Interlude
It has been about twenty-two months since the conclusion of my last overseas adventure to Helsinki. It finished up fast and the transition back to a schooltime ritual was quick.
The time between has been uneventful in an event-filled kind of way. Life is good if it is moving on with the meaning that comes from the time you spend with those you love. Having concluded the last post on the day before the first day of school for my then First and Third graders, I now have a Third and Fifth grader starting this Fall. That is two years of life experienced with individuals for whom the world is getting bigger and bigger and life is becoming more complex but for whom cynicism is still a few years away. They are an enjoyable way to spend my living.
I returned from Helsinki twenty-two months ago on Labor Day and am leaving for Oslo and Basel, Switzerland on the Fourth of July. I guess I like to travel on Holidays. The conference I went to Helsinki to be a part of was entitled “Holy Crap” and concerned itself with exploring the intersection of Popular Culture, Technology and the Sacred. The paper I presented was included in a digital journal published afterwards. A link to that journal is here. I haven’t read that paper since I submitted a revision of it and feel it to be incomplete in its intentions. But I was intentionally trying to explore intersections and so it is what it was. Less an academic paper, more a presentation of ideas.
The conference I am heading to now is a bigger gathering with a more specific focus. The International Bonhoeffer Society meets every four years at a Kongress held at different spots around the world. This meeting is being held in Basel, Switzerland. It is occurring the week before Nancy, Paavo, Tuuli and I are to set out on five-week adventure in Scandanavia. With such timing I was able to travel early to be a part of the Kongress. I have been a member of the International Bonhoeffer Society before and am now again. The schedule for the Kongress looks exciting for Bonhoeffer geeks like me.
So, off I go.
Apocalypse Then 