This year I enjoyed attending and participating in the American Academy of Religion (AAR) annual conference in Denver, CO. I had the chance to reconnect with many friends and colleagues, and present my research on “the science of the breath” (Persian:`ilm-i dam). Of all those who I spent time with, no meeting was more exciting than getting to spend time with Calvin Roetzel.

Cal was my first ever professor of religious studies. He taught a first-year seminar titled “Jesus in History” that I took during my first semester in college…back in the Fall of 1999. The course was a revelation for me, and I can say without reservation that it changed my life. One of my favorite things about the course was that we spent the entire first half learning about the different religious movements in the ancient near east, circa 1st century BCE/1st century CE. We didn’t even talk about Jesus until after midterms. Before even beginning to talk about Jesus, Cal insisted that we learn something about the landscape and context (political, religious, economic, etc) into which Jesus was born. That course opened my eyes in so many ways, and really sparked my imagination in terms of studying religion. That spring semester I enrolled in three more religious studies courses, including Cal’s advanced seminar on Paul’s Letter to the Romans. That course introduced me to what textual analysis at the granular level really looked like, as we would spend three hours discussing the potential meanings of a single verse. It would be an understatement to say that I was hooked. I went on to add a second major, in Classical Languages, then later would switch from studying Greek to Arabic, early Christianity to Islam.

Cal is legendary for his early morning activities, regularly teaching his Hebrew Bible and New Testament courses at 8:00 and 9:00 a.m. While these morning time slots were…challenging…for me as a young college student, my colleagues and I knew that by the time Cal rolled into the classroom, he had most likely already run five miles. I found this inspirational, even though I’ve never quite managed to become such an early riser. Cal traces his disposition to his childhood growing up on a farm in Arkansas, where his father was usually up by 4:30 a.m. to start the day’s work. I see a lot of similarities between him and my grandparents Clarence and Caroline Bormann, who grew up and raised a family in a farming community in northwestern Iowa.

Cal retired from Macalester after my sophomore year, but was soon back in action, teaching at the University of Minnesota for many more years. Today he is 85, and just published his memoir, We Knew We Wuz Poor: Coming of Age on an Arkansas Farm in the Great Depression (Page Publishing, 2018). I will always be thankful for all I learned from him, and that I had the chance to reconnect. At conferences we tend to focus on presenting our research, networking, and perhaps taking in the sights of a city we haven’t visited before. I found it much more worthwhile to connect to a mentor who meant so much for me. There will always be more conferences, but the chances to really sit down and talk with special people are rare indeed.