1000:1

Today was my first unofficial day as part of my new congregation. Normally when you join congregations there’s a formal moment: a moment when the person steps forward and joins by either making a confession of faith, transferring membership, or joining as a “student member” (maintaining membership in your home congregation, but affiliating yourself with the community you’re with while a student). Today I affiliated myself with an Episcopalian congregation. (I’m now a Seminary Intern!) For my Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) friends, don’t worry: I’m still in the Disciples ordination process. But … for my first time since arriving in Chicago, I’m now officially, unofficially part of a congregation.

I’ve visited Church of the Holy Nativity frequently over the past five months. It’s a congregation in the southwest suburbs of Chicago (Clarendon Hills – to be specific). Like all church-seeking processes, this one took time. There wasn’t one moment while in the congregation that I knew “this was it.” Some of you are probably curious: “why would a seminarian, of all people, be looking for a congregation?” I often tout the answer as a benefit for why, a year-ago, I chose my MDiv program: the University of Chicago has the first-year students visit different congregations on our own throughout the year and then pick where we want to work for our second year.

Even though the process has its obvious downsides (how can you have a nurturing faith community when you don’t have a constant community?), the benefits are immediately practical for ministry: I know the visitors’ best-kept secrets for avoiding a community’s embrace. Really — it’s kind of funny — I know how to attend a congregation and not be noticed … how to make it in and out of the church doors without being added to the newsletter mailing list. The visitors at Holy Nativity next year will have no idea what to expect; I luckily have also seen the “too pushy” approach and know what to avoid in courting congregants. Before describing my new congregation, here are some of those tips (use them as you will):

1. Have a smile when you enter the door and don’t look nervous. The congregation members will assume you’re either a member or a constant visitor and do a polite introduction, but won’t ask you to come back next week (since they assume it will already happen).
2. When the minister or elder mentions that all visitors should feel free to continue passing the offering plate, don’t take them up on their offer to fill out a visitor information card … while those don’t necessarily mean an entry pass to the newsletter mailing list, they will mean a personal letter from the minister.
3. If visiting a black church, be ready — they’re the most on-the-spot congregations. They ask visitors to stand up during the announcement time. If you’re white don’t even try faking that the minister isn’t talking to you. However, once you stand up there’s usually a congregational applause which causes what I term the “Sunday uplift” in the ego. It’s great, and the two black congregations I visited were incredibly welcoming.
4. There are several strategies when it comes to the offering time — I’ve had congregation members sitting close try to pass-it-on over me, so that they try to bypass me (knowing that I’m a visitor); I’ve turned in the information card (and still get the newsletters); I’ve donated cash, usually ensuring a clean get-away; I’ve donated using a check. Normally with the check the congregation simply processes it … except for Providence Christian Church in Lexington, KY. I visited Lexington for a weekend and was added to the newsletter list I’m assuming based on the return address on the check. It was unexpected, but then again, I welcomed it too.

So, Church of the Holy Nativity (we abbreviate it CHN) …

Several members of the congregation and some of my friends I’d told about it, think that my main connection is the reason I want to learn there: I knew the pastor, the Rev. Aimée Delevett, from last summer. Aimée was my small group leader at my FTE Ministry Fellowship conference and we got to know each other pretty well in that setting. Once arriving to Chicago, a friend at a nearby seminary (who was also in our small group) alerted me to Aimée’s installation service at CHN. I was free that weekend and made the trip down to the congregation. Even though much of the events of that Sunday revolved around Aimée, it was apparent what kind of community she was serving: a genuinely open congregation.

There have been periodic clarifying moments leading up to today. When visiting other congregations, while many of them were excellent, I constantly checked my schedule to figure out how soon I could return to CHN. Each time I came back to CHN, someone else knew my name. Then there were the little details: Mimi Johnson making a point in the uber-crowded Fellowship Hall on Easter Sunday to stop me and make sure I had somewhere to eat since she knew I was alone and away from family; or Val Birch making a point during the passing of the peace to walk the extra three pews to say hi; or Jim Massie stopping after the service while still in his choir robe to say hi as I stood in line to leave.

The foundational moment I knew CHN was right was during Holy Week when some of my housemates were talking about congregations they’d visited during Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. They asked where I went and I said “my congregation.” Their looks betrayed their lack-of-comprehension; my housemates hadn’t known I was committed to one congregation yet. It wasn’t hard for me to say, however, since the congregation had already accepted me … this was my moment to accept them in return: they’re my congregation.

PS – The picture above doesn’t show my favorite people, but I decided not to scare them too much with the camera this morning. Also, there will be many more 1000:1s about CHN, but until I start working there (September), check out the re-initialized blog section on my website which I’ll update more often than my 1000:1s.

In my last 1000:1, I intentionally failed to disclose one part of my spring break. My trip down to Texas was better than I deserve. My friends/professors overflowed in their hospitality. During the week I relived the same calendar week from last year with an informal gathering at Judy Dodd’s house remembering Daryl. It was painful, calming, and reaffirming all at the same time. We gathered for wine, food and memories. The trip was exactly the refocusing agent I needed.

I did not mention that my spring break had two parts. One was indeed the 2400 miles on the road down to Texas and back. However, I put in an additional 700 miles once I returned to Chicago. Three weeks before embarking to Texas, my aunt called and asked me to come home the last weekend of break for a surprise 50th birthday party she, another aunt, and friends would throw for my parents. The best part about the party: it wasn’t a birthday for either of them! My Dad had his last August and my Mom has hers this coming November. Retrospectively, the idea to split the difference between the dates was genius! They had no idea!

Before divulging the elaborate surprise, I have to exegete the above picture. While the exposure is a little harsh (thanks Becky) and causes the bare skin to shine a little too much for my taste, I need to credit my aunt Becky for liberating me from camera-duty (THANKS BECKY!) and letting me enjoy the party. You’ll notice the two men on the left. Many non-familiar observers undoubtedly question which gentleman is me; I’m the one in the black shirt. No, the other black shirt. Hehehe. [More on the shirts below!] From left to right is my dad (Dan), me, my mom (Kate) and my brother (Luke). Those readers with keen eyes can also distinguish a genetical pattern; Luke especially hopes evidence of this continues. Through the years, people see more of my dad in me and my mom in Luke. Our facial structures cause this identification. The hair continues in a similar manner — enough said.

The party began with Desi, a family friend from church, alerted my parents she was throwing a wine party for PEO and church people. Unbeknownst to the parents, my aunts Peg and Terri were also in on the hoax! When the invites came through e-mail the gauntlet was thrown: my parents would be at the door greeting people and as everyone entered it would hopefully take a lot of time before they realized all of the people shouldn’t have had a common reason for being there. Desi was so convincing in her initial sell that my mom offered to bring brownies — to her own party!

The event could not have been executed with any more precision. As my parents tell it, with every arrival they internally justified why each person showed up. There were too many factors for them to comprehend the scope in advance, however. Every person who entered the door was wearing black. The priceless moment was when my mom realized this, still couldn’t figure it out, and blamed my dad for getting the message and her being oblivious!

The ruse continued until family members from Fairfield (2.5 hour drive from home) entered. At that point they new something was up, but still had no idea what. All of a sudden people started singing Happy Birthday; my dad laughed, thought it was for my mom, and joined it. It wasn’t until everyone sang both names that the scales came off. It was perfect.

Now fast-forward five minutes and my brother and I are still avoiding the party. We knew when we entered, but especially when I did, that the game was finished. My parents knew I was in Chicago and had no clue I was in a holding pattern at my aunt’s and uncle’s house. My brother and I waited a time, drove to the party and as we pulled up we saw a church friend (Mark Durham) walking up to the clubhouse. When he saw me in my brother’s passenger seat, I lifted my finger to my mouth and he stopped in his tracks, did a double-take and his mouth dropped open in shock. He smiled and entered, keeping the secret. My brother parked, we looked at each other, looked at the car in front of us and listened to two more songs on his iPod before getting out. I wish I had a video of it. When we entered my parents were already in-the-know, but my mom’s eyes teared up since my presence took it to a new level. It was a perfect moment.

The weekend as a whole was fun since, besides reconnecting with friends at the party, I also abstained a week from my first-year church-hopping for Divinity School, and returned to my home congregation. They are the people who helped shape my calling and every visit home reaffirms it. There is something about home congregations: they often influence you without them or you being cognizant of it; but memory and a re-examination of history clarifies the process. Speaking of which … some congregation members reminded me of my sophomore year of high school — I’ve changed!

Oh, before I wrap this up … the shirts: my dad’s shirt is definitely navy. It’s a shade of blue. It may have been the lighting at the party, or perhaps the wine, but the color was often unclear. And also, before you pay me one of the biggest compliments by saying I even dress like my dad, recognize there’s a reason the dark colors. Without hair on the tops or sides of the head, clothing is the most efficient way to add contrast, which hopefully slims up and shapes the face! But yes, we are very similar — and I love it!

It was during my first three weeks living in Chicago that I first needed to send some letters. My history with the postal system began on a great note, but has had its rough patches. The USPS was there when I needed it. My TCU application (which was for my 2nd choice school initially – wow!) was postmarked in Breckenridge, CO on its last possible day. In spite of printing the application during our family vacation on my inket printer, the USPS delivered and I was fortunate enough to spend four years in Ft. Worth.

Well, at the beginning of my Chicago experience the USPS let me down for the first memorable time. Let me start by insisting that stamps normally don’t make a difference for me. Their amount is my only care. I don’t collect them; I don’t notice them on letters I receive; and, I certainly don’t try to make personal statements with them. Had I situated myself in my new environment for life, it wouldn’t have made a difference; but I was new and it made me insecure. The University of Chicago post office WAS OUT of flag stamps.

The only standard $0.39 stamps available that day were Ronald Reagan memorial stamps. The University of Chicago is famous for its liberal political tendencies and Ronald Reagan support; (that was another school down the road: Eureka College, Ronald’s alma mater). The panic of having to use these stamps while gaining new friends and situating myself was a nightmare. What if someone saw me? Would I need to deposit the mail by stealth in the box across the street? And if someone saw me, would I have to show my true political colors? While funny in retrospect, it took some time before I could always laugh at the stamps and the panic; even later that afternoon there was still some angst.

This past Tuesday it was the end of the era. My Reagan stamps ran out and I returned to my liberty flags. Quite fittingly, I paid some bills by it and gratefully dropped it into the blue box. Then, later in the week, I couldn’t find stamps. They were still in my drawer, but I didn’t notice them for a long time. Even though in plain sight, they didn’t stick out like Ronald’s portrait. It probably serves me right.

On a more serious note: I’ve reached another end of an era. This coming quarter will be my first academic term since high school that I am not doing a foreign language course. I finished my Greek sequence for Divinity School and I already know there will be a void. My classes for next quarter rock: the History of Christian Thought V; the Catholic Reformation; Women, Religion and Human Rights. Still, I’m going to miss the structured meeting of classes for language study. Many of my ministry colleagues and I will continue to keep our translations polished with each other, but this absence is going to create a real loss!

Another ending era appearing with a positive view of my language studies finishing: if I plan it right, I will never take another 8 a.m. class again. Language classes, introductory survey classes in college, and music courses in high school were the only ones cruel enough to begin so early. I can only look at the end of this era with mixed feelings: many ministers serving in congregations tell me their biological clocks adjust when serving full-time and mornings naturally become earlier.

It’s also a good time to break and realize it was a year ago this week that Daryl Schmidt, my Greek and New Testament teacher at TCU, died. The loss is painful even without my language courses ending.

…

The end of eras means the beginnings of others, fortunately. Janet Spittler, my University of Chicago Greek teacher is finishing her PhD and recently went through the job search process. Where did she end up? TCU! My smile was bigger than Reagan’s on the stamps when I found out. She and the TCU Religion Department are going to be a great fit for each other. She’ll be teaching the Greek program I learned from Daryl.

I’m struggling to come up with any new eras I know are beginning. I’m finalizing my plans for the coming summer’s activities. I hope it will turn out as I’d planned. Then again, there’s plenty of details left to finalize and that “era” is anything but a foregone conclusion. I’m also in the listening stage of choosing which congregation I will serve with next school year. Our ministry program trains students in their second year in the midst of congregational placements; I have my community selected, but we’re still several steps away from finalizing the commitment to the process.

On an completely unrelated note: many of you know I am addicted to watching podcasts. Podcasts are audio or video files automatically delivered through software (the most popular is iTunes). My previous favorite was PhotoshopTV. As it sounds, it’s a video program delivered weekly with training on using Adobe Photoshop (my favorite image editing program). My new favorite is worth everyone visiting. It’s called Mr. Deity (www.mrdeity.com) and is a series of humorous clips looking at theological beliefs. For some it will be so condescending it’s not funny; for me, it’s a nice release from the intensity of doing divinity school classes daily.

Happy New Year!

No, it’s not a typo (or an excuse for this delayed 1000:1 e-mail). Yesterday and today are the respective Vietnamese and Chinese New Years. Growing up in the middle of Iowa, I had no idea until today how fun a New Year’s celebration can be. In my past it was always the New Year’s Eve that was the real holiday. My family would join the other families in our bible study group and all of us would do a progressive dinner, traveling to each family’s house at some time in the night for a different course. Even in recent years, New Year’s Eve is the holiday; New Year’s day is simply a day off of work.

This morning one of my housemates (Vy) took me and six of our friends to worship with him at First Vietnamese United Methodist Church here in Chicago. Vy has attended this church for most of the year, in a large part because he’s interviewing different generations of Vietnamese christians for his Senior Ministry Project. I’d met the pastor before today and have even heard Vy’s recorded interview of him. That being said, I shouldn’t have been as shocked as I was about the type of community I witnessed and enjoyed:

When I first walked in the door I saw men dressed up in suits and women in traditional (and beautiful!) Vietnamese dresses. The bulletin I picked up while entering the sanctuary was filled with 90% of the words in Vietnamese. Vy had an encouraging and apprehensive look on his face … one that few people can pull off as well as Vy. Someone handed me a lifesaver as I stepped into the row of seats: a headset. For any tech geek, headsets are new things to play with; in this case, though, I took extra-special care of it. I even made sure to turn it off during the songs, just to make sure that the battery didn’t fail on me during the sermon. Yes, these headsets had people on the other end translating the service into English. HOW COOL IS THAT?!? It’s the first bilingual service I’ve attended that showed this much care for visitors.

As you can probably guess from that last paragraph, this congregation does technology better than most churches. The graphics on-screen were clean, there were few “hiccups,” and the technology that was used aided the service instead of detracting from it. I realized something else from the headphones situation: this is BY FAR the best way to do bilingual services when you have a minority of attendees speaking only one language. Most of the people in the congregation (at least those under 50), speak English, but the sermons and songs switch back and forth between languages, and in doing so, they preserve both languages within the community life. Having someone on the other side of the microphone concurrently translating created a tighter relationship than what happens in many bilingual services where people don’t know both languages; in those instances, most of the content is said twice — first in one language and then the other. What I experienced this morning, however, was a translator speaking directly into our ears and occasionally looking above his desk to make sure it was clearly coming across. It was a dialogue; it was great!

My favorite translator was a kid — probably around 16 years old — who would occasionally throw in funny phrases. At one point, he had me laughing so much that Vy turned around and glared at me … priceless! The kid’s name was Oliver and some of his memorable phrases include:

[While starting the congregational praise-song singing session] “Don’t worry, there’ll be English songs, I’m sure!”

[Oliver missing what the minister said] “Umm … don’t worry about that. Oh yeah …” [then picking up the sermon again] ” … he said something like ‘walking by faith will include this choice of obeying'”

“Now is the time for people in the community to stand up and give testimony. OH WAIT! Never-mind that, it’s offering time.”

“When you’re leaving the sanctuary, please hand your headsets to the tall Asian kid in the red shirt. Yeah, that one … the one waiving his hand.”

Having a personal translator is SO fun. Besides getting [most of] the message across, the translator can keep people attentive better than many ministers. At first I hesitated on wearing the headset: wasn’t it going to distract from the worship WITH the congregation? Wasn’t the headset going to set us apart as visitors? Luckily, the second question wasn’t really an issue since we were obviously visitors. Also, since it was an obvious, intentional ministry the congregation provides, listening through the headsets was a better way of attending to the worship with the congregation than disregarding the headsets. Needless to say, I enjoyed the community and its wonderful potluck of Vietnamese food afterwards.

On another note, I need to explain the picture above. Chicago gets snow. Last week, in particular, we had enough snow and enough wind to cause huge drifts. My car was covered to the point of leaving only two inches in the middle uncovered by the snow. After the plows finally came through Hyde Park (there’s a rumor Mayor Daly hates our neighborhood … who knows!), they pushed the snow up higher and the drift came to the start of my driver’s side window.

This afternoon, after a relaxing grocery shopping session (in which someone else obviously drove), I took 30 minutes and dug my car out with a shovel. I still didn’t completely remove the three inches of snow on top of the car, but the wheel wells and case are no longer encased in the iced-up white powder. All of that white snow beside the car was connected to it this morning. (Clicking through the picture’s link will give you a bigger view.)

So, Happy New Year! And, hopefully none of you are entrenched with snow beyond what you can handle!

Peace and Blessings,

Adam

Wow — the last mass e-mail I wrote was at the end of November. Here’s a 5-sentence summary of everything in the past six weeks:

After writing three good papers at the end of the term, I stayed in Chicago for a couple of extra days and reorganized and cleaned my room. While this may not seem a big deal for most people – my room needed it so bad I knew I must end the year on that good note; it did need it. Spending almost three weeks at home I took WAY too few pictures. But, I still managed to read two books while my brother rebooted my addiction to the Nintendo GameCube. I finally returned to Chicago and classes began on January 3rd.

My family and I reached a fun equilibrium a couple of years ago on how we should manage to live together during breaks. You may laugh, but, it’s not as easy as you would think. I’m in my early twenties and my bed time depends on what’s happening the next day; it rarely depends on what I’ve done that day! I did have a great time at home, though, and my Dad and I watched Season 2 of the stress-inducing series “24”.

During winter break I normally expect snow and ice. I only remember two moments during the 2005/2006 break that fulfilled this expectation. However, at that time it didn’t matter since I witnessed a great snow when returning to the States from Florence.

This break didn’t contain much winter weather. Hence, the picture above. Most of you know that I grew up on a horse farm. This is a picture of one of the stallions after a great snowfall two winters ago. The pictures I took this break weren’t nearly as good. While they show great progressions of the newborn foals from when I shot the pictures in Easter until now, the pictures are bland: there’s no snow!

Another highlight over break was cooking with my Aunt Becky. Ever since my time in Florence, and those many e-mails, Becky has me come to her house in West Des Moines and cook whenever I’m back in town. Usually we will coordinate two or three days in advance of when we’re cooking. I e-mail her recipes the night before we cook and then we tag-team the grocery purchasing, depending on who runs errands. For our cooking time during this break, however, I was stuck. I had no good ideas of dishes to make! So … I made up a new one.

reductio ad esculentus
I’m not positive that the Latin above is correct (it should end up as “reduction to deliciousness”). The recipe I created needs some work on the texture, but has amazing flavors. I started by slicing eggplant length-wise so that each slice was about 1/4″ or thinner. After grilling those, battering them with egg and bread crumbs and then frying them with a mixture of oil and Cabernet Sauvignon, I placed them to the side to dry – slightly. I then created little wraps out of each eggplant and filled them with parmesan, mozzarella, a mushroom-tomato ragu, and the coalesced bread crumbs left over from the frying reduction. After setting all of the eggplant rolls onto a bed of the mozzarella ragu and then forming a laager around it all with the even-more-reduced cabernet mixture, we transported it to my grandma’s house and rewarmed it in the oven.

The recipe is another example of why it’s important to start with a great wine and slow-reduce it as long as possible. Reduction, in fact, is often a great thing! Theologians who can reduce their complex works into manageable chunks deserve more credit, in my opinion, than those spouting at the pen. The same is true for the successful photographers. They can take thousands of pictures (or – to rekindle/parallel the cooking metaphor – a 750mL bottle of wine), and pick out 30 great ones and tell a story with better quality and length than a movie. It’s all part of the art of reducing something in order to accentuate the desire. Flavors, images, words: they are all desirable.

Even though any new pictures of horses in the snow must wait for another year, and the cooking experiments will now be alone instead of with family, it was great to return to Chicago. My classes this semester are stellar: Greek, the Public Church and its Ministry, and the Old Testament in the Gospel of John. Those of you who know me well are probably reading ‘Greek’ and thinking, “Surprise, surprise, Adam. Don’t you ever take anything new?” You’re partially correct. I’m already nervous for the Spring quarter. It will be the first academic term since 2002 that I am not taking a foreign language! At the same time, it may be a great move to trade that challenge in for a different (notice I didn’t say better!) one.

Now, to conclude this random e-mail, I have to point out one of the best tools for my alma mater: TCU. Everyone constantly asks why we’re called the Horned Frogs. Well, National Geographic’s latest Podcast issue shows one taking on a coyote. To see it, either subscribe with iTunes or visit the site in your web browser. You’ll notice that they call it a horned lizard (read: Horned Frog … science evolves); no matter the name, TCU calls it a mascot!

Peace and Blessings,

Adam

A little over two weeks ago I made a mistake. And, unlike most other instances, I didn’t automatically try to fix it.

Edmund Harris, one of my fellow MDiv students, invited me to visit his congregation he serves. I brought along the camera to make sure Edmund had good pictures for his upcoming presentation to his classmates on where he works (it’s something the 2nd-year MDiv students do in their Practicum course). Acting as the gracious host, Edmund showed the main highlights most visitors see: the fellowship hall, the sanctuary, the front of the building. When we returned from the chilly breeze outdoors, Edmund showed me the side-chapel off the sanctuary. I immediately snapped a picture only to realize my camera was still in “shutter-priority” mode for the outside rather than “aperture-priority” mode for the inside shots. A quick flip of the switch and that was changed, but unlike other times, I didn’t delete the faulty picture I’d just snapped.

For those who have seen my desktop setup in my room, you know the screen “real estate” I work with. My 23″ monitor lets me see pictures almost at the zoom level the camera captures them. It’s a blessing and a curse. It’s much more rare with the larger screen for me to instantly like pictures; before, when viewing them on the back of the camera, I could instantly pick out the keepers; now the flaws have all the attention they need.

The picture above is a cropped version of the “reject” shot from shooting in the chapel at St. Christopher’s. So … maybe it’s a virtue to not reject something immediately.

Stained-glass windows are the most difficult subject to photograph, save for waterfalls. (Trust me: I have an entire memory-card full of pictures from St. Peter’s in the Vatican where I tried, and failed, so hard at capturing the dove/Spirit window behind the altar.) The difference in light from the subject (either the light-permeated glass or the speed of the flowing water) and the ambient background leaves little in-camera options. Yes, there are filters such as the “neutral density” type which let the camera balance the light so that one exposure captures everything — not too light and not too dark. But, since those cost so much, the best solution (by far!) is to balance the tonalities within software. The downside of this economical option: for the trained eye, those pictures can stand out because a great edit makes it obvious why they look so good. Some photo blends are too good to be real.

What, you ask, did I do to the picture above from St. Christopher’s? I left it. Besides cropping and adjusting the contrast so the wall looked as black as the picture referenced, the photo is preserved. The low-key picture — with a majority of the photo being the darker tones — was the look I kept.

The photo conundrum from the above situation is also a good metaphor for my current quarter at the University of Chicago Divinity School. I’m appreciating the situation and the atmosphere and how its challenges are shaping me; but there are so many instances in which my first reaction is “oh, that was a mistake, let me tweak this and adjust that setting.”

I’m over-compensating. Sometimes my gut tells me to paint the background darker and focus on the foreground. I catch the meaning from the author but I seemingly ignore the surrounding issues in which the author struggles. At other times I focus so much on the larger theological issue that the author’s point looks more like my own construction to match my argument than what she was actually saying. Why is this a new problem that wasn’t plaguing me in undergraduate courses?

Luckily, my high-value filter came at the right time. For my Public Church in America course, the ideal text was published after we finished most of the course. My closest friends are probably rolling their eyes since I keep talking about it, but on Nov. 1st, Mark Toulouse released God in Public: Four Ways American Christianity and Public Life Relate. This book is my neutral density filter that gives great exposure to what I’ve been reading in class this quarter. He spends three chapters specifically on the Public nature of Christianity and how it looks in the post-modern worldview.

His book wrestles with the issue of how much Christians not only do, but should, interact in Public life. Should individuals try to make “the” Christian viewpoint ruling for the rest of everyone else living in society? Should individual Christians engage Public life while not speaking as a church entity? Should the Church itself (denominations, congregations, groups of individuals) enter the Public conversation and how much of their voice should be allowed in the full discussion?

The book is worth it!

Mark had one point that will undoubtedly serve as the foundation for my final paper for the class: when the Public church does engage, it leaves behind any inherent privilege from previous social misconceptions and enters the conversation without invincibility … and that’s a good thing. “Christians who truly want to engage the public life of the nation must be willing to risk their comfort for discussion and dialogue; they must be willing to make their arguments in a context where counterarguments are made and all who participate are held accountable to the critical analysis of ideas” (190). My margin note was one phrase: “to do so may require talking less and listening more.” That’s the best strategy in which Christian voices will avoid the pitfalls of inadequacy in the dialogue. If Christianity is to have relevance in the Public sphere, it must step up to the challenge and give a reason for justice and mutual community to be the goals of all humanity.

Until next time …

We’re getting the cold weather in Chicago. I knew it would happen. Luckily, I went home to Iowa last weekend (6 hour drive; 5.5 for me) and got a winter coat so I will be ready for the season. Lower temperatures calls for longer times indoors accompanied, of course, by warm and scrumptious meals!

Last night I made a dish I thought impossible. I thought it was impossible the first time I saw it in Italy only to find out it was impossibly good once I tried it. Before last night I thought it impossible for me to re-create.

Luca, my baker in Italy had a type of pizza I’d written about (see the journal entry from 10/11/2005, the e-mail on patronage, or my e-mail highlighting specifically this pizza). It was bizarre: Gorgonzola cheese, pears, and walnuts. Last night I did the impossible. I recreated it. While not quite maintaining the crust consistency of Luca’s (his dough was softer with a harder bottom — if you’re reading this Luca — any tips?), my pizza had the blend of flavors almost perfect. The walnuts were plentiful, the pears had given their juices to the entire pie, and the gorgonzola melted to wrap all off the flavor into the texture.

Living in Chicago is much like Florence. Little pieces of Chicago trigger the memories. One of my favorite views in Florence was an everyday sight of looking through my bathroom window into the courtyard below. The bathroom was all tile and marble, which made it very easy to clean but incredibly slippery when wet. My bathroom in Chicago is like that. Standing on the tile and leaning over the radiator I look out into an alley three stories below. When I peer my head out to the left, I don’t see the elderly couple who would recline in warm nights smoking cigars or cigarettes as they drank wine and folded laundry and talked. I see an alley leading behind several of the fraternities towards 56th street. When I look out to the right, I do see the busy sidewalk and the frequent pedestrians remind me that it’s class time. My habit in Florence was to watch the streets as I tied my shoes or packed my bag before walking the mile to class. My curiosity wondered what was in the people’s stories, such the employee at the bike shop I lived above who shaved his head and talked on the cell phone more than most American teenagers; or, the daughter in her mid-thirties who walked hand in hand with her grandfather to the il Centro grocery store at the end of the street. What were their lives like?

It’s amusing now how much one successful recipe can bring back those moments. The ingredients are simple, but the method is crucial.

This week is full of transitional moments. Ryan Motter, one of my TCU classmates, is visiting the University of Chicago and the Disciples Divinity House to get a feel as he does his application. His presence alone brings back memories. His updates on everything Ft. Worth makes me miss it and also look at my current situation in a new light:

Several classmates and cohort members at Chicago have expressed their unease with the program and that they face constant identity and content-practicality issues. Ryan’s presence blessedly reminds me that my preparation was great for this environment. And it’s not just the shaping from the TCU Religion Department; my churches, my living situations, and my social circles have all enabled me to ward off exterior pressures that wrangle others into states of despair.

The previous paragraph portrays my friends’ reactions in too harsh a light. They do enjoy their situations and the challenges of school. However, they flounder in something I don’t.

On a side-topic: this summer I received a fellowship from the Fund for Theological Education. They give the Ministry fellows $5000 each to use for a ministry exploration activity the following summer that each fellow designs. I’m finally working on the foundation of my design and hope by the end of the month to have a cloudy idea of what events, people and places will fill my summer. I can already guarantee two things: any reading it involves will be casual and intentionally specific to my future ministries; also, I will force myself to keep some semblance of sabbath in the constant running-around. Reflecting on this summer I didn’t even voice lip-service to taking time off from the constant camp and programming schedule.

The pizza above represents by best attempt at sabbath-keeping in my University of Chicago lifestyle. I could eat the pizza on the run, but the laughter and stories with my friends would leave me hollow. Ironically, this pizza, when experienced in Italy, was always eaten on the run; until my last day there, that is. My last day I made a point to get a picture with Luca and I; I stayed in his bakery and savored the flavors while watching him serve his customers who were even more constant patrons than I. It was the first time I ate the pizza while in his bakery instead of grabbing the bag and hustling back to the apartment.

Like the previously impossible re-creation of the pizza, my non-existent (some would say impossible) sabbath practices will hopefully re-member the compartmentalized sections of my life in the coming months and summer.

What’s the most creative sabbath discipline you either practice or have heard of someone practicing (which, of course, probably spurned jealousy on your part!)? I’m curious on what works beyond the busy Sunday morning worships at churches or the morning coffee and paper routine. Who knows, I might even trade recipes for disciplines!

Typically Divinity School students reserve Sunday afternoons as sacred time. They’re not supposed to require work in church placements (that’s reserved for the morning and evening) and they’re that relaxed period where productive studying can happen. They are a time when many of us take the half hour to call our parents and do the weekly update, a time when NFL football is always an option for those delaying the inevitable procrastination. They’re a time most of us revere.

Well, I broke that sanctity on Sunday afternoon by paying to attend a workshop completely unrelated to anything I’m studying. I went to a photography seminar. And now I’m suffering the consequences.

The picture above is Alexander Cook. For those who don’t know, Alexander is the youngest son of Dottie, my minister at South Hills Christian Church (DOC) in Ft. Worth, TX. Alexander is a kid with spunk; he has an attitude and for most of us who watch(ed) it, a chuckle comes easily. He was one of the shortest kids in the congregation (well, when I left at least — he’s probably not anymore) and he could assert more authority than most adults could muster. Whether he had it or not is another matter, but he acted the part.

He would slowly pace in front of the office windowed wall while he waited for Dottie to finish. His thumbs would be in his belt loops, his arms held out at angles, and his step would have a relaxed, yet staggered gate. I never saw him with the cowboy hat, but his boots on many Sundays would make the look even more priceless. When some adults would come by they’d say comments down to him and he’d show some form of acknowledgment, even if it wasn’t the most direct. Sometimes the only response would be a shrug; sometimes it would bring a questioning look; sometimes it was an eye roll away from the adults. He could act like he was experienced in life, almost like it would take a lot to surprise him.

On Sunday I had the pleasure to see what I’m guessing Alexander will be like in 65 years. Monte Zucker (to see a similar pose, go to http://www.fotoaparat.cz/image/17290), one of the instructors for the workshop (the other one was Eddie Tapp), had so many of Alexander’s mannerisms. I’m guessing that Monte was Jewish just because of some of the jokes he told and his east coast accent. He wasn’t the tallest man, but he made up for it in confidence. It was his show and he was dragging the audience along. He started it with a five minute dance session. You should realize that almost all of the audience was professional photographers (with about 75% over 40 years old) and let’s just say there’s a reason they’re not dancers … or even cool for that matter. But, Monte knew how to handle them. Those who didn’t dance immediately became his test subjects for shooting pictures on stage. No, they didn’t get to use his equipment; they were the subjects he used it on.

When he pulled them up to the stage, his cheeks lifted and his jaw dropped open about half an inch so that you couldn’t tell if he was smiling, chuckling or just enjoying the torture of them. He had two people unrelated do “couple” poses together while their significant others were in the audience. It was hilarious.

Besides the look and the smile resembling Alexander, I burst out laughing about fifteen minutes into the presentation when I recognized the resemblance. Monte was adjusting the soft light boxes on the stage so he could better light the subject. In doing so, he completely blocked the view of what he was doing for the entire audience of about 175 people! After taking a couple of shots, he bent down and looked between the light boxes and asked, “What are all of you doing out there? You have no idea what I’m doing. Move somewhere else in the room so you can see. Geez … it’s like you don’t want to learn any of this!”

Laughter was my only appropriate reaction. Only 30 of us ended up moving. And they kept adjusting the lights and we kept having to move every 45 seconds or so. It was great.

I had my $50 in valuable material in the first half hour. I think my mind had all that it could take by that point too. Monte made sure, after he handed the presentation over to Eddie twenty minutes in, to walk around and lean into our aisles to ask us if we were taking enough notes; he knew that our minds had no chance of retaining the information for the rest of the afternoon.

Sunday evening I was feeling it too. Excedrin eased the pain of the workshop but it didn’t improve my attitude or replenish my energy. Only time could do that.

It wasn’t until Monday afternoon that I didn’t get a headache just from remembering the workshop. It was great; but still painful. My parents use the phrase “a Farrell Lobotomy” to describe the throbbing headache stemming from business meetings with a colleague. The deluge of information from the workshop, paired with some stress from the weekend, knocked me into a state of humility on Sunday evening.

From the experience came a recipe that will hopefully prove true at the University of Chicago: prepare for massive overloads of information, throw in a bit of strife and stress (the variety doesn’t matter as much as the amount — not too much, but also not too little), and regain the humble mindset and watch your attitude rise from the depths to realize that life really is a great experience. That’s an attitudinal lobotomy.

If every 1000:1 e-mail sent before this one, I strictly limited the accompanying text to 1000 words. This one breaks that guideline a little; I think it’s worth it. Many of you who followed my life in the spring know about the loss of Daryl Schmidt. Many of you also noted that my biggest “processing” time with his death would be when I started taking Greek classes again. You were right.

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It takes something special beyond meeting a curriculum requirement to get students to enjoy taking a class a 8 A.M. Daryl had that special something. Maybe it was donuts every test. Maybe it was his ritual words (which signaled us to wake up): “Kali heMera” good day/morning. Maybe it was the reassurance that he would preciously ignore students who drifted in and out of consciousness for the lighter sections of the class. He even had the methods down for jarring students subtly: a quick staccato burst with slightly elevated volume of some grammatical intricacy would pull off the haze ever-so-subtly. There was something special about Daryl.

Daryl died this spring on March 21st. It shocked us all, but some of us were fortunate enough to see him before he died. My roommate, Richard Newton, had one of the best reflections from his visit. It’s worth the read.

The memorial service at TCU followed some time later, April 2nd, and for one afternoon I saw more community in the Religion Department and the university than ever before. That’s saying something since Daryl had already helped make the department a treasure for TCU with his leadership as the department chair.

For those who didn’t know me that well in college, here’s a quick synopsis of how much I liked Daryl: he was my academic advisor throughout my undergraduate career; I took seven classes with him (21 academic hours) — which, according to Brittney Smith, means that I minored in Schmidt; I was his student assistant, office helper, and paper reorganizer, in which, even though he was an environmentalist and avid recycler, paradoxically was a professor who handed out repeat copies — JUST IN CASE we couldn’t find the last one he gave out; not counting having lunch with him every Monday, I was lucky enough to have three Greek meals with him, an Easter dinner, an Italian smorgasbord, three Saturday department picnics in the park, two department dinners and at least half a dozen receptions where we would tag-team the buffet lines while in conversation.

No matter how hard I try, the memories are slow to return, but through some reading I’m finding other nuggets on the essence of Daryl Schmidt.

The image above is perhaps the best narrative tool I can use to springboard deeper into this. Oh, and for those clicking on the picture, it will take you to the full browser-size version in a web page. If you are on the page, click the “Download Photo” button on the right-hand column and the full-size, zoom-able image will save to your computer. Or, if you don’t want it on your computer, look to the upper-right corner adjacent to the Share Photo button. The magnifier takes you into a 100% zoom. In any case, the detail makes it worth it.

Daryl was one of the head translators for the Jesus Seminar. He was a linguistic translator as well as a scholarship translator. During the early 1990s, the Jesus Seminar put out a new translation of the Gospels (don’t worry, Paul’s and other letters are in-process even with the stumbling blocks). The text in the upper-left is Luke’s version of the Beatitudes. Daryl’s ever-processing mind was constantly working on how one would say the word “makarioi” in today’s vernacular. “Blessed” is the version used by most translations, but that’s old! Who talks like that? Blessed are you since you’re hearing this. The official version was his contribution and it’s close to brilliant: “Congratulations!”

Then he would look squarely at his disciples and say:
Congratulations, you poor!
God’s domain belongs to you.
Congratulations, you hungry!
You will have a feast.
Luke 6:20-21

The pejorative jest “oh, that’s just semantics” had no effect on Daryl. Semantics were everything for him! Realizing that Luke was closer to the original of what Jesus would have said, was key for him. Daryl stressed to his students that Matthew’s version of “the poor in spirit” wasn’t likely to come from a man coming from “po-dunk town like Nazareth.” Nathaneal’s comment in John 1:46 was exactly what Daryl wanted to emphasize: what does it say about a town when someone is shocked that anything good can come from there? Ironically, I had the same view of Texas for a while … until I experienced it.

For my eulogy at the memorial service I had to remove a section in the sake of time Here’s the basis of what else I had to say.

In my last year in Ft. Worth, we had finished the structured Greek class and were doing independent reading sessions in his office. Our in-office readings started from gospel parallels of Jesus’ sermons on the mountain and plains and finished with some light (yeah, if that’s possible) reading of the early sections in Revelation and then referencing back their grammar to that in Daniel and other prophets in the Septuagint.

There was one phrase which showed my complete incompetence, even though he reassured me that it was “bastardized Greek” — I think he just wanted me to feel better. The phrase was “ho own” (for those Greek readers: I know it’s not the correct transliteration, but you get the point). The passage was from Revelation 1:4 and I had no idea how to translate it. Daryl asked me what it was. A relative pronoun? No, look at the article, he said. A proper noun? No, he said, look again. I was clueless. He carefully guided me through the recognition process; the scales couldn’t come off too quickly or the effect would be lost. Piece by piece we ran through the possibilities until he told me to look at a different verse, from way back in the scriptures: “ego eimi ha own.” I still didn’t understand until he said to translate it as the pronoun I wanted it to be and see what it sounded like: “I am who I am.”

Indeed, he replied. The effect was instantaneous: is it seriously quoting Exodus? That knowing grin told me all I needed to know … except for the parsing of the phrase, that is. The explanation was a fun one. It’s a participle form of the verb “eimi,” which means “to be.” It’s that simple. Well, I guess it is existing, which isn’t the simplest action, but still: it’s one of the most complex forms of one of the most basic words. Now to translate it; this is where Dr. Schmidt was at his finest. For the Revelation passage, Daryl pulled out his parallel version of translations, Richard and I grabbed some from the wall, and we compared: “he who is,” “him who is,” “him which is,” “the One who is,” “him that is,” “Him who is.” All of the translations did it as a pronoun. We knew we couldn’t solidify a translation we loved, so out came an Andy Fort (TCU Religion Prof.) version: “the ‘am’-ing thing.” Only a Buddhism professor’s influence could cause us to think that convoluted construction actually made sense each time we re-read it.

That whole process was an instance that didn’t cha
nge our minds over the text; it did, however, show Daryl’s gift to us. He could have told us in an instant what the phrase was, the logical choice of translation, and instantly skipped to the next verse. He was in it for the fun of watching us learn. He was present to the situation and present to our lives, which may, when the semantics boil down, be the best meaning for “ho own;” for sure it’s the most pastoral meaning.

The text on the lower third of the image that flows to the right is from the end of Romans 8. Richard’s account of his last visit with Daryl tells it best, but perhaps Daryl’s translation of the text says it my favorite way:

37 In spite of everything, the one who loved us brought us victories beyond measure. 38 I am convinced that nothing—not death or life, not heavenly messengers or cosmic forces, not anything already present or yet to come, not any kind of power, 39 not the greatest height or the lowest depth, not anything that exists in all creation—will ever be able to isolate us from the love God exemplified through the anointed, Jesus, our lord.

He had a way with words, and his life touched so many people. I’m anxious to see how his gap can even possibly be filled.

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Peace and Blessings,

Adam

PS – For those who knew Daryl: what are some of your memories? Little bits from others trigger new ones for me.