Sunday evening

It's almost 1a.m. and I am just getting back to my room.  It was a splendid day!  I didn't sleep well last night because I had so many things going through my head about my presentation for Sunday morning.  I was up early ready for 8a.m. breakfast and only found out after I was showered and dressed that breakfast started at 9 on Sundays.  So I went back to bed.  I had prepared my presentation before I left home last week.  After the wonderful dynamics and points raised by the other priests, I changed it just about totally.  We had about an hour and three quarters and after my presentation, there was good discussion and comments.  I have to say here that Norwegians are really hard to read.  Their faces don't reveal, at least to me, how they are feeling about things so I couldn't tell if my talk was being well-received.  It was a great relief to find out that it was a talk considered useful.  Apart from the first talk on the history of Norway, it was really the only theological presentation of the gathering.

After lunch, we gathered again to have a "what do we do next" conversation.  Then we had a most excellent outing.  We went to a glassworks, divided ourselves into 6 groups and designed a large serving dish.  The glassblowers and designers came up and looked at our designs while we went to the glass-blowing studio.  When the team came down to join us, they had selected one of our designs as the winner.  Then we got to watch as they created the huge dish.  It took about 40 minutes.  It was so fascinating to watch.  The woman who was our guide at the glassworks gave us a running commentary on the process.  Everyone was really engaged and fascinated by the process.  It takes many hours to cool down the glass product so that it will not break.  Tomorrow, we will see the final result.

We had a few hours free before dinner.  I was going to rest but one of the Norwegians wanted to pick my brain about resources, so, of course, I said "yes."  Dinner was wonderful and then I hung out in my room for an hour with Maxim and Rostek.   Since I was on the prayer team for evening worship, I had to be in church at 9:45pm.  Kristine, a Norwegian pastor, Hantie, a pastor from Holland who is South African, Roman from Ukraine, and I presided at a very simple reflective service.  It was well-received.   After worship, I went to the common room and hung out with several pastors.  They were drinking wine but I didn't want any.  I completely enjoyed the interaction and laughter.  We constructed a private, closed Facebook group for our attendees.  We laughed for a long time together trying to come up with a name for the group.  We ended up calling it Whatever!  It's only accessible for our group.

At 12:30, I called it a night and am blogging this tonight.  We return to Oslo tomorrow where I'll stay two nights.  I only have a few pictures today:  http://picasaweb.google.com/nundabud/20101114?authkey=Gv1sRgCJDG-trpivTDbA#