CHQ -- Journal #2

It's Wednesday night and the time already seems to be winding down. Two full days of programming are ahead, then home again on Saturday.

The theme for the week is Sacred Spaces, and lectures both secular and religiously oriented have centered around this concept. We heard Ken Burns speak twice this week -- once about William Seagel and a place in France called Vezelay (very contemplative), and tonight about battlefields, which have their own sacred nature in a "lest we forget" kind of way.

In the afternoons, the Department of Religion lectures have been Abrahamic in nature and have focussed on Jerusalem and its role as a sacred place from different points of view. So far we have heard a Muslim, a Jew and a Christian speak. They have taken very different tacks, but it has been so interesting and surprisingly not contentious. The Jewish speaker was Rabbi Melchior, who must be well-known, though not by me. At any rate, he has been, among other things, a member of the Israeli Knesset, and I wondered if he might not be more of a hard liner. Never assume....

I have been taking an acting class this week from a woman who works in NYC as an actor and is lots of fun. As there are only two of us students, we get a good amount of time to do actual scene work. I do love the stage and wish there were more opportunities for me to indulge this hankering closer to where I live.

Only two days left. I am beginning to feel sad already, but I don't want to give any of that time away, either, in premature grieving. In the morning, I will run again and then let the rhythm of the day proceed in its customary way. In a right/left brain exercise, I will get some needlework done during lectures, a cultural thing here that I love.

Tonight we go "off campus" for dinner at Andriaccio's, an Italian restaurant near enough to walk to, and then back for a symphony concert. Tomorrow is leftover night, in an attempt to use up what is still hanging around in the fridge. And so it goes!

CHQ, you're the best!