During Class Today...

We were interrupted from our important work of finding queer readings of biblical texts by the cries of, "Back up! Back up! Back up! Back up--you're on my foooooooot!!!!"

The windows of the classroom were open to Ridge Rd. and Euclid Ave, and a young woman whose foot had just been run over.

During break, it was clear from the two police motorcycles, the firetruck, and the ambulance, that she was in good hands. Still, it was amazing to be inside of a room of potential ministers (myself included) who were all paralyzed by the prospect of another human in pain.

Walking home tonight I witnessed a confrontation between a young Black man, and an older White man pushing a shopping cart with a big American flag on the front. Do I minister, try to mediate? Do I save my safety and integrity for other conflicts? To what extent am I owned by my position as the child of the White middle class?

Also, I'm writing final papers. If anyone has thoughts on Andy Goldsworthy or The Song of Songs/Song of Solomon (or You Have Ravished My Heart, by Stephen Chatman)I would love to hear them. I promise to attribute any thoughts and insights.

Comments

Be true to your school now!

This is a cross-posting of a comment I left on peacebang.com's recent post about my school, Starr King School for the Ministry. PeaceBang, who is apparently a UU Minister in the Northeast, posted a few days ago an item about my school's supposed "banning" of the term, "brown bag lunch," because of the racialized connotations of brown bags.* Her post was, to my reading, haughty and dismissive, and she seemed awfully pleased with her own wit and ability to take cheap shots at others with little to no basis for her opinions. I think the comments for that post are up to 40, and it's a pretty lively back and forth. So, here is my contribution: "This may not be the ideal forum for “deep, serious conversation,” but one of the cornerstones of Educating to Counter Oppression is the importance of having deep, serious conversations wherever they happen. The status quo of “waiting for the right moment or forum” to engage with these issues too often leads to...

Family and Gender in Ancient Rome

I mentioned below that Prof. Diane Lipsett delivered a wonderful lecture on the conversation currently taking place between New Testament scholars, family historians, social archaeologists and the like. The title of this post is actually the title of en entire semester-long course taught by Prof. Lipsett, so for our, geez, ninety minute session she condensed her focus to Men, Women, and Children in Ancient Rome. With her permission, I am posting my notes from this lecture below, tweaked a little for readability. Prof. Lipsett is interested in studies of gender formation among non-elites as well as elites, those people about whom we know much less because they did not have the resources or clout to commemorate and study themselves, generally speaking. Roman households were much broader than we conceive of in modern terms, with a wide spectrum of people connected by family and employment living under one roof (the terms domus/eikos/ikea capture this idea of an indiscriminate household...

Depicting Rome, pt. 1

The Tiber as seen from the Ponte Principe Amadeo--this sideways problem is tricky. All I can say is that portrait-oriented photos don't get sidewaysed in Preview, or in iPhoto. Computer friends, help! The interior dome of the Pantheon. The whole of the temple dome is poured concrete, with walls 20 feet thick at the base. The interior is exactly as tall as it is wide: 140 feet. It survives (at least in part) because it was made a Christian church in the 7th century. The Sacristy in Santa Maria sopra Minerva Sundown in the Roman Forum Detail of the Triumphal Arch of Titus . It commemorates the Roman Imperial sack of Jerusalem in 70 CE. This panel, from the interior of the arch's span, shows the triumphal procession parading the spoils plundered from the Herodian Temple--note the large candelabrum. Roman Jews are a distinct group, historically descended from Palestinian Jews who moved to Rome in the Second Century BCE. Thus they are neither Sephardic (Spanish) nor Ashken...

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