Moulins and Sin

I'm never sure when I teach exactly what to say about sin. What is the balance of individual and social sin in our lives? Where do we see the effects of sin most profoundly? In broken human relationships? In systemic injustices like racism or poverty? Is sin mostly spiritual with effects most decisively visited upon us in the world to come? There are elements of truth to all of these approaches and finding something definitive to say is difficult.

Yesterday, I took a different approach focusing on the rapid flow of the Ilulissat glacier into the sea.


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And I found that the moulins (swirling masses of melt water in gigantic holes on the glaciers surface) or something very much like them, are visible from Google maps.


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I like teaching in an age when I can fly with my class over Greenland to see the effects of global climate change. Having something very specific like moulins on which to focus a discussion about the individual and social effects of sin makes for a good discussion. The question of sin is not any easier to answer. Hopefully, that points as much to how much we all have to learn together.

Guitars!

The music at chapel service yesterday was wonderfully worshipful. The energy in the room was jumpstarted by a new member of the worship band who brought an electric guitar. It's amazing how effective distorted guitar is at calling forth a spirit of energy and excitment in me. Perhaps this is another reason why I like to begin classes by playing a song from somewhere in contemporary culture. The consonance between the praise music on Thursday and A. C. Newman's song, "The Laws have Changed" in my theology class was really obvious to me yesterday. I love it when a plan comes together!

First Day

The first day of a new semester is always exciting. It's fun to see students who are back after summers away and fun to watch people who are experiencing their first day of college. I teach my first class, Introduction to Biblical Worldview, at 2:00 this afternoon. The first week of this course is very carefully laid out as there are four professors working together at the front of the classroom to begin this class. My favorite part of class is at the end of today when I show a graphic designed to give students a lighter look at the religion department.
That's me with the glasses and goatee.

For all of the fun, anticipation, and building of community that begins today, it also feels bittersweet. When the spring semester ended last year I was happy to be done with school for awhile, partly because it had been such an emotionally intense semester with the bus accident and the processing of that at Bluffton. I was glad to have some time away. Now that I'm getting back into things those emotions are rushing back and settling themselves alongside the other things I feel about starting school again. School always provides opportunities for learning, for me as much as my students, and that learning began long before classes did this year.