Friends in the East

What is the meaning of friendship? And how do you maintain friendly or collegial ties with people who live 2000-3000 miles away from you? I had the privilege last week of trying to figure this out by taking a six-day trip to the East to connect and reconnect with people whom I met in the last four decades; this essay "reports" on that trip. I will tell you briefly about five people, all productive and well-known scholars, who occupy a deeper place in my mind and heart as a result of my Eastern swing. The ostensible purpose of the trip was to go to Washington DC to attend a law-related conference. Indeed, I did that, but I was able to break away for meetings with these five special people in Providence, Burlington VT, and then in Louisville KY. Let me relive that trip with you.

Returning "Home"

Where is "home" for me? Well, I spent the first 15 years of my life in Darien CT, about 40 minutes from NYC where my father worked as an insurance company executive. My family has deep roots in CT and NY, and so when I passed through Darien about 9:30 p.m. on Nov. 1, I was tempted to stop, though I wouldn't have anyone to see. But a more real "home" for me in the East is Providence RI, the home of Brown University, where I earned two degrees (BA '74 and PhD '82). I stopped there to see Ross, a twenty-year veteran of the faculty, with whom I first crossed paths in the mid 1990s when I was writing my first book on Job. Though he is a professor of political science, he has a special love for Job, and so we spoke freely and warmly about Job and public affairs and his current research commitment, the sexual abuse of children. Ross brings the mind of an attorney, the diligence of a social policy researcher and the warmth and geniality of a counselor to his work. Indeed, his new book, examining child sexual abuse cases from the 1990s, will soon be released. You can be sure that it will be a book that goes far beyond the sensational headlines of a decade ago; Ross will lay out some of the ethical and legal complexities of sexual abuse stories.

Then, I decided to high tail it up to Burlington VT to reconnect with John, an insightful scholar of the ancient Platonic tradition and especially the way that early Christian theologians, such as Augustine, transformed and adopted that tradition for their own purposes. John and I first met in 1977 when we were both grad. students at Brown. In the mean time he has had a successful career as professor, dean and then a senior professor of religion, first in Oregon and then in Vermont. To get to Burlington, however, I had to drive the ribbon of highway known as US 93 and then 89, facing an unexpected snowstorm outside of Montpelier, where I hunkered down at one of the famed VT rest stops for several minutes. Those spacious structures, funded because of generous efforts of Sen. Patrick Leahy, have room for coffee-drinking, exhibits, and wandering down darkened corridors and even a meeting room or two. The next time I visit VT I will camp out there... My reconnection with John and his wife Ann was fruitful beyond what I imagined, and I knew that I was with a man who will not rest until the power of early Christian theology is understood by Catholic and Protestant alike in our day.

Back to Brown

Like a magnet with iron filings, so Brown beckoned me back on Friday, Nov. 3, to meet with Mark, a scholar of Rousseau, Durkheim, Weber and other figures who helped shape our understanding of the social realities of liberal democracy in the West. Mark and I go back to 1974 in CA, where he was a high school student and I was the youth pastor in a large congregation. Now, 32 years later, he, like John, is exploring a lifetime idea--but Mark's idea relates to the connection and interdependence between the private and public spheres in our lives. The 18th century Frenchman Rousseau provides texts for Mark to ask his all-important question of how we define our private and public spaces and how we can use that definition to rejuvenate and focus a productive life.

On To Louisville

After attending my Washington DC conference, I hopped on a plane to Louisville, to reconnect with two people of wonderfully diverse talents. Sue and I met first in Germany in 1980, where we both were DAAD Fellows at the University of Tuebingen. With her husband Jim and my then-wife Judith, we formed a fast friendship as we studied theology in that fabled city. Sue now teaches New Testament, but her current work on Angels holds such promise that I think it may help to redefine the doctrine of Christ (Christology) for our day. Christology has been weighed down with a lot of unhelpful baggage over the years--especially the doctrine of a substitutionary and blood atonement. By arguing, however, that the dominant biblical image of Christ is derived from Old Testament and intertestamental Judaism's angelology, Sue will be in a position to argue for a Christology emphasizing guidance, insight and comfort rather than blood atonement. Isn't that a Christology for our age?

Along with Sue, I spent time with Alanna, whom I only met earlier this year in Cheyenne WY when I was at the National Senior Spelling Bee. Here is an essay on her work and her current ghostwriting work. Suffice it to say that her biographies on popular cultural icons are redefining how to do scholarly, yet accessible biographies of these oft-ignored people.

Conclusion

Five friends in six days. People who are making significant contributions in law, public policy research, theology, biography and social theory. When I got on the plane in Louisville on Nov. 6 to return to Portland, I felt strangely and powerfully blessed. For one moment I thought back to my own father, who has a college degree but never was able to make the life of the mind a central part of his work. He never ceased telling me to go to school, however, to learn all that I could, and that life and others would be better as a result. I think I am still learning and hearing that lesson.

2195