Higher Things Day 3

Another full day today, though I did not have any responsibilities. :-)  Nice to just be part of the crowd today and talk and visit with folks. Some I met here . . .

Pastor Rick Townes. Seminary classmate and attended Saint Athanasius for a while

when he was stationed out our way.

Pastor Jim Leistico. I see him at many Higher Things conferences.

He's up in Ontario now. (Yes, Canada let him out!)

Pastor Dan Grams. Used to be in my circuit a while back, now in Michigan.

So we wrap things up tomorrow and start to head back. But I'll write more about that tomorrow. The kids are all having a good time and have already said they'll be back next year. :-)

Higher Things Day 2

Day 2. First full day. Breakfast, Matins, Announcements, Plenary, Lunch, Vespers, Breakout Session, Free Time, Breakout Session, Dinner, Evening Prayer, Breakout Session, Free Time, Compline. A full day, all in all. 

I taught my second session this evening, the final Breakout Session of the day. A little different than the first one - probably both a little better at some points and a little worse. I prepared too much material and had trouble fitting it in both nights. Or maybe I just talk too much! Anyway, seemed to be well received again and folks had some kind words. Hopefully they took some points home that they can remember and use. :-)  But I am done now! Tomorrow I have no responsibilities at all. I may try to get some work done, but maybe not. We'll see . . .

I didn't take any pictures today until the very end, a picture of many of us from the dorm we are staying in praying compline. This is the last thing of the day, at 11 pm, before going to bed. We just meet up outside with whomever. It's a good way to end the day.

Higher Things Days 0 and 1

Higher Things 2021 is here! Nice to be able to come after the Covid shutdown last year. Day 0 (Monday) was a travel day for us. We drove to Ft. Wayne and stayed overnight at the seminary. We also arranged to have dinner with the seminarian we adopted last year, Christopher Durham, and his family. It was a very nice evening.

Somewhere in Ohio (with one sleepy head!).

With Seminarian Christopher Durham.

On Tuesday we drove the rest of the way to Grand Rapids, MI. We had a little trouble finding out where check-in was, but we finally got there and settled into our rooms. Not too long after that the conference got underway with the Opening Divine Service and the first plenary session. Both were very good, but my voice was pretty tired at the end of the Divine Service! We sang a lot! 

After dinner was Evening Prayer, followed by the first of six Breakaway sessions. I was on the schedule to teach in this slot and it went pretty well - got positive feedback. A good crowd of people, too!

I'll be on again tomorrow night.

After this we had a couple hours of free time. Joanna and I first went to the "rap battle," where the lyrics to hymns are rapped to a beat. Pretty funny. They needed one more pastor to finish the evening, to battle against another pastor, so I was up. I'm a ham, so I did alright. :-)  Joanna recorded it, so I'll post it if we can get it from her phone to my computer.

After that, Joanna tried her hand at the rock climbing wall and did really well. Caleb went next (he'd done it before) and positively flew up the wall. Here are the videos:

Excuse the bobble toward the end - I almost fell down some steps moving back!

 

Now it's time for some sleep!

Prescient Quotations

Here are a couple of quotations from Philip Melanchthon - written some 500 years ago - that sound like they could have been written today. The more things change . . . as they say . . .

"Uneducated men hate literature and want it destroyed, hoping that thereby they can hide their own ignorance better."

"We can see that it happens generally that the best things are held in utmost contempt and, on the other hand, that the worst things are made great."

"Do we not see how our century is afflicted more than anything else by the fact that the mighty cannot bear free speech, and not even any thought of freedom?"

And a little story I liked . . .

"What happens to the Muses and the study of them now is the same as Strabo reports as having once happened in Iassus to a singer accompanying himself on the cithara. When he was singing learnedly and sweetly in the theatre there and the Iassians were listening to him, as soon as a bell rang (which was the sign for the sale of fish on offer), immediately all left the singer behind and scattered to buy fish, with the exception of one somewhat deaf man who alone remained, not having heard the sound of the bell. The singer thereupon turned to him and said: "I am immensely grateful to you - because of the enthusiasm for music as well as because of the honour to me - for not dashing out immediately at the ringing of the bell, like all the others, in order to buy fish." The man said: "What do you say? Has the bell rung yet then?" When the singer confirmed this, he said: "Good luck to you," rose and forthwith he, too, ran out to buy fish. The singer was abandoned alone, and in a city of that size he did not find anyone who cared more for music than for rotten fish."

Any application to today . . . ?  :-)

Athanasians at CCLE

I attended my first Consortium for Classical Lutheran Education (CCLE) conference last week in Houston, TX, as we are looking into the possibility of starting a classical Lutheran school here. It was very interesting. I learned a lot and had a lot of good and helpful conversations. I also ran into many Athanasians! So many people have passed through our congregation, and they pop up all around the country.  :-)  A good reminder to me of how we serve the church even after people leave.

So, some pictures . . .

Drs. Ed and Jackie Veith

(Jackie received the prestigious Magistra Magna award this year. Ed receive the same recognition a few years ago, making them the only husband and wife recipients of this award.)

Mrs. Jocelyn Benson

(not an Athanasian, but the head teacher of the Wittenberg Academy, where Joanna is enrolled for High School, an online Lutheran classical school.)

Jeff and Anna Martin

(Jeff and Anna were part of our mission church in Purcellville. Anna was installed as the new Executive Director of the CCLE!)

Dr. Jim Tallmon

Grace, Lilia, and Thea Martin

Gene Wilken

(again, not an official Athanasian, but at least an honorary one! Gene and his wife have been faithfully logging into our online Morning Prayer for years and are some of our longest attenders. Gene has also been a great support to us with his knowledge of electronics.)

I also got to see Emily, Caroline, Isabel, and Natalie Ludwig, Athanasians who were also in our mission in Purcellville, who now live about 45 minutes west of Houston. Sadly, I did not get a picture with them.

Congratulations!

Congratulations to my youngest who auditioned and made it into The Capitol Symphonic Youth Orchestra for 2021-22. She also auditioned for and was accepted into a String Sinfonietta in the American Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, but decided to decline that invitation and play in the full TCSYO instead. Both groups are highly competitive and she worked really hard for the auditions. We are proud of her. Being accepted into one of these groups was important this year as we pulled her out of the rapidly deteriorating public schools and put her into the Wittenberg Academy for High School. She'll receive a better education there, I believe - it is a classical education academy, and it also doesn't have all the extra nonsense the public schools seem so interested in these days. So since she won't be in the music program in school, she wanted to get into one of these orchestras. And she did! We're looking forward to a good year! :-)

If you'd like to listen to her play (from a little over a year ago - she's even better now!) here's a link to her playing a duet with her older sister. (Go to the 24:30 mark in the program for their duet - or listen to the whole recital!) This was part of here sister's senior recital for VCU which, sadly, had to go online. She was going to play it with her live on the VCU stage, but had to settle for the recording instead.

Cicadas, Part 3

OK. So the first part of the cicada saga was the invasion - crawling up out of the ground and appearing everywhere. The second part was the noise when they started "singing" - which was not just annoying, but got really loud at times! And now the third part . . .

The CARCASSES and the STINK!

Yes, there are dead cicada carcasses everywhere. I've been cleaning them up, but the stink is there, along with the flies. The noise has abated quite a bit, almost overnight. That's good. But I cannot wait until they all go away. I heard we're coming up on that - the end of June. Hope so. That's also when the lightning bugs come out at night. They're a lot nicer to look at. :-)

And I told someone the other day . . . you know that list of questions you want to ask God when you get to heaven . . . add cicadas to my list! Why were they created??