Killin' Time

It's raining outside, I just barely missed the 2:18 bus, I had an exam today so I'm...sitting in a cafe on campus waiting for the next bus to come. It's funny I used to have this really bothersome problem of having to pay for something when I'm just sitting somewhere. Like buying a cup of coffee while sitting in a cafe using their free wireless. Right now....not so much.

Updates:

• The class at church has been delayed until January because of lack of interest. They forgot to promote the next string of classes so nobody's signed up for anything. Alas, my adventures there will have to wait. Jaime's thinking that I should meet with the pastor in charge of the classes and layout what I want to teach and then let them decide if they really want me to teach. That way there's no surprises.
• Al Franken: God Spoke--Hilarious! If it comes to your neck of the woods, you've got to see it.
  
• Said exam went fine. I think I only missed two questions, we'll see when we get it back.
• nothing else to update

Miscellaneous:

It occurred to me that I used to not be very political. Democrat or Republican take it or leave it, neither one seemed all that great. I'm finding myself this time though really taken in and being passionate about not Republicans. I'm becoming increasingly liberal and looking for ways to put the conservative Christians in my life on the defensive. I had a dream last night that someone at church found out I was a Democrat and got all up in my face saying things like, "How can you be a Christian and vote Democratic?"

And I was like, "Why do you vote Republican? Just because their supposedly pro-life? They're not pro-life, they want to kill everything except unborn babies!" Then I gave them a Bible and was all like, "Show me where in the Bible it says not to commit abortion, and I'll show where it says to feed the poor, seek justice and be merciful."

And they were all like "Uh, Uh, Uh."

And the I was like, "Thought so."

Having read that, I think I have conflict issues with people in my church. I should work on that, or maybe I should just be myself and then not worry about it, or maybe I should just be mostly myself and kinda' worry about it...I think I need a therapist. I think I need to run to catch my bus.

A square peg...

I'm sitting in a cafe in between classes trying to work on this class I'm putting together for my Church. I only have a couple of weeks left until it begins and I've probably written the overview class three times, the Torah section about 5 and I've just started on the prophets. I'm running into two problems.

The first is time, I'm not sure how much information will take up an hour's worth of time, this isn't that big of a deal, I'll just keep talking until the hour's up. Hopefully I won't run out of time and not be able to cover everything I want to talk about, but I'm pretty good on the fly and I'll have notes to work from. I'll manage the hour.

The second and larger problem, is figuring out exactly what I can get away with. Can I say that Moses didn't write the Torah? Can I talk about Genesis and Exodus in terms of mythology? Specifically can I say that the last time I spoke with a walking talking lizard was, Oh....never, and that in the ancient near east animals had a specific meaning? I'm thinking of talking in the sense of parables instead of myth, but it is possible that even hinting at a non-literal understanding could get me in trouble.

Can I mention that the Bible isn't really God's mouth piece to the world, but men dealing with God in certain situations and cultures? Can I bring in the Jewish culture and their understanding of evil as not being from Satan, but being from God and that men are not created wicked, but innocent and blessed by God? Can I tell them that prophecy has less to do with the future than the present historical framework of the prophet?

I'm having all these problems because I like this church, I like the people that I know, and I don't want to be ostracized. I don't think I would be, but if I play my cards right I'll be able to teach other classes and hopefully, over the next two years infiltrate enough liberal theology to make some difference within the church. With this being my first time, I just have some anxiety about how much is too much. As of right now, I'm leaning toward being more open about scholarship and Judaism. I guess part of it is going to depend on who signs up for the class and what they're like...I might just have to play it by ear...I can do that, I'm just not going to be able to give handouts and all that fun stuff.

Phone-a-phobia

Faith called us last night and she and Jaime talked and talked and talked. I was only able to talk to her for a few minutes, but hopefully we'll be able to talk more. She had homework and as I said, "I'm not good on the phone." And really I'm not. I'm deadly afraid of the phone. I hate talking on the phone not because I hate connecting with people but because my past has allowed this phobia to infiltrate my psyche.

Here is the history of my interaction with phones. One of my first memories is talking to my mother over the phone immediately following my parents divorce. The one sentence that I can remember saying to her: "I hate you." And really through my childhood I connected the phone with stress and conflict with my family.

It didn't change much in my adult life either. As a banker, the phone was my primary tool for manipulating people into doing what I wanted them to do. If I needed more clients, I would make phone calls trying to convince people that they needed to talk to me. The popular tactics of the time were, "We need to sit down to review your accounts and possibly offer you a higher interest rate." The real goal of this meeting was to try to get these people to invest with me. People opening checking accounts were potential loan customers; loan customers were potentially investment clients. All this business was on the phone as was getting yelled at by customers because their loan wasn't happening fast enough resulting in me
yelling at the lender over the phone.

Combine all of that with our last church, where a phone call from the pastor meant that you'd screwed up somewhere and he was going to let you know, and you'd spend the better part of the evening getting told what was wrong with you and what you needed to do to correct it...i.e. more conflict.

So even though I know that most normal people do not use the phone to yell at people, I'm still afraid of it. I also feel like I need to have this amazingly deep conversation with people all the time, and I can't handle that kind of pressure. So to anyone who calls and has the misfortune of talking to me...I'm sorry...I really do want to talk to you, I just have these weird psychological issues to deal with...I think I need to build up more positive phone interactions so please call, but understand this... My name is Ben and I'm a phone-a-phobic...

Addicted to Documentaries

I just spent this weekend watching this movie and I have to tell everyone that this is a must watch. It reveals the gross underbelly of what makes a corporation how they think (they'd be psychopaths if they really were individuals) the lack of care and concern for individuals and the world, and so much more. You might be thinking, "Duh, I know all that..." but you probably don't know this much about it. From the mouths of various CEO's from big corporations to leading economists like Milton Friedman from the University of Chicago, to anti-corporate combaters like Michael Moore they are all here and put together in an in depth analysis of the corporation...

(One word of warning, the whole bit on the dairy farms and Monsanto might make you vegan...it's worked for us...)



And that's just the movie I saw this weekend! This Saturday is our 11 year anniversary and right now we're planning on going to see Jesus Camp at the Drexel East movie theater. It has provoked much comment among my family and friends and I'm looking forward to seeing it and reporting back on what I think about it (because I know you're all dying to know my opinion about everything!).




Then to top it all off on the 24th we get to go to see Al Franken's God Spoke at the Wexner Center for the Arts and I can't wait! I saw the preview for this film and thought I've got to see this. I'm most impressed with this man's ability to just rip into the right's talking heads and not be afraid of the back lash. If it were me I'd go the John Stewart route, "The thing about criticizing someone on their own show is that they're there....Awkward!" Anyway, it will be a week filled with liberal left leaning diatribes and will be totally refreshing...aaahhh I can feel the release already....

Talk about spotty blogging...

I have this really guilty conscience whenever I'm doing anything that's not homework so there has been a great decline in frequency but allow me to give my excuses: I'm taking 16 credit hours (the minimum for full time is 12) all graduate courses in 3 different languages. Observe:

1) French for Graduate Research 1 (i.e. learn to read French, but not speak it so when someone on your bus sees you with the French textbook and starts talking to you in French, you can point out that it says French For Reading--speaking hypothetically of course)

2) German for Graduate Research 2 (i.e. find a scholarly article on your subject and start translating you lazy S.O.B.)

3) Hebrew 601--basics of Biblical Hebrew Grammar or...how to know what vowel goes where because you foolishly picked a language without vowels...

and the killer

4) Hebrew 621--Jerusalem through out the ages. Taught 90% in Hebrew with readings from Biblical to modern day writers. Let me explain that it's much like reading about London from writers in the oldest English possible to modern English...totally different grammatical structures and I've been working with about 5 different lexicons to translate all of them.

So right now, my brain is fried from my French and I'm slacking off on my German (I still need to translate one more page for tomorrow) and feeling anxiety build up. Must run...

A Poem

In one of my Heberew classes we're looking at how Jerusalem has been viewed in Jewish Literature through out time. For the modern perspective we've been reading some beautiful poems from Yehuda Amichai. One of my favorites is entitled "Jerusalem"

Upon a roof in the Old City,
Laundry is illuminated in the afternoon light:
The white sheet of a woman who is an enemy,
The towel of a man who is an enemy
To wipe the sweat of his brow.

And in the sky of the Old City
A kite.
At the end of the string--
A child,
Whom I can't see
Because of the wall.

We have raised up many flags,
They have raised up many flags.
To make us think that they're happy.
To make them think that we're happy.