Tag: jsor

Bachelor Dad Weekend

I’ve had some family intensive weekends of late, which is a good thing in my case. Last weekend, Amy was visiting for a brief spell. Mom, Amy and I spent most of Sunday playing cards around at my Aunt Becky’s, which was a blast, and got quite a bit of quality Amy time. She left on Tuesday and then mom headed down to Florida with some of her friends on Wednesday. So I’ve had Bachelor Dad to entertain since then.

So Wednesday night, dad and I christened things off with dinner at Applebee’s. We took Thursday off to be rested up for the weekend, then Friday evening, we went to LeDoux’s for supper. And both of us had leftovers. Mmmmm!

The major plan for Bachelor Dad weekend was heading off to a Jesus Seminar on the Road in Ft. Wayne, IN on Saturday. When mom’s home, we usually head to Ft. Wayne on Friday afternoon, go to the Friday evening workshop, spend a night in a hotel, then attend the Saturday sessions. With no mommy, we opted to just do the Saturday thing. So dad arrived around 7am on Saturday morning, then I drove us (in mom’s car) to Ft. Wayne with father’s excellent navigation. We got there with half an hour to kill, so I availed myself to Second Breakfast and chatting with some of the folks who’d been at the previous evening’s workshop.

Charlie Hedrick and Hal Taussig were the scholars presenting at this JSOR. They talked about Jesus’ quips and parables (I always likes me some Parable Talk) and stuff like that. Not a lot of new stuff for me. And I managed to make dad laugh a few times with my own quips, which I’d carefully written down in my scribbled doodles. My phone’s been being a butthead lately and I couldn’t keep myself on task by playing Bejeweled, so I did it by incessently doodling. (And when I stopped doodling, my feet started tapping, so it was good that I doodled most of the time.)

We found a Chinese Buffet nearby for lunch and returned for the afternoon sessions. But we arrived back at the church early and the doors were locked. So we stood outside (it was chilly, but still pleasant) waiting. A lady who had arrived for a do happening at the church later that day (in their art gallery) saw us head to the door and brought her box of stuff, only to be disappointed that we didn’t have keys. It wasn’t long before someone with keys returned, however.

After lunch, dad got to do his “Come to Jesus (Seminar)” talk and introduced Westar’s new webmaster – which is me. Not that I’ve done anything yet. But hopefully I’ll be getting them hooked up with a Drupal-based site. Make it much easier for them to do up-to-date announcements, etc. The sessions were done at 4pm, and soon after, dad and I headed back home.

We stopped in Celina on the way home and ate at Taco Hell for supper, then returned home in conditions as dark as when we’d left earlier that day. We had decided to meet for lunch at my place today (eating our cajun leftovers from Friday) and then go to the Model Train Show at Hara Arena. So that’s just what we did today. Yay, model train shows rock!

Usually when we go to the Model Train Show, we just look and usually don’t buy anything. But today we stayed for several minutes at a tool stall which had loads of nifty tools. And they had the exact same digital calipers which I bought for school, only at a third of the price I paid for ’em. So I bought two more and dad bought one for himself. Quite nice. Digital calipers for $20. They even gave us spare batteries.

Anyhoo, I’ve been back home for awhile and have been doing laundry, cleaning the kitchen, and that sort of domestic stuff. Dad will be picking mom and some of her trip friends up tomorrow evening. I’ll probably get to see mom on Tuesday – yay, mom! I had a very nice weekend with Bachelor dad, but it’s always good when mom’s back too. 🙂

JSOR & eating

Mom, dad and I went to another Jesus Seminar on the Road this weekend. The hyperbolic paraboloid UU church that we’ve been to before was hosting another JSOR. Hal Taussig and Kathleen Corley were the guest speakers. Kathleen is the first female Fellow of the Jesus Seminar that I’ve met. They spent a lot of time on the session focusing on 1st century eating & burial habits. That sounds rather uninteresting, but it turned out to be quite fascinating. The biggest thing to get your mind around is that everyone at the “supper clubs” were reclining. Oddly enough, you never see depictions of the Last Supper with everyone reclining.

After the Friday evening session, the folks and I went out for “second supper” with Richard, the pastor at the UU church my folks and I sometimes attend. Dad ordered Nachos Nuevos thinking “huevos” and wondering what nachoes with eggs on would be like. (Actually, he knew it wasn’t eggs, he just couldn’t remember what nuevo meant.) We’d had supper at Applebees before the session and second supper at Applebees was a nice idea. I was able to order the dessert shooter I’d been eying at supper time. Plus we got 10% off thanks to our hotel room cards.

We attended most of the Saturday workshops, and dad did a “Come to Jesus (Seminar)” speech after lunch. But then we had to leave early in order to reach Englewood by 5pm. My uncle Bob (mom’s second older brother) is turning 70 on Halloween, so his wife decided we should have a surprise birthday party for him at Tumbleweed’s (a steak restaurant). Both of Bob’s kids were able to come – Rob (and his wife Mele) from Virginia, and Shelly (and her girls, Mallory & Brooke) from Indiana. Bob & mom’s other brother, Doug, and his wife & kids were also able to attend.

Despite the long drive, we managed to arrive at the restaurant first. Rob & Mele arrived next, followed shortly by Doug, Charlene & Patty. We got ourselves seated & drinks ordered and waited for the birthday boy to arrive. We had also informed the waiter & waitress taking our orders that we had a birthday celebration taking place. Eventually Madeline & Bob arrived and we all shouted “Surprise!” much to the amusement of other eaters.

I sat at the end of the table with Shelly and her girls and Patty. I remembered the days when we cousins, along with my sister, would stay at Grandma & Grandpa’s for weekends. We didn’t get to spend as much time with Shelly since she was a bit older (Patty’s only 6 months my senior) and lived further away. But we did have some times together.

The food was good and Madeline brought a cream puff cake for the dessert. She even had enough slices for our waiter & waitress. Mele took loads of photos (she’s the only one who remembered to bring a camera in to the restaurant) and there were many cell phones snapping shots as well. It was a fun family gathering and I’m sure Bob won’t be forgetting his 70th birthday celebration. 🙂

(Of course, after all the family hugging & sharing, I realized on the ride home that my throat was starting to get sore. I hope I didn’t infect anyone! Today I’ve mostly been sleeping and/or medicated. And it’s time for me to take more Nyquil & head for bed. Here’s hoping today’s recovery day has helped to kick the cold to the curb.)

JSoR – the Art & Steve Show

Tonight the folks and I are, once again, at the Hilton in Fort Wayne. And once again, we are here for a Jesus Seminar on the Road. The two Scholars who are lecturing during this JSoR are Art Dewey and Steve Patterson, neither of whom I’d met before tonight. They used tonight’s session to introduce the audience to the Jesus Seminar and associated seminars. Although most of the information I’d heard before, the evening was informative and, more importantly, entertaining.

The hotel is just a few blocks from the UCC church where the JSoR is being held, so we decided to walk. The last time we stayed at the Hilton, it was November, cold, and windy. This time it’s May, warm, and breezy. So we had a pleasant walk to King Gyros for (funnily enough) gyros and fries (and I had Pepsi for beverage – 2 glasses full! Guess I won’t be sleeping tonight!) Good and messy, just the way I like my gyros!

We then walked to the church, which is near Trinity Lutheran Church (and English Lutheran at that, whatever that means). And turns out is home to the secondary parking lot of the Lutheran Church. I wonder if that means more UCC folk walk or if the congregation of the Lutheran Church is just so much bigger.

Anyhoo, we had half an hour to kill before the evening session started, so we wandered around the church some and one of the volunteers led mom and I into the “Pretty Room” which is a nice room in the church for meditation, reading, counseling, whatever. It was a nice place to wait for a JSoR to begin as well.

I bought a book from Polebridge Press (the Jesus Seminar’s publishing company) called Profiles of Jesus. It’s a look at 14 different scholars views of who Jesus might have been. Sounds like an interesting read.

Anyhoo, after the session, we walked back to the hotel (another very pleasant walk) and met the two Fellows in the bar. Neither of them had supper, so they ate (and Steve let me have his fries) and we all drank and had a very fun evening chatting about odds & ends. I like dad’s little Internet friends!

Tomorrow we have 4 one-hour workshops with the two Fellows, so we’ll have to get up at a decent hour. Ah well, should be worth it. And I hope the kitties are having a fun evening tonight!

Jesus Seminar on the Road part deux

Well, the JSOR at Fort Wayne was really good. Bob Miller focused on the “Virgin Birth” story of Jesus while Tom Sheehan worked on the “Ressurection” of Jesus – basically the bookends in Jesus’ life. It was the folks’ first time to see Tom and mom and I fell in love with his voice. He’s a great speaker. Bob’s good too, but Tom has a Game Show Host Voice of the best kind. 🙂

One thing that I learned from their short talk last night and workshop today is that nothing really surprised me. Much of the scholarship that we have now really goes along with my instinct of the bookends of Jesus’ life. But there were some folks whose eyes were opened during the weekend. The pastor from the UU church we frequent also attended. He asked us at lunch today (and also asked Tom at the end of the talk today) “Why bother going to Church?” Now Richard, being a Unitarian Universalist minister, doesn’t rely on the Christ aspect of Jesus like some ministers probably do. But still, he was thrown by the scholarship that’s out there now.

Last night, we took Richard out for supper at Applebee’s. I bought drinks for all but mum (our designated driver). The amaretto sour was very good. The guys got red wines – dad a Cab, Richard Merlot. I had fish & chips – yummy yummy. The drive to the church was fun – we illustrated to Richard how our family drives like we do our calculus – using limits. Sure enough, we missed one road & had to go back to get to it. We arrived at the church just as it was supposed to start, but thanks to Tom having computer troubles, they hadn’t actually started yet. Yay!

Breakfast this morning was the Carbohydrate Buffet at the hotel. Love those free hotel buffets – but yeah, they specialize in carbs. No problem for me – I love carbs. 🙂 We weren’t late getting to the church today cuz I navigated. Hee! I bought a couple of books – one for me, one for judiang. Lunch, we headed off in Richard’s car and once again, found the place using limits. I don’t think Richard will ever drive or ride with us again. Heh. Still, we found Mad Anthony’s Brewery and had a wonderful lunch. And were late getting back again. But didn’t miss anything once again. Yay us!

The ride home was uneventful and mom stayed awake the whole time. We’ve no idea if Richard got back OK. When we left the church, he was in consultation with 3 folks and a map. We’ll find out tomorrow when we go to the Fall Concert at the UU whether he made it home OK. (He has to preach tomorrow. Pretty bad when the guy who has to preach is the one who asks “Why go to Church?” Heh. Still, it isn’t as bad as the one Fellow from Westar who e-mailed everyone on Easter Sunday saying “What do I preach about today????!!!!” Thankfully, he was on the West Coast, so the East Coast folks at least got to give him some advice.)

Jesus Seminar on the Road

The parental units and I are in Fort Wayne, IN for another Jesus Seminar on the Road. We left around 3pm and arrived about 15 minutes ago (aka 2.5 hour drive). When we arrived at the Holiday Inn Express, our room was still occupied. The other rooms were full, so the desk lady upgraded us to a suite. And, despite what the desk lady told us, there IS free wireless in the rooms. Yay!

A short report on Trick or Treat this year. We actually had “Beggar’s Night” on Halloween (always a treat IMO). However, my numbers were way down on the previous year. Only 41 kids showed up during the night. So sad! I think the rainy day put some folks off (though it didn’t rain during the Trick or Treat time). In a break from my usual tradition, I watched episode 3 of Torchwood and 2 DT episodes of Doctor Who (Tooth & Claw and The Girl in the Fireplace).

Things about Parables

The folks and I got back from Indianapolis yesterday afternoon. Leo was pleased to see me (and had been upset that I’d left – he left 3 statements for me to that effect – yuk!) We had a nice time meeting up with Ed Beutner and Bernard Brandon Scott and another of the Westar Scholars, Perry something or other. (I’m bad with names.) Very nice fellow, Perry. Ed spoke at his church’s Sunday School, so we went there and to the service afterwards. First time I’d been in a Methodist service since I was a kid and dad was a Methodist preacher. It was, um, formal. But the church was very friendly and is an open and affirming church. I love that in a church.

Anyhoo, during the Friday and Saturday workshops, I took notes. (On my PDA – heh heh – in between solitaire games. Hey, it keeps me awake and keeps me quiet.)

Found on a bumper sticker Brandon saw: “Due to budget cuts, the light at the end of the tunnel will be turned off.”

Joke from Ed: “Did you hear the one about the dyslexic paranoid? He was always afraid he was following someone.”

Some thoughts on parables:

“We don’t learn about parables, we learn from them.” – Brandon (IIRC)

The questions you should ask about parables: “How does it sound? How does it feel? How does it fit?” – Ed

Don’t ask what a parable means – that’s a Hellenistic way of looking at an aural story telling technique.

Parables are not for children.

(And after he said that, Brandon added that he thought at church “we should entertain the children and educate the adults” but we seem to do the reverse.)

Some other thoughts:

“God is nowhere absent and everywhere hidden.” – Ed

“Constantine turned Christianity from a religion of what you do into a religion of what you believe.” – Brandon

There were a few more notes that I’d taken, but I think those above are the cream of the crop. I liked what the fellows had to say. And it’s neat hearing about parables from a strict scholar (Brandon) and from a poet who’s also a scholar (Ed). Brandon admitted that it’s hard for scholars to not look at a parable and try to figure out what it means. But for a poet like Ed, he sticks to how does it sound, how does it feel, and how does it fit.

When Cold Air & Warm Air Meet

The parental units and I are in Indianapolis right now, getting ready to attend another Jesus Seminar on the Road. We went to one back in November where I got to meet two of dad’s little Internet friends. Alas, Daryl Schmidt died March 23rd due to a very aggressive cancer. 🙁 Tonight I’ll get to see Bernard Brandon Scott again, but also get to finally meet Ed Beutner, one of dad’s “cronies.” I’ve heard quite a few stories about Ed, so I’m really looking forward to meeting him. Plus, the two of them will be talking about parables. And I like parables.

So, after dad and I returned from our monthly county tech meeting, mom drove us towards I70 to make our way to Indiana. We were driving down Hogpath Road and, according to mom’s car’s thermometer, it was 78°F. Suddenly, a storm came up on us and before the storm was over, the temperature had dropped down to 54°F! It was quite the frog strangler and there was hail larger than moth balls falling. It was rather impressive to watch. Mom got us through the bad weather and onto Indianapolis. And now we’re in a Baymont Inn that says it’s a La Quinta. Gee, I just love staying in hotels that change their identities on me! (Have I ever mentioned the time when I stayed in a Comfort Inn in London that became a home for refugees before I’d left it?)

The nice thing about this Baymont Inn is the free wireless Internet. Yay! I should be able to work some on my online class (which is over online classes) while we’re here.

JSoR

Guess where I am right now?

Well, if you guessed “sitting in your den,” you’d usually be right. But today, I’m sitting in the lobby of the Hilton in Fort Wayne, IN. I would be sitting in our hotel room, but the 802.11b signal is so poor in the room I can get an IP addy and that’s it. No connection to the WWW. So I have a couple of hours to veg before we go out to dinner and I decided to come down to the lobby. Alas, there is cigarette smoke going on nearby and that’s annoying, but other than that, there’s nice classical music playing and no one’s around except for a few fellow geeks who are here because of some gaming convention.

My folks and I, however, have come to the Big City of Fort Wayne (well, it’s bigger than I expected) in order to attend a Jesus Seminar on the Road (JSoR). This is my first JSoR, though my parents have been attending them since 2000 or so. We’ve got Bernard Brandon Scott and Daryl Schmidt as our scholars for this JSoR, which happen to be the same two scholars that mom and dad saw at their first JSoR. Who’da thunk that 5 years later, dad would be chairing his own Seminar for Westar? He was even introduced before lunch as the leader of the Church Leaders Seminar and got to pass out his business card to a few folks.

We left Ohio yesterday after dad and I returned from our technology meeting at El Sombrero restaurant. We picked mom up, and our luggage (and I fed Leo for 2 days – poor kitty has surely eaten all his food by now), and headed off to Fort Wayne. We dumped our stuff in our room, then headed off find supper. We walked to a Tasty King Gyro near the hotel and I had a gyro with feta, plus fries and lemonade. Very yummy. After supper, it was off to the Unitarian Universalist church which is hosting this JSoR.

Last night was Brandon’s night to shine. He discussed how the Jesus Seminar works and talked some of first century Christianity and who (or what) was likely to be the founder of Christianity. Daryl helped out during the question/answer session. And I enjoyed listening to the critical historical views that both discussed. For several people in the audience, much of what they said was new (and radical). For me, having listened to dad’s sermons of late, it was just neat to see other perspectives. I’m used to radical thinking about the Bible in general and Jesus specifically, so I wasn’t surprised by anything either scholar said.

After the discussion, we returned to our room and I played around on my laptop (unconnected to the ‘Net, but still functional for playing around with the school website). I discovered that with Dreamweaver, I can have nested Templates. Yay! I’ll be able to have the high school and elementary pages based upon the main district site, but with added stuff. That makes me happy. 🙂 (What’s so nice about templates in Dreamweaver is, if you update the template, it updates every page based upon the update!)

This morning, we headed off to McDonald’s for breakfast (Egg McMuffin for me – yum!) and then on to the UU church. This church, BTW, is very modern. It’s based upon a hyperbolic parabaloid and was built in the ’50s. (Actually, it’s two hyperbolic paraboloids – one for the sanctuary, one for the meeting hall.) They have some beautiful leather artwork on the walls depicting several religious cultures, and a huge piece with the UU Chalice. Father’s taken some photos, so maybe I’ll post some pictures later.

The morning workshop was put on by both Daryl and Brandon and covered the scholarly take on Jesus and his words and actions in the first century. Again, I’d heard a lot of this before from dad’s work with Westar, but I liked what they had to say. They take a somewhat scientific approach to the data available to them (which, frankly, isn’t a lot) which includes all of the original texts from the canon and also the noncanon texts from the period. They’ve retranslated everything as slowly as they can, doing their best to keep the context of the time in mind. Scholars would then present papers on the various snippets they translated, and the Seminar would then vote on how likely it was that this was valid. I like the peer review process that they take. And they allow that what they have is changeable should the data change.

For lunch, we found an Arby’s not too far from the church and I had a Market Fresh Sandwich (love that bread) with chicken salad in it (with apples, grapes, and pecans – yum!) I also had their fries, which aren’t all that great, but they were edible and that’s what mattered.

The afternoon session was the most free flowing of their sessions and often relied upon the questions asked. Brandon mentioned his take on the Kingdom of God, which Jesus often alluded to, as being a “Safe Place” when all were gathered together. When one sat at the table with Jesus, one was safe. Lepers, tax collectors, women, etc. Brandon likened it to a church community that he attends, which is mostly gay and lesbian. When they are gathered at the church, they can be themselves. They are safe in the Kingdom of God. When they leave, not so much. 🙁 It’s a take on the concept I’d not thought of before, but I like the idea.

Anyhoo, tonight the folks and I are going to supper with the two scholars, the Westar associate who set this up, and the UU minister and his wife. We found the restaurant before coming back to the hotel (while it was still light) and it’s pretty easy to get to and get back from. Good, that means I can have an amaretto sour or two. (The folks will probably have wine. Oh, and judiang I’m hoping to ask Daryl if he knows of a US equivalent to Granello. The folks say he’s something of a wine expert among the Fellows of the Westar Institute.)

While driving around today, the folks and I were struck by just how beautiful the trees are. This was the PERFECT fall weekend to come to Fort Wayne. For a “big city” they have lots of small town feel to it. And many MANY trees. We’ve really enjoyed the trip so far, and dinner tonight and Brandon preaching tomorrow, should complete the enjoyable weekend. (And then I come home to a hungry cat and laundry which needs doing – heh).