Seminarians Conference and Lent

Last night we made the return trip to Chicago from Nashville.  Bethany, Aaron and I drove down on Wednesday for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) every-two-year Seminarians Conference.  The four day event was good, but not great.  Aaron got sick the first night down there, which meant he missed out on a bunch of the content.  The event was a crash course in our church’s “General Ministries,” which included presentations by almost all of the speakers (using Powerpoints horribly).  I think I need to teach a course for them!  :/

Here’s the UChicago group:

Michael Swartzentruber, Adam Frieberg, Bethany Lowery, Rebecca Anderson, Aaron Smith and Cheryl Jackson (L to R)

The drive back was a little painful. It began on Sunday morning with me losing two hours of sleep instead of the universally-bemoaned one hour. I’d set the clock on my Blackberry ahead an hour so I wouldn’t wake up late. Then, the Blackberry updated itself another hour.  It would have been fine had it not taken me 45 minutes of showering and getting dressed to realize the mistake.  So I felt like a zombie as the conference closed that morning.  And with Aaron’s sickness, he wasn’t able to drive because of his medicine, which meant I drove the entire way back from Nashville (stopping in Indianapolis to see families).  Thankfully we made it safe, the rental car is turned in, and now I’m working on two of my final papers – one of which had a draft due at noon today.  Yikes!

Since it’s the season of Lent, my “Worship in Media Cultures” class had an assignment to take pictures that could be used as metaphors for Lent within worship.  Here’s my favorite of my shots: