Camp Melville
Bowls of fresh blackberries and raspberries at breakfast; three hours talking each morning with creative, congenial people about gorgeous and powerful prose; a pool to read by in the afternoons; beloved old friends to visit . . . this is a good week.
I am attending a seminar on Melville sponsored by the N*tional Hum*nities Center. Our seminar leader is wise, generous, humble, funny--a combination a little too rare among academics, I'm afraid. I had read his scholarship--everyone in my field has--and had met him when he came to my school this past spring to give a lecture on his recent book, and yet each day I'm more deeply moved by him not only as an intellect but also as a true humanist, a person concerned with what it means to be human, to be humane.
And because the Center is about 5 minutes from where I used to live, I've gotten to see old friends and even to attend my old Bible study last night. I went over before the official meeting started and had dinner with the family who hosts it. It's hard to put into words what it means to me to go to their house. At one point when I lived here, our group was talking about how we had grown and might need to "multiply" into two groups, change leaders, etc., and possibly move where we met. Any one of those changes would have meant that we wouldn't all meet together as we had been doing, but the one that started me the tears rolling for me--hard, and (to my dismay) irrepressibly--was the idea of not going there, to that house, every week.
Each week on the night we met, I'd come home from school and I might feel tired and think about what I needed to do for the next day, and I'd wonder whether I wanted to fight traffic on I-40 to get down to Raleigh, get home late, etc., to go to Bible study. But then I'd think about walking in the door at their house, and about how good it always felt, how I always forgot about school and everything else for a couple of hours--how the pressure in my head and chest that had been building for the whole week would release entirely for that amount of time. How their daughters would gasp my name and run breathlessly down the stairs to greet me like I was some kind of long-lost hero. How this blessed family was always so happy to see each of us, like we'd been away for the week, and were finally coming home.
I am attending a seminar on Melville sponsored by the N*tional Hum*nities Center. Our seminar leader is wise, generous, humble, funny--a combination a little too rare among academics, I'm afraid. I had read his scholarship--everyone in my field has--and had met him when he came to my school this past spring to give a lecture on his recent book, and yet each day I'm more deeply moved by him not only as an intellect but also as a true humanist, a person concerned with what it means to be human, to be humane.
And because the Center is about 5 minutes from where I used to live, I've gotten to see old friends and even to attend my old Bible study last night. I went over before the official meeting started and had dinner with the family who hosts it. It's hard to put into words what it means to me to go to their house. At one point when I lived here, our group was talking about how we had grown and might need to "multiply" into two groups, change leaders, etc., and possibly move where we met. Any one of those changes would have meant that we wouldn't all meet together as we had been doing, but the one that started me the tears rolling for me--hard, and (to my dismay) irrepressibly--was the idea of not going there, to that house, every week.
Each week on the night we met, I'd come home from school and I might feel tired and think about what I needed to do for the next day, and I'd wonder whether I wanted to fight traffic on I-40 to get down to Raleigh, get home late, etc., to go to Bible study. But then I'd think about walking in the door at their house, and about how good it always felt, how I always forgot about school and everything else for a couple of hours--how the pressure in my head and chest that had been building for the whole week would release entirely for that amount of time. How their daughters would gasp my name and run breathlessly down the stairs to greet me like I was some kind of long-lost hero. How this blessed family was always so happy to see each of us, like we'd been away for the week, and were finally coming home.
posted by Tara | 12:42 AM
3 Comments:
:) what a sweet blessing of hospitality. Enjoy the rest of your week!
I think you're at some secret spa that's been dubbed a 'seminar' for funding.
Lee--yes, and without a quiz! :)
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