Conference wrap-up

Alas, I have no sermon notes for yesterday, since my travel schedule prevented me from attending church. (I go to great lengths not to miss church on Sundays, but sometimes the airlines just won't cooperate.) The conference was a great success, I think. My own paper went very well. It was originally written for a very different audience, so I retooled it slightly for this conference so that I could use it for light comic relief, and in that respect it was a great success. There was some serious discussion afterwards, most of which I handled pretty well, I thought. But there was one question that I simply could not follow -- and from someone who is the very model of lucidity, so clearly the problem was with me and my questioner. I just hate it when I can tell I'm not connecting.

The mix of personalities, some of them new to this conference and some of them old hands, was fascinating. One senior scholar with a booming voice and a pontificating manner held forth amusingly over dinner and drinks but annoyed everyone with his interminable questions in the actual sessions. Another newcomer, a feisty Texan, could have been annoying in the same way but actually endeared herself to everyone by mocking her own scholarly self-sufficiency. One newcomer turned out to be an Anglo-Catholic of my sort. (He complained about the formula "In the Name of the Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier," much used in his parish, because he starts making the sign of the cross at "In the Name of" and then realizes he's been tricked. That's exactly the sort of thing I get worked up about.)

Now that I'm back home, I have quite a lot to do. Today I'm going to work on travel reimbursement and some other financial matters. I'll be without benefits for two months this summer and without a paycheck for one because of the change in jobs, so I have to start making arrangements for that sort of thing as well. Some time this week I'll meet with the Bishop about my psychological report, and then on Saturday it's the Commission on Ministry. I'm also substituting for our organist on the last two Sundays of the month, so I'll need to get in a lot of practice. I can show up every Sunday and play the piano with no practice at all, but my skills as an organist, which were never great, are very rusty indeed.