SchneiderWeb

Ten years ago today, at approximately 8:45 AM, I was standing in the Rector Street subway station in lower Manhattan waiting for the 1/9 train. Unbeknownst to me and the rest of those on the platform with me, hell was being unleashed about two blocks north and 90 stories up. Despite the chaos occurring just north of where I was, I actually made it to work in Midtown by taking what was probably one of the last trains to pass directly below the WTC. Thus began the day's odyssey of simply trying to get back home, which would prove impossible since the entire neighborhood of Battery Park City, where we lived, had become a war zone. When I eventually was able to meet Sandy at a friend's apartment after the madness of that day, I posted my thoughts on the politics forum of a financial Web site that I frequently visited in those days (the post is still there): I live three blocks south of what was the World Trade Center. The subway I take to work passes directly under it. Until a fe...

Every second-year seminarian at Princeton is required to serve a year of field education, which is basically an internship in a church, hospital, or prison, wherein we serve as pastor, counselor, administrator, teacher--or more likely--some combination of all of the above. My field ed placement begins officially on September 18th, but I began attending the church last Sunday. The church is Broadway Presbyterian, which is on Broadway (appropriately enough) and 114th Street, right across from Columbia University. Broadway is an old (built in 1912), small (100 or so members), multiethnic, liturgically formal but theologically progressive church in an urban setting--pretty much the exact opposite of what I've experienced the last eight years--not that there's anything wrong with that (Tom's Restaurant, of Seinfeld fame, is two blocks away). Last week the liturgy began with a meditation--three lines from a poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Earth's crammed with heaven, ...

I was in such a daily rhythm these last 8 weeks with summer Greek. Now that it's over, I'm not quite sure what to do with this free time I have before the fall term begins. Maybe get a jump start on Hebrew.... The grammar book for my Hebrew class, which I'll be taking all year (I'm not masochistic enough to take summer Hebrew [say "Ow"!]), was written by a professor in the Biblical Studies department. In addition to being a brilliant scholar (he wrote the book when he was 25), he's also my faculty adviser and hosts ice cream socials for his advisees at his house, which is practically on campus.