This passage from Psalm 90 seems somehow fitting to reflect upon this last day of 2011, at almost 40 years of age:

'Seventy years are given to us!
Some even live to eighty.
But even the best years are filled with pain and trouble;
soon they disappear, and we fly away. (Psalm 90:10 NLT)'

Finally the day has arrived! I just submitted my dissertation to my advisor, Markus Vinzent, for his evaluation.

Here is a brief summary of my dissertation, 'Soul and Passions in Philo of Alexandria':

In order to properly assess Philo’s conception of the passions, we had to first work out his understanding of the soul, which provided the context for his conception of the nature and structure of the passions. In the first section, we showed that Philo creatively synthesized a wide variety of often opposing psychological elements into his own philosophy. His cosmology can be categorized broadly as [Middle] Platonic, given its fundamental dualism between incorporeal and material, idea and copy. In his psychology, Philo made a bipartite division of the soul into rational and irrational parts, which was likewise Platonic in inspiration, though not exclusively so. Additionally, he commonly utilized other Platonic themes such as Plato’s tripartite model of the soul, the Phaedrus’ charioteer metaphor, and the Orphic scheme of the pre-existence, embodiment, reincarnation/transmigration, and return of the soul to the heavenly realm, which in turn formed the basis of his narrative of the soul’s spiritual migration toward the vision of God. At the same time, Philo made extensive use of the Stoic eightfold division of the soul and the Stoic conception of pneuma to describe the ascending degrees of tension that characterize the various parts of the sensible soul. In his moral psychology, Philo even framed the entire spiritual journey of the soul as a movement from Stoic fool to Stoic sage and acquisition of the apatheia.

As a disciple of Moses, Philo largely avoided the sectarian disputes among the other philosophical schools of his day and instead freely used elements drawn from the Academic, Sceptical, Peripatetic, and Stoic schools in service to his own creative, interpretation of Moses. Philo used the biblical typology of Adam-Eve-Serpent as the primary metaphorical framework for the soul and the various biblical figures as types of the soul at its different stages of spiritual journey to God. Consequently, he integrated both the Platonic tripartite and Stoic eightfold division of the soul with the Adam-Eve-Serpent biblical typology. This coordination process thus provided Philo an avenue to use both Platonic and Stoic psychological elements without a sense of contradiction. 

Nevertheless, from a philosophical point of view, Philo preferred a Stoic to Platonic understanding of the soul, especially with regard to his account of the emotions. His interpretation of the Adam-Eve-Serpent biblical typology as corresponding to the Stoic Mind-Sense-Pleasure monistic conception signaled this preference. He also applied a Stoicizing interpretation, perhaps drawn from Stoic figures such as Posidonius or Panaetius of Rhodes, to the Platonic elements in his psychology. We see this in 1) the manner in which he downplayed the agent-like characteristics of the Platonic parts in preference for a more functional view of each, 2) the manner in which he made both horses allies against the mind in his version of the charioteer metaphor and his identification of the horses with ‘unruly impulses’, and 3) the way that he blamed the driver’s lack of skill for the destruction of the chariot team rather than the black horse as was the case for Plato.

The Stoicizing character of Philo’s psychology was especially underscored by his treatment of the passions. Like the Stoics, Philo firstly identified a passion with the psychic impulse or movement of the mind that arises from both its erroneous moral valuations and its internal weakness and instability. Secondly, he largely followed the contours of the Stoic analysis of the emotions by characterizing the passions as irrational, excessive, unnatural, and voluntary impulses, and worthy of blame. Consequently, though he made use of both Platonic and Stoic elements in his psychology, as we have shown, his decidedly Stoic treatment of the passions further demonstrate his preference for a Stoic account of the soul and its movements.

In this video, Dallas Willard discusses with dminsfs student Rich Melheim the history of 'meaning' in philosophy, why it is important and how our quest for 'meaning' impacts our identity, behavior, and even addictions. 

 

While in Southern California, my sister Kerry, her son Logan, my father Martin, Libby, Molly, and I went to Carlsbad beach for the afternoon. Pictured below is a photo tribute to the day.

The girls affectionately named the sand castle 'Mount Mushmoore'. 

We just arrived home last night from our week-long, much-anticipated trip to Disneyland. Three years ago we told the kids we would take them, when I finished up a draft of my dissertation. The two day trip down went relatively smoothly. Chloe seems rather 'crabby', but we chalked it up to being stuck in the back seat of the car for two days (wrong!). Sunday morning we woke to a forecast of 'rain', but coming from Eugene, we were not too concerned about that (wrong again!). At breakfast, Chloe complained that her stomach hurt. She said that she thought it was from excitement. We made it to the park by 8:30am and powered through a bunch of rides. The threat of rain had definitely decreased the crowds. My sister and her family joined us around 10:30am and we foolishly went on Splash Mountain right away. Chloe and I got soaked and then the cold, 52 degree rain started. 

As the afternoon progressed, the rain got harder and harder until it was a torrent. At one point, we were sitting in the Small World boats outside of the building in a complete deluge, without rain gear. That was the last straw. Chloe was shivering and everyone's spirits were low. By 5:30pm, we had returned to our room, Chloe was warming herself in a hot bath and the fire was roaring in the fireplace. Now Chloe began complaining again about her stomach and by 6:30pm, she was clearly hot. We searched for an Urgent Care, but none would take children on a Sunday night. After further calls with the Insurance company, we ended going to ER at the Orange County Children's Hospital. Two hours later Chloe had a diagnosis of pneumonia, two shots of Rocephin in the thighs, two prescriptions, and orders to rest for 48-72hrs. Our Disneyland plans needed revision. 

My sister, Kerry, and brother-in-law, Marc, live an hour away in Wildomar. They graciously welcomed us to come down to their place two days earlier than planned. We decided to try Disneyland on the next weekend instead. This would allow Chloe a full four days to recover at Kerry's over Thanksgiving week. Things appeared to be on the mend by Thursday, but when turkey dinner was served, Wesley refused to eat. We were afraid. 

By 5pm, Gastroenteritis (stomach flu) hit. Wesley led the way by vomiting all over Kerry's rug. I went to bed aching myself, only to wake up puking around midnight. Nevertheless, we were not going to be thwarted. So we headed for Disneyland Friday morning. 

The crowds after Thanksgiving appeared to be significantly heavier than the previous Sunday. At was at least sunny and 70 degrees! We tackled the rides and attractions with renewed energy. By noon, we had accomplished three attractions, Wesley developed diarrhea while standing at the urinal (need we say more?), and Molly was nauseated. We had lunch reservations at the Rainforest Cafe and that we the only meal we ate for the rest of the weekend together! In spite of our symptoms, we stayed for the Christmas parade and fireworks show. By 10pm, everyone was exhausted and less than generous to one another.

We slept hard Friday night and woke up to a bright, warm Saturday morning cheerful. The good times were not to last. We decided to begin the day with the Pirates of the Carribean ride, since we had waited Friday night for 30 minutes only to have it close due to a breakdown while in line. After 20 minutes waiting in line, it broke down again! We ditched the ride and went to Tune Town. At the lunch hour, we went over to California Adventures hoping to get into some rides before our dinner reservations with Ariel the Mermaid. Molly looked like a waif and Wesley would not eat. Tiffany decided to take them back to the room to rest while Chloe and I went on a few more rides. Tiffany didn't get out of the park before Wesley vomited all over himself. The customer service at Disneyland was great. A park employee witnessed the mess, escorted them to the nearest gift shop and let them pick out clean clothes for the boy at no charge.  Around 4pm I returned with Chloe and Libby to rest and regroup. Chloe fell asleep immediately, only to wake up vomiting profusely an hour later. Like a sprinkler, she proceeded to literally spray the room with vomit, including the curtains. The house cleaning lady took one look at the situation and put on gloves! Libby and I had gone out to eat pizza since we were the only two who felt up to it! Libby took one bite of her salad and bolted for the bathroom at Oggi's. She ended up vomiting four times that night. Thankfully, it was all in the toilet! We never made it back to the park Saturday. 

By 7am Sunday, we were packed and on the road with crackers, garbage bags, and lots of movies. This will be a vacation that we will never forget.

 

Here are more photos from the trip on flickr. 

I had the pleasure of serving as resident photographer for the 'Who am I? Who are you? A Muslim Perspective on the Role of Faith in Identify Formation' Ministry in Contemporary Culture event at George Fox Evangelical Seminary, last Friday, November 11, 2011. Andy Campbell facilitated the panel discussion with special guests Maria Ebrahimji from CNN, Muna Idow, Manar Alattar, and Fatemeh Fakhraie. Included below are a few of my photos from the event.

One particular highlight for me: My 12 year old daughter Libby came along to the seminar. On the way to Portland, we picked up Fatemeh and transported her to/from Corvallis. Besides the pleasure of getting to iknow Fatemeh for both of us, it was really great to see my daughter engage in a thoughtful discussion with a person with very different faith convictions. Libby lost no time asking all sorts of questions of Fatemeh and even introducing herself to all of the panelists. I'm proud of her.