It’s weird. It’s really, really, really weird. I flew from Minneapolis to Boston today, then took the subway home to my college independent living group. A small group of people were standing in the entryway of the house when I walked in, and it was nice to see everyone again, but none of them are Lutheran, I don’t think any are Christian, and they don’t really care about the Churchwide Assembly, even if they remembered that I was there. After a week immersed in discussing church policy and praying for discernment every half hour, it’s very jarring to be back.

Earlier today, I wrote: As I sit in the Minneapolis airport, waiting for my plane, I am both saddened by the end of Churchwide Assembly and eagerly anticipating returning to MIT, seeing friends, and reentering “the real world.” CWA reminds me, in a way, of summer camp: an intense, short period of time where you spend all your time with the same people, meeting new friends, slightly isolated from the way the world moves around while you’re there. The important difference, however, is that we are /not/ isolated, but as we say (and have the committee to remind us) we are a church in society. No, we do not let culture lead us, but we cannot ignore it. We are called to serve society, as in our programs like LWR, LSA, LMI, and our slogan for Churchwide: “God’s work. Our hands.”

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I somehow forgot that MIT (and possibly other colleges too) tend not to reflect “the real world” but are their own little bubble. I thought about how the decisions of Churchwide Assembly would affect our ecumenical partnerships, and I was amazed and inspired by the work the ELCA does in America and globally, but even though I thought about how the decisions would affect my churches here (UniLu and LEM), I somehow failed to think about how I would transition back to life as a regular college student where normal conversation revolves around science, not God. (Though some would argue that it’s hard to have a conversation that doesn’t somehow include or relate to God, especially in science, but..) I do have a number of religious friends at MIT, and, in fact, have used Churchwide Assembly to start some good conversations with religious and non-religious friends about differences between different religions and my understanding of being Lutheran, but it’s still weird. Then again, I guess everything would be weird in relation to Churchwide, so I think it’s more that I wasn’t expecting it.

I am still processing things, but thoughts will be rather out of order now that I’m not thinking about things in the order in which they come up in debate. I have some half-written thoughts from the plane ride that I need to continue thinking about, plus general thoughts on the assembly and random things I noticed, plus the entry I promised on how awesome worship was. (The regrettable thing, as another voting member put it, is that it’s very hard to describe it such that you aren’t just making it seem like church is regularly boring, which it isn’t.)

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