I figured nothing could show the impact of actually being at the conference like a video, so I'm sharing some YouTube clips. You don't have to watch all of them, but they're all guaranteed awesome.
My dad made that one, and there's a lot of goofy pictures of Emily in it. :P Silly Emily.
The above video gives a good sense of the sheer number of people that were there, plus, you get to see how we started every evening.
There were SO MANY PEOPLE. So it was really cool to get a letter from President Obama. Everybody loved it, in part because the ELCA is pretty left-leaning, in part because we got a letter from the friggin' president.
We Will Love You!
I wish I could have posted some legit recordings from the ELCA itself, but apparently they're too busy promoting their new women's Bibly study to post videos of speakers, so there you go.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Misconceptions
Mom wanted me to post this, because she thought I might have given the wrong message in the post about cleaning up the school. She says there's an opinion among some people that there's no point in helping people--well, let's be brutally honest, there's an opinion among some people that there's no point in helping poor people--because they Can't Be Helped. You have to Want To Be Helped before the proceeds from the Women of the Church Auxiliary Bake Sale will do you any good. 'Wanting To Be Helped' usually entails renouncing all ties to your former culture, friends, family, and former way of life--just like emigrants at Ellis Island in the 1800's! It is the Only Way For Them To Become Good Christian Men And Women!!
That's crap.
I don't know if anybody with that opinion has read their Bible lately, but in case you didn't know, Jesus was a poor kid from the ghetto, too.
So, if writing about seeing graffiti on the bathroom walls of the elementary school made anybody think, "what's the point of painting the school if those kids are already delinquent" or whatever, that is not what I meant to say. In fact, I think seeing all the graffiti was what made me realize that the kids who go to that school need a nice building more than anything.
I know a little about child psychology, and from that I know that kids in elementary school grades are basically a reflection of what they see around them. If they see a lot of bad language on TV and hear it from their parents and older siblings, of course they're going to repeat it. To me, it was just a sign that the kids in that school needed more love than anybody.
When you really think about it, who will get more out of walking into a beautifully-painted new classroom (one that looks like a home, not a mental hospital or a prison), a rich kid or a poor kid? Probably a poor kid.
So the next time you're tempted to refuse aid to a "bad" person, take a leaf out of the Good Book:
That's crap.
I don't know if anybody with that opinion has read their Bible lately, but in case you didn't know, Jesus was a poor kid from the ghetto, too.
So, if writing about seeing graffiti on the bathroom walls of the elementary school made anybody think, "what's the point of painting the school if those kids are already delinquent" or whatever, that is not what I meant to say. In fact, I think seeing all the graffiti was what made me realize that the kids who go to that school need a nice building more than anything.
I know a little about child psychology, and from that I know that kids in elementary school grades are basically a reflection of what they see around them. If they see a lot of bad language on TV and hear it from their parents and older siblings, of course they're going to repeat it. To me, it was just a sign that the kids in that school needed more love than anybody.
When you really think about it, who will get more out of walking into a beautifully-painted new classroom (one that looks like a home, not a mental hospital or a prison), a rich kid or a poor kid? Probably a poor kid.
So the next time you're tempted to refuse aid to a "bad" person, take a leaf out of the Good Book:
9As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth. "Follow me," he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.10While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" came and ate with him and his disciples. 11When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"
12On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
the Gospel of Matthew, 9:9-13
Day Six--New Orleans State Of Mind
We got up early and packed--a long and painful endeavor-- and headed downstairs--another long and painful endeavor. We loaded everything into the Subaru, which took about twenty minutes, considering that we also had to bungee a mattress to the roof of the car (long story). Then we had to get ourselves in the car. A Subaru Forester fits four people comfortably, and have five seatbelts on the off-chance that you have three small people or children sitting in the back row. We had six people, and none of us would qualify as small, especially not after a week of Louisiana cooking. Emily and Mom shared the passenger's seat, and I was sandwiched between Justin and Jimmy. It was not a fun way to travel, although we got used to it as the week progressed.
We parked at the Superdome and managed to get floor seats for the first time. I looked around the stadium. We were in one end of it. Jimmy commented that seven Superbowls had been held in the Superdome. I looked around again. We were in the end of the stadium, on the floor. We were in the endzone. We were sitting where a Superbowl-winning touchdown was made.
If that's not reason enough to go to New Orleans, I don't know what is.
The sending ceremony was really good--great music, a reprise of 'We Will Love You,' and the largest wave in the 500-year history of Lutheranism. It was awesome. Have you ever done the wave with 38,000 Lutherans? I think not. (If you don't know what the wave is, go ahead and find out.) After that, though, we pretty much just packed up and got in the RV.
We thought it would be better for the engine to just drive the Subaru over the mountains, rather than towing it, so I went with Mom in the car and we had a nice, long conversation. When we got to the campground (the same campground we stopped at before, where all the lanes are named after figures from Southern Civil War mythology), Jimmy, Emily and I headed to the bathhouse. Last time while I was waiting for everybody else to finish up in the shower, I noticed last time that there was a door next to the showers with a light on and a radio playing. I had tried the doorknob before (urged on by a combination of boredom, curiosity, and the feeling that I was in a movie and "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz was the theme song), to no avail. When we went to the bathhouse, the lights were on again and the music was still playing. I tried the handle again. It opened.
Not wanting to go in on my own, I enlisted Jimmy's help to go in with me. It was nothing but a storage shed with nobody in it. There was a radio playing--a cool, vintage radio--but that was about it. Because you can't just trespass on private property and not mess with what you find within before you go, we took a little plastic item from the shelf and put it on the curb outside, just so they'd know we'd been there. Otherwise, it's just not worth it.
We parked at the Superdome and managed to get floor seats for the first time. I looked around the stadium. We were in one end of it. Jimmy commented that seven Superbowls had been held in the Superdome. I looked around again. We were in the end of the stadium, on the floor. We were in the endzone. We were sitting where a Superbowl-winning touchdown was made.
If that's not reason enough to go to New Orleans, I don't know what is.
The sending ceremony was really good--great music, a reprise of 'We Will Love You,' and the largest wave in the 500-year history of Lutheranism. It was awesome. Have you ever done the wave with 38,000 Lutherans? I think not. (If you don't know what the wave is, go ahead and find out.) After that, though, we pretty much just packed up and got in the RV.
We thought it would be better for the engine to just drive the Subaru over the mountains, rather than towing it, so I went with Mom in the car and we had a nice, long conversation. When we got to the campground (the same campground we stopped at before, where all the lanes are named after figures from Southern Civil War mythology), Jimmy, Emily and I headed to the bathhouse. Last time while I was waiting for everybody else to finish up in the shower, I noticed last time that there was a door next to the showers with a light on and a radio playing. I had tried the doorknob before (urged on by a combination of boredom, curiosity, and the feeling that I was in a movie and "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz was the theme song), to no avail. When we went to the bathhouse, the lights were on again and the music was still playing. I tried the handle again. It opened.
Not wanting to go in on my own, I enlisted Jimmy's help to go in with me. It was nothing but a storage shed with nobody in it. There was a radio playing--a cool, vintage radio--but that was about it. Because you can't just trespass on private property and not mess with what you find within before you go, we took a little plastic item from the shelf and put it on the curb outside, just so they'd know we'd been there. Otherwise, it's just not worth it.
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