An open letter to Berlin

Dear Berlin, 

Thank you for an unforgettable year, the best of many great ones now. You taught me to quaff life and imbibe drink, and to dance with awkward abandon. From your dapprest professor to your nightly chorus of harlequin punks, you have taught me through such diversity to appreciate the beauty of God’s ultimate creation. You have blessed me with friendship, love, perspective, prosperity and more. I leave none of them behind me, only 20lbs, a bit of hair, and the barriers you gave me to overcome. I hope in some way, among the cacophony of others pasted and painted upon you, that I’ve left a small mark as well, if only as a token of thanks for how the Almighty has doted upon me through you, O arm aber sexy Berlin. Bis zum nächsten mal.

Your biggest fan,

Justin

Birthday Post!

Though things have returned to their usual glum, I felt the need to “write out loud” that I had a pretty darn good birthday week (already two weeks ago!). My actual birthday was pretty relaxed, so I didn’t feel the pressure I often do to have a party or do anything crazy. Instead, I just got a couple one-on-one meals with people and went to a weekly social event for German learners I’ve been attending called a Stammtisch, which wasn’t centered around me. Basically, just what I wanted. Then, on Friday, since the pressure was off after my birthday, I hosted a potluck in my apartment for other Fulbright students. Originally, I planned on six people plus, perhaps, a couple others. To my surprise, a total of fifteen people showed up. It was a wonderful surprise. Since no one had actually attempted such a Fulbright meet-up so far this year, I was able to meet a number of new people and they one another. At both the Stammtisch and my potluck there were impromptu Happy Birthday songs, probably the largest group to sing my happy birthday since my Little Mermaid Themed fifth birthday party.

See, I can "cook'!

To think that all the friends I have here now I’ve made in just a few months is really encouraging, and I’m rather proud of myself for not entering the library in September and shutting the door behind me until June. At least socially, living in Berlin has really come into its own now.

Most of the potluck group, so many people that they gave up on the table and just sat on the floor!

A yearly habit I’ve developed, since reaching an age when I’m not longer excited to get older, has been to reflect on how far I’ve come since my last birthday. So far, it hasn’t let me down as a source of comfort that my time is spent well. So, since my birthday last year, I’ve prepared and taught four undergraduate classes as an adjunct professor, have substantially improved my German, and received a prestigious Fulbright grant to come here to one of the top universities in Germany on an all-expenses-paid research trip to study just what I want. I can live with that. :) 

A Month in Berlin

A path approaching St. Mary's Church

I’ve been in Berlin for a month now, I still haven’t really begun my research. This is partly because I’ve had so many other obligations, and other work to steal my attention, but also because I’ve been spending a large amount of time in the…for lack of a better term, “socializing” part of the Fulbright. Fulbright was founded for the purpose of academic as well as inter-cultural exchange, after all, so I suppose even when I feel as though I’m slacking I’m fulfilling the goals of the program. Despite spending hours almost every day doing a variety of social activities, I still find this city somewhat lonely and it’s rather easy just to retreat to my computer (where everything is in English!). My roommate Michael, has been a huge help to me in all things Germany, though lately he has been coming home from work exhausted every day and thus one less outlet to assuage the loneliness. Overall I’d say my impression of the city is improving, and I’ve been having a lot of fun, though it seems my proclivity is to write reflectively while in a degree of melancholy.

The Berliner Dom (Church) and Fernsehturm (TV tower) during
 the Light Festival

The semester began this week, and I’ve already begun attending lectures at the theology faculty. Thanks to the slow and deliberate delivery of the lectures by the professors, aided by the context, I’m able to follow practically everything in German. My German language course is set to begin this week as well, though I’m a bit anxious about starting because there remains a bit of bureaucracy to navigate.
In my subconscious’ endeavor to easy my transition into German life by giving me the feelings of contexts past, the academic setting of Humboldt has channeled the aura of Harvard combined with my time teaching at Azusa Pacific. We’ve had formal teas and student parties like at Harvard, and I’ve been dressing my best so that I at least give the impression that I know what I’m doing here (ala Azusa Pacific).

The Brandenburg Gate during the Light Festival

With my time here I’m still experiencing a general sense of a lack of direction and an ever-present anxiety about the future. I know that reading the last several years of my CV, I hardly seem to be directionless, but things never fall into place as simply as the appear presented on a CV; and I suppose my lack of satisfaction with the present is one reason I’m always motivated to accomplish something greater still. I’m going to have to make a greater effort to live more in the present, or at least in this year and stop viewing this Fulbright, which is a prestigious opportunity and a great privilege, merely as something to fill a gap-year!

I’m already back in Berlin.

It’s a funny thing about blogs, they remind you where you’ve been and where you come from, at the same time reminding you of pace at which time passes, never slowing no matter how much you really intend to write as soon as you’ve a moment, or how many meaningful events have occurred since the last entry was written.

The conclusion of my Marburg experience left me with decidedly mixed feelings. Both the Marburg language program, and already the city of Berlin, now that I’m back, have occupied a lot of mental energy as my mind strains to make these experiences fit something in my past; the six week Marburg course – the six week language course I took last summer at Middlebury College in Vermont, and Berlin, so far – the few months I spent alone in Bethlehem. Comparing the Marburg language course to Middlebury’s, I certainly learned less German, simply because, unlike Middlebury, we were allowed to speak English. The relationships I made in Marburg in the end had exploded in a cacophony of friendships, resentments, and should-have-would-haves, an unwelcomed diversity when I compare it to last summer… perhaps, this too can be attributed to speaking English rather than only German. Overall, the Marburg experience was positive. Certainly better than the alternative of idling in Glendora for the remainder of the summer and arriving in Berlin now attempting to hit the ground running. Easing that transition made it worthwhile in and of itself. Berlin, in my mind’s eye, is still Bethlehem. The sense of solitude in this very tidy and handsome apartment, which I have to myself until my roommate returns from Spain, and its place in a great city whose language is foreign, buildings derelict, and walls covered in art/vandalism has been an iterative reminder of that same dichotomy of comfort and discomfort I knew then. Berlin itself, what a surprise. Hardly a surface is without a dozen autographs scrawled upon it, most every sidewalk and storefront feels out of order, and the sense of griminess about most of the city (and many its inhabitants) was, upon a moments reflection, the most surprising thing about it. It also seems that everyone here is used to it, if not embraces it completely. From experience alone, I tend to consider myself adept at navigating disorientating situations and places such as this, but the visual noise here is deafening. I hope I can soon find a way to live in this city rather than merely survive, as I feel I’m doing now. Winter is fast approaching and will bring further difficulties with it; the sky disappeared a week ago into a grey miasma and, I'm told, so it will remain for months.

Travels so far

As part of the six week stay in Marburg, Fulbright also paid for us to travel to a few nearby cities for daytrips and guided tours. It’s been so many weeks ago now, and shame on me for not keeping up with writing, that they’ve become nearly mixed together. Frankfurt – we arrived during a museum festival so I spent most of the day museum hopping, three in total before my feet could take it no longer.

Kassel - as I recall, we spent most of the time visiting a tremendous water/fountain system running a good half mile, adorned with various sculptures and flowing ultimately to the lawn of an impressive former palace. This water/fountain system (I’m not really sure what to call it) is a newly recognized UNESCO world heritage site.

Wiesbaden – we were mainly occupied with observing an election related event here; Wiesbaden is the capital of the district of Hessen and the German elections took place just this past weekend.

Finally, Cologne (Köln is the German spelling) I visited not with the entire Fulbright group, but with two other students over a 3 day weekend. My favorite site so far in my time in Germany must be the Cologne Cathedral. I’ve never seen any edifice combine such intricacy with such immensity. It’s the most visited tourist destination in Germany, and I can see why. The construction began in the 1200s and not until the 1800s was it completed (it spent a few hundred years half-finished along the way). By one of apparently several competing measures, it’s the largest and tallest church in Germany and above the Alps in Europe. In the skyline of the city it abides as the central and greatest structure, if not in physical size then certainly in impression. In total we visited it three times or four times in our three day stay; I was able to attend a mass there which was quite a treat as well.

Marburg

Marburg is beautiful. It’s a small university town in central Germany largely untouched by the bombings of WWII because it had no industry to speak of. Much of the Old City has been untouched for centuries and maintains its medieval style: winding cobblestone streets, not-quite-square homes with exposed beams, lots of windows with flower boxes, and so on; atop one of the many hills sits what else but a medieval castle! The most beautiful structures are the massive medieval churches, the oldest of which, the Church of Saint Elizabeth, was completed in the 1200s and was responsible for sustaining the city by means of bringing foreign pilgrims through the centuries before the founding of the university.

I’m here to spend six weeks doing German language study, but Marburg is also rather special for someone studying religion. The Philipps-Marburg Universität, where I’m studying, was the first Protestant university, founded in 1527. It was also home to Rudolf Bultmann, perhaps the most important New Testament scholar of the mid-20th century and doctoral advisor of Helmut Koester, one of my own professors at Harvard.

It’s hard to believe I’ve been here for ten days already. Much of our time has been handling various bureaucratic matters. As far as my swiftness in picking up the language, I'm actually finding it not nearly as challenging as last years study in Middlebury in Vermont. I'm certain this is largely due to being able to speak English, which was completely forbidden last summer. I also have less riding on my performance here, since I already have the grant. The other Fulbright grantees are an interesting mix of personalities though the subject areas are a bit homogeneous; quite a lot of people in hard sciences, only a few in social sciences or humanities. Overall everyone is very friendly and I’m having a wonderful time getting acclimated to German society with them.

Starting the blog again?

I’ve given some thought to writing here again, if only to keep a catalog of my ongoing adventures; of course, others are welcome to read along. I’d actually completely forgotten about the entries I wrote from Harvard, so I suppose the break in entries isn’t too extreme.
So, to catch up: I spent the last year back in LA teaching Biblical Studies courses at Azusa Pacific University (my alma mater). Overall that was a fantastic experience and very rewarding, I’ll write something more on this later, perhaps.

Currently I’m in Berlin, having just arrive last night after a solid 24 hours of travel. I’m here because I was awarded a prestigious year-long Fulbright scholarship. This makes the third continent on which I’ve lived and studied. I still don’t really think of myself as someone especially interested in travel, I just want to do the best things at the best places and it should be no surprise they aren’t all located near one another. I’ll be affiliated with Humboldt University here in Berlin where I’ll be researching “German Specters in North American research on early Christianity and Judaism.” Perhaps I’ll elaborate later on exactly what this topic means (or just post my application essay). I have a few more days here in Berlin before I travel to the south to spend six weeks in Marburg doing intensive German language study with a number of other Fulbrighters. In the meantime I’m staying with my future housemates in Berlin, who are incredibly friendly (!) and are helping me get oriented. My body is very tired but I’m too excited to let that slow me down now.

Palestinian Christian Theologian, Worth Watching

Munther Isaac: A Palestinian Christian Perspective from Christ at the Checkpoint on Vimeo.

Munther Isaac give a Palestinian Christian perspective at Christ at the Checkpoint 2012

What Is Religion Like at Harvard?

I stumbled across this keynote address from the Rev. Gomes (may he rest in peace) at the Future of Faith at Harvard Congress I participated in a couple years ago. I felt that it is worth sharing.

What's going on this Fall

It's pretty incredible to think that I'm beyond the half way point of my master's already. My schedule will be quite a bit different this year, though, unfortunately, probably no less challenging. I'll be taking two languages, German and Syriac. Each of these classes is a year long. I've never attempted two languages at once before, so I'm pretty nervous about it. I've never considered myself to be a person that's good at languages, but I realized recently that I've learned a few languages since I've been saying this. German and Syriac couldn't be further apart either, so hopefully that will make it easier to do both at once.

You may be asking, "why take German, and what the heck is Syriac?" German is one of the three standard languages of scholarship, alongside English and French. In order to be competitive for PhD programs I will need to have two done by matriculation (normally in addition to most or all of the required ancient languages). I'm still trying to decide between "German for reading in religious studies," which should be easier, and a regular German class which will actually be useful for studying in German (one option I'm considering).

Syriac is a Semitic language of the Christian East until Arabic became the [i]lingua franca[/i], though it is still in use today by several Christian communities. It's related most closely to Aramaic thought it has some similarity to Hebrew and the script is reminiscent of Arabic in its cursive style.

The Lord's Prayer in Syriac
Syriac is important because most studies on early Christianity in general, and Jewish-Christian interaction in particular, focus on the Christian West, written in Latin and Greek. There has been a push in recent scholarship to recover these voices from the East. Learning Syriac is ideal for my goal of studying material that is useful for contemporary Christian-Jewish-Muslim dialogue. As it turns out, the people behind this Syriac literature often maintained a much greater affinity with what we call Judaism today. The affinity was so great in fact that discerning a distinction between Judaism and Christianity is often difficult and in many ways artificial. The writing of groups deemed heretics by the Church for being "Judaizers" (that is, too "Jewish") is also largely preserved in Syriac (and a couple even more obscure languages). That's the Jewish-Christian part, so how does it pertain to Christian-Muslim interaction? As I said, Syriac was widespread in the East until Arabic gradually, but not entirely, took over because of the Muslim conquest in the 600's or so. Syriac preserves the very earliest literary encounters between Christians and Muslim, especially what they argued about and how they argued. Cool right?!

Apart from the two languages I'll be taking two regular classes each semester. The one I'm looking forward to most is History of Ancient Christianity with the indefatigable juggernaut of a scholar, Helmut Koester. The other Fall course I'm not 100% sold on yet, since the course offerings in the Jewish studies concentration are somewhat sparse this Fall. In all likelihood it will be "Rewriting Scripture in Jewish Antiquity" which will examine how Second Temple communities, and I presume communities shortly afterward, used and interpreted the Bible in various ways. It could be a valuable course for me because, obviously, the religions of Christianity and Judaism emerged from this process.

Finally, in addition to my normal work at the library, I've landed a research assistant position. I'll be sorting through scores of Greek papyri in the bellows of Widener library to help Dr. Giovanni Bazzana prepare a commentary on the New Testament and a monograph on Q.

A thought or two on the media coverage of the latest violence between Israel and Palestine

What a mess. In Hebrew: בלגן. In Arabic (had to look this one up): فوضى. I've expressed my feelings about the reasons for this kind of violence, the pervasive problems and how they might be addressed--I've said it in this blog, or to you publicly, or spoken with you privately. I don't need to repeat any of that, but I do feel like I need to comment on the only way most of us hear about these things, namely, three American news organizations. They typically do a very poor job covering these sorts of things, either because they have a strong bias (there's plenty to go around when it comes to Israel/Palestine), or because reporters simply seem ignorant about what they are reporting on--they take details that their sources collect and add hype words to make things more dramatic, more offensive, or more palatable. Barns become "bunkers" and 15-year-old boys become "militants." Here are a couple stories from this week that I think are pretty significant which I have not seen reported by the big three American news channels:
Five Egyptian Police Killed in Israel Border Clash
81 House Members Enjoy All Expenses Paid Hiatus in Israel

So, what to do? My suggestion, which may require a bit more work and may cause you to be a little more confused, will at least make you better informed. For your news on this stuff, go elsewhere. Here are four (relatively) reputable news outlets, two Israeli (1) (2), one Palestinian, and one more generally Arab. You will be better informed about the events and, by observing how the same stories are treated differently between the sources, see nuances of the opinions and biases of each, perhaps your own.

Random thought during the flight

I always take the window seat of flights during daylight hours, even if I hardly ever peer out. I don't understand how anyone would not want to be close to the window, it's a religious experience for me sometimes when I look out. On my last flight from Germany to Boston at about 40,000 feet we were just above the highest clouds. The view of the clouds from above with the sun hitting them just right was simply stunning to witness. It was a powerful reminder to me of God's majesty in creation. Even when there isn't a soul around to see it, creation can be beautiful for no reason other than just to be. It was only by chance that I happened to be up there to see this beautiful cloudscape and I'm sure all over the planet there is beauty in motion when noone is around. Sometimes it's good to feel small, like humankind isn't the center of everything. Creation at 40,000 feet is a great place for perspective.

The trip home, and the difference a kippah makes?

When I flew back from Israel earlier this month my journey was a gauntlet as usual; long layover, long flights, however one part was much easier than normal--the security. Whenever I've explained what the Tel Aviv airport security is like to an Israeli they always respond with looks of disbelief, because they aren't treated the same when they leave. One of my instructors this summer was herself a security worker at the airport during her military service. She said that part of her job was explicitly to profile people by their race and religion, and she disliked her job a great deal for this reason. People that have read my older blogs will recall that I've had some pretty rough encounters at Israel's airport security in the past. So this time I thought I would try an experiment. This time when I left I decided I would do exactly as I had in the past, pack the same way, and answer the questions in the security interview with same candor that in the past resulted in this. This time however, I put on a kippah (yarmulke in America), nothing flashy, just a little doily size piece of cloth. In America it's common for religious Jews not to wear one, but in Israel it serves as a strong indicator of whether or not someone is a religious Jew. There are actually not a few Christian orders that also wear a skullcap, called a pileolus or a zucchetto. I also like to wear strange objects as hats as a matter of habit. At any rate, when I came to the security interview I answered the same questions with complete honesty, regarding why I was in Israel, who I knew, how much Hebrew I knew, etc. and after about sixty seconds I was waved through every line. I didn't so much as have to open a single bag or send my checked bags through the x-ray. Exiting customs was equally fast, and the security officer behind the desk, rather than the usual stern attitude was, frankly, flirtatious. I get searched leaving the Harvard libraries more thoroughly than I experienced this time around at the airport. The airport security which had taken two to three hours in the past, took me all of twenty minutes from the first interview to sitting at my gate. Though I know this is but one experience, and only anecdotal evidence, I can't help but presume that I was treated so differently and presumed to be nonthreatening because I wore a piece of fabric on my head which served as a symbol of Jewishness. I'm not sure which part I find more interesting, that Israel's famously extreme security measures which take advantage of the most advanced technology available can be thwarted by a three inch diameter piece of knitted yarn, or that Justin the religious Jew would, because of that religion, be waved through, while Justin the Christian would be held and searched from top to bottom and interrogated.

Summer Time in Israel, Archaeology Fun, and Not Quite Arrested!

My summer program finished at the beginning of the month, but I've been so tired since I've been back that it's been hard to write much of anything. I certainly have some interesting stories from the program though. Overall it was a very satisfying experience, and I did indeed get to see so much of the country I hadn't when last I lived there. In addition to the main course on Jewish-Christian encounters and the Mishnaic Hebrew course I was pleasantly surprised to find the archaeology portion more in depth than I expected. It was led by one of the head archaeologists at Sepphoris, a very important archaeological site that many people miss when they visit Israel (seriously go).

Just a couple examples of the incredible mosaics at Sepphoris.
We saw nearly all of the ancient churches and synagogues in the Galilee whether they were open to the public or not (lots of fascinating epigraphy). We also got to dig at Khirbeit Wadi Hamam, a relatively new site just north of Tiberius where they’ve found a 2nd century synagogue. I happened to make “the discovery of the season” when I found a piece of a Corinthian capital from said synagogue! Most interestingly, the fact that it is rather homely suggests it was locally produced.

I made sure to have a few adventures. I took a small group to Palestine to show them the sites there and let them be exposed to a bit of the situation the Palestinians are in. While there, we visiting the Herodian, one of King Herod's palaces, where he was buried and later where rebels fighting against the Romans hid out. I went around to the back side of the site and spelunked around in the ancient caves where the rebels lived. Many of them were only a few feet high from floor to ceiling and were pretty steep and slick because they had not been fully excavated. I felt very claustrophobic and I'm sure it was pretty dangerous, but when I emerged covered in that ancient dust back on the tourist side of the cave I felt very accomplished in my little adventure.

Looking rather pale on the tourist side of the Herodian
The other big adventure was at Tel Dan in the far north of Israel, a First Temple era ruin. When the group I was with arrived, the gates were locked and the park was closed. We had driven pretty far to get there so I had the bright idea to jump the ten foot fence. As soon as I landed on the other side, a park ranger emerged from a nearby bush and confronted me, and he showed me that he had taken photos of me climbing over the fence. His English wasn't terrific, and my Hebrew is horrible, but he promptly got on his walky talky and said "police" a few times to whoever was on the other end. Needless to say, I was not looking forward to an encounter with Israeli police. He asked for me to hand over my passport, and I did my best to avoid doing so. Of course by this point I was trying to appear as naive as possible about the rules and as much of an expert about Tel Dan as I could to win him over and not end up arrested (which would not have been a pleasant situation for my three traveling companions either). Well, as it turns out, my finagling had already paid off by the time he asked for my passport. He wasn't asking for it for the police, he was asking for it as collateral so that I could go run around the park! After I realized this is what he meant, I brought the three others in with me. The ranger saw that all of us were innocuous foreigners and said we could come in for a quick look around. After we were in the gate, I asked him enthusiastically in Hebrew where a few things I wanted to see were. As it turns out, Tel Dan is pretty spread out, so he invited us to ride in his 4x4 for a private tour of the site. For the next half hour or so he drove us around the park showing us all the archaeological goodness. All in all, a pretty different outcome than I was expecting.

Sitting on the kings throne at the gate to Tel Dan doing the gesture of judgement

Oh, also, there were a lot of mine fields in the Golan Heights area, fun! Only slightly tempting to blithely jump out into them.

A Year in Review

Almost exactly one year ago I left Israel and Palestine in order to begin my master's degree. When people asked me if I would ever return, I would always reply, "I hope, at least someday." Today, certainly sooner than I expected, I find myself in Israel once again. Returning here once more has brought me to reflect on my where I've come this past year. So much has changed in this short time, and the surprises and twists have not slowed down. The general progress in my life which seems unremarkable as I busy myself in undertaking these various tasks and goals takes on a new light when I remind myself where I was just one year ago today. On the academic side of things, since I last left Israel, I've completed half of a master's degree at Harvard, finished two years worth of biblical Hebrew, published my first scholarly works (along with a volume of papers I never thought feasible to produce in this short time), and earned the award which provided me the funding to come here to Israel once again. I have come a long way it seems. My personal life has been equally eventful, though most of these changes I wish not to recount here. I have coped with the reality of returning to an environment largely numb to the issues of peace in the Middle East and its immediate relevance to our society. Because of my past experiences here I have had to face more challenges reintegrating into American life, the social world, and especially the Academy. I also survived a Boston winter, certainly that’s worth something.

Spiritually I am a work in progress, as always, and I take it as a good sign. The pressing fear of detachment from the things I study and what I practice as my faith has not diminished. I’ve been feeling as though I have less and less in common with the people that fill the pews on Sunday. I know the reason for most of this feeling is because I’ve been so privileged to have the education I have had, but I know that this doesn’t account for everything. During my recent visit with family and friends in California I was able to visit Foothill Community Church, where a great deal of my spiritual formation and ministry training took place. All of my friends there were familiar and I felt at home, but to think that just a few years ago I was the youth ministry intern, and even more recently as one of their missionaries, it feels like a lifetime ago. To put a positive spin on it, my service to the Church has been transforming as quickly as I have, but not diminished. I did come all the way to Israel after all. And I’m here to understand, if only a little better, the relationship between Jews and Christians in Antiquity, something I believe is crucial for interfaith dialogue today.

Going back to Israel

I was granted a very generous fellowship from the Harvard Center for Jewish studies through the Anne B. Malloy Memorial Fund to return to Israel this summer to do some exciting research!  I will be attending a program at Tel Aviv University entitled “Jewish-Christian Encounters in the First Centuries CE,” a topic which has been the focus of much of my studies here at Harvard.

The focal course will compare early Jewish and Christian literature in how they approach certain topics like gender, ethnicity, and the Bible, and also how these literatures interacted with one another. We’ll also be visiting locations in the Galilee and Jerusalem and various archeological digs. One of my few regrets about my previous time in Israel was that I didn’t do enough of this kind of travel because I had no time to. The program also includes an advanced course in Hebrew during the early-Rabbinic period which will flesh out my Biblical Hebrew skills. I hadn’t taken any Hebrew before I started here at Harvard, and this course will make five full semesters before I start the second year of my Master’s! I’ve come a long way since then. There will also a lecture serious, on “Talmud and Theology,” which will discuss the Talmud’s relationship to modern Jewish thought and practice, and provide me with the practical context for better understanding modern Jewish theology. I’ve dug myself into the beliefs of the ancient world so much it will be helpful to engage in the modern world a bit.

Being at Tel Aviv University will also place me just a short distance from the Wolfson Medical Center, the main hospital I worked in during my first sojourn in Israel in 2009. Hopefully this summer study will allow me to pay a visit or two.

I’m still finishing up my papers for my spring semester here at Harvard, which has kept me from writing much here, but I hope I will be able to follow up with plenty of updates during this summer program.

MTS or MDiv?

A brief update in the midst of my furious paper writing pace this semester. I am considering switching from the Master of Theological Studies program to the Master of Divinity program. The difference is the latter would allow me to flesh out the theological and ministerial aspects of my education which, as I said in my last blog, I have found lacking in my current degree which is catered specifically to academia. It would also make the possibility of ordination easier and might reflect the balance I have tried to strike between academia and serving in the Church. The Master of Divinity (MDiv) is three years as opposed to the two years of the Master of Theological Studies (MTS). Academically speaking this may also be beneficial by giving me an additional year to fit in more classes, languages and get more acquainted with professors for PhD applications. One difficulty is that, because my focus has been Jewish Studies, I may have a hard time filling the degree requirements for an MDiv in Christianity. The other more looming concern is, of course, finances. I would need to find a way to pay for a third year of grad school here at Harvard. In order to manage that I can do nothing but throw my hands up to God. I hope you will join me and pray for me in sorting this out, and that if it is God’s will, a source of provision will make itself apparent. I will likely need to make a decision in the coming weeks, and as things stand right now, I will certainly be staying an MTS.

Sneaking a blog in a snow storm

So much has happened since my last blog, far too much to include in a biographical entry. It's a shame really, I know how important these years are. I have certainly had much to write about in my typical fields of interest, but graduate school at Harvard has a way of keeping one busy. I write now because it is early enough in the semester to not be aware of how swamped I am, classes are canceled tomorrow due to a snow storm, and my mood is just somber enough for me to pen my thoughts with the genuine recklessness of candor I think makes the energy worthwhile and memorably for me.

My spiritual life has largely been disconnected from my coursework. I no longer feel like any kind of aspiring theologian, rather I feel simply like a historian of religion, the kind of scholarliness purged of the motivational bias that generated the love of the field to begin with. It's not bad, but the questions I began with have been long obscured by the esoteric stratigraphy of academia. Spirituality is something I encounter listening to the five minute childrens' sermon on Sunday, or on my staircase. Staircases make good altars. They go someplace familiar; steps too, in good Wesleyan fashion, offer a vehicle to represent struggling for holiness. Crawling up stairs is a symbolic gesture with no parallel in church furnishings that I'm aware of. Even more an intimate gesture than falling to one's knees, if only slightly more embarrassing. I do see an apologetic aspect to my research this semester, hopefully peeling away some of the falsely perceived distinction between modern Jews and Christians through some insights concerning their relation in Antiquity. Apart from this and the physical realm outside my basement lair, my piety remains expressed by and large through the guilt, feelings of desperation and outcastness, and paranoia of starvation and homelessness that I have come to equate in a twisted way as a sign of intimacy with God. I say "twist" not because I believe it any less, I cannot help that, but because of how bad it sounds when I say it. I have changed so so much in these last few years and I wish there was someone that could remind where I've gone. More than this derelict blog anyway.

Harvard, what’s it like?

I began a Master’s degree at Harvard about a month ago now, and things are well underway. I’m in the Master of Theological Studies program, with a concentration in Jewish Studies. Watch our convocation here. My impressions of everything so far…

Student Body

The Divinity School at Harvard is certainly a one of a kind place. While there certainly are a lot of very smart people, there’s something characteristically “misfit” about the div school. Harvard, in its attempt to pull people in from the fringes to bring new voices to the foreground , and certainly to be seen as a place of diversity, has crafted what I would see as a Kingdom community. These are the sort of people that are at once interesting and peculiar, people I imagine Jesus hanging around with. They are of course all brilliant in their own right, and I am not without my own quirks. I seldom encounter a person who has not been on a journey as peculiar as my own. On the other hand, however, I do think the div school has overreached in certain areas without reaching far enough into others. The sheer number of people that identify themselves as non-heterosexual was not something I expected, and I’m still growing accustomed to it, especially having just arrived from my work in the Middle East where this issue simply has not been on my radar. Queer Theology and Women’s Studies in Religion is the focus of a very large percentage of the student body. The issues presented by these disciplines are inevitably something I will confront and dialogue with during my time here. The other issue which I had hoped would be more focal has been the interfaith integration and diversity of religious backgrounds. There certainly are students doing Islamic Studies, Jewish Studies (like myself), and so forth, though they are dwarfed by the Christian and Unitarian communities, and they also seem to largely hail from America, rather than the Middle East. I still feel as though I am not fulfilling certain opportunities to truly connect with these students on a personal level, though perhaps this will change in time as I discover more opportunities. My work study job as a circulation librarian has made me something of a div school bartender—as I check peoples’ books in and out I get to hear everyone’s passions and (more often) woes, and meet people I wouldn’t have otherwise. I hope, in due time, this will be a means of making some of the connections I have been seeking. 

One other unforeseen consequence of having this diverse student body has been that the level of academic familiarity with the more esoteric Biblical Studies disciplines is not as high as it would have been if I went to a different school. For example, a class on Jesus and the Gospels at the Vanderbilt Divinity School would certainly have consisted of students with a background in Biblical Studies, probably familiar with ideas of text criticism, and a number would have had some Greek. Here at Harvard however, because of the diversity of religious backgrounds, my class on Jesus and the Gospels has a number of students that are reading the New Testament for the first time in this class. This has its pluses and minuses of course, because it allows me, with my background, to stand head and shoulders above much of the class, but it also means that the level of depth in our conversations about the topics at hand is stunted in many ways. This is compensated for in many classes with pre-requisites of certain languages and so forth, though this is often not the case.

Regardless of the goals, orientations, and background of the students, they are nearly all very friendly and strike me as nothing less than genuinely good folks. The few students that fit the Harvard snob stereotype are truly the exception that proves the contrary.  

Grounds

The Harvard campus itself is famous, and deservedly so with a history reaching further back than this country by more than a century. It’s nearly a daily happening that walking to class I have to avoid getting in the frame of someone’s photo of the buildings. The first div school building itself goes back to the early 1800’s.

The most recent addition to the div school is the Center for the Study of World Religions, not all that impressive architecturally, but books and covers and so forth.

Andover Hall is an immense building housing classrooms, the adjoining Andover-Harvard Theology Library, chapels, and various other fancy Harvard type things. It turned 100 this year.

The original div school building, the eponymous Divinity Hall is the first building Harvard constructed outside the Yard, and the oldest div school building, going back to 1826. It has an incredible history of its own, including a chapel that has been host to the theological giants of the last few hundred years, and more than its share of controversy from the pulpit.

The Semitic Museum houses div school courses and exhibits along with stuff for the related Arts and Sciences department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. It’s pretty cool to say that I have a class in an actual museum.

Memorial Church and Memorial Hall are over in the Yard, but too immense and beautiful to not include. Each is a memorial to the concurrent war, WWI and the Civil War respectively.

Finally, the Widener Library, which depending on how you count, houses somewhere between the 5^th and 10^th largest collection of books on the planet. Not bad right?

Teachers and Courses

The teachers…they are simply prolific scholars, but this goes without saying. Before arriving I was very anxious about how they would be in person, but so far they are all incredibly gracious, friendly and approachable.  The fact that my advisor is Diana Eck and that I sit in a classroom with Jon Levenson, Michael Coogan, and Helmut Koester on a daily basis really blows my mind, especially when I have had the opportunity to speak with them one on one. It really is surreal. I think so far, this is my favorite thing about the div school.

My courses this term are:

Intermediate Classical Hebrew

So far his second year of Hebrew has been a little disconcerting, students have been dropping the class like flies because it has been very demanding.

Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures/Old Testament with Michael Coogan

As you probably know, I have been acquainted with this material—however, it is being taught by Michael Coogan, a prolific Bible scholar and senior editor of the New Oxford Annotated Bible. I’m taking the class as an audit, just so I can sit in the room and osmote from him.

Jesus of Nazareth and the Gospels with Helmut Koester

Helmut Koester has been a professor at Harvard Divinity School since about 1955…if that doesn’t tell you something I don’t know what will. He was one of Rudolph Bultmann’s protégés, who himself published research quite literally a century ago. As far as I am aware there is no other figure of New Testament scholarship still living that can claim his sheer scope of experience in this field. He reads his lectures from the lectern which aren’t enthralling, but speaking to him person to person in our section, the profound insights he has shared have me leaving every Thursday in awe of his experience and knowledge.

Judaism: The Liturgical Year with Jon Levenson

This course serves as something of an introduction to Judaism by studying Jewish holidays, their origins, how they inform the Jewish faith in history, and how they are practiced today. Jon Levenson is another prolific writer in the field of Biblical and Jewish Studies. His particular niche of using historical critical Biblical research for interreligious dialogue is something I would love to piggy back onto. Recently, for example, his research into ideas about resurrection in Judaism have brought to the attention of modern Jews how significant resurrection was for them in their history, and that it is a part of their tradition they have unfortunately allowed to fade, undoubtedly in the shadow of Christianity. He argues that this is a common theme that both Jews and Christians ought to cherish and in so doing grants us a new avenue of interreligious dialogue.  

Ancient Near Eastern History

Taught through the Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations department, this class will give me the context of what was going on in the rest of the Ancient Near East from pre-history through the time of the Old Testament.

Seminar for Advanced New Testament Studies: The Q Riddle

I needed something to distinguish myself from everyone beginning this Master’s program without substantial background in Biblical Studies. This year-long course, designed for advanced Master’s and PhD students, lets me flex some of my academic background, while hopefully being impressive on my transcript. If you don’t have a clue what the “Q Riddle” is, that ought to give you an idea of how advanced the course is.

Living Situation

Last but not least, my place. I’m renting a basement from a retired minister and his wife out in Arlington. It’s quite a long trek, a 30-40 minute bus ride each way to Harvard, but it’s cheap and I’ve made it my own. I have room for my clothes, my books (for now), and my mementos, which is plenty of room for me. I have my own half bath, and I even have a desk with a window!

Have a Seat and Stay a While

I’m having to make a lot of adjustments to the way I do things. I did the math the other day, and realized that I have picked up and moved thirteen times in less than six years (or fourteen or fifteen times depending on how you count). Save some mementos and books, there is very little I own today that is more than a couple years old, that I didn’t sell or give away. Not that I had so much to sell or give to begin with. I feel like it puts me in a different world, lacking basic needs and confidence in my own security. Even food and sleep are things I have good precedent not to count on. I’ve lived in four completely different cultures in as many years. Even my name itself has changed some three times since it was given to me. I am loath to ask for pity, but I know these facts must strongly impact how I engage with others and my surroundings, how I perceive myself and others, and a host of other facets that make up “who I am.”

It has been brought up a couple times since I’ve been here in Boston that it is odd I don’t have a phone. As big of a tech junkie as I am, I know it isn’t because of some Luddite elitism. Money is always a factor, but thinking about it now, could it be that I have simply just presumed subconsciously that I would never stay somewhere long enough to put down roots to need one? Now that I’m supposed to stay here for a few years, I’ve recognized I’m due for some introspection and reassessment.

The notion that I will live in this same house for the next few years makes me very anxious, like a claustrophobic. I already want to plan my next escape, to be able to run away at the drop of a hat. I have certainly done my share of running away in the past, and have a seemingly unquenchable thirst for independence. Maybe these things are hereditary. Maybe this is why I love the Church so much. While I feel like a stranger wherever I go, like I’m in it alone most of the time, wherever I go and find a good piece of Church, I know I can find a feeling of home there, that I’m a part of something, and that isn’t conditional.

Is it good to be able to just pick up and leave everything behind—family, friends, lovers, possessions, my very name? What does it mean to want to, and feel anxious if I don’t? Is this from fear, an escapist mentality, some extreme method of coping with deep psychological distress? Or could it be quite the opposite, the command of the Lord to give up everything down to my name, becoming my second nature. It is clear to me that this disconnect I sense hasn’t affected my emotional distance from strangers. Maybe this distance, counter intuitively, is what makes it so easy for me to love strangers and want to help them, or at least better identify with them in want. Maybe these alternatives need not be so dichotomized and perhaps one really leads to the other. Maybe I’m rationalizing.

At any rate, even Jesus had a strong group of friends. The notion that Jesus’ ministry with his disciples fit into a niche of contemporary itinerate outcast healers and sophists has been, to my relief, effectively challenged on the grounds of the socioeconomic demography of Galilee in first century CE. To my credit, I certainly have no shortage of outgoingness in certain contexts, and I suppose now would be the time to capitalize on that. I don’t expect these feelings of distance and separation to change quickly, especially having taken place during these most formative years of my life, but I hope that eventually healthy adjustments will be possible. Like I’ve often felt when I pick up to go, the task now becomes discerning what needs forgetting, and what has become too much a part of me to leave behind.