April 1st: Day One of the Sabbatical

My transportation plan to Northwestern was to take an 8:00 AM train from Oak Park, connect at Ogilvy Transportation Center, and arrive at Evanston-Davis Street by 9:00 AM.  My first class is not until 11:00 and I figured I could comfortably walk to campus, get some coffee, and be early to the classroom.

On this first day, I was just too excited.  Sabina was flying out of O'Hare to give a lecture.  I drove her to the airport at 5:00.  I then went to Louie's Grill for my regular Tuesday morning breakfast meeting.  The corned beef hash and poached eggs were gone by 6:30.  I couldn't wait. I drove to the Marion Street Station and boarded the 6:44 train. It arrived downtown at 7:02 and I made a connection to the 7:04 Express to Evanston.  The door closed as I boarded.  Without other stops and with a quick link to my second train, I arrived at my destination in just 45 minutes.  With my cowboy hat pulled down to protect it from the wind and my coat zippered against the cold wind from Lake Michigan, I walked to the Norris Student Center--about fifteen minutes.  My first on-campus discovery was that the dining and lounge areas do not open until 8:00 AM.

Some Dunkin Donuts coffee warmed me when the cafeteria opened.  I spent the next two and a half hours reading Narrating the Law. This is written by my professor for the second class on Tuesday, a course in the Talmud and narrative.  When 10:30 came, I walked to Fisk Hall (not far) for my first class, Topics in Christianity: Love and Evil.

Two of my courses are graduate classes. Love and Evil is the exception.  I knew it was an undergraduate offering but the subject matter and reading looked interesting.  There are fourteen students in the class.  Three of them are seniors. The others are freshmen and sophomores.  It looked and felt a lot like my high school classes.  I was a bit ill at ease at first about my age but a some reasonable self-talk eased me into the group.  We sat in a circle and gave personal introductions.  The professor reviewed the syllabus and then we broke into small groups to do some close reading of the first chapters of Genesis.

I checked my Northwestern email and found, to my disappointment, that the professor for my second class of the day was ill.  The class was cancelled. I managed to get on a 1:00 train and, after a quick Starbucks stop, got to my desk to work on assignments from my morning class.  This consisted largely of a book titled Creation and the Persistence of Evil by Jon Levenson.  It is an excellent analysis of the creation story in the Hebrew Bible.  The author suggests that creation did not happen ex nihilo but was rather a divine effort to provide a livable and just environment for the created.  He offers that God is, in creation and covenant, irresistible but not inevitable or constant.

This course has a very good reading list.  These are just a part of the assignments.

I have been at the reading and writing for that course for about five hours and am fading fast.  It was a great beginning to the journey.