Journal for the Journey

As smoke and dust clear from the first six weeks of this semester, I'm putting together a refreshed edition of my beloved bullet journal which has kept me so well for the past year—with a firm hope that I can sustain a balanced life, even in this rigorous, doctoral program. From past experience, I know that I must write my way through difficulties and challenges, disappointments and triumphs, in order to remain whole. I must write my way through every research project, my heavy course load, and my dissertation.

I need to create a space that lets me "talk" about my experience in a highly personal manner. I need to notice and express  emotions and spirituality, not just academic and vocational progress. Unless I'm careful, I can become so consumed by work that I lose myself in the battle to get it done. How easy it is for me to live as though my life is all about the battle and nothing but the battle! Over time, such devotion brings me no advantage. It drains my enthusiasm, strength, resilience, flexibility, creativity, humor, and compassion. At the same time, I know that eliminating the work is not a viable solution, because the work itself matters. What I need is a third space, which is neither work nor home, where the noise of the world is hushed, and I can "come in out of the wind," as C. S. Lewis once wrote. More than anything else, writing about my life and my work  is the key to creating this third space.


Regardless of what anyone else might think, I am a writer. I write in order to learn, to think, to find my way, to know myself, to make a contribution, to shine light in dark places, and to know God better. I am a writer in the marrow of my bone. Writing is how I weave a worthy life out of the tangled threads that have come to me across time and space. I weave as I write, and I weave from what I write.

Here on the page, I find my heart’s rest, where it beats still quietly and steadily. Here I know that I am real, and the storms which have washed over me have not taken me away. I am a writer in the breath of my soul. Here I am, and here I shall be found, all my days.

Learn Aramaic, Part 3

By mid-semester, we have reached a consensus.

I'm beginning to see some of the reasons for my professor's inductive teaching methods. Biblical Aramaic was not organized by the Babylonian grammar police, if there were any. Aramaic words may be spelled more than one way, or they may be borrowed from another language (like Persian) which means they don't always follow Aramaic patterns. Also, margin notes on differences between what is written (ketiv) and how it should be pronounced (qere) occur frequently. Today, the corpus of Biblical Aramaic literature is slim, leaving scholars a comparatively small collection to analyze. Given this particular situation, a standardized vocabulary glossary or grammar guide is less helpful than we might expect.

At the same time, I am a Language Design Diva. I maintain that language usually has a design, because people create conventions for effective communication. Although active language is always changing, linguistic alterations serve a common purpose of expressing ideas, feelings, events, and needs. There are also issues of honesty, concealment, and deception to consider, because people use language to obscure as often as to reveal. But every aspect of language has purpose; even concealment and deception require order.

Grammar and syntax are part of language design. We are limited in our understanding of any language when we don't understand how its grammar and syntax are organized. So I'm pushing back on the class curriculum with my questions about structure. For example, is the vav letter used to connect clauses AND show relationships between them? Could a vav indicate emphasis or even intensification? Might the vav show condition, subordination, or purpose from one clause to the next? If so, it would be translated with more options than simply and, or, and but. A vav could be rendered in English as also, even, when, that, and so to express various relationships between clauses. I asked about this possibility in class last night, and after some initial hedging by the professor, I was finally rewarded with a "yes," supported by the Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (HALOT) and some reflective discussion.

My professor understands me better now. He knows that I'm not just being difficult. He recognizes that my desire to comprehend Aramaic propels me to ask such questions. After the third class, we briefly discussed my dissertation work (which will include the book of Daniel), so he knows I'm serious. He is patient with my mistakes and my pursuit of orderliness, while he functions by a fluid style of language learning which I don't quite grasp. Even so, I'm faithfully doing all the assignments he prescribes. I have found that there are benefits in simply reading a passage repeatedly, even when everything in it is not completely clear.

For my midterm, I practiced reading Daniel 2 and 3. I was surprised I could do this after six weeks of study. My professor's fluid, inductive style does work---especially with a little help from supplementary references. I suspect that I will never find it comfortable, but now I'm convinced that it has some strong points. He's right that we can't learn a new language only by drilling with vocabulary lists and grammars: we must use language in order to learn it. All to say, I'm beginning to establish a personal sense of equilibrium between order and spontaneity.

Then a new wilderness appeared on my horizon. Last night in class, our professor asked us if we were feeling more comfortable with Aramaic. We gave him a tentative "yes." He replied, "Good. Because I'm trying to decide how fast we can go forward from here and when we will start the Targums." In case you're wondering, these other ancient Aramaic documents use a different set of vowel markings. All I know is that the words look like Hebrew letters with little tree branches lying across the top of them.  

Learn Aramaic, Part 2

Now, what I'm about to tell you may seem unlikely and speculative. But I'm convinced that God went ahead of me to support my efforts to learn Aramaic under circumstances which are less than ideal, as I described in Learn Aramaic, Part I. These circumstances are especially difficult for five reasons:

1. No time to prepare. On orientation day, the dean of Old Testament studies strongly advised that I substitute Aramaic class for one of my other classes. Aramaic won't be offered for two more years, and language learning is far better in a class than alone. I had bought books for all my other classes. But I changed my class schedule that very day and ordered books for Aramaic. I had some trouble obtaining the main grammar and did not get my own copy for two weeks!

2. Preparation is usually my secret to success. In this situation, I was unable to prepare for language class in the way I had previously done for Greek and Hebrew. I prefer to start studyng 4-6 weeks before the first class, because graduate language classes are very fast. This leads to my second point.

3. I'm slow and methodical, not quick and intuitive. The teaching approach in our Aramaic course is suitable for quick, intuitive students who can use clues to figure it out as they go. There is no system to learn, just a lot of seemingly random data flowing across our desks. Of course, language is messy, and the more I study the Aramaic language, the messier it looks. My professor is a good man; he has reasons why he is teaching inductively---but inductive methods rarely work for me. This leads to my fourth point.

4. Without a deductive overview, I drown in a sea of information. It's the way I'm designed. I'm orderly and systematic. Occasionally, people have tried to change me, without success. There isn't a class or a curriculum which will cure me of my design, although I may slowly learn to borrow a few skills from my inductive, intuitive friends. But I have an even bigger problem: see my next point.

5. I'm not quite myself right now. The move has temporarily drained my energy and given me an overload of new information to synthesize. I make a lot of silly mistakes. My work takes longer than usual. I forget things. These are all symptoms of cognitive overload. But I don't have the luxury of slowing down or taking it easy until I recover, since I'm entering a rigorous doctoral program.

All of these factors, in combination with the inductive, research-oriented methods of my professor, are ingredients in a recipe for disaster. The situation and my design, taken together, put me at a tremendous disadvantage. Our professor told us to give ourselves a quick overview of the language, translate 19 verses, and take a quiz on the first five verses in in one week. Translation includes everything - parts of speech, verb system, syntax and grammar, new vocabulary, and morphology. That's normally the work of 6-12 months for me.

But I'm not doing this alone. God is with me. He never intended that I should do this work by myself. He is wise and good, and he loves me.

Last November, I was strongly drawn to a particular curriculum at a conference I attended. I picked up Beginning Biblical Aramaic (BBA) by Miles Van Pelt. I cannot explain my purchase, except for an irresistable attraction.  BBA seemed to be surrounded by sparkly lights and to be singing, "Dance with me, My Love." So I did. At that point, I did not expect any school to accept me into a doctoral program, so I had no real practical, justifiable reason for the purchase. Now, on the syllabus for my Aramaic class, BBA is listed at the bottom as an optional resource.

So in the first three weeks, I have read through BBA while translating for the class. In BBA, I find nearly everything I need for an overview of the language. Van Pelt's presentation is clear and systematic. It builds upon Hebrew, which I've already learned. This is absolute perfection.

In fact, while I was waiting for my Aramaic books to arrive in the mail, I could start reading BBA immediately, because I already owned it. I also discovered last week that I had unknowingly purchased key resources in my Logos Bible software academic bundle. With these things in hand, I can find my way through the sea of seemingly random information in our translations. I can make sense of the pieces.

These resources which I already owned were an exact fit for my need in this hour. I can only say with the writer of Psalm 139:

Even before a word is on my tongue,
     behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,
     and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. (139:4-6 ESV)

Such foreknown words on my tongue apparently include those in Aramaic, too.  This is only one example of what I've experienced repeatedly over the last month. God has gone ahead of me and already put in place what I need. The sheer saturation of prior provisions is staggering. To explain them all, I would have to write a book.