Houston: Decompression & Aftermath
Man, I really dropped the ball this past week.
I had such high hopes for blogging during the convention. I thought that I’d have no problem providing an ongoing commentary on events, people, & the general zeitgeist.
I was wrong.
WAY wrong.
I’m still too exhausted & raw from the whole experience to try and put it into words.
I’m glad I did it. I met a whole lot of nice folks, had a lot of laughs, & learned a lot.
I also had lows lower than any of the highs. I experienced frustration, anger, and, yes, despair.
Over the coming days & weeks, I hope to string some words together on this whole experience that might be of interest to y’all. On a personal level, I think I have an interesting story or two to tell, and on a synodical level, I think that I have some interesting & important information to pass along.
You’ll be shocked & amazed. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll wonder “why?”. I know I have…
-ghp
Houston: Tuesday
Long, loooong day.
But it was, all things considered, a very interesting day.
No time or energy to write it up.
Sorry…
-ghp
Houston: Monday
Well, at least I’m getting this written up & posted on the same/actual day…
Today was a much less openly contentious day on the convention floor. Some interesting business was taken up & discussed (and the discussion was actually useful (!?!) in spots…
Perhaps of greatest interest was that I actually got up & addressed the assembly, once to call for a point of information, and then to make what was the final floor nomination of the day. (Btw, floor nominations, which were such a contentious & roundly smacked-down thing yesterday when they were for the Board of Directors & none got approved, were much more acceptable to the convention today. I have my thoughts as to why, but, like I said yesterday, I would prefer to hold off on stating them until after I’ve had a chance to more fully digest the whole convention experience…
I thought that the President of the AALC, with whom the convention approved full fellowship today, Rev. Aadland, gave an OUTSTANDING & wonderfully orthodox Lutheran address today immediately after resolution 3-01 passed. Watch the video — it was a very good address!
All that aside, it was a full day on the floor. It didn’t feel quite as long & arduous as yesterday did (and as I’m sure tomorrow will, with its evening session), and getting dinner before 8pm certainly helped.
And it was at that dinner that the most interesting thing happened. I can now say that I had dinner with Dr. Ralph Bohlmann. Or, at least, that I had dinner conversation with him (and the wonderful lady delegate from Iowa). Given his long & well-known history in the LCMS over the past 35 years, well, suffice it to say that it was an interesting conversation!
And with that little partial-anecdote, I will take leave until (most likely) sometime on Wed, although if I can manage it, I will certainly try to post something tomorrow/Tuesday.
-ghp
Houston: Sunday
This is a belated, and largely truncated, review of things that happened during the first full day of the convention yesterday (Sunday).
I didn’t get to write it up yesterday, well frankly because I had to choose between eating dinner at 10:30 pm or writing things up. My stomach won out over my other considerations, and the need to relax & get to sleep shortly after returning from eating further trumped any blogging. Oh well, I guess it’s my own fault for taking so long to get back to the hotel after my meetings; however, I just couldn’t pass up the chance to be a bit of an Issues, Etc./Todd Wilken groupie, and watch a little while of the national/syndicated Issues, Etc. live broadcast. ;^) And then have to walk the 12 blocks back to my own hotel. :^(
It was a very long & hectic day. And it was, all things taken into account, a contentious day on the convention floor. You can check various sources like CAT41 or the LCMS website for official results & information (if you already haven’t). Thus, I’ll just deal with some of my general thoughts & impressions.
I’m not sure what they’re showing, in terms of floor shots, on the live video feed, but I’m sitting near the front of section D, where the voting delegate seating sections are laid out like this:
FRONT
A-B-C-D
E-F-G-H
I-J-K-L
BACK
IOW, I’ve actually got pretty decent seats up front. I’ve got a pretty good & nice group of people around me, including a couple of folks that I actually met/knew before the convention, so I’m not really isolated and it’s not a bad/uncomfortable situation to be in for the week. Perhaps of most note, at least for some of you out there (and you know who you are…) is that I’m sitting next to an Otten.
It was, as I said before, a long day, with lots of odd & interesting happenings. Politically-speaking, the only comment I want to make right now (mainly because I want to process the whole convention experience before I start to make comments of an overly snarky nature) is that after Sunday’s elections, I now know what it feels like to have ‘your ass handed to you’…
It was pretty darned interesting to have the video welcome message from the “locals” come from President George W. Bush (43). If I had been made to guess who it would’ve been from, knowing that the greeter would be famous, I would’ve guessed former President George H. W. Bush (41). I gotta give SP Kieschnick this much - he must have some pretty serious stroke to have pulled that off!
Well, that’s about all I can recall for the moment (and I still have to write up today’s/Monday’s notes).
-ghp
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