How to know you've been in school too long

Yesterday in class, the professor asked how many of us had read Christ and Culture by H. Richard Niebuhr. I was the only one who raised my hand. I mentioned that it was a required book in my first class at seminary. How old am I?

Longevity has its advantages. For example, I've discovered seven answers will pretty much get you through seminary. Regardless of the question, one of these responses likely will be suitable.

The Seven Answers to Get You Through Seminary

Context matters.
It's our eschatalogical hope.
We need a new paradigm.
That's evidence of our postmodern mileau.
We need to create space for ambiguity.
Everything is an interpretation.
It's not an either/or but a both/and.

From the Ivy League to ivy-covered walls

Today is the eve of another baseball season. Each Opening Day I remember why it is the best game around. It brings us out of doors after long winters. What other sport has inspired so many good books? And what other sport can claim that it lured away the president of Yale University to be its commissioner?

That former commissioner, A. Bartlett Giamatti, wrote of baseball: "It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.''

Fall is a long way off. Tomorrow is the beginning of spring. Play ball.

One season ends, another begins

The Wisconsin Badgers men's basketball season came to an end yesterday at the hands of Davidson College. Despite what everyone is saying, this wasn't an upset. The Badgers had a great season -- an all-time Wisconsin record for victories (31) and the Big Ten championship. But Davidson, a little Presbyterian-founded school outside of Charlotte, N.C., has the real deal: a 6-foot-3 sophomore named Stephen Curry, who could follow his dad to the NBA someday. He's playing better than anyone in the country right now.

So now it's on to baseball's Opening Day. The Cubs take on the Brewers at 1:20 p.m. Monday. It's time for spring -- although whoever makes the baseball schedule and decides for a Chicago team to open at home on March 31 has never visited there in early spring. The Cubs open against Milwaukee, which has a retractible-roof ballpark! Why not open in Milwaukee, then return to Chicago when the weather is warmer? No one asked me. They didn't ask me about the designated hitter, either, and that's been around since 1973.

Logo: University of Wisconsin

Things I found in an old notebook

Change is inevitable, except from vending machines.
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The Bible is like a human being. If you torture it long enough, it will say anything.

Religion meets mathematics

Snow began falling the precise moment our sunrise service began Sunday at North Church. Easter is still the talk around town, including this morning at the 4:30 AM Coffee Shop in downtown Chippewa. Specifically, the talk is: "We never have this much snow on the ground at Easter."

Well, part of that is certainly because of a return to a "normal" winter, after several seasons of paltry snowfall. But the most obvious is that Easter occurred earlier this year -- March 23 -- than any year since 1913. It won't come nearly this early again until 2035, when it will be on March 25.

Since the fourth century, the Western Christian church has determined Easter to be the first Sunday after the first full moon occurring on or after March 21, using the Gregorian calendar. Believe it or not, there's a formula to make this calculation:

((19*t+u-w-(u-(u+8)\25)+1)\3)+15)mod30)+(32+2*x+2*y-(19*t+u-w- (u-(u+8)\25)+1)\3)+15)mod30)-z)mod7)-7*(t+11*(19*t+u-w(u- (u+8)\25)+1)\3)+15)mod30)+22*(32+2*x+2*y-(19*t+u-w-(u- (u+8)\25)+1)\3)+15)mod30)-g)mod7)+114)\31

You thought understanding the Book of Revelation was difficult?

The Eastern Orthodox Church uses the Julian calendar, rather than the Gregorian. So the Orthodox Easter this year will be April 27.

The Power of Place

Ann is off at Garrett seminary for a preaching seminar. If I had seven days in Prague, it's only fair she gets a few days to feed her soul in Evanston. Not only is it the place where we met (and later married), but it's where her father once lived and schooled, where her grandfather once taught journalism, and where my parents married. So it's a place powerful with connection, history and memory. Thank God there are such places, where meaning transcends the structure of bricks and mortar and roots us in sacred ground. Photo by Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary / Northwestern University.

Oscar and Felix have returned

Above: The Last Supper, chiseled above the entrance to the church at Vysehrad (the original home of the Bohemian prince). Right: Looking over Old Town to New Town and beyond. Photos by steve 11-12 mar 08.

Yes, Jason has dropped his bags back in Ohio, and I have finished rearranging my sock drawer upon returning to Wisconsin. Can you hear the theme to "The Odd Couple" playing? Perhaps we couldn't permanently share an apartment (or a car), but a week in a flat in Prague went quite well.

I've had a chance to look at more Prague pictures since I've returned, and I've been pleased to note that a few of them are even in focus. Of course, I'm two years overdue for a bifocals prescription. This confirms Jason's blind-bird theory: take enough pictures, and one or two are bound to turn out (based upon the maxim "even a blind bird finds a worm once in a while"). A couple more are included above.

But I'm really looking forward to seeing Jason's photos taken with his 4x5 large-format camera. I'm certain he made a number of images that will render worthwhile that uphill dawn trudge with camera and tripod in tow. (Not to mention lenses that weighed as much as watermelons.)

Instead of sitting at the Bohemia Bagel Cafe, I'm now at The Bean Bag cafe in New Richmond, preparing a worship service for Easter Sunday while waiting for Jackson to finish a Destination Imagination practice at school. Can you say culture shock?

Easter week

" 'Irreligious' Prague still turns Easter into two-week fest." Posted today at MinnPost.com.

69 years ago come this Saturday morning

"Synagogue memorial brings home horrors of Holocaust." Posted yesterday at MinnPost.com.

How you say, dekuji vam?

That would be "thank you" in Czech. Jason has been a first-rate traveling companion, expert tour guide, patient cohort and masterful photo teacher (don't judge that by these photos). And, he just brought me a cappucino in the cafe where we've been posting all week. Photos from top: himself the artist preparing to make a photograph from above the city; St. Vitus Cathedral and the castle overlooking Praha; something for Ann; something for Jackson and Lara; and a train station south of the Little Quarter.
Photos by steve 11-12 mar 08.