Purim starts tomorrow (Saturday) evening.
Radical Torah always has interesting commentary.
And someone has turned Megillat Esther (the biblical book of Esther) into a graphic novel.
Purim's text is the book of Esther, and you can't really get a full sense of it in its Jewish liturgical context just by reading it, but in case you're curious and want to read it and don't have a Bible handy, here are the NRSV version and a translation by Jewish scholars.
Friday, March 2, 2007
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Feast of David of Wales
Happy Feast of Saint David. Here's a little information about him, directly from Wales. You don't have to read the Welsh in the left-hand column if you don't want to. His real name was Dewi, but it got anglicized.
Speaking of navels... (a new word)
Two posts ago, I wrote something about the overcontemplation of our Anglican navel, and lo and behold, into my inbox lands my Word-A-Day word (which I don't always have time to look at) and the word for today, March 1, means "contemplation of one's navel." Here it is. (As I say to my students in class, "Fancy word alert!")
On the more poignant side of word-learning: I found one of the adult students (not mine) weeping in the classroom next to my office because she didn't understand one of the words on her course evaluation form. (She was in a course taught by a colleague from another department which is an "intensive" ending this week, before spring break, so they were already at the evaluation stage.) The word was "aspect," as in "What were the best aspects of the course?"
Another word episode: We are beginning the study of the Rule of St. Benedict. A first-year student, male, age 19 or so, asks me this a.m. in class what the word "contemplation" means.
Midterms corrected. Grades all in. Good night.
omphaloskepsis
(om-fuh-lo-SKEP-sis)
On the more poignant side of word-learning: I found one of the adult students (not mine) weeping in the classroom next to my office because she didn't understand one of the words on her course evaluation form. (She was in a course taught by a colleague from another department which is an "intensive" ending this week, before spring break, so they were already at the evaluation stage.) The word was "aspect," as in "What were the best aspects of the course?"
Another word episode: We are beginning the study of the Rule of St. Benedict. A first-year student, male, age 19 or so, asks me this a.m. in class what the word "contemplation" means.
Midterms corrected. Grades all in. Good night.
Letter to Nigerian Senate leaders from U.S. faith leaders
Thanks to Matthew Thompson over at Political Spaghetti for this one.
Don't let this keep you from writing and phoning, though. Auntie Jane sez. Numbers do matter in these instances.
Don't let this keep you from writing and phoning, though. Auntie Jane sez. Numbers do matter in these instances.
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