Back in Chicago

We arrived in Chicago yesterday evening, after a day of traveling, we flew Frontier Air , which meant flying through Denver, on our way to LA we only had enough time to make the next flight, but on our way back we had a 2 hour layover, and the flight was delayed about 20 minutes, so it was along day. If you didn't have to fly through Denver to get to California with Frontier Air I'd probably fly them more often.
The last part of our vacation we stayed at a friends who lives in Hollywood, a block from Hollywood blvd, but a good bit east of the stars and theaters and clubs etc.

The rest of our time was pretty much spent hanging out with our friend and seeing my aunt and uncle and cousins and their spouses and children. Friday we saw a friend of mine from high school the only person I have managed to keep some form of contact with from my high school. though it has been intermittent. We were only acquaintances in High School and then we met up again after college and then we were roommates for awhile and then he moved out and ended up going to U C Berkley and we lost touch. about July he found me on the internet and we reconnected. It was a good afternoon getting caught up. then Friday night We went to supper at my cousins house and her parents and brother and sister and their spouses came over. It was a good time. It had been several years since I had seen them all together long enough that I had not met some of the children. It reminded me of the family gatherings I took part in as a child when relatives who were not around for the yearly holiday celebrations would come into town for various reasons. I saw the same puzzlement on my cousin's children's faces as I was introduced as their parents cousin and their cousin. I remember also being mystified by these strangers who also acted so familiar and in some way I did not grasp were familiar to me.

Saturday we hung out in Los Feliz and saw the shops, and then went out to Bar Sinister where we met up with my friend who introduced me to Goth (but that I think deserves a separate post.) Sunday, we went to church with our friend and had lunch with a friend we knew from the LA Poetry scene and whom we also recently reconnected with. Then Sunday night we met up with another friend from our days at Fuller Theological Seminary, an Orthodox Christian, who last year received his PH.D in Theology and also was married, so we finally got to met his wife, and hear about his dissertation on St. Clement of Alexandria's treatment of Divine Providence. He was also someone we had not seen for several years and had lost contact with for a couple of years.

Ed. note 9/19/2007: I seem to have not written the concluding paragraph. I had one in mind, but I think I was distracted at the end of writing this post. What I might have said is that Our time on vacation was also a time for some fruitful reflection. Some of that reflection comes from things I observed in visiting churches, others from the reading I brought along. Two lines of thought are emerging that I hope to post here soon. 1)Catholicity and Protestantism, my Covenant ecclesiology paper was more or less on that, and the issue is resurfacing in my thinking. 2) I posted earlier this year on God language and issues of Gender. I have continued in research on this and it has lead me to think about analogy, the Trinity, and an ecclesial understanding of gender. My growing hunch is that these three things are deeply linked and to misinterpret and misunderstand one leads to false conclusions about the others, at least in our context. LEK