All last week I was in Fort Wayne, Indiana for the Concordia Theological Seminary's symposium. The theme of the symposium was The Atonement: a rather simple topic to have some 15 lectures about. As I told the Casey boys, "It's like having a mathematician tell me that 2+2=4, except in dull, dry, monotone voices with long words and run-on sentences."
And now, the rest of the story...
The first day wasn't big or interesting. I worked for four hours in the morning, got home, grove to Indiana, and hung out with Nathan and Katie. They served us Hamburgers for supper. I also got a late Christmas present: slippers.
On Tuesday we went over to the seminary. I ran into Pr. Borghardt's group in registration. I got a DVD about hymns with my registration, I have yet to watch it. There were a couple simple, dry sections before Chapel, in which I happened to sit next to Sam. Now, I hadn't realize it at first, because I had never met him before. I only found out when I started chatting with him. (Yes, I chatted. I started only because I recognized the preacher, but couldn't remember his name. It was Dr. Rast.)
During Tuesday lunch, I was invited to sit next to one, Pr. Hampton from California. Knows Pr. Cwirla. He was sitting with the Pastors from Vietnam, but they weren't very talkative. After I finished my lunch, I hunted down Alex. He was still eating lunch, and talking to Pr. Dreyer. I sat down opposite Dreyer, so Alex didn't notice me right away. It took him at least five minutes before he saw me. it was hilarious.
That evening we all stayed at Nathan and Katie's again. I decided not to go to the Mouth House thing.
Wednesday morning I bopped around seats during the first few speakers. I bumped into Jon almost accidentally. I barely recognized him with his large scraggly beard. That morning I also made the conclusion that the coffee they had tasted nasty. I guess I had been putting in too much sugar and creamer in to notice before.
I left during the Q&A during the last speakers presentation to get a good spot up front during lunch. A nice visible spot near the door, so people I knew (coughRachelAlexandJoncough) could see me and sit with me. I didn't see Alex or Jon, and Rachel couldn't sit with me because she had to talk to a deaconess. (Why did she have to go sign up as a perspective student, why?) Another lady sat at my table though. I forgot her name, but she had a daughter who was studying as a deaconess there. I made very pleasant small talk; I was quite proud of myself for it. I bragged about it that evening when we visited Casey's.
Dreyer came and joined my table as well. He did his job of trying to recruit me. I hadn't signed up as a perspective student (Even though I was 100x more likely to attend there than Rachel was.), but he still gave me a good "sales pitch." It was cool though, or rather, it was cool because Dreyer is cool. He had me so close to promising to attend Christ Academy this year.
After lunch I joined Rachel's table as she was finishing her lunch with the deaconess. I chatted (There I go again!) with a seminarian who took Pr. Anderson's seat after he left. His name was Matt something. I couldn't remember his last name. But he was a polite, dark fellow with slight balding spot. He help with Vespers that evening.
After Rachel finished her lunch, I joined her to go to the Bach Organ Recital. However, even though we started out with plenty of time, we didn't get to the chapel until the recital was almost over. The reason for this? Rachel's dad is a chatty fellow. He's worse than my dad. (Extroverts, bah.) It didn't help any that he kept running into people he knew.
Then we listened to Dr. Gathercole speak. Now, I will explain the content of his paper to you. This is because I asked him a question, and I feel it will not to simply state that I asked a question. I feel I must explain all about the question.
The first half of his paper was devoted to why the Vicarious Atonement (That is, Christ's death on the cross. His taking the punishment for our sins.) was NOT cruel. That it was wrong to say God the Father was cruel to send God the Son to earth, to die. He gave two reasons. the first was that God would be glorified in the end, so it was all right. Suffering and death is an okay trade for eternal glory. The second one was that it was his selfless love. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. I thought these seemed contradictory. After all, the first seems selfish, while the second seems selfless. I asked him to clarify this for me. His answer? "Err... uhh... hmm... I don't think we should ask that question. It's not our place to try to understand the workings of the mind of the Son of God."
Well if that wasn't satisfactory...
As I was walking back, the Reverend Doctor Scaer stopped me. He asked me my name, and told me I meant to say "self-centered" rather than "selfish." When I told him who I was, and asked him what the difference was, he told me that selfish implies manipulating others, while self-centered was just thinking about ones-self, and that I looked like my mother.
After that incident I needed to get myself some tea. I was shaking all over. It was that nerve racking. I couldn't stop my legs from shaking. I kept shifting my weight to stop myself from bouncing all over the place. My hands had a high enough frequency to shatter glass.
That evening, as Vespers, we had a thirty minute cantata. In German. It would have been absolutely wonderful to listen to if I was cleaning, or doing school-work. But sitting on a hard pew? No.
Every Symposia I learn the same thing. I hate choirs. I forget when I hear nice choirs. The ones that sing a few small, short pieces every now and then. NOT the ones that sing in German for thirty minutes, and sing my favorite hymns for me. (God's Own Child is such a good hymn.)
Then we went over to Casey's for spaghetti. Delicious, delicious spaghetti.
Thursday, me Rachel and Alex skipped the ELCA guy after lunch and checked out the vender booths and seminary book store. I feel good about it. I think it was a considerably more edifying pastime than listening the ELCA trash.
I managed to pay attention during the Reverend Doctor Scaer's lecture. That was good. Because his and Dr. Weinrich were the highlights of the conference. (I think we can put Dr. Rast in third.)
Issues etc. was broadcasting from the student commons that afternoon. I tried paying attention but it isn't as gripping watching in person than listening over the radio. I saw a pastor who was wearing a shirt from Ghana. I thought at first it was a Chasuble designed T-Shirt.
Then we had divine service at Redeemer. Beautiful liturgy, but the incense got to me. I ducked out right before the Epistle and got a seat in the back. Afterwards we went to the saber presentation. I had my picture taken with just about every pastor there. It was cool.
Friday was the lecture by Weinrich. (Which, unfortunately, I couldn't pay attention to.) There was also a Itinerarium in which synod president Kieschnick preached. It was an okay sermon. It was a bunch of mild gospel. The only law was a very little third use at the end.
The goodbyes were not good at all. Especially when we hit Chicago on a Friday afternoon.
