Jesus said dress for the best

Student 1: I really like Pentacost. It makes me feel like it is appropriate to wear red sequins to church.
Student 2: I love Ash Wednesday. I just wanna dip my face in the ashes and rub it around. Feel the passion of Christ, you know.


Overheard in: Common Room

Solid.

Student on a cell phone: I want to change my superhero name from 'The Liturgizer' to 'Dude-Erono-Mystic'... no, not just 'deuteronomistic,' but dude dash erono dash mystic... I don't know, what do you want 'erono' to mean? We make up words here all the time.

Overheard: Outside ISM great hall
Overheard by: non-ISM student getting food before colloquium

Someone's got to bear the Christ

Sister: I'm wearing this really cute dress to midnight mass. What are you wearing, Mom?
Mom: I think I'll just wear my robe and go as the Theotokos.

Overheard at YDS is taking a break until next semester starts, so it'll be a little slow around here for awhile.

If you happen to overhear something funny while you're at home, eating that pecan pie with your great aunt Mildred, be sure to send it in. Old relatives are some of the best at saying ridiculous things.

Have a satisfactory, non-denominational, capitalist, wintertime gift-giving season!

Or a Merry Christmas. Take that, Bill O'Reilly.

Peter Martens: No one wants God to be fair, we all got problems.

Overheard at: History of Christian Theology to 451

What a move, from Calvin to Slash

Student 1: I’ve gave myself an early Christmas present … Did you know Slash from Guns'n'Roses wrote an autobiography?
Student 2: Shut up.

Overheard at: YDS Library

Sexiest ever? No.

Student 1: Emile Durkheim... The man, the myth...
Student 2: The mustache!

Someone's excited

Student: (reading book) Trinity of inclusion? This is going in my paper like whoa.

Alvin and Theodore are sad

Student 1: So I just Wikipedia'd the Chipmonk you said I am...
Student 2: Simon?
Student 1: Yeah, and a little part of me died.

Those librarians know how to throw a party

Librarian 1: Are you going to the party at Sterling tonight?
Librarian 2: Yes, are you?
Librarian 1: Yes. It's too bad they had to move it from Beineke, but apparently last year some boy pooped on the floor.


Overheard at: YDS Library

It's a good question

Student 1: I'm going to go spend some quality time with JC.
(Grabs a book, and heads off to study.)

Student 2, shouts after them: Which one, John Collins, John Calvin, or Jesus Christ?


Overheard at: 794 Winchester St.

God bless transubstantiation

Student: So...I'm pretty buzzed on the blood of Christ right now...

Overheard: YDS Outing

That'll go over well at coffee hour

Bryan Spinks: I just hate it when ministers say: "Shall we pray?" It always makes me want to say: "No, let's play strip-poker instead!"

Overheard: Foundations of Christian Worship

So many theologians, so little time

Student 1: So, do you want to hang out tonight?
Student 2: No, I can't. I have a date!
Group of Students: Awwwww!!!
Student 2: With Rahner.
Group of Students: ....oh....

Overheard: Common Room

Amen, sister.

Student: For our test, they're requiring that we memorize the Bible and write it down backwards and upside down... just because they can.
Non-Div School Friend: It sounds like they're testing you on God by putting you through hell.

So that's the good news.

Student 1: I've got a date with the second half of Matthew.

Student 2: Don't worry, I've been there and he puts out.

Student 1: How does a gospel put out? If it has a passion narrative? Well then they're all easy.

Overheard at: Commuter Lounge

Rock, paper, scissors?

Student 1: We're like the trinity.

Student 2: I get to be the Holy Spirit, because I'm mysterious... oooh.

Student 3: I'm the Father 'cause I want to rule everything.

Student 2: Ha, ha, you have to be Jesus.

Student 3: And die!

Overheard at: Commuter Lounge

Out of context, yes?

Student: You don't deserve the awesomeness of my nuts.

Overheard at: Reading week

What a vote of confidence

Student: Childbirth was easier than OT!
Carolyn Sharp: We should just hand out epidurals.

Anglicans can get shaggy

Student 1: I love Rowan Williams and his beard.
Student 2: And his eyebrows!

Overshare on someone's part.

(group of naked YDSers run by)
Student: Wow, that was a lot of pubic hair.

Overheard at: Quad during Tree-Trimming party

Right on.

Brandon Johnson: And now Carrie and I are going to sing for you.
(Child starts crying)

Overheard at: Tree-Trimming party

That's a bit of a mix up...

NT Teaching Fellow: Mel Gibson is apparently Jewish... I mean Matthew.

That's the last time he gets an invite

Dale Peterson: Sorry everyone... It's the UCC/DOC people, so try to not revolt. Or be revolted.

All your church hymns are belong to us

Student 1: When it comes to church music, I'm like an 88 year old man. Only A Mighty Fortress Is Our God and things written before that.
Student 2: So only music written 400 years ago?

Overheard at: BAR

Damn the Mosaic law

Jeremy Hultin: In the purity code, you can't offer your children up to Molech... (class laughter) I know, I know, so restrictive.

Overheard at: NT

That's one holy shrine I'm avoiding

Student 1: Sometime I want to take a pen and connect all of the freckles on my body.
Student 2: I bet it'd make the face of Jesus.

Don't want to know what that's about

Student: You hit me in the head with your phallis, bitch!

The best part about knowing liturgy

Engaged student: We're literally designing the wedding service, so I think there's room for whale noises.

Grimace hangs the first ornament

Student: We're going down to the tree lighting... It's a very secular affair with Ronald McDonald.

Student: I love trashy Chinese food. There's something so crunchtastic about it.

Hippie alert

Student: I wish they made liturgical Birkenstocks and a matching stole.

Overheard at: Commuter Lounge

What a patriarchal society

Student: I can't sit on this misogynistic couch with you.

Nicely put.

Harvard fan: USE YOUR SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT!

Overheard at: Yale-Harvard hockey game

Wrong on so many levels

Student 1: I loved Miss Piggy when she was a kid.
(pause)
Student 2: What?
Student 3: When she was a kid? What do you mean?
Student 1: My sister. She loved Miss Piggy.
Student 2: No, you said you loved Miss Piggy when she was a kid.
Student 3: It's Muppet pedophilia!

Jeremy Hultin: Now you spit and shake hands, then you killed something to make a pact.

Overheard at: NT

Now the whole world knows what we know...

Congrats to Carolyn Sharp, one of our favorite quote inspirations, for winning the 2007 Fortress Press Teacher of the Year award for graduate and seminary teaching!

I think this deserves a mocha latte from Koffee on Audubon St....

YDS students are always cheap dates

Student: It's 5 cents for a pint of Smithwicks - a pint! I'll be drunk by 10 cents!

Overheard at YDS will be back after reading week/SBL-AAR and Thanksgiving. Everyone be sure to mention that you're thankful for the candy outside Dale Peterson's office.

Dean Attridge, you're my only hope

Dean Attridge: The best way to understand Stoicism is to think of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Overheard at: NT

(regarding Hildegard von Bingen's treatment of Liturgy in Scivias)
Fassler: Laudes is the one she cares about, she's not a Vespers kind of girl.

Overheard: in Med. Theologies of Love

Those Naughty Cistercians...

Margot Fassler: Now we're going to four-fold the Virgin Mary.
Student: Hey-Hey-Hey!
Margot Fassler: Oh she loves it.

Overheard: in Med. Theologies of Love

One advantage of being a recovering fundie

Student: I didn't have to study for OT since I MEMORIZED the Bible when I was a fundie. I'm recovering.

The CSharp reading program

Carolyn Sharp: That sarcastic, trickster model doesn't appeal to me. Life is short. God is real. Get serious, people. That's how I read.

The worst Mr. Darcy ever

Student: Is mayorality a word? Sounds like a Jane Austen novel - Mayor and Mayorality. I could see Rudy Giuliani as Mr. Darcy. (pause) No, I couldn't.

Overheard at: Commuter Lounge

The future looks bleak

Student 1: Did anyone meet any fun prospies?
Student 2: No.
Student 3: No.
Student 4: No.

Well stated.

Denys Turner: As you all know, I am God's gift to the human race.

Overheard at: Chapel

Why not make nap hour after Coffee hour?

Student: That's something this school lacks - a nap room.

An apple a day keeps the reading managable.

Student 1: Someone terrible once told me you have to choose the things you fall behind in.
Student 2: It's true! It's for your health.

Overheard at: YDS hallway

An empty room at YDS can only mean the rapture

Student: I smoked once. I think that's why I missed the rapture. I mean, c'mon, where is everyone?

Overheard at: Coffee Hour

CSharp lets loose

(Regarding the work and popular reviews of Robert Alter)

Carolyn Sharp: I did, once, actually receive a paper from a student who 'exegeted' what her grandmother had said about the relevant passage. It's not a prudent approach! Unless your grandmother is, you know, Gerhard von Rad. And even then, this assignment is about your interpretation of the passage, so Grandma von Rad would still need to be peripheral to your argument.

----------------------------

Carolyn Sharp: Time to get a mocha and calm down about the dismissively reductionist approach to the Bible that we see so often in popular culture. And just in case you'd be tempted to say I never taught you anything worthwhile: the best mocha lattes in New Haven are at Koffee on Audubon Street. There. That's something you can cling to when all the world seems to be awash in postmodern relativism.

Overheard at: Old Testament

Lara speaks

Jamie Lara: Churches love to collect stuff. Just go to any Episcopalian church.

------------------

Jaime Lara (on the Sacred Spaces conference): We now have 700 registered participants.... For a conference on mosques, churches and temples, hello!

------------------

Jamie Lara: These saints, they didn't have an MDiv or MAR, and they got into heaven.

Overheard at: Iconography

A better summary than Wikipedia

Student: It seems when things are good, the Israelites ignore God and when things are bad, they say, "Oh, God, help us out."
Carolyn Sharp: There's the book of Judges right there!

Spare time well spent

Student: My dad called last night and asked what I was doing and I said, 'Oh, you know, not much, just thinking about the cultural production of whiteness.'

Overheard at: Political Economy of Misery

Greco-Roman philosophy meets Wall Street meets Haight-Asbury

Jeremy Hultin: Cynics were hippies in an age of Augustinian yuppies.

Overheard at: NT

God better not send me spam

Student: If you can't find God in e-mail, then I'm screwed, because that's where I spend all my time.

Overheard at: Commuter Lounge

Student: I swear I saw Boaz in line at the post office yesterday!

The Karls don't go down THAT easy

Systematic student: I'm just going to have her explain the theologies of Barth and Rahner briefly, in 15 minutes or so.

Overheard at: Reading week

Another reason to wipe out depression

Student: What if we were able to completely wipe out depression?
Jan Holton: We wouldn't have any more country music.

Overheard at: Pastoral Care: Suffering and Depression

Student: I always thought if I weren't Jewish I'd be Bahá'í... or Lutheran.

In the words of Ben Folds, it's hard being male, middle class and white

Student: I wake up every morning and ask myself, "Why am I so normative?"

Or Mr. Collins, he's even related

Student 1: Did you know there's a Mormon Pride and Prejudice?
Student 2: What, Mr. Darcy marries all the sisters?

Overheard at: Beer = better than theology party

Carolyn's a robot?!?

Carolyn Sharp: "This is me mocking this point of view." (in a robot voice--) "The law of the Old Testament is simply outdated and uninformative."

Overheard at: Old Testament Interpretation

Student 1: So where are you going now?
Student 2: Happy hour.
Student 1: Oh, you're a Holy Homo.

At least you won't have to pay back student loans

Student 1: I only have about 10 more years ahead of me.
Student 2: You only plan on living 10 more years?
Student 1: Well, if I get assassinated, six.

Overheard at: Commuter Lounge

I'd hate to see what lies will do

Gloria Steinem: The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.

Overheard at: Chubb lecture

I can fit 15 clowns in a VW Bug

First year: I can learn four languages in three years... When I say it out loud it sounds ridiculous.

It seems so simple...

Student 1: I'm surrounded by the shade!
Student 2: You're sitting under a tree.

Overheard at: Div school Quad

You can only get those YDS postcards here too

(after showing video of the interior of Santa Maria Maggiore)
Jaime Lara: You only get this at Yale Divinity School. You don't get this at Princeton.

Overheard at: Iconography

Carolyn Sharp: We've got to get out there and complexify the situation. So this weekend, make sure you talk to someone and complexify things.

Overheard at: Ruth and Esther class

WWUD?

NT Teaching Fellow: If Q doesn't exist, for some scholars it's like they've spent their whole careers writing about unicorns.

Overheard at: NT section

$19.95 at www.whitehouse.gov

(describing the Arch of Titus)
Jaime Lara: It was like George Bush Gone Wild, like a statue of George Bush on the White House lawn.

Overheard at: Iconography

With a musket we do.

Denys Turner: I didn't know there was any urban Virginia. Do you shoot from the hip there?

Google this!

Student: Hey, have you googled yourself lately? I'm awesome!

I suppose it's better than being a real whore

Student: God!! I'm such an ecclesiastical whore!

The wisdom of Emilie Townes

Emilie Townes: Some of you are fabulous. You know that. But you must be fabulous in time.
---------------------------------
Student: Can we at some point talk about forgetting or selective memory?
Emilie Townes: Have you been hanging out with Miroslav?
---------------------------------
Emilie Townes: I'm only going to scratch the surface today. I'm not going to change your life. Maybe next time.

Overheard at: Political Economy of Misery class

White Moses is almost as cool as White Jesus

Student: Moses was the first American. He released eagles from the ark.

Overheard at: the Quad during the Community BBQ.

Be wary of gifts from Hultin

Jeremy Hultin: What do you do when you're in love with someone and she doesn't like you? Put a spell on her.

Overheard at: NT Interpretation

In that case, Uncle Marty would have been a REALLY good minister

Student 1: The psychiatrist asked me if I was hearing any voices, and was like, well, no, except for the voice of God. So, I guess that makes me schizophrenic.
Student 2: ...Or, a REALLY good minister! You decide!

Overheard at: Trumbull St and Hillhouse Ave

Jesus is pretty delicious

Student: I don't eat breakfast on Fridays because I know I have to consume everything that's left after Eucharist... I'm also a little drunk because I just killed two chalices on an empty stomach. It was okay though, the third one was grape juice.

Overheard at: Marquand

Or read the Marquand schedule.

Girl: Whoa, look at you! Why are you all dressed up?

Guy: Because I preached today in Marquand.

Girl: You know, I would have known that if I was a better Christian...

There wasn't enough room on the sarcophagus for fava beans

(on a Roman sarcophagus)
Jaime Lara: It [the afterlife] is a land flowing with milk and honey and a little chianti. They were Italian Jews, you know.

Overheard at: Iconography class

I bet Byron swooped his bangs

Girl: When I think of emo, I think of Byron and Bronte.

What else are you worried about forgetting?

Girl: I'm not much of a church-goer.
Guy: But you do have God's name tattooed on your arm, which is cool.
Girl: It's so I remember, in case I get drunk.

Is that like speaking in tounges?

Student: I should study but I'm going to procrastinate since that is one of my spiritual gifts--and as Paul says, I should let my spiritual gifts flow.

Can JC help me move my furniture?

Student 1 sees Student 2 pushing a car out of a parking space to jump its battery:

Student 1: Do you need any help pushing that car?
Student 2: Nah, I'm good. As you can see, I can do all things through Jesus Christ who strengthens me.

Overheard at: Canner Street Apartments Parking Lot

Dan Brown's next book

Student: DOC is only cool if you work for Opus Dei.

(concerning Elementary Hebrew)
Student: You know, I wasn't anti-Semitic until I took that class.

Obviously a grad student

Student: The only thing in my fridge besides bad milk, apple cider and maple syrup is feta cheese.

Overheard at: Fisher

Why do you tease like that?

dude 1: Do you want to get together later, and sit around reading the blurbs off the back of our books together and get excited?
dude 2: Sure, yeah.
dude 1: Let's not actually do that.

Overheard at: YDS bookstore line

John Wesley was on to something

Person 1: We put the meth in Methodist.

Overheard at: YDS bookstore