The Kitchen Sink
An occasional piece of paper
April 13, 2008
Vol. 11 no. 14

Everything But...
           Every day of the year is an anniversary. As time goes on something and someone seems to have happened on every day within your experience and memory. Birthdays and wedding anniversaries can fill up the calendar. Other days depend upon what matters to you, what dates and events you celebrate and bemoan.
           This week I have been reminded vividly of events that matter and will matter more. On Monday the annual Martin Luther King, Jr., lecture was delivered by a retired Princeton professor, Peter Paris - on the 40th anniversary of King’s assassination. I can remember when still in university waking up to the radio on my alarm clock hearing the news. The world changed that day and the point of Paris’ lecture was that it hasn’t stopped changing. We remember where we are going when we remember where we have been. That works for churches quite effectively as well.
           Thursday, this Center of Theological Inquiry is celebrating its 30th anniversary with a conference on where theological education and research are heading for the next 30 years. That’s not easy because, as for a congregation like ours, it not only takes a wonderful imagination, but the kind of imagination that understands how things really work. Not as easy as one thinks to imagine practically.
           The most practical aspect of imagination is to realize that you and I are not quite as important as we would like to think. At lunch a Scottish Presbyterian minister humourously recounted the time he preached in a Chicago Presbyterian church. Behind the pulpit there were bullet holes in the wall where once the preacher had been fired upon. Apparently, this Scottish divine’s preaching was not that provocative; no one shot at him.