I didn’t run right away this morning, as it was still raining — but after morning prayers and my first coffee (and some grapes), the rain had cleared and I felt confident that I could run miles without uncomfortable soaking. No rain, then, nor any unhinged automotive stalkers. So that’s a win.
Later this morning I will roll down to Oxford, see about applying for a pensioners’ free bus pass, pick up some odds and ends for my jazzy new back-satchel (doing Duolingo,* so I remember to say ‘sac-à-dos’), and to to Prof. Lisa Bowens’s Speaker’s Lecture on Martin Luther King as Apocalyptic Seer, a topic right up my hermeneutical alley.
The series is called ‘the Speaker’s Lectureship in Biblical Studies’ and I can find no easily accessible source to suggest the origins of the scheme. Maybe it’s even named after somebody named Speaker, or after the Speaker of the House of Commons (a post for which the UK government has no difficulty in filling, unlike the US Speaker of the House of Representatives).
* You may say, ‘AKMA, you studied French for ten years and have translated several works from French; why are you doing Duolingo French?’ Well, it’s none of your business, but I am an open book so I’ll say that theological- or philosophical-book French is one thing, and conversational French is another, and I’d like to be able to say things more useful than ‘John’s Gospel shows indications of several levels of redaction.’ Further, I want to enhance my German, especially conversational German (again), and starting wiht a language I already know well should give me a confidence boost for my German.