Ooh?

(Holding a screwdriver - the tool, not the drink)
MAR student: Need anything screwed?

MDiv student: What I need screwed doesn't require a screwdriver.

Overheard: Commuter Lounge

Or anti-fleshist

MAR student: I like my men with some meat on their bones.

MDiv student: [Name], are you being fleshist?!

Overheard: Walking from the Div. school to downtown

Syric Homework: The Miniseries

Student 1, working on Syriac homework:

“I just can't figure out what is going on in this passage! Why are there elephants? People!? A city!?! A wall!?!? Water!?!?!”

(5 minutes later)

“What the f*** does that word mean! I just looked it up, damn it! Oh, f****, I'll look it up again.”

(3 seconds later)

“Where the hell is mem! The letter mem!”

(5 minutes later)

“They're under attack by innumerable elephants, but I don't know who is doing it or why.”

(2 minutes later)

“This is crazy! I feel like I'm in the middle of this war!”

(5 minutes later)

“Now randomly there is a divine temple! Where the hell did the temple come from!”

(26 minutes later)

“I really wish they would stop praying...”

(7 minutes later)

“I'm trying to figure out if the bishop is filling or killing the horseman with cows. Cows...or...something else.”

(Pauses)

“Ah, yes! It's filling! Filling them with cows. But, I just don't see how that could be...”

(Pauses, strokes chin, looks puzzled)

“Oh! Oh! Encouragement! He's filling them with encouragement! I was conflating 'the rest of the people' with 'cows.'”

Student 2:
“There's a fine line between cows and encouragement...”

Student 1:
(Incoherent whimpering)
“I don't know why its doing that! I wish it would stop! Oooh....”
(Groans, rocks in fetal position)

Fin.

Unexpected silences are the best

(song ends and everything gets quiet)
Student: ...and then all your fluids are released.



overheard: party

Death?

Student 1: I wrote a paper about what happens after we die last year... but I never got it back.
Student 2: That's got to be a metaphor for something.

Overheard in Fisher Hall

No need to break it down

Student 1: What happened to Hammer?
Student 2: It must not be Hammertime anymore.

Overheard: Common Room

Where's JC then?

Student: My computer is so slow, it must be the eschaton.

Overheard: Common Room

Both?

Student: Wait... rock me, sexy Jesus or sex exegesis?

I hear myself thinking that's bullshit...

Student: Sometimes maybe you just need to call out the bullshit.
Kristen Leslie: That's advanced pastoral care.

Overheard: BLTGQ Pastoral Care

So... it's nothing like "America: The Book"

MDiv: Have you seen that book we're supposed to read? It's like "America, the Book," only it's about church and it's serious.

Overheard in Niebuhr Hall.

No, it's This Is Howie Do It! But without Howie Mandel.

Student: Is this your receipt?

Bruce Gordon: From the Disney Store? [Giggles] No, I've never been there.

Student: Oh, I didn't know.

Bruce Gordon: Is this some sort of coordinated humiliation?

Overheard: Commuter Lounge

Prior life?

Teaching Fellow: The highest level of contemplation for monks, well, it's been likened to post-orgasmic afterglow. That's all I'm saying.
MDiv: But, then, how would the monks know about it?

Overheard in Medieval Theology section

I'd hope so... the original is quite long.

Carolyn Sharp: You could read the whole Hebrew Bible, or my handout, which is shorter.

Overheard in Old Testament Interpretation

Amazing.

Denys Turner: I've written an article... I've worked up to it but I don't have the climax. It's like sex without the orgasm.

Overheard: Commuter Lounge

Too soon... too soon.

Student 1: I mean, he's trying to claim that Judaism was a proselytizing religion.
Student 2: Maybe the way they were at Shechem!
[Laughter all around.]

Overheard at: Commuter Lounge

Ooh.

(Student 1 says something funny and Student 2 laughs, bending forward)
Student 1: Anything to make [student 2] bend over...

What's what I was thinking about... what were YOU thinking about?

Student: I'm going to go listen about some guy's balls. [laughter] Aw, come on, it's the Ugaritic Baal cycle.

Overheard: Commuter Lounge

Who knows where we would be without pancakes!

Diana Swancutt: His gaze of someone else disrupted his ability to eat pancakes! This is not a minor thing! Society is structured on IHOP!

Overheard: GLBTQ Pastoral Care

Little from column A, little from column B

Female Student 1: So, how are you feeling about your chances with ---?
Female Student 2: (putting head in hand) Not good. Not good at all. That man drives me to drink...and exercise.

~Overheard in Common Room

Must be a great guy

Student: Ooh, there's number 7! He scored twice last night! He's really cute and definitely a good guy. He went to my high school and WASN'T involved with the scandal.

Overheard: Yale/Dartmouth hockey game

Not true! Celibate and old people, for instance. Unless you're Harold-and-Mauding it.

Student: You don't live on an island. There's always someone you could be having sex with.

-Overheard in the Refectory

All my "roommates" are euphemisms.

(on phone)

“We're roommates.”

(Silence)

“No, grandma, it's not a euphemism.”

(Silence)

“Well, it's sort of like polygamy without the man.”


Overheard in commuter lounge

Bible is also NOT a trilogy. Well, could be trinitarian, I guess.

Student: The Lord of the Rings is a long trilogy and there's a lot in it, but not nearly as much as there is in the Bible.

-Overheard in the Refectory

The Collins adapt so well to pop songs

[to the tune of American Boy]
Student 1: You'll be my Adela Collins, my Adela Collins.
Student 2: How about - You can stand under my Adela, ella, ella, eh eh eh eh?

the passion of the tchotchke

In honor of reading week, my birthday, and updating on breaks to entertain Susan Olson, here's the passion of the tchotchke. Kate, who sent me the link, likes the lamp the best, but I'm going to have to go with the ties.

PS It was my birthday on Friday.
PpS I like religious kitsch, as evidenced by my Sacred Heart of Jesus wrist watch.
PPPS Did I mention it was my birthday?

Randall Balmer on the Daily Show

In case you missed it, YDS's former visiting professor Randall Balmer was on The Daily Show last night talking about his new book, God In The White House, or as he likes to call it, The Show That Appears Daily.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Randall Balmer

Daily Show Full Episodes
Funny Political Videos

Important Things With Demetri Martin
More Funny Videos

I bet someone could get a dissertation out of that.

Thanks for the clarification

Professor, reading T-shirt: "God loves vaginas"

Student: "Does this look familiar or what?"

Professor "Yeah, it does. I have a few. [Long pause] T-shirts!"

Dan Brown's the reason my grandma is interested in my education

Gordon Lathrop: Irenaeus is one of the bad guys in the Dan Brown school of church history.

Overheard: Liturgical Theology

So much love

Student: I sent a lot of Agape Grams today... Does that make me an agape whore?

No lovin' without babies

(watching a very affectionate couple exit the restaurant through a back door)

"Sober" M.Div: I bet you twenty bucks they're going back there to fuck.
Drunk M.Div: Oh my GOD, when did you become so cynical??
"Sober" M.Div: That's not being cynical! That's a beautiful thing. They're going to make a baby.
Drunk M.Div: Oh my God, when did you become Roman Catholic?

Aw, snap!

Joel Baden: What is this here?
Student 1: Merism.
Joel Baden: So what does that mean?
Student 1: ... Uh, everything?

How about crew?

Peter Hawkins: Comitatus means friends, group... for hip hop reasons, I prefer the word posse.

overheard: Passion of Christ in Lit and Art

At least it's done in fellowship?

Bruce Gordon: It's like giving them the middle finger of fellowship, basically.

Overheard in: Reformation Europe

Help it catch on, people.

MDiv Student: This room is cold and suspiciously dark ...
MAR Student: Like my soul! [Pause.] I think that's, like, the Div School equivalent of "That's what she said."

Good logic.

Student 1: Who are you rooting for in the Super Bowl?
Student 2: Well, Luther's father was a miner and I don't think he'd support the Cardinals...