Author: MASadmin

Before there was Google Maps, there was Strabo.

I spent the morning visiting NYU’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. Located on the Upper East Side, right next to the MET, the ISAW is an unassuming building on a block full of consulates, condos, and mansions. I came to see Measuring and Mapping Space: Geographic Knowledge in Greco-Roman Antiquity. This is the exhibit for my thesis so I went hoping to see a few pictures, pull a few names to read, and maybe touch an ancient artifact or two. Alas, everything was behind glass (and a security guard shadowed me the entire time I was there). The exhibit two rooms filled with medeival texts typically showcasing Greco-Roman thought or texts containing copies of the writings of Roman and Greek geographers. All the texts were borrowed from local institutions. It always amazes me how many ancient works the NYPL holds.

The tidbit I liked best was the small set of Roman coins on display. The curators explained how the emperors, while minting their money, would use the symbol of the globe to symbolize global domination. It wasn’t just a representation of how the world looked: the globe was a way of showing that the emperor owned everything, even the fantastic lands at the fringes of the world where Griffins and monsters lived. The globe stood as a symbol of imperial propaganda while I’ve always seen globes as antique play things.

When I was little, I would spin the globe really fast and then put my finger down. Where the globe stopped, that’s where I’d “live” when I grew up. The middle of the ocean, the arctic, wherever; I’d live anywhere my finger told me. But I guess that thinking is also a kind of domination – thinking that, no matter where I ended up, I would a) be allowed to live there and b) I would have the technology, skill set, character, and personality, to make it all work. I would have mastered my social domain even if my new friends would be giant squids and those worms that hang around ocean volcanoes.

The exhibit only lasts until January 5 and is free. If you can’t make it, visit online.

I really need to get back to work but I’d like to share with you two tidbits of information.

1) The new ELCA call process forms did not go live on December 9. They are now scheduled to be unleashed in “early 2014”. Formatta filler lives on.

2) LTSP is looking for a program director to oversee a new Masters of Divinity program called “The Cooperative model.”

In this model, a student does full-time coursework and part-time work in a congregation over the course of three years. The student gains insight and longer-term experience in congregational leadership, receives intentional and intensive spiritual formation, and has tuition and fees covered by work in the congregation. Congregations gain the benefit of nurturing and supporting a future leader and consistent leadership over the course of three years. Congregations that can no longer afford a full-time pastor may benefit from this model.

General Seminary has talked about something similar but is calling it a ‘Wisdom Year.’ The final year of seminary is spent half-time in school, half-time at a church, with the hope that the church would pay the tuition and housing of the student (and possibly nothing else). One of the first questions most seminarians are asking is “what church is going to give a seminarian control of the budget?”

Discuss.

This guy.

A few hours ago, I trifolded three pages carrying the entire sum of my thesis proposal for next semester. After securing the signatures of my supervisor (General’s professor of systematics) and my second reader (one of General’s professors of history) at lunch time, I popped in my 100 word thesis proposal, a really minimal outline, and an initial bibliography with 25 sources on it. Come April 15th, and after about 8,000 to 15,000 words, I’m going to have a thesis. I’m excited. But I’m probably most excited about the title: Tweet Tarshish.

This thing is going to be epic. It is going to be stellar. It is going to require countless hours of research to develop just the right graphic to brand it. Ahhhh. I can’t wait.