Life

Now that it’s September, it feels like summer is over.  (I know, it’s not official yet, but our tomato plants beg to differ!)

So, to catch you up, here’s an overview of my summer:

Ordination

I got ordained!  Audio and the service reflections might be following soon (if I find the time), but it really did feel like a second wedding.  The invitations to send out, the thank-you notes to write (with a couple still in-process), and a whole worship service to plan — it was a wedding!  I lucked out in not having the weekend too-focused on me because my family also celebrated my grandparents’ 60th wedding anniversary that Sunday.

Vacation

Heidi and I left the celebrations to join friends around the midwest for some catching-up.  Eight nights in eight different beds; lots of meal fellowship; lots of laughs — a great vacation!

Mel and Heidi playing with Great Pyrenees puppies with sheep in the middle of a rain storm at Mel’s organic farm in Minnetrista, MN.

Heidi with her aunt Ann (I think laughing about Merlin, the family bunny).

A great dinner with Tom and Shuli after an exhausting bike ride.

Shuli’s brother Gabe with a baby guinea hen – one of the ugliest breeds of birds I’ve ever seen (~ prehistoric dinosaur chickens).

Hiking in greater La Crosse, WI with Libby Howe, Heidi and Sage – the super springer spaniel.

Following a dinner with Jonathan, Emily and Sam Seitz before they left for Taiwan as missionaries/educator(s).

General Assembly

This was the second General Assembly for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) where I took photographs for DisciplesWorld magazine.

DisciplesWorld writers/editors/photographer(s) from left: Adam Frieberg (me), Verity Jones, Nathan Wilson, Sherri Emmons, Kevin Phipps, Rebecca Woods, Charlie Cochran, Ted Parks.  Absent: Tanya Tyler, Neil Topliffe.

Short story: I’m no longer a bachelor! Heidi came down to Indianapolis for a brief 18-hour span and I saw my own General-Assembly-existence in a new light.  I’ve been proud that, since 2001, I haven’t paid for a room at General Assembly.  This has been because of generous friends loaning their rooms or houses, as well as my own willingness to sleep on couches and floors.  This Assembly was no different.  Until one night.  Heidi and I had talked about this before I left for Assembly, but I was spending the conference on Beau Underwood’s sister’s living room floor with Beau and Michael Swartzentruber, another friend from DDH.  I had a twin air mattress that I was using throughout the week.  Heidi and I have shared a twin mattress before, quite comfortably.  I thought this would be the same.  Until we got there and Heidi said out loud: “what was I thinking?!  I can’t do this!”  We arrived at the house at 11:30 at night and most of the other people staying at the house weren’t going to return until 2:00am.  I had a major headache and knew I didn’t want the rest of the night to suck – especially since we were leaving for downtown at 6:30am.  So we got in the car.  And turned on the GPS.  And typed in Housing/Lodging.  And found a place called the “Good Dog Hotel.”  We were right beside Butler University and it seemed like a nice, bed-and-breakfast place.  So we drove there.  And turned into the parking lot, and saw that it was, indeed, a hotel for dogs!  All of the tension of that night was lost — Heidi and I couldn’t stop laughing.  I found a Homewood Suites by Hilton and we were golden.  King sized bed, free internet for uploads, and a happy marriage.  Gotta love the adventure!  Thank God we can still laugh about this!

Vacation (Grapevine)

Heidi’s family has a cabin they rent along the Michigan side of Lake Michigan just south of South Haven, MI.  We spent the better part of a week there, enjoying the beach, the rustic cabin, and some great reading.  Seriously — I didn’t realize how jaded UChicago had made me on reading.  I inhaled Ken Follett’s World Without End in three days.  It was incredible to read something for fun!

Jobs

At the end of the school year, before my ordination and before my summer adventures, I applied for a non-profit job that focused on social media, web re-design, church and travel and networking.  I would have loved the job, but lived with the travel.  It would have been a nice mix of creativity, ministry and me!  But at the end of summer, I got an e-mail saying they had selected the candidate they wanted.  It wasn’t my first time being turned down for a merit-based opportunity, nor my first time being turned down for a church job.  While I wish I could have interviewed with the organization, I’m thrilled that some great technology/ministry job positions have opened up since being turned down.

More on that to come … 😉

Heidi and I have noticed recently that I can’t let myself “shut down” yet. I’m still on my inertia from my student work and I’ve taken on new paying projects since graduating. It’s thrilling, yet exhausting. I’m sure many of you who’ve known me over the past many years have seen this pattern in me before. I cram too much in, afraid I will miss out on some part of life.

Here’s what I’ve been up to since my last posting:

Shane and Tabitha’s Wedding
Doing photography for friends’ special events is a rare privilege. I knew it when Shane and Tabitha got married almost three weeks ago. Heidi and I joined them mid-afternoon for wedding pictures in the “El,” in Millennium Park, and for their ceremony.  I’m pretty sure all of that time totaled more than any of the rest of their family and friends got to spend with them alone on their special day.  It was a rare privilege and an honor.  Here are some of my favorite shots from that day:

And of course, I’d be in trouble if I didn’t post this picture of Paul Robeson Ford and Kevin Hoffman.  (Paul, after seeing it, said: “Frieberg, I want that blown up and shown at my funeral!”)  I think they were singing along to Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer.”

Anniversary pictures for Michael and Becca
A year ago Michael and Rebecca got married in Ohio.  Their wedding pictures had many complications, so this winter they booked me to take their first anniversary pictures. I’d never been to Buckingham Fountain, before, but it was a lot of fun.  And the pictures with the post-sunset sky are good enough to pop out of the screen!

and with Becca spinning/dancing for fun at the end:

DisciplesWorld picture for Iglesia del Pueblo
I went out to Iglesia del Pueblo (website to come in the next six months, hopefully) to take a picture for this month’s issue of DisciplesWorld.  The editors asked the most diverse congregation I knew in the Chicago area — it was IDP, by far!  Not only in terms of race, age, or gender of leadership, but also in the many worldviews they bring as they worship together.  What a fun congregation.  (Picture to come, once it’s gone through the publishing cycle)!

Web design
These are unfortunately some projects which have details I can’t really discuss. They’re not public … yet. Some projects (like a video/Flash training system) will never be freely public.  Another site I’m working on will be finished and released by the end of August.

Planning my Ordination Service
I had no idea that this would be like another wedding.  When I wrote a paper during my first year of my MDiv on the Samaritan woman in John 4, and how everyone falls into this responsibility to do ministry, I used the ancient literary trope of Jesus approaching the woman looking for a bride.  Like the Church, the woman met him at the well, and had to go tell people afterwards how her life had changed.  I didn’t expect the metaphor to be so true in my life.  Planning for the service is lots and lots of details!  Thank goodness that I only have to do it once!  Oh, and thank goodness that my robe came with two days to spare!

Last Friday Heidi and I decided to use our Weber grill and make some pesto chicken breasts.  It seemed like a good idea, until the storm with 70 MPH winds came.  The chicken breasts finished broiling in the oven and Heidi and I looked out in amazement, thankful we were inside and safe.

The next morning Samantha, Beau’s girlfriend, hosted an old-fashioned house-raising party in the morning where we went to La Salle, IL and helped tear off the roof of an old foreclosed home she bought.  She had tons of family and friends to help and it was a good time.  But I overdid it in the morning when I was throwing bricks off the roof.  I think it was a combination of sun, heat, dehydration, and physical exercise.  At one point, I couldn’t see or hear anything.  I just laid down on the roof, waiting until it got better.  That was pretty much the end of my productivity that morning.

That night, Heidi and I joined our friends John and Alicia for the Ravinia festival where we hear Garrison Keillor do a live recording of “A Prairie Home Companion.”  It was GREAT!  Normally I’m lukewarm about the show.  I didn’t grow up on it and some of the voices and personalities don’t make sense to me.  Seeing it live made all the difference.  Now I have faces to go with the voices — including all the crazy sounds coming from this one man:

Most of the musicians we heard were good.  Sara Watkins, from Nickel Creek (!!), was incredible!

Elvin Bishop and some other yahoo played misogynistic blues songs that objectified women and talked about them like animals = not cool, old timer!  Garrison seemed to be cut from the same cloth at times, especially with his casting of many of the women (including Sara Watkins!) as aloof bimbos.

Most of the show was great, and the company was even better.  It’s fun to have such generous friends.

Sunday morning I drove over to Bloomfield, IA for Tiffany Austin’s ordination.  It was a good event where I saw many friends I’ve missed since living here in Chicago.  Tiff is a friend who went to TCU and stayed there for seminary at Brite.  She plans to stay in TX to do youth ministry at First Christian Church in Granbury, TX.

I updated my website’s User Interface (UI) over the past two days.  The wider interface allows me to post bigger pictures; but it also lets me organize my site so that it can serve as more than “just a blog.”  I’m eager to start forming the sections of Ministry and Photography, and to see how much of their content is cross-linked between the two sections.   The practice of labeling parts of my life in one category or the other may help define the relationship and enmeshment between the two categories and how I live them.

I’ve been super-busy recently.  Since I have my degree, I’m “a working man.”    I’m doing freelance computer programming and website design.  I hope to post about these projects when they’re no longer hush-hush, but they’re certainly exciting.  I’m learning A LOT as I re-engage my computer programming past.  Much of the technology has changed, and I’m glad I learned how to learn so it’s not nearly as daunting.

Heidi and I are doing to a friend’s house in mid-state Illinois tomorrow to do an “Old Fashioned House Raising.”  In truth, we’re tearing down half of the house and at least putting on the new roof and floor.  It should be a good time.  Then, we’re hearing Garrison Kiellor tomorrow night.  On Sunday I’m driving to Iowa for Tiffany ‘Tiff’ Austin’s ordination at Bloomfield, IA.  I’ll finish Father’s Day at my parents’ house and then return to Bolingbrook on Monday afternoon.  This weekend will rock!

And, just to highlight the coolness of the UI change, I’m going to post a higher-resolution photo of an HDR exposure blend I took of the worship space of University Church in Chicago, IL.  Enjoy!

Oh, and Tabitha’s Ordination last week was a blast!

733.9 pages. That is how much I had to write in the three years I spent on my Master of Divinity degree.  Just think, what if I would have used that time for Good instead of thinking about Evil?  (Just kidding!)

I finished my final paper last Sunday and will get my degree this coming Friday.  Actually, I will not get it then because I decided after all this time that I did not want to spend those hours at a ceremony.  I have not liked my past two graduation ceremonies, and this one did not look any better.  Thankfully, the Disciples Divinity House will have our convocation service on Thursday night.  It is a worship service, where we honor graduates and the passing of the year — but more importantly, we still worship!  ‘Tis much better than a graduation ceremony, if you ask me!  (Plus, I don’t want my transition ritual from the UofC to be the bagpipe ceremony — instead, it will be my Ordination on July 18th.)

After finishing my last paper, I decided to organize all of my digital files from my degree and figure out how much work I’d done.  Here’s the breakdown of words written, how many double-spaced pages that is (assuming an average 350-words/page).

PDF

The chart at the bottom shows how much was assigned, how much I wrote, and when I wrote it.

Many M.Div. students at the University of Chicago Divinity School live with this story.  The school has a policy where students have up to a year after the class finishes meeting to turn in any work without having an “I” (for Incomplete) show up on their transcript.  After the year, they can still get the grade and turn in the work, but the “I” will show up.  Thankfully, I never took beyond the year to finish my work.  But, every spring quarter I was struggling to finish a previous paper.  This spring quarter, I wrapped up 2 previous assignments and my senior thesis.   So, even though I was relatively close to writing around the amount assigned, I still had an extra 57 pages to write by the end of my final quarter.

The two lines did cover the same amount of work; my work was integral to the work needed for my degree.  (Get it?  Area under the curve = integral).  Jokes as that mean that I’m pretty exhausted, which makes sense every time I look at this data.  I’m tired for a reason!  733.9 pages.

Last week I had the great pleasure of joining one of the teams at i.c.stars|*. It is an organization I’ve been working with for my Social Enterprise class.  Every day the participants in this job-training program break for “High Tea” (sometimes even twice a day).  Outside community leaders come in and join them in their conversation.  I was lucky enough to be their guest.

High Tea participants from left to right: Adam Frieberg (me), Amanda, Jonathan, Unique, Francois, Anastasia, Alfredo, Marissa, De Juan, and Lisa.

The i.c.stars|* students I talked with asked GREAT questions.  And it was fun how often the tone shifted; early in the conversation I heard about their past interactions as group members, and then the conversation shifted to my experience, and then they had lots of questions about how I blend my roles as minister, photographer, computer programmer, etc.  They quickly honed in on the questions I’ve been asking myself for the past seven years!

What a fun experience!

I’m a lucky guy.

Tuesday began in a crappy way.  The night before, my car was broken into and someone stole my $250 GPS unit off the front windshield.  The thief was smart enough to knock down most of the shattered glass so as to make it not obvious that the window was broken.  It took me until I was 10 feet away to notice it.  The thief even reached in and took the power plug out of the cigarette lighter.  The thief ignored the CDs (an “unreleased” U2 album, in fact!).  But all, in all, I’m super lucky.

I’m lucky the thief didn’t look into the back seat and see the much more expensive tripod on the floor.  And I’m lucky the thief didn’t pop the trunk and take the 8-channel sound mixer I’d used the previous two weeks while doing tech. support for conferences.  I’m lucky I was close to DDH and could use the House’s shop vacuum to get most of the glass out of my car.  I’m lucky that Bruce, DDH’s maintenance guru and groundskeeper, knew of a place called Fernandez’s.

I’d link to this place, but they don’t have a web site.  In fact, I was having a horrible time finding their number on Google Maps.  But I knew they were at 51st and Ashland in Chicago.  So I went to the Google Maps street view option and used the traffic cameras to look at the side of their building, which conveniently had their number.  Then I called them and they said they only had a new one in stock; only a new one?  Sounded great to me!  They fixed the window in about 60 minutes and it only cost $100!  $100 for window and installation; they’re incredible!

I’m still a little irked about the window, but thankful I’m lucky and that neither I nor the thief were hurt by the glass.

Friday and Saturday was the University of Chicago Divinity School’s annual ministry conference.  This is the fifth annual student-led conference.  This year’s theme: “From the Ends of the Earth: Christianity in the 21st Century.”  What does that mean?  Well, luckily the conference organizers gave a full paragraph to unpack the potential meanings:

How will the co-incidence of the post-colony with the failures of nationalism influence new forms of Christian leadership? How, in turn, will developing forms of Christianity demand and resist new approaches to cooperation and unity? Finally, how do these things influence and even produce new self-understanding for the Church in America? While building on important efforts of social scientists and missiologists, the 5th Annual Ministry Conference of the University of Chicago Divinity School will approach these topics with specifically ministerial and ecclesiological lenses. This conference seeks (1) to help deepen understanding among ministers, students and lay-persons as well as professional academics of certain realities and potential futures of being Christian around the world and (2) to equip the same with resources for engaging the issues of the conference further.

For such a lofty goal, the conference succeeded.

I went into the conference as a tired, worn out student.  I helped do tech. support for the two-day conference “Theologizing Cultures, Culturing Theologies” last week and this conference was going to be more demanding.  I woke up at 6:30 a.m. on Friday and drove to Hyde Park to do all of the tech. setup and logistics before the conference began.  The biggest reason I was grumpy that morning was because I hadn’t found out it was a two-day conference until the week before!  All of the Divinity School’s official communications had said the conference was from 9-5 on Friday; but alas, I should have talked to my friends instead of reading the “At the Divinity School” bulletin.  

The conference, like many ministry conferences, began with worship.  Dr. Soong-Chan Rah, a Baptist minister and professor at North Park Seminary, preached.

Worship was good, but I felt under fire with the first keynote speaker.  Dr. Kwok Pui lan, a professor at Episcopal Divinity School, was presenting and was nervous about the laptop and projector/lighting situation.  There wasn’t much we could do to change the circumstances, but thankfully it went well and she and I had a conversation later in the day that relieved some of the tension.

The content of her presentation was good, but her responses to the question/answer section were even better!  Without the shackles of Powerpoint, she was super-relevant and pointing out implications for Christian mission that deserved her nuance.  Her Powerpoint presentation, however, was aesthetically beautiful on her laptop screen (pastel colors and all!), but showed up too faded and hard to read on the larger screen.  I need to say it more, but if in doubt, DON’T USE PRESENTATION PROGRAMS.  Or, if you’re going to, at least spend a month soaking up Presentation Zen – a superb guide to design, simplicity, and messages!

Dwight Hopkins, a prof. at the Div. School, was her respondent.  I thought it was funny when she was talking about him WHILE HE WAS SITTING RIGHT THERE!

Another reason I wasn’t looking forward to the conference was because the two-days seemed too long and draining.  I had a major change of heart, however, after lunch when I still had energy.  With most conferences, there are three events crammed before lunch and then an exhausting afternoon of non-stop panels.  This schedule, however, gave breaks was more humane.

After lunch, three practitioners gave presentations and then had a Q&A panel where they talked to each other and to the audience.  Dr. Rah, Teresita Valeriano, and Carmen Nanko-Fernández (who happens to be replacing Ed Foley as the CTU D.Min. program director) all gave great talks.

As if that wasn’t enough content, the conference had an art gallery in the Divinity School common room, with photography by David Johnson (www.dwjohnson.net) — whose photographs were RIVETING!

Then came the banquet dinner and the lecture I was looking forward to most: William Dyrness.  Bethany Lowery would be proud; I think I have one of my first Professor crushes; I love his books!  Can you see why?

• Reformed Theology and Visual Culture: The Protestant Imagination from Calvin to Edwards 
• Visual Faith: Art, Theology, and Worship in Dialogue
• A Primer on Christian Worship: Where We’ve Been, Where We Are, Where We Can Go

I’ll post a podcast link at some point to the conference audio/video for those who wouldn’t make it!