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Wednesday, September 29, 2004


Off to Washington 

Washington, D.C. - here I come. I leave this afternoon for the Episcopal Church's Interfaith Education Initiaive seminar that I have been mentioning on and off for a couple of weeks now. It will be a good opportunity to hear speakers from a variety of faiths about how to proceed in this enterprise called ecumenism, or more broadly, pluralism. I also look forward to seeing Bingham, Liz, and Ryan once again for what promises to be a joyous reunion of old and new friends. Having never seen the National Cathedral, I am anticipating at least a few stops in there, prayer book in hand and perhaps my digital camera as well. While the main focus of the conference will be interfaith dialogue, one thing I hope to gain out of it are better skills for doing that, in light of harsh political realities. I'm thinking here, of course, of Palestine/Israel, but there are myraid other places where such isthe case. In the case of places like Palestine/Israel, you cannot have a talk about religion without discussing politics, and vice versa. The important thing is to learn how to effectively do both at the same time. Maybe that's expecting too much, but we'll see.

Of course, hanging over my head all weekend will be the class work I am missing and all the reading I have to do. Classes began on Monday and they have been good, but there is a significant amount of reading to do early on in the term here, in anticipation of two week's absence for "the Plunge". Luckily, there are rest times built into the conference of which I'll take full advantage to get the homework done.

Chapel today promises to be wonderful - it is the feast day of St. Michael & All Angels and the gentleman MCing the service is doing it up proper Anglo-Catholic style. While this is not my preferred style for every worship experience, it is a beautiful and moving way to worship on meritous occasions such as this. Also, copius amounts of incense will be offered, a liturgical rarity here at Seabury that I enjoy. So, now it is off to there, then lunch, followed by Systematic Theology followed by the nation's capital.

-R

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