The Sleep Deprived Seminarian

Your sleep deprived seminarian had another wonderful day here at the National Workshop on Christian Unity, but this time it wasn’t for all the reasons you might expect! I began my day with a near-disaster. When you haven’t had much sleep in several days, your mind just begins to sort of lose focus, sometimes even on the most obvious things, like charging your phone or tying your shoes for example. Well, this morning I was so excited for our UMEIT training session because I knew we were going to get the hot off the presses “Ecumenical and Interreligious Handbook: A Resource for Annual Conference Committees on Christian Unity and Interreligious Relationships” which is being put out by the Council of Bishops….that I forgot to grab my Monster on the way out. There was another clergy person in the elevator and he looked rather surprised when I got on, then proceeded to race back out of there before the doors even closed as if my life depended on it because, well, it kind of did. We spe...

After resting for a luxurious 4-5 hours, your sleep deprived seminarian woke up to a miracle today. The sun was shining brightly over downtown Minneapolis and in sheer disbelief I looked down at the weather app on my phone to find that the temperature was all the way up to the high 50s!! Maybe it was the groans and grumbling prayers of so many Christian ecumenists that prompted this blessing from on high, but regardless, today was the first day of the conference that your sleep deprived seminarian was able to walk around outside without a heavy winter coat and to get that natural Vitamin D energy boost courtesy of some serious sunlight over Minnesota this afternoon. The first plenary session this morning was entitled “After 500 Years: Catholics and Lutherans on the Way Together” and this discussion was hosted by The Rev. Elizabeth A. Eaton, the presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Most Rev. Denis J. Madden, the retired Auxiliary Bishop from the Ro...

Your sleep deprived seminarian has arrived in Minnesota for the United Methodist Ecuminical and Interreligious Trainings (UMEIT) and the National Workshop on Christian Unity (NWCU) Conference and the first thing I have to talk about…is the weather. As I’m sure many of my fellow Ohioans can relate, usually when I’m travelling somewhere, it’s to a place where it’s so much nicer and I’m just thankful to be out of Ohio. I can’t say the same for Minneapolis this week. I left Columbus on Sunday where it’s 85’ and sunny to here…where it’s 34’.  And today, well, there were snow flurries. Yes, snow flurries!! No amount of caffeine is going to make this more tolerable, and I’m told the weather won’t improve…until the day I leave. Anyway, on to the important stuff. With a can of Monster energy in hand, I made my way down to the conference room for the all-day UMEIT training sessions. The first half of the day was about Christian Ecumenism and Interreligious relations and the second half ...