a quick note or two...

OK, I know I have a lot of stuff to cover, because I have been buried under work and school for a few weeks now, but I have to start out with one of those funny teacher stories that you sometimes get in the email. In my intro theology class a few weeks ago, we had been talking about the Battle of Milvian Bridge and how the sign of Christ became a symbol of military victory, and how within the next few centuries, images of Christ in art started to depict Jesus in Roman garb, holding the accoutrements of power. On the test, one of the students put, “the image of Christ did empirically change after the battle.” Ha!

What else? So much stuff going on of late. All the mob violence in Haiti has forced us to change our plans and go with El Salvador; that’s fine with me, and the organization who is putting together our trip (International Partners in Mission) really has its act together, but switching plane tickets, dealing with students who want to back out, and so on is a real headache. I can’t complain because it’s not me handling all those details, but I feel like I’m in the hotseat with my boss because this is costing her so much energy (and more money than we had hoped).

Yesterday was the conclusion of Iran Aware Week, sponsored by Pax Christi to bring up issues concerning the current escalation with Iran, and they held a panel looking at warfare in a few of the world religions. I did the one on Buddhism, and Doc Winright, one of the profs in the theology department, did the one on Christianity. I’ve got a gigantic paper that I’ve been working on for a while, so putting together the presentation made me a little nervous just because of the time commitment (which is partially why I haven’t been on this blog in a while, but it felt good to get back to doing something on nonviolence instead of just plowing through all of the systematics stuff I’ve been reading for the past month or so.

On another note, it has finally gotten warm enough to want to be outside, and it has stayed that way for more than 24 hours. I finally bit the bullet and got a bicycle – all last year I had used one that belonged to one of the Marianists, but it didn’t really fit me well, so now I’ve been using it to get to and from work just about every day. The fact that gas is around $3.50 per gallon helps make that decision a little easier…

Has it really been two months since I have put anything on this blog? Good grief. I need to get my head out of the books a little more often.