Amazing things

One of the great privileges of studying at a world-class university is the access to things I could not imagine seeing or even perhaps knowing about otherwise. This afternoon, some of us from patristics class went on a field trip over to Yale's West Campus to participate in a private viewing of ancient Christian art that is under restoration. Dura-Europos was a 3rd century C.E. garrison city on the eastern edge of the Roman Empire on the Euphrates in modern-day Syria. There was a house church there, the ruins of which were discovered in the 1920's and excavated in 1932. Yale partnered on the financing and excavation so has in its possession the fragment paintings from the baptistery in this house church. These paintings are the oldest surviving Christian monumental art known to historians. And we got to just walk around them and photograph them with our phones and talk with the curator and professors who know more than a little bit about this place. Go look in an art history book and you'll see Dura-Europos in there. It's staggering to the imagination!

The art contained in the baptistery - a separate room from the assembly because people were baptized in the nude - contained paintings on plaster of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, Peter going out to Jesus on the water, the healing of the paralytic, David and Goliath, and five women processing toward what looks like a sarcophagus. We (or the experts) don't know if this is actually the wise virgins who trim their lamps as they wait for the bridegroom (Matthew 25:1-13) or the women going to the tomb on Easter (Mark 16:1). There are no Gospel accounts of five women going to anoint Jesus' body, but who knows how biblical passages were interpreted on the edge of the empire? Some of the images are extremely vague and are awaiting the restorers touch. Some are clear and have already been restored. The painting of one of the virgins reveals a beautiful young woman with a veil, her lamp in her hand and some sort of bowl or vessel in the other. Her lips are painted, her eyes are deep, and her expression is one of placidness as well as expectation. And this painting is over 17 centuries old! It's humbling to see.

For a change, I am not on my way home on a Friday afternoon as Tim is bringing my car up to me. I flew home from a NC wedding last Sunday and have been happily carless all week. We'll be going to the Yale-Penn football game tomorrow, followed by watching the Phillies tomorrow night in Game 6. And of course, there will be more mid-term studying as all of this is happening.

It is fall in New England. The leaves are putting on quite a display and there is a nip in the air. It's a beautiful time of year here, and I am warmed by the friends I have met and the work we have all accomplished in this first semester of the year. It's flying by!

Midterm - only 5 1/2 to go!

This is called 'reading week.' It's supposedly the time divinity students catch up on all the reading they were supposed to have done and maybe, just maybe, get started on the next crop. At YDS, it's also convocation week, the week that classes hold reunions and the Beecher Lectures take place and all kinds of special events are planned such as a visit from the Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts-Schori. While I hate to miss all the fun, I do believe the wise course for me was to come home (which I did) and write papers (which I did, although I had already finished one before this week) and study (which is next on the list). I have three exams, two next week, on the same day, Hebrew and Old Testament. The third exam isn't until the following Monday, so that gives me more time to study for that one. Hebrew continues to be a challenge, and I really want to do well on the exam, but I can't just ignore OT, either. Oh, what to do, what to do...

I've actually just completed my paper for patristics. It felt like a bit of a struggle which probably means it's not very good. I'll have Tim read it and I also plan to send it to a writing tutor that they very kindly provide at YDS. As much as I like to write, it's a whole different ballgame when you have to make an argument and back it up, especially since the professor knows all this stuff backwards and forwards and can probably shoot holes in my argument ten ways to Sunday. And what, you ask, was my argument? That no matter what the orders of ministry - bishop, priest and deacon - may have become in later years of the church, they were at least established in outline as ways of managing the fledgling church before end of the 1st century. Yeah, there are a lot of really smart people who would argue against that, including my beloved, but that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

I'm very relieved that the paper is at least drafted before we leave for North Carolina on Wednesday with an overnight in D.C. so that Tim can conduct some business on Thursday morning. At least I'll only have to worry about exams while we're travelling, and I may need to take some time out from the wedding festivities of Kate and Bryan. But it will be so much fun to see the happy couple and Rachel & Yohann and my mom. You didn't expect reading week to be all work, now did you?

Life balance

Four weeks in, almost to midterm, and there is the rather stunning realization that keeping up with reading and assignments is great, as far as it goes, but it's now to find time to work in research and writing papers and studying for exams. Next week is Convocation Week during which alumni return and all kinds of special things happen here such as our presiding bishop visiting and honorary doctorates being conferred. It is also reading week, and I will be at home, spending half the week studying and writing papers and the second half travelling to North Carolina for the wedding of Kate Leavitt and Bryan Hunt. So, I'm thinking that this week, I'll need to get a lot of work done to allow me to balance next week between work and play.

A year ago on this date, Tim and I were in Aix-en-Provence in the south of France, a bit past midway through our 12-day tour of France in celebration of our 10th anniversary. Our son-in-law's parents live in Aix and treated us to a wonderful couple of days along the Mediterranean. This year, for our 11th anniversary, Tim came up to New Haven to his New England vacation home (aka my apartment) to celebrate the occasion. We only had from Friday to Sunday, and no, it ain't France, but we had a fantastic time together. Our anniversary dinner was Pepe's Pizza followed by pastry and gelato from Libby's. This may not sound like haute cuisine, but these places are New Haven landmarks, and Pepe's has the best pizza we've ever tasted.

Our anniversary dinner was only the beginning of an extravagant weekend. For breakfast on Saturday, we walked around the corner from where I live to Nica's Market which has delicious pastries and coffee and other gourmet foods. Tim can't believe that I've only been there twice, both times when he was here. Saturday's highlight was the Yale-Albany football game at the Yale Bowl. It's a good thing I don't have the Big 10 Network, or we'd have stayed home watching the Buckeyes struggle against Illinois. It was a spectacular day for fall football even though the Bulldogs lost. I was happy to get a look at Handsome Dan, the seventeenth incarnation of Yale's bulldog mascot.

After the game came the New Haven tour (with a detour to a Verizon store to get a phone charger or two for Tim. Don't ask.) We drove the steep, winding incline up to the top of East Rock (350 feet) for a magnificent view 0f the city and Long Island Sound. New Haven is flanked by two gigantic rock outcroppings, East Rock and West Rock which made it attractive to those who settled here in 1638. The 500 Puritans who left the Massachusetts Bay Colony seeking a new home in which to practice religious freedom recognized this safe port reminiscent of Psalm 18:

I love you, O Lord, my strength.
The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer,
my God, in whom I take refuge,
my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

Purchasing land from the resident Quinnipiacs in exchange for protection from the threatening Pequots, the settlers renamed their new home New Haven. (No, I don't know if they actually protected the Quinnipiacs nor what they paid for the land.)

Then followed a walking tour of the campus, starting at the divinity school on the top of the hill, passing the bizarre Ingalls Rink, home of Yale hockey (it looks like a Portuguese explorer's helmet) and past the massive Payne-Whitney Gym (where I have worked out exactly once and swum laps also exactly once). Next came a trip to the Yale Bookstore, then across the quad on the old campus (where we met an adorable black lab puppy named Moose who had just arrived from South Carolina at 8 weeks), down Chapel Street along the New Haven Green, landing at Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner and more football. We ended our day with a stroll back to my apartment, full, tired, and happy.

This morning we forewent church (egads!) and slept in. We enjoyed a lazy walk to breakfast at Bruegger's, poring over the New Haven Register, strolling home so that Tim could get on the road by noon.

So why all the detail of a seemingly boring weekend visit from my husband? Because I kept thinking about our trip last year and realizing that I was just as content here in New Haven simply because Tim was here and we were together doing the things we like to do. It's really a remarkable gift to enjoy the company of someone else so thoroughly. It's also a good reminder for both of us that there is a time to work/study and a time to relax, and this was one of those times. Tim has his own consulting firm and burns the candle at both ends most of the time, especially since I'm not at home now. And I spend most of my time in class or studying (see above re: the gym). I don't believe God called me to seminary or the priesthood at the cost of my marriage, though, and spending time together is vital. Nightly Skype dates are one thing, but actually being present to each other in those times that we are together is good and necessary.

Relationships are important, none more so than a marriage. They take time and attention and nurturing, and the lovely thing is that it gives such joy to spend that time together. Tim is safely back in PA and I am catching up on the studying I ignored for the weekend (taking a break to write this). It will get done and all will be well, including my marriage. Thanks be to God.