It has been nearly a year since Tad and Nort had their last conversation. The recent exchange of Christmas cards prompted this latest correspondence. It has been the nature of their relationship to experience long dormant periods interrupted by a sudden chattery flurry, like a breaching whale, exchanging fresh or ripened ideas, what they had discussed in the past incubating as each takes in what the other has said and what they themselves articulated, incorporating it into their transformed beings, helping each other to evolve in their thought.


Hi Nort,

Holiday greetings! Thank you for your card and family update. Glad to hear the children are doing well. Congratulations to Edna for getting into Bryn Mawr early action. She will love it there I am sure! It is a beautiful campus and close to Philly. You did get my change of address notice and know that I am now living there and teaching at Temple, so, you have a place to stay here whenever you want to visit her. It would be great to see you again. I will probably be swinging your way before the Fall. Since we last talked I have been working on a paper on violence in East Africa. It has been a challenge because it is not my area of expertise, however the agency I was working for received a grant to model it on a computer. I am trying to put some cultural flesh on the basic agent-based modeling programming. What I am really trying to do is to bring in affect, which I believe underlies much of culture. Some anthropologists have written about affective economies, of which kinship is a clear example, so I am not too far out in left field. However my conscience is forcing me to be more explicit and actually use the word love! This is where science and humanities cross lines and I am being somewhat timid in my approach. A good anthropological and theological conversation with you on the topic would help!

Peace,
Tad