weekend away with Wright part two

Before I get going on a sequel to yesterday's interrupted blogpost, I'd like to tell you that, it being Springtime, I have embarked on this year's weight loss program.

Now last year, if you recall, I made a bet with a few other coworkers to lose more than anyone else in three month's time. I lost. This year the goal is much more reasonable. I've decided to lose one pound. That's it. Just one pound. Not even worth noticing. Just cut back a little here, trim a little there, and one pound of me just slides off into--nevermind.

Questions at these conferences were handled in a slipshod manner. We were asked to write our questions on cards and give them to select individuals. At the larger event, these, at least, were reviewed by a panel who knew something about the subject. Saturday's talk was dominated by a young pastor type who read questions of his own choosing from his own personal scrap of paper. Instead of good theological questions, most of them were the standard pastoral bits: "What do you believe about hell?" "Where do you see things going for the Anglican communion?" "Should Christians swear off cremation?" This would have been intolerable had Wright himself not, as Dad said later, made much more of those questions than they deserved. Theology can begin anywhere and end up everywhere, and so Wright made you forget that the initial question was so trite by pulling nuggets of biblical insight from nowhere right before your very eyes. Second, Wright honestly spent loads of time personally with people. Though the line stretched out the door, he took each question seriously, and, indeed, pastorally. Pastors, not pastor types, but pastors do theology better than anyone because they have to. Real faces and situations dog their minds and their pens. They don't speak to their careers but to congregations. That is what makes Wright such a unique scholar. He does well enough to live and die an academic, but submits all of that to the task of Bishop. And that's why I called him "Bishop Wright" when I addressed him this Saturday. Bishop, properly used, is a far-higher standard than "Doctor." I took ten pages of notes, and will need to begin the process of typing them soon before I forget the context of everything.

Dad and I drove back Saturday afternoon. He went on to Chattanooga, while I stopped to see John and Tina, and get two sweet kisses from their darling little girl. One was for Kara, and I passed it on dutifully when I got home.