Fate

Going to Denver, AAR-SBL 2018, this weekend. 

I was in contact with the folks at one of my publishers today about the confab, one of whom has started his own press that I’m also working for, and he offered to give me a badge for the conference. Just call him when I got there. 

So, no housing costs (staying with son and daughter-in-law, one mile from convention), no registration, and my wife remembered we had points on some card that got me enough airfare to fly out there. She says I was meant to go. I wonder if she’ll keep that thought in mind if I get run over by a bus.

If you had told me thirty years ago, or especially thirty-five years ago, that one day I would be traveling halfway across the country for a forty-eight-hour period to attend the annual conference of the American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature, and that I was really looking forward to it, I would have laughed in your face.

Then again, although there were extenuating circumstances, my first presidential vote was cast for the ticket of Ron Paul and one of the Koch brothers. 

And the irony of both are not unconnected. 

Seven days, no news. I really just can’t recommend this enough. I’m going to have a hard time in the Atlanta airport, trying to avoid televisions. Might be time for the earplugs and finding the nearest airport chapel.

I think it was in Atlanta one time when I was traveling through that I stopped off in the chapel for some peace and quiet. Muslim guy comes in, puts his rug down, does his thing, and gets up to go. I said, “Please don’t take offense, but how do you know which way is east?” He said, “I saw some other guy do it this way.” Speaking of thirty-five years ago, that’s a question I never would have asked in my youth, before meeting the perpetually curious and sociable woman who became my wife.

Next airport chapel I went into, I noticed that they had the direction marked on the wall.