Quick Maundy Thursday Post
28 March 2024 | 12:55 pm

Another Maundy Thursday, and I am writing later than I usually would.  I was finishing both my Maundy Thursday and Good Friday sermons, trying to connect the printer, getting ready to drive down the mountain to teach at Spartanburg Methodist College.

After I am done teaching, I will drive back up the mountain, stop at my Lutheridge house, and then my spouse and I will drive to Bristol, Tennessee, so that I can lead Maundy Thursday service at Faith Lutheran.  There have been many moments this morning when I wondered why I didn't just move my classes online.  Today will be more driving than many Maundy Thursdays in the past.

I am used to working my way through Holy Week, and I am glad that my seminary doesn't have classes--one of the benefits of a theological education, as opposed to other types of school I could be doing.

Still, my writing time today is short, so let me end with a good quote.  In her book An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylor comments on the Last Supper: "With all the conceptual truths in the universe at his disposal, he [Jesus] did not give something to think about together when he was gone. Instead, he gave them concrete things to do--specific ways of being together in their bodies--that would go on teaching them what they needed to know when he was no longer around to teach them himself" (43).  Jesus gave us all "embodied sacraments of bread, wine, water, and feet" (44).


Where We Are in the World
27 March 2024 | 11:22 am

It is one of those mornings where I'll record some thoughts and see if I observe any connections.  Even if I don't, random thoughts are interesting too.

--This morning in an article in The Washington Post I saw a picture of the four Supreme Court justices who are female.  They are a diverse group, in terms of age, in terms of ethnicity, in terms of race, in terms of religion.  I feel so fortunate to have lived this long to see this diversity, even if I don't always agree with decisions from the Supreme Court.

--I find myself thinking about how hot the oceans are--breaking records for 10 months in a row.  If you want to see some charts, these are the ones that haunt my dreams (and yes, I've been having apocalyptic dreams about storms coming and relentless floods).  

--After apocalyptic dreams, I wake up so happy that we sold our house in South Florida.  My spouse continues to complain about how cold, damp, dark, and windy it is here, but in terms of climate change, it's about as safe a place as we could afford.  In terms of political chaos, I feel the same way.  The passages from the Gospel of Mark (chapter 14), which I've been reading for Holy Week sermon prep, resonate in ways they always have, that warning about seeing cultural collapse and the need to flee to the mountains.

--This line came to me yesterday morning; it's not much of a line, but I want to record it:  Meanwhile, the sea simmers

--I think about the lines I created last week, lines about needles.  I'm thinking about slender things like needles and lines on a graph, things slender enough to disappear, but can stab you when you least expect it.

--I'm also thinking about a conversation I had with a colleague at Spartanburg Methodist College yesterday; we were talking about our frustrations with research papers.  She has students write about a place or location that shaped them, and then they do some research on that place.  I really like that idea.

--I also like the idea of bringing in quilts to knot and having students devise a research project around that process.  They could research quilts or Lutheran World Relief or the places where the quilts are going.

--I've been thinking about what I want students to spend time thinking about, which is what they value, what they want to be as humans, not as parts of the capitalist experience.  

--I've also been thinking about where we are in the life of the planet, who we are in history.  I've been thinking of living history projects.  I've been thinking of journals, like the one that Dorothy Wordsworth kept, that have been important.  Could I devise writing projects that have students record the minutiae of their days and then look at what it all means?

--I love the idea of having them do a creative project and then have them write a process kind of essay, a meta/how I created this kind of paper.  I want to believe that there's less chance of cheating this way, but I could be sadly mistaken.

--It is great to feel inspired about teaching again.  My colleagues have such cool ideas.  But then again, I've been lucky to have always had colleagues with cool ideas.



Bridge Collapses and Modern Life
26 March 2024 | 11:10 am

I had thought about various blog posts to write--and then I heard about the collapse of the Key Bridge in Baltimore.  The video is dramatic, as are the pictures of the bridge in the water.  I suppose it could have been much worse.  The collapse happened at 1:30 in the morning, so there wouldn't have been as many vehicles on it as there would have been 5 hours earlier.

The collapse happened because a freighter crashed into it--many questions there.  I can't decide if I feel better or worse in knowing the cause.  On the one hand, at least it's not an infrastructure collapse.  On the other hand, how could a freighter go off course this way?  It's not like a recreational boater was being an idiot.  

Every time I hear of a bridge collapse, I wonder about the moments of collapse from the perspective of the drivers on the bridge.  At what point do they realize what is happening?  Or do they?  If the car leaves the bridge and falls, is that fall survivable?

I still have a little hammer in my car, a tool designed to break car windows, with a slicer on the other end that could help me get out of the seat belt if need be.  I bought them over 20 years ago, after seeing several news accounts of people going off the road into canals.  Even though my risk of going into a canal is much lower up here in the mountains, I keep one in the car, where I could get to it from the driver's front seat, if necessary.

[edited on 3/27/24:  in the articles in the aftermath of the bridge collapse, I read this one in The Washington Post that recommends not wasting precious moments trying to find any sort of tool to break the windows.  You've got about a minute where your electric windows will go down, and that's what you should do.  Here's the acronym SWOC and what it means:    

  • Seat belts off.
  • Windows open.
  • Out immediately.
  • Children first.  
It's easier to push people out of the sinking car than to pull them out.]

I thought about my route down to Spartanburg.  Do I go across any bridges?  I do, but they're not as dramatic as the Key Bridge.  If one of those collapsed, would it be survivable?

Hopefully, I'll never find out; hopefully the infrastructure will hold.  Every bridge I cross is not a bridge that could be struck by a freighter ship or anything big enough to cause a collapse--I think.

Let me bring these wonderings to a close so that I can get to work on time.



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