Taking the stairs -- again

Gabe came through his surgery fine. The venous malformation is history. He was astonished by the power of the general anesthetic; he was smiling sleepily when we joined him in the recovery room: "My hands are so heavy!," he said in a slurred voice.

Within minutes he was his normal self: laconic, curious, a little impatient. He was also starving. I drove him and the One True Wife home, then went and got him his much-anticipated treat from Dunkin' Donuts: a grilled cheese flatbread, hash browns, and three donuts.

You'd think, with a diet like that, he'd be a little tub of lard. He's anything but. Sunday we do our third skyscraper stair-climb of the winter, and at 94 floors, the second longest. Gabe will beat me by at least two minutes, probably more. He will be sitting on a windowsill on the Hancock Building's observation deck. He will not be drenched in sweat the way I will.

Gabe is beginning to develop a young man's body. When he runs now, it seems as if his feet don't even touch the ground. When he throws a baseball as hard as he can, I'm starting to be a little afraid to catch it, and when he punches me in the shoulder, it hurts like hell. His hands and feet are enormous. His legs are starting to get hairy.
*
On the academic front, I had to give a presentation in a class yesterday. I tried to think of the last time I did this. It may have been in a religion class, ironically, in college, more than 30 years ago. This presentation was on Jacob Lassner's Demonizing the Queen of Sheba: Boundaries of Gender and Culture in Postbiblical Judaism and Medieval Islam. 
 
Lucas de HEERE; 1559, St Bavo cathedral, Ghent, Belgium

What's fascinating about this book, and the area of scholarship of which it's representative, is how it explores the extent to which the foundational stories of Judaism and Islam are interwoven. More than interwoven, the canonical stories have continued to evolve -- depending on folk-tales, renditions, editions and additions that pass between the two faiths, that emerge in one faith as a response to the other (sometimes in polemic, sometimes to fit the story to the adapting faith's theology, and sometimes just because it's a cool story).

Lassner's book does this through the story of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, whose encounter is touched upon in I Kings and II Chronicles, the Quran, and in numerous adaptations that emerged when Islam and Judaism were in close and sometimes harmonious contact (as you can see by the painting above, the story also fascinated the Christian community). It seems Islamic renditions of the story emphasized the fact that Solomon was a prophet of God with unprecedented mastery over the natural domain. As such, he easily mastered the riddles and challenges the Queen (who was said to be half jinn and possessed of significant powers herself) posed to him. The Jewish versions, on the other hand, were more concerned with reinforcing the natural order of God's universe -- including, of course, that men should rule over women. (On the other hand, Lassner quotes the Prophet Muhammad as saying: "No group prospers that appoints a woman to rule over them.")

What you quickly learn, when reading academic texts and then discussing them in an academic setting, is that each book raises far more questions than it answers, providing glimpses into fruitful areas of study that are still relatively untouched while delving into just one. I remember one teacher saying to me that each academic's special territory is like "his own little asteroid" -- painting a picture of a universe of Little Princes, shooting forward on their little projectiles, discovering new frontiers in their own private and parallel universes.

Is this a fruitful endeavor? I don't know. I do know, though, that my brain is tingling with new neural connections.

Or is that an aneurysm? By Sunday morning at around 8:45, when I reach the Hancock's top floor and get a glimpse of the view below, I should know.

--T.A.

Comments

[Richard Lawrence Cohen]

One of my favorite views. Have a great climb!

[karen]

I'm really glad that Gabe is fine and the venous BillyBob is history.

My son is now 16 and just got his license about two weeks ago. His Dad had gotten him a Toyota 4-Runner- '97, black w/tinted windows(it's soooo cute)and i'm kinda freaking out about how fast time has gone and the fact that he's pretty much functioning on his own, now. He'd had medical issues that, though not too serious- caused me to be more ~protective~ of him that his quite intimidating older sister- or even his little sisters, w/a Dad here at home to create a completed family.

Anyway, it's just hard watching them move out and about in their own direction- long, hairy legs and all. I try not to dwell upon it- it's just the nature of things, i guess.