Getting Out of the Box

Cruise Control
Greetings from the unusually-hot-this-time-of-year fair city of St. Louis! I have just had an absolute blast these past few days.

Before this blast could have been had, however, I had to strike out and go where no 24-year-old, single, female Montgomerian has ever gone before, and it all started with Mapquest. What did people do before Mapquest? rung in my brain as I charted out my 9-hour road trip's course. I have never in my life attempted a road trip this long by myself before. My parents were freaking a little, but once this girl says she's gonna do something, it gets done, you knaamean? At 6 a.m. Sunday morning, I was ready. I was on the road to the Show Me State. I got there, 9 hours later, completely surprised at how easy it was! Needless to say, cruise control was my friend.

Fresh Faces
That Sunday night, I attended church at New Life Center in Bridgeton. It was refreshing to meet new people, and to see fresh, unfamiliar faces (and a few familiar—I reconnected with a few folks I met at the IQ Forum in October), and just to worship God freely and un-exhaustedly, despite the long drive. I'm still eating steak quesadilla triangles out of the to-go box I brought back from the Mexican restaurant I went to with a group of young people that night.

The Advent of the Paul Class at UGST
As I've mentioned before, I'm here to do a J-Term at the Urshan Graduate School of Theology (UGST). I was pumped. I was hyped. I was nervous. Everyone's going to be more Bible scholarly than me, went my self-doubt. I felt like a little school girl on her first day. Except that instead of Kindergarten, it was seminary. Armed with my dinosaur of a laptop, notes, and my teacher bag converted into a depository of Paul books; and spurred on by fatherly encouragement from one of the friends I'm staying with, I set out on the first few steps of my journey out of the box.

The official title of the class is "The Historical Paul: The Man Behind the Letters," and the approach that my professor, Steven Beardsley, (his personal site is under construction, but here's that of his church, of which he is the pastor) has taken with the class is unconventional, but rocks nonetheless. It is very student-led, and one of his opening remarks were, "I'm not a professor of answers, I'm a professor of questions." He's one of those guys that, instead of turning students into receptacles to receive rehashed stuff from his professorial mind, allows his students to engage with one another while he takes more of the role of a mediator rather than a lecturer. He's one of those profs that pushes, probes, questions, challenges, encourages us to do the same, and basically forces us to think. I gotta give props to my prof. I'm loving this and drinking in every ounce of it.

Aside from being enthralled by Beardsley, I've also had the chance to meet and engage with many like-minded people, which is such a godsend. I've been craving this, and so far, I've been highly satisfied. Boy, I'm so glad I decided to do this. The readings and response papers were a bit of a killer, but now that that part's over (though we still have the 20 pager to contend with), I do not regret my decision to do this one whit. So far, we've presented our position papers on how we should treat extra-canonical texts in New Testament research (especially with regards to Paul).

It Was Greek to Me
That's a classic line from a classic play—the Shakespearean play that I hold most near and dear to my heart, Julius Caesar. After class yesterday, we grabbed some blankets, grabbed some sandwiches, and picked an ideal spot in Forest Park to watch a free outdoor production of the play. (sigh) It was superb. It was divine. It was the exact way I wanted it to be done—especially Mark Antony's funeral oration. Although the actor playing my main man (as well as the guy playing Octavian) was disconcertingly height challenged, especially in the face of Brutus and Cassius, when he started spouting "Friends, Romans, countrymen," it was over. His shortness didn't matter. He was moving the stones of Rome to rise and mutiny. Honorable men. Ha!

Paul and Julius Caesar
Ever the unsuspecting post-modernist, I couldn't resist publicly making the connections between the play and Paul in class the following day:

1. The play takes place in Rome and Philippi—both places where there were churches to which Paul wrote letters.

2. Octavian (later, Caesar Augustus) becomes known in the Roman world as The Son of God. This terminology was in direct conflict with Paul's declaration of Jesus Christ as the Son of God.

3. Mark Antony, during his crafty oration claims, "For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,/Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech,/To stir men's blood: I only speak right on" and in a similar fashion Paul claims "But though [I be] rude in speech, yet not in knowledge" (2 Corinthians 11:6)—as if they didn't know they had a way with words.

After that, throughout the rest of class today, we were all one-upping each other with corny Julius Caesar references.

Spanish word/phrase of the day: la obra mejor en el mundo (lah OH-brah may-HOR ayn ayl MOON-doh) = the best play in the world

Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail me!