For the Birds

Off and on for the past several years, Kathy and I have been talking about taking five or six months to drive some of the side roads of America so that we can see what’s unique to each area—sort of a more modern William Least Heat Moon trip. When we drove last week to Chincoteague, we did part of the drive in Maryland on those “blue highways” just to see what it would be like. Boy, was I disappointed. What did we see? Lots of WaWa gas stations, Hardys, and Dunkin Donuts, alternating with fields of corn, strawberries, and melons. It felt like just one long stream of commercials and incitements to buy all along the way.

When we got to Chincoteague itself, luckily there was relief. Despite the focus on increasing revenue from tourism to balance out the loss of revenue from fishing, Chincoteague still retains a lot of its own quirky personality. There are only two fast food places—a Subways and a McDonald’s—both on the main street leading to Assateague Island and the beaches. And while there are lots of other restaurants —three ice cream parlors (we alternated between the Creamery and Mr. Whippy’s), several sub places, some bad restaurants on piers, and Bill’s (which generally had great food breakfast, lunch, and dinner) – and stores (including lots of “treasure chest” and beach supplies options), the town retains its uniqueness in lots of little ways. We, along with the rest of the traffic, stopped at least three times, for example, to let a family of ducks and ducklings wander slowly across the road. Folks on bikes of all kinds rode along just about every road we drove or walked. And, since we were there in July, there was also the Fireman’s Carnival going on each weekend, which we could hear and see the lights from in the distance each evening from our balcony.

But the best part of Chincoteague and Assateague was the birds. Despite the piping plovers being flooded out this year, there were so many birds—bald eagles, snowy egrets, cattle egrets, and great egrets, geese and ducks of all kinds, red winged blackbirds, bobwhites, white ibises, osprey, cardinals, herring gulls, little blue herons, great blue herons (how prehistoric they look in flight!), tricolored herons, sandpipers, terns, and swans. They were everywhere— on the lawns of homes and over the water, out on the trails and by the docks. I loved being surrounded by them.


But my favorite of all was being on the deck off our room watching the laughing gulls fly over and around us every 30 seconds or so. I’ve always felt drawn to those black-capped gulls and used to joke that if there’s such a thing as transmigration, I probably was either a dolphin or a black-capped gull in an earlier life. I was awoken each morning by the sound of their laughing and then started each day sitting for a few hours out on the deck just enjoying the way in which those gulls road the currents. And it was those parts of the day that will stay as the best part of my time on Chincoteague.

Chincoteague Ponies

We spent the latter part of last week staying on Chincoteague Island, Virginia and, most days, traveling over to Assateague to see the various wildlife on the reserve. The big tourist lure to the area is supposed to be the wild ponies that live on Assateague. The first day we were in the area, we did a walk that included an observation deck where if you’re lucky (we were, but folks who got there 5 minutes before us or after us wouldn’t have been) you can watch some of the 150 ponies grazing the dune and marsh grasses. The second day we did the hour and a half tour that the Reserve offers and, while I thoroughly enjoyed it for other reasons, the highlight for most of the other dozen people with us was seeing the ponies. We then went past them two or three more times on our way to and from the beach. Maybe it would be different if I’d read Misty as a child, but to me the whole Chincoteague pony thing seems like a real crock. These days they’re owned by the Chincoteague firefighters, are treated by vets regularly, and even have microchips implanted under their skin so that it’s easy to keep track of them. That’s sure not my idea of wild ponies.

Writing in Washington

I spent last Monday and Tuesday in Washington DC staying in the Crystal Marriot writing the beginning of a draft of one of the chapters of my dissertation while Kathy attended a conference there for work. When we arrived, we thought we’d lucked out as far as a room. We were “moved up” to a suite, which gave me a separate living room with not just a desk but also a table on which to spread my papers and books out. Shortly afterwards, however, we learned that the wired internet in the room wasn’t working. A technician was sent up and spent more than two hours trying to rewire the connection to get the system to work, all without success. He ended up suggesting we change rooms. When we asked at the desk about such a possibility there was no other room available because of the various conferences going on. My only option for internet access would be to buy a daily subscription to a wireless connection that was only available in one part of the lobby—a true pain when trying to check information online as I wrote.

But we were tired and it was almost 9 pm so we headed off for dinner in the hotel. We each ordered a crab cake sandwich and chowder. The chowder was good and the sandwiches came, but mine had the wrong side so it had to be taken back. Kathy meanwhile began to eat hers and said it was delicious. Mine arrived and just as I bit into it, the restaurant manager came to say we had the wrong orders. We insisted that we didn’t –we’d ordered crab cake sandwiches and that’s what was in front of us-- but he said we did and took both our plates away. The waitress came to explain that we’d each gotten a half-order crab cake sandwich instead of a full order sandwich and that they’d give us a free dessert after the dinner to make it up for us. At this point we didn’t want dessert; all we wanted was the check. She left –we thought to get the check—and about 10 minutes later our sandwiches were brought out again. The manager again apologized and explained that these were the full order sandwiches we’d originally ordered. He left and we looked—and the sandwiches looked exactly the same. They were exactly the same size crab cakes and rolls that we’d had before except that now we were too tired to even eat them. It was like something from Candid Camera. From that point on, we didn’t eat in the hotel. Instead we mainly ate in the mall nearby—not great food, but at least once we got it we knew it no one would take it away.

Overall, the two days turned out okay. The next evening we went to Georgetown for a little while and then went to see the FDR Memorial, which is the one monument in DC that I really like. It wasn’t the most exciting time away but it was a great way to get at least a little of the work done.

Gospel Stories and Social Justice

I had a wonderful week last week up at Maryknoll Institute studying the gospel of Matthew and what it says about social justice issues. Ched Myers was the teacher, folksinger Charlie King kicked off each session with a social justice song or two, and the class was made up of people from around the world who are embodying the idea of radical hospitality and jubilee with their hearts, hands, and feet. Ched does a wonderful job of weaving together new insights gained by looking at analogies as the Greek text and the social dynamics of the 1st century are interwoven with texts, sociology, and economics of the 21st century! His teaching style is both engaging and empowering.


I did a similar workshop with Myers two years ago-- then on the gospel of Mark-- and it inspires me both to continue with various pieces of social justice work I'd just begun and also to begin the D.Min. degree at Drew. And the students then as the students this past week reminded me of how much more I could be doing that I'm not-- that I've got to find new and creative ways to make the economics of the biblical jubilee more of a reality in my life and in the world and to find a way to embody the gospel more and the choices that empire puts before us less.

Kendall Sculpture Gardens

Despite the heat and humidity, we spent part of Saturday over in Purchase at the Donald M. Kendall Sculpture Gardens. Even though there was a period in my life when I’d lived about 3 miles away from the Pepsico headquarters, I think the last time I’d been to see the gardens was when I was a senior in high school.

While I appreciated the Pomodoro, the Ernst, the Segal, and the Miro pieces more than in the past, the works that continued to grab me were those by French Cubist Henri Laurens and especially the lesser known British sculptor David Wynne.

His Girl with a Dolphin was my favorite of the garden’s pieces back then and it continues to be my favorite now.

Future of Religions

I spent today attending the first part of a two-day conference called "The Future of Religions/Religions of the Future" in Extropia's Central Nexus region of Second Life. It had a pretty good turnout with religious studies faculty from around the world attending.


The conference is divided into two parts. The speakers today focused on the way in which various world religions are/can be studied and experienced in Second Life. Speakers addressed the ways in which various religions are using online connectivity and how students of religion can gain greater experience of world religions through Second Life offerings. While the presentation for any kind of conference like this is slow (since they're using typing, not mics) there were new projects from several colleges that seem like they have possibilities for my comparative religion classes.

Tomorrow's part of the conference looks like it will cover religions of the future, online religion, transhumanist religion, etc. I'm not sure or not whether I'll stop by or not. The only presentation scheduled that interests me is one on how religion online can move past static websites and bulletin boards to virtual environments, but that talk is going to happen right in the middle of two meetings I've already scheduled at my office.

Tarot Tales

Over the past month or so, I’ve been reading two books that focus on Tarot cards—which I know almost nothing about—in various ways.

The first was Charles Williams’ The Greater Trumps, which is about as quirky as the other Williams’ books that I’ve read in the past. Williams seems to assume the traditional Hermetic principle “As above, so below; as below, so above” in his storyline, so that what happens in the material world and the spiritual world, which seem dualistically separate, are interwoven and parallel. In order to understand the book at all (I still don’t feel like I’ve understood it well), I’ve spent time learning a bit about the significance of each of the Tarot cards that appear as the plot of the book develops. The ways in which Tarot cards reflect Jungian archetypes particularly intrigued me. I’ve also reread each chapter at least twice, trying to pick out what Williams is doing with the Tarot cards and with the story of Christianity, which is also woven deeply into the plot. Williams’ use of the dance and of hands as metaphors throughout the novel is intriguing since those are both favorite images of mine. His description of prayer—especially a scene where Sybil is in contemplation—also stood out. Perhaps that’s because Joanna and Sybil are both marvelously constructed, strong characters that have made me think again and again about the meaning of mystery and love.

Italo Calvino’s The Castle of Crossed Destinies was the second book that had Tarot cards at its center. I’ve been working my way through Calvino’s writings little by little and it happened to be the next book in the pile so it was quite by chance that I began it as I was about half way through The Greater Trumps. Calvino uses the Tarot in an entirely different way, using the images on the face of the cards to tell the stories of the lives of people who are caught together staying at a castle or a tavern. The book as a whole is sort of a Canterbury Tales using Tarot cards in place of poetry. While the stories Calvino created were intriguing, the chapters I enjoyed best were those in which he retold well-known tales—of Faust, Hamlet, or King Lear for example—using only the images found on the Marseilles tarots.