MOUNT VERNON — A Philadelphia religion scholar and author who grew up in Mount Vernon will make two October appearances at Cornell College related to her book, which details her marriage to a man dying of AIDS.
“Sing Me to Heaven: The Story of a Marriage” was released in September 2003, eight years after author Margaret Kim Peterson’s husband died. She’ll read from her book Tuesday, Oct. 12, at 7:30 p.m. in
Cole Library Room 108, and then give a talk on “Grief, Spirituality, and AIDS” on Thursday, Oct. 28, at 11 a.m. in Hedges Conference Room of The Commons. Both campus events are free and open to the public.
Peterson is the daughter of Cornell chemistry professor Addison Ault and his wife, Janet, of Mount Vernon. Peterson attended Mount Vernon High School before enrolling at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts in the late 1970s. She is currently an associate professor of theology at Eastern University.
She met Hyung Goo Kim, a Korean-American immigrant, while she was completing graduate work at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary near Boston. She knew he was infected with HIV when they married. Less than five years later he died, in 1995 at the peak of the AIDS epidemic in the United States.
Her book is a “historical glimpse of the way things were in the bad old days before protease inhibitors” were used to treat AIDS patients, Peterson says. “It’s a book about love and loss, about love in the midst of grief.”
A chapter in her book is the title of her lecture later in October, partially sponsored by the Cornell Chaplain’s Office, Student Health Services and the Counseling Center. She’ll talk about “healing and growth and what it looks like in the context of the world in which we die.”
She and her husband, Dwight Peterson, also on the faculty at Eastern, are spending a sabbatical year in Mount Vernon. She’ll teach a course on “The Reformations of the 16 th Century” in February and March for Cornell’s
Chautauqua program for lifelong learners.
She’s also writing a second book, tentatively titled “Martha Reconsidered.” It’s a theologically and culturally critical book about housekeeping. The Martha of the working title is from the Bible story about Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus who hosted Jesus and his disciples. While Mary sat intently listening to Jesus, Martha rushed around making preparations and complained that Mary wasn’t doing anything. Jesus reminded Martha that Mary “has chosen what is better.”
