rainier from the plane since it was too rainy and cloudy to see it while in Seattle.

Does anyone know which peaks those are behind the mountain?

I promise pictures of family, particularly Miranda, are coming!

I need a longer arm.

Ivy still likes me.