Three Beautiful Things 05-17-2025: Secular Seminary, Steinbeck's *East of Eden*, Saturday Salmon Dinner

1. I only knew two things as I started and progressed in graduate school at the University of Oregon back in 1979: I wanted to teach at the college level and I wanted to learn more about what it means to be human. To make a long story short, I had decided in the nearly three years after I graduated from Whitworth that I was not, for a variety of reasons, cut out for church ministry, but the idea of theological studies at a seminary was very attractive to me. 

As much as I loved the experience of studying and teaching at Whitworth, a Christian liberal arts college, I was unsure of my ability to succeed in graduate school, but, at the same time, I very much looked forward to studying at a secular university where I expected to encounter a wide variety of perspectives on literature, writing, and life in the USA and the world. 

That's what happened. I loved the cosmopolitan energy of the university. 

I pursued my studies as if I were in a largely non-theological seminary, always focused on what I, at least, considered the human (not so much holy) spirit content of what I read, discussed, wrote papers about, and eventually taught. 

2. Why is all of this on my mind today? 

Well, I started reading John Steinbeck's East of Eden today. Early on in the book, as Steinbeck begins to explore the inner life of the characters he introduces, as he invites me (at least) to contemplate the complicated and undefinable nature of human nature that he explores, I found myself feeling as if I'd been transported back to graduate school, back to the thrill of entering into the an epic story populated by deeply flawed and complex characters, back to being in my own peculiar seminary again. 

I didn't focus on 20th century American fiction as a grad student. I focused on composition theory, 20th century American drama, 19th century American and Victorian literature, and the literature of the British (English?) Renaissance, with special emphasis on Shakespeare. 

Now John Steinbeck has me thinking this would be a good time to read more 20th century American fiction than I ever have before. 

Stay tuned. 

3. I had thawed out a couple of chunks of salmon and tonight I baked them, steamed some carrots, fried some zucchini, and made a pot of rice and Debbie and I enjoyed this delicious and simple dinner. 

Then I returned to the early days of the Hamilitons and the Trasks, the two families featured in Steinbeck's East of Eden.