So here’s a picture I dug out of my CCC files from when I used to teach The Jesus Class. Jesus Class was a manuscript study on the Gospel of Mark – probably my favorite thing to teach ever. Back then we were trying to stream our events and classes online. People signed up for the class live and in person (at the Student Center apparently) but we were also trying to engage an entire online audience as well. I think this section of the Jesus Class had about a dozen in person participants and about 20 more online. Here’s what it took to do this in October 2012 (pink numbers from the pic):

1. One teacher. That’s me up on an empty stage in an empty room prepping for that evening’s session.
2. A plasma screen. Think of it as Screen Share – The participant would see me (like the person on the evening news) with this screen to the left of my shoulder.
3. That would be my i-Pad (which I still use to this day doing zoom sessions). What I wanted my live class and my online class to see was on my i-Pad. A PowerPoint slide deck. A manuscript of Mark’s gospel I could mark up with Notability. Resource sheets I wanted people to be able to refer to.
4. A black metal music stand. Anything I ever did in a church required a black metal music stand. (I still use one with my Nordic Track when I work out).
5. My lappy open to the web-page the class was being streamed to. I could read and respond to the chat from online participants. There was no video of my participants sitting in front of their devices like the Brady Bunch.
6. Camera pointed at me and my plasma screen. This is the video feed for the online participant. A camera operator was there with me.
7. The screen on the wall for my live participants sitting in the room (same thing as the plasma screen.)
8. Tables that my live students would be seated at. Zoom has chat-rooms, conference rooms have tables.
9. My sound and lighting guy was perched at the back of the room making sure everyone could see and hear and sending the audio feed to the camera operator who was streaming the feed.

Quite a few moving parts! We did this for 90 minutes a week. For 8 weeks straight. The in person audience was the glue for the rest of the class. Students were learning inductive study with a manuscript while learning the Gospel of Mark. The good old days!

Zoom these days…

Compare that with my virtual bible study experience this summer. As a part of our GFM Regional Staff Conference, I was asked to lead a 45 minute bible study in Second Peter. Talk about moving parts! Here’s what it looked like compared to vintage Jesus Class:

• Our virtual study had 47 participants logged in from 17 different states. It was a job-related conference – the participants did have to be there!
• I recruited an overall bible study leader, a technical assistant (to manage chat rooms) and 6 small group leaders.
• I had a small group leaders meeting in preparation for the study and went over a detailed teaching plan.
• I rehearsed the chat room transitions and screen sharing we’d be doing. We went over the Google-doc everyone would be using.
• Before the study we sent everyone an unmarked electronic copy of the manuscript and gave them access to the Google-doc.
• When the study happened it was great fun to see everyone (somewhere) on the screen. The main facilitator/leader was able to camp out near the Google-doc and see all the interaction being logged in via the chat rooms.
• We spent about half the time in small groups and had a great application session with everyone together blitzing the Google-doc. Check it out if you want to see the archive of the whole study!

Some features come with the Zoom model we weren’t able to leverage 8 years ago in Jesus Class. First of all, everyone has to show up in Zoom! Just streaming the feed from an event is pretty much the same thing as passive video-watching. With Zoom fellow participants can actually see you on the screen, you do have to show up!

Contribution is also more intentional in the Zoom environment. I do remember getting some comments from participants in Jesus Class. They would send their observations and questions in via the live chat. But a well laid out Google-doc draws people in much more. Boxes get filled in. As opposed to waiting for individuals to talk or finish their comment before someone else can contribute, the feedback table in a Google-doc is always being populated with input. Even marking up a manuscript in Zoom is possible in real time.

I’d be interested in your experiences with Zoom meetings, prayer gatherings and Bible studies. This is pretty much how most of our groups are now interacting. Let me know what you think.

“The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign LORD, “when I will send a famine through the land– not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD.” (Amos 8:11 NIV)

So, be honest… What has Covid 19 done to your eating, sleeping and exercise routines? Is your health index better or worse today than it was March 1st, 2020? In particular, what role has nutrition played in that? Are you eating well? Would you say you are enjoying meals these days?

Now that I have just turned off my readers, where am I headed with this? Christians have a biblical nutrition index not unlike our health index. Having a robust diet of truth from God’s word takes even more effort than eating right. Unlike our health index, which IS pretty visible to everyone who looks at us, our BNI (Biblical Nutrition Index) stays pretty invisible from others.

BNI requires a balanced diet of scripture with good habits of reflection and application. Like cooking for yourself, there are definite techniques that need to be learned. Meal planning, shopping, ingredients, food prep, seasoning, cooking, heating, cooling, stirring, pans, utensils, knives. The list can get pretty long, pretty fast. Ignoring the list means possibly eating a lot of the wrong things, eating things that taste horrible, eating too much, eating for the wrong reasons, and eating out. You can eat stuff that looks great in the package, but disagrees with your body. You can eat food that should be great, but evades your culinary gifts. You can just eat to fill your gut. You can eat in bad lighting, by yourself, with a mind full of unhelpful musings. There are a thousand ways to go wrong with food.

There are even more ways for Christians to go wrong with spiritual nutrition. It’s easy enough to say “I take God’s word into my heart every day in some form or another.” But what does that really look like? What’s the BNI value? We can get by with some of the worst habits. Sound biblical nutrition is born out of consistency and self-feeding skill. Most don’t actually know how to read the Bible. If scripture were a farmer’s market teeming with terrific produce, would we know what to buy? If we came home with shopping bags of phenomenal ingredients, would we know how to prepare them?

The choice to eat what others have prepared versus making our own dishes faces us every day. Truth be told, many can barely do “scripture ramen noodles” much less feed themselves a balanced diet. Self-feeding for most isn’t even a daily thing. We might hear a message online or at Church once a week. What would happen if we ate food once a week? And we wonder why “God doesn’t seem to make sense,” when he allows hardship into our experiences.

Cooking Class, not Fast-Food Dining.

My dream for north American Christians is that somewhere in their growth and development they could experience something like cooking class in their appetite for the Bible. Learning how to cook, not just eat. Self-feeding from scripture is not finding the best sermon online each week and enjoying the experience of listening to a message. Always having someone else spoon feed you the Bible is like always eating fast food. Christian, if you’ve done nothing but open your beak for your favorite pastor to drop in warm worms… little wonder you have a pathetic BNI.

The year 2020 will contain 366 days (what a fitting year to add the extra leap-year day). That means that there are 123 days left to this lovely year. Plenty of time to redeem your BNI before 2020 stops clubbing us. Between May 6th and Aug 14th, I spent 100 days reading my entire Bible. One hour of reading every day. I didn’t have a lot of time to study it. Just reading it and soaking it in. Anybody can do it. It’s had such an encouraging impact. Here are just few ways my BNI went up.

1. I spent one hour a day completely tuned out from distractions, at rest, with my mind engaged with the greatest story our planet has ever heard.
2. I gave myself direct nutritional input from God, not prepackaged, not shrink-wrapped, not dumbed-down, not predigested, no sugar added!
3. I replaced what otherwise might have been a wasted hour watching nonsense online, shopping, or fixing broken things around my house.
4. The whole story was in front of me – not just an isolated verse or passage. I had so many questions, struggles, and challenges in spite of what I already knew about this story. My theology got a good shake down!
5. I read all the parts of the Bible that are easy to ignore. I had no time to bask in “comfort food” or meander through my favorite books.
6. I marked up every page of the copy I was reading (NIV this time). Alert, active reading.
7. At the beginning I gave myself an assignment: search for one theme as I read all 66 books. I’m writing a book about that theme. I now have a good grip on what the whole Bible says about that one subject!

In the Old Testament, when something like a famine happened, God’s people took it as an act of sovereign judgment. It meant that their covenant with God had been broken by their unfaithfulness. It meant repenting. It mean lamenting. Amos 11:8 was one of those verses that jumped off the page at me during my 100 day read-thru. God sends a famine, not for food or water, but a famine for hearing his Word. That can’t be good!

Covid 19 has been a relentless dismantler. I think it’s left us in a near-famine, spiritually speaking. It’s taken apart so much of what we’ve always counted on. It’s exposed a lot of things we’ve foolishly neglected. Let’s rebuild our hunger for God. Remake our appetite around fresh commitment to learn and follow-through. Rather than focusing on how soon we can return to church buildings and in-person services, maybe the Holy Spirit is waiting on us to renew our habits of listening to God’s word.

Me, the 100 Day Read-Thru?

You can do this. Consider launching yourself on a 100 Day Read-Thru. Read your Bible an hour a day for a hundred days in a row. If you start sometime in the next three weeks, you’ll finish by the end of the calendar year! Let me know if you attempt it!

I hope you were able to make the best out of your summer. Here’s a random rant about mine, in no particular order. Covid made it hard to tell when summer started and mildly impossible to bring it to a close. I’d better call it a wrap and find a few things to look back on that were actually fun.

The deck was definitely stacked against the Perry family this summer. Let’s get the lamentable items on the table first.

1. We held out hope from March to May that we’d still get to go to Cedar Campus as a family. Our week on Lake Huron in late July never happened. Nothing but our deposit arrived in the U.P.
2. Silas’ graduation ceremony at Omaha Central High, postponed from May to July, was cancelled the week before it was supposed to happen. Purple cap and gown hung unused in the corner of our dining room all summer.
3. We’ve not attended Celebration Covenant or Mission Church in person for going on 22 weeks now. Virtual church is just not the same thing. Not even sure I’d call it “The Next Best Thing”. Covid’s gotta go…
4. Cheryl made the difficult decision to not renew her full time teaching position at Omaha Street School. Last year left her depleted. It’s taken most of the summer to replenish.
5. On the second day of the second week of Staycation, a distracted driver ran a red light and destroyed our trusty 04 Honda Pilot. We are without an SUV. Grieving. Trying to decide how (or if) to replace it.

A dozen cool things happened in spite of the pandemic!

• A somewhat low-key grad party with friends, neighbors and a food truck! Great fun to celebrate with Silas. He’s headed to Computer Engineering at University of Nebraska.
• Road trip with Aaron and his furniture from Urbana to Camrillo. Dodged dead armadillos on I-44 across Missouri. Enjoyed the landscape across New Mexico and Arizona. Savannah and Poppy joined us three days later. They’re Californians now!
• Managed to read my bible cover to cover in 100 days- starting May 6th. One hour a day. Marking it up looking for one theme: Rejection.

• Recruited very few new donors, but new dollars did come in and my budget was very nearly even at fiscal years end. Thank you Lord! Thank you ministry partners!
• My staff team all reported ending their ministry year in June encouraged and enjoying fruitful work in spite of campus shut-downs.
• Worked a lot on my back yard in time for Silas’ party. Planted some grass, rebuilt a fence, put up some cool lighting and fixed up my famous giant wire-spool picnic table.

• Spent a week in the city of St. Louis with Cheryl’s brother Steve helping him paint his soon to open restaurant. It’s a brilliant farm to table idea merging his dreams of ranching, dining and bringing justice to the city he loves!
• Had backyard breakfast with a young dad on Tuesdays. Catching up. Prayer. Blueberry pancakes. Coffee.
• Cheryl got part of her old job back at Omaha Street School… and a full time job offer from Omaha Bridges out of Poverty. Better schedule. Same overall pay.

• Family-pastor action with swell friends at a nearby lake this past Sunday. Baptized the dad. Dedicated the one year old. First Tapanga I’ve ever met in my life – what a fun name! Felt great to bless a young family and be outdoors.
• Went camping with Cheryl, Silas, his new tent and a couple of his friends down at Indian Cave State Park. a snorting dog tore through our campsite at 3am- ripped a stay right off our tent foyer. Woke us all up. Cheryl did scream slightly.
• Learned how to make stretch-bar canvas frames and rebuilt a Rochester two-barrel carburetor on my son’s 1974 Kurbmaster (the food truck at Silas’ grad party).

Hope you were able to defy Summer 2020 and have some fun!

Not sure if you’ve noticed this story in the news, but a recent decision by the current administration is putting International students at risk of finishing their programs in the US if the school they attend is moving to online only instruction starting this fall.

Graduate Faculty Ministries and ISM (International Student Ministries) are two field ministry groups that will significantly feel the impact of this. I would greatly appreciate you taking five minutes to read a Letter of Response from InterVarsity’s national leadership to the Department of Homeland Security. Its well done, offered in a spirit of respectful protest to the proposed policy change.

Thanks for reading. Thanks for praying for International Students!

Tonight, 6:30pm Central

Wanted to get a quick post out to you today.  I just noticed an event you might want to check out tonight.  It’s a Veritas Forum from MIT with a very interesting group of speakers!  The theme is Exploring Meaningful Work – click here for the details on the Veritas Forum website.  My GFM colleagues in Boston are sponsoring this event featuring former GFM staff member and author, Tish Harrison Warren.  If you want to attend tonight’s event you need to register on the Veritas Forum web-page above.

Reading Group this Sunday – 7pm

How’s that book coming along?  From a couple of posts ago, you might recall that I invited boilerroom readers to read a book with me (assigned reading for an upcoming staff conference).  Healing from Racial Trauma by Sheila Wise Rowe.  We’ll discuss the first half of the book this Sunday, June 28th at 7:00pm.  I will text the Zoom-room link to my PBR readers on the day of the book discussion!  Hope to see some of you there!

Parting Shot.  Fiscal Year End…

See my previous post on wanting to end my year in the black and working on next fiscal year’s budget.  Thanks to those who have been responding!  I’ve been receiving some encouraging one time donations!  Thank you!

Click here to be taken to Tim ‘s donation page on IV’s website.

Thanks for your prayers!  Have a terrific week!

 

 

This might be my shortest blog in a while.  I’m even going to try to write shorter sentences.  The chart says most of what I need to.  Our fiscal year end is 11 days away.

To make a donation to Tim’s account click here.

I’m incredibly grateful for those who have been giving to my ministry budget.  You are the 83% of my budget steadily coming in month after month, year after year.  Thank you.  Some of the 83 are people who have recently joined my support team.  Thank you!  Some of the 83 are donors who gave extra this year in light of the challenges some of us are experiencing raising our funding.

The Eleven

The next chunk of the donut is the fraction of my operating budget I needed to find (back in February).  Earlier this spring I was set on finding $12K in new support.  “I ought to be able to do that by June 30,” I remember thinking at the time.   I had some trips planned to talk with potential supporters.  Till March happened.

The Covid Gap

Since March a little over $6,000 has dropped out of my budget due to to Covid.  That’s not too much, really.  I was braced for more.  Donations may fall further before the economy recovers.  My total need is to find about $17,000 in new support throughout the coming year.  I’ve been working on making connections.  Since the pandemic, it’s been quite a bit more challenging to find funding.  I’d really appreciate your prayers.

June 30th

This will be the first June 30th I will not be carrying overage to the finish of the fiscal year.  What does InterVarsity do if your budget doesn’t balance?  In most cases staff carry their deficits forward into the next year.  I will most likely carry a $6-7K deficit into July and have to work on it next fiscal year.  Several donors have given one time gifts to help me with the shortfall.  If you’d like to join them I’d be so grateful.

Zoom Calls!

The thing that makes fund development a challenge in addition to the economy is the format we’re reduced to during the pandemic.  I vastly prefer meeting in person.  Pray for me to connect with people this summer and to be able to make a case for my funding via zoom sessions.  It’s not ideal.  But it’s the best we can do given the circumstances.  The Lord will provide I’m convinced.  Meanwhile we’d also appreciate your prayers for me and my team as we spend the next 2 months re-thinking how to re-start campus ministry.  Some of our campuses won’t be re-opening in August.  Ministry will be a hybrid of the virtual and the social-distanced-in-person.  These are really challenging times.  Thanks so much for praying!

 

I’m curious if any of you would like to journey further with me into this theme of reconciliation.  There’s too much to process, isn’t there?  I have stuff happening here in Omaha I need to think about and respond to.  I’m wondering how adventuresome you might be.  Here are two things I’d like to do in the next couple of weeks.

A Watch Party.  And… a Book Discussion.

Are you a watcher or a reader?  I hope you’re more than both.  Honestly, both can be pretty passive depending on what you do with what you see and hear.  But reading and watching can be ways of jumping on a needed learning curve you may have been avoiding.  So, which would you rather do?  Let me give you the details and I’ll see if I get any takers.

A watch party!
I saw a live interview last week I think others might find helpful. It was hosted by Tommy Lee of Resource Global, a leadership development cohort for “young adults desiring to bring social and kingdom impact into the marketplace.”    The hour and 15 minute round table discussion focused on response to current tensions over Black Lives Matter and police brutality.  See details at this link on my Facebook.  I was drawn to the event when it caught my attention on the InterVarsity staff Facebook page.  With Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter-McNeil on the panel I decided I had to watch it.  I’m going to watch it again exactly one week after the live event.

My watch party will be THIS THURSDAY JUNE 18th at 7:15pm Central

If you watch this on your own, you’ll enjoy it.  I’m asking you to watch it WITH ME! Watching in community with discussion happening takes your learning further.  A watch party is a way for “all of Tim’s friends and supporters” to experience something together.  I’ll have it up and ready to go on my Facebook page so anyone who can get to my page can watch (whether or not you’re on Facebook, whether or not your my Facebook friend!).  If you are a FB friend, you’ll get a notice on your page when I start the party.  I’ll also text you a link earlier in the day as a reminder!

Spoiler Alert:  My wife knows that I talk while I watch things (much like I write obnoxiously in the margins of my books).  Cheryl, I promise if anyone shows up, I’ll behave…

So…you’re a reader instead of a watcher?

Or maybe in addition to being a watcher?  Want to read a book with me?  I have been assigned to read Healing for Racial Trauma by  for my Region’s annual staff gathering next month (happening virtually not in person this year).

I have to have this book by the end of June. I’m wondering if you’d like to join me? People who will find the book most helpful of course are people who have experienced racial trauma. Honestly, I am reading it because I am a staff supervisor who wants to know how to care for staff, students and faculty members. I’m reading it to hopefully discover the kind of healing that I need as a person more likely to be the cause of racial trauma than the victim. You might be like me. I’m wondering if you’d like to help me read this. I get more out of a book when I can discuss it with others.

So how are we going to do the book discussion. How about we do it in TWO 45 MINUTE Zoom calls?  Give yourself a week to get the book.  Another week to read the first half and another couple of weeks to read the second half.  Here’s the table of contents and here are the two dates I’ll suggest for the zoom call.  They are both Sunday evenings.

Did I mention that I want to send you the book free!  Yes.  Free.  You’ll have to email me and let me know you want it.  I can have it sent to you electronically or in paperback (I’ll need your address if I’m shipping it to you – your email will do if I’m sending it electronically).  I’m serious about this!  [Or you can order your own copy of Healing from Racial Trauma at IVP Online.]

Join me in learning!
Tim

tim.perry@intervarsity.org 

So much for procrastination. For several weeks now the need to blog has been gnawing at me.  I’ve been looking for a good space in my schedule to post.  Covid has been a moving target that I’ve just become fed up with.  Do I keep uploading pictures of zoom meeting 3X3s?  I also took some days back in May to travel to Illinois helping my son with his big move to California.  Then things started heating up in the aftermath of the George Floyd killing.  I wasn’t really sure how this was going to land in my own community.  Till the weekend of May 29th!

Statement from InterVarsity president, Tom Lin on recent events

Demonstrations were peaceful in my town.  At first.  Friday night.  Saturday night.  Sunday night.  The tension escalated throughout the weekend.  We live on 51st Avenue, about half a mile east of where the demonstrations began.  Our local Target store is at 72nd and Dodge in midtown.  It’s a huge intersection protesters had blocked off.  Friday night seemed pretty orderly.  Not Saturday night.  What started at 72nd street was eclipsed by protests and looting in the Old Market area of downtown Omaha.

That night I was in my backyard packing our SUV for a trip to Illinois (helping my son’s family move).  Sirens tore past our block as police vehicles raced to downtown.  Lots of demonstrators.  And lots of vandalism to downtown businesses.  A shooting happened outside a bar whose owner had foolishly carried a weapon to the scene.  James Scurlock, an unarmed black man in his 20s was shot to death – not by police.  Why was the bar owner there with a weapon in the first place?  Many more details came out in the aftermath.

Jake Gardner, owner of The Hive, has a well worn reputation with flagrant racist tendencies.  At first it was perceived as a self-defense shooting.  Shortly afterwards enough evidence surfaced to have Gardner face a grand-jury trial (not the immediate acquittal it looked like he was about to receive).

“I can’t breathe” reverberated through the streets of my town.  I was only able to catch up with the details later in the week.  I had left Omaha that weekend and traveled over the road in a U-Haul with Aaron the following week.  We saw evidence of the nation-wide unrest as we traveled.  St. Louis shops were boarded up.  Curfews were imposed in many of the states we passed through – not the least of which was California.  The night we arrived in the L.A. area an Amazon warehouse was burnt to the ground.

The pictures I’ve used in this post are the work of two gifted photo-journalists who helped me see what had happened back here in Omaha.  It’s one thing to see things on the news in other communities, it’s another to feel the unrest in your own part of town and see the images of what happened.  Thanks to Chris Machian and Anna Reed I can see not only the physical damage on the streets – I can begin to see the toll this takes on Black lives.  The look on the face of a father who will never see his son again.  The tears of a friend shocked at how senselessly life can be taken away.

I was in the same moment proud of my community and repulsed by my community. Encouraged to see the diverse, young crowds of demonstrators – on message and insisting on change.  And repulsed by the unbridled race-bating and hatred shown in Mr Gardner’s behavior.  Horrified that a business establishment in my town had such poor standing yet stayed in operation till now.

Pray for my town.  Pray for me and for InterVarsity’s ministry with students and faculty.  Pray for BCM (Black Campus Ministry) and BSAP (Black Scholars and Professionals) – InterVarsity’s ministries among African Americans.  Pray for InterVarsity’s leadership as we continue to respond not only to the devastation of the Covid pandemic, but also the sad, persistent drama of racism, nationalism and white supremacy.

If you’d like to track with more details on the Omaha stories, here are a few links you may find of interest.

Omaha World Herald coverage.

Eye-witness back-story on James Scurlock shooting.

Video message from Greg Jao on behalf of InterVarsity Leadership.

Thanks for your prayers!

Do you remember your first day at work at a new job?  Joining IV staff is a little different than the first staff meeting at your workplace.  I first met the team I am currently on much like my two new team-mates met our team this week.  Via Zoom call.  I was actually working for a church at the time and still in the interview process with IV.  In fact I was sitting in the office pictured in the previous post!  What did my future team-mates think of me?  What does a video conference call do for first impressions?  I’m of the opinion that zoom does nothing positive for your appearance.  Can I get an amen?  I’m afraid its even worse during a pandemic (Covid-hair is nothing to write home about, let’s face it).

Just yesterday the GFM Central Team had its first meeting that included two new staff members!  Linda and Josh, you have made our grid complete.  A perfect 3X3!  If you recall I’ve been searching for new staff at Washington University in St. Louis since last fall.  It was important to find a candidate who would be a good fit for Wash-U.  I had no idea that two such people would pop up on my radar!  Both very much insiders to GFM, and to Wash-U!  I knew of Josh Ho because of his involvement in the Graduate Student Fellowship there for several years.  But I had a much more indirect path finding Linda Tuch.

Linda was very involved in GFM ministry in the Boston area while getting her masters and PhD (Environmental Sciences and Engineering – Harvard).  She met her husband during those years in Boston.  Andrew took a teaching position at Washington University which eventually brought Linda to St. Louis.  Linda’s former staff member while at Harvard is now the national director for Faculty Ministries.  She helped me connect with Linda and explore what a volunteer staff role could look like for her on our team.

The second new person to our team is Josh Ho – a recent Wash-U grad student himself.  Josh’s grad work was in Developmental Biology.  He’s hoping to work as a patents scientist and is prepping for the patent bar exam.  He’ll be in the St. Louis area for the foreseeable future and has also applied and been accepted for a volunteer staff role working alongside Linda at Wash-U.  Josh and Linda are both a terrific fit for graduate student ministry.  George Stulac is our staff member working with faculty at Washington University.  With these three staff Wash-U is positioned well.   And the Central Area team really does seem more complete with Linda and Josh.

Pray for our work these days with graduate and professional students in the the four state area!  The pandemic has made connecting with students a bigger challenge than ever.  Building community and accomplishing a mission together in the university is changing with every month of this new experience.  If you’re curious about how InterVarsity is moving forward check out our Ministering Online through COVID-19 page.

Consider joining InterVarsity for another one of it’s live nation-wide online gatherings this Friday night at 7:oopm central.  Details are at the link above.

Thanks so much for your ongoing prayers and gifts to my ministry!

Click here to be taken to Tim’s donations page.

The grid has replaced the conference table.  I remember one of the best things about my office where I used to work was my table.  I had a very nice office with so much room I could also have a small “conference” table in the middle.  I actually bought my own table and assembled it in my office.  It was the perfect space for a small team meeting or even a one on one supervisory conversation.  I loved making a fresh pot of coffee and serving it at my table (along with my agenda).  Those days are gone!  Covid has shut down what tables used to do for us!  At least for now.

Think of all those lonely tables in meeting spaces we used to occupy.  I loved classrooms full of tables and chairs full of people buzzing in conversation.  The conference room with wall to wall white boards (and a huge table in the middle).  Even a cavernous food court with tables everywhere.   No matter either if the tables happened to be those sickly white plastic ones with slightly wobbly legs.  Tables used to put people next to each other the way Zoom does now in rows of three stacked on each other like the Brady Bunch.  “Pull up a chair.” has now become “Would you mind muting while I’m talking?”

Until tables bring us back together, we’ll have to remember our gatherings with screen shots like these.  Here are a few of my favorite Zoom moments from the past month.

I had never attended a Dissertation Defense.  I didn’t even know you could attend such an event.  Until my son, Aaron invited us to his.  The screen shot represents about a third of the people on the Zoom session.  Phillip Ansell is Aaron’s advisor and head of his dissertation committee.  Several other professors and grad students attended.  All our family got to be there.  Aaron presented for about an hour.  I was amazed!  I was also thankful that somewhere in my background I’d gotten an engineering degree myself (so I could half-way keep up with what was being said).

The committee left to go to a break-out room for a few minutes while we got to decompress with Aaron.  Poppy, Aaron’s 2 year old got to join him and see who all was in the zoom room.  In about 10 minutes the committee returned to announce that Aaron had passed (with no revisions as it would turn out).

It wasn’t quite the event it would have been were we able to be there in person, but just as much joy at watching Aaron get to the end of his last wind-tunnel!  At some point in the future with covid tamed and out of the way, our whole family will be able to be around a table together celebrating in person.