A "filler" post, for a change of pace

If it's what my brain can do, it's what my brain can do

I’ll always feel the tug toward needing to turn into Captain Capitalism when it comes to writing outputs. Especially when I’m spending time writing something here that everyone can read for free on the internet, instead of the articles and book I’m eventually meaning to complete. But I’ll take a breath and say, “No, that’s not for right now.” And who can argue with me?

So instead this week I want to write a simple post about three things, with a bonus up-front.

This is the bonus that visually depicts how I presently feel. I adore this artist’s work, Lily Seika Jones. If you grew up reading fantasy novels, were as entrenched in Arthuriana as someone like me, but especially if you have an entire shelf dedicated to Brian Jacques, you too can see yourself reflected in this Lil’ Guy.

rivuletpaper

A post shared by @rivuletpaper

---

I’m very excited to be teaching World Religions again next summer

I’ve been teaching for Northeastern Seminary for many years now. Despite no longer physically residing in Rochester, NY, whence I came most recently before settling in Hamilton, they’ve lovingly kept me on-board as an online adjunct to primarily teach two courses: World Religions & Human Spirituality, and Reformed Theology.

The owl-eyed among you will note that I don’t self-describe as Reformed in the capital-R sense; I’m more of a Wesleyan Anglican. However, this course (at an institution that is historically Wesleyan) serves as an estuary where Presbyterian Church (USA) candidates for ordination can be taught by someone like me who has spent lots of time dangling theological fingers through fields of TULIPs and daisies (“God loves me, God loves me not…”). I hope that joke lands for even just a few of you.

Anyway—that course doesn’t come up quite as often as it’s more of a supply/demand affair. World Religions is a fairly regular, every-other-year event, and it has surprisingly been one of my favourite ever courses to teach.

There’s no patristics or systematic theology here. That’s probably why it’s good for me to teach, and (if my course evaluations are to be believed) why it’s one of my better-taught courses. So I’ve mainly written here just to say that I love this course, I hope enrolment is high for next summer, and I hope I’m able to follow-through on the contract I signed to teach it.

However! I also want to say that this course’s texts are rockin’. I know there are a million options out there for books under the category of “world religions” or “human spirituality.” And I’m grateful I have some time between now and then to explore more options. My focus in this course is not just on slapping down a bunch of facts about “what other people believe,” but on lived human experience. Sounds simplistic, but have you taken a world religions course before? Especially one that purposely does not function as an apologetics course? Perhaps in a secular university, but I would be surprised to hear that this might have been done elsewhere. But I would love to be surprised—tell me about the course/s you’ve taken, please!

Cover of My Neighbor’s Faith, edited by Jennifer Howe Peace, Rabbi Or Rose, and Gregory Mobley. Link below.

The first year I used My Neighbor’s Faith (sorry Canadian autocorrect, there’s no “u” in the official title) was eye-opening. I just thought it would be a helpful way to start conversations in class. Each chapter is a vignette about someone’s experience crossing over or contemplating a spiritual tradition that is not their own. Christians encountering Islam, Buddhists encountering Judaism, etc. There’s a lot of joy, with tenderness, sadness, etc.

Most of all, however, over the course of the semester of reading these reflections and conversing, I see in many of my students a softening to the world. And that’s one of the major “course outcomes” I aim for. You are not an individual living in this world doing your own religious thing. You are a part of an intensely complicated web of human beings who have different piles of theological luggage that we’re all schlepping through the airport.

Highly recommend. Empathy is good, y’all.

---

Fonts.

I love fonts. Choosing the correct font for a task is not distractionarianism, it’s not arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Yes, most tasks do not require something uncommon. Yes, most people do not care. But I care.

I’m not sure what version of this page you’re looking at right now, but you may see a word mark that’s the title of this lil’ blog at the top. If you’re seeing the correct file, then you’re seeing those letters in URW Venus—a font I legitimately paid currency for several years ago because it is the perfect sans serif font. It looks most beautiful in light weighting, and in all-caps. The number set is incredible.

A sampling of weights and lines for URW Venus

I saw this font on a business card in a coffee shop on May 15, 2018. Do you know how I know that? Because while I’ve misplaced the card, I took a photo of it that day and pored over the various internet font repositories to find it. When I did, I bought the font. I own the font, forever. And I will use it with reckless abandon in all areas of life. (Except for on my official CV, which gets the Work Sans treatment for accessibility reasons. It makes a small part of me sad.)

---

A meditation on sports cards

Now I’ll basically lose the rest of you that thought you could at least hang with the “font nerd” when I tell you that I’ve enjoyed getting back into my childhood hobby of sports card collecting.

Well, when I say “collecting” it’s more like…rearranging? Trying to revisit memories while also decluttering? There is something of a purpose here: it keeps my brain engaged to a certain extent on days when my brain won’t brain, and when I’m able to admit I’ve simply been reading the same page over and over again. I’m actually trying to read, I promise (currently: Rowan Williams, Being Human).

It is shockingly difficult to photograph metallic-flavoured sports cards well. But here’s the book I’m reading to prove to you that I’m reading it. Rowan Williams theologically towers over my two favourite Michael Jordan cards.

While there’s nostalgia in this sort of hobby, and there are many fools who were kids like me in the 1980s-90s thinking “oh I bet these are worth a ton of money now!” (they probably aren’t), they’re actually a sort of sensory balm for me.

By which I mean, physically thumbing through these cards both awakens memories of watching basketball or baseball in the too-hot-and-humid North Carolina summers and actually helps my fingers work a wee bit better than they sometimes do these days. Because of some of the side-effects of my chemo, I’m invariably left with little feeling in my fingertips. Typing can be hit-or-miss (please laugh). But there is something extremely meditative about fumbling with little stacks of cardboard. And organizing them into rows, sections, little brigades of humans flattened out.

It is a bit ironic, though, when time flows forward and for some of these famous men we start to understand a bit better who they were outside of being printed and pressed into a rectangle. Very strange how a person who may have truly been a terrible person, yet a paragon of their sport, now offers me passive comfort—not wholly dissimilar to viewing them on a TV as a kid!

Anyway. That’s all for now. Thanks for joining me.