Three Beautiful Things 01/26/14: Sunday Afternoon with Bonhoeffer, Nate Strolls In, Adam Joins Us

1.  The course LeeAnn and I giving called "Living Profoundly" featured a short, dense passage from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book Ethics.  The discussion was lively, full of good insights, and we all gave each other plenty to ponder as we worked on understanding and digging into Bonhoeffer's exploration of freedom and obedience and responsibility as Christian, existential beings living in a world of twilight (not of dark or light, but both) and in a world he calls the "domain of relativity".  We also learned a great deal from LeeAnn about the rigors and transformations in Bonhoeffer's life.  It all brought back memories of the young professors and our young chaplain at Whitworth College in the 1970s, all of whom looked to Bonhoeffer as an inspiring intellectual force and as one of Christianity's most courageous martyrs.  (They all loved to deliberate upon Bonhoeffer's distinction between "cheap grace" and "costly grace" and when I was on the Core 150 (the Judeo-Christian tradition) team, this distinction was one of the course's most important concepts when we did our unit of 20th century Christian figures.)

2.  The Deke and I went over 16 Tons after I returned home from church and we decided to have BBQ sandwiches from Bill and Tim's.  We were relaxing, shooting the breeze, and a former LCC student of mine, Nate, walked in and Nate and Deke and I talked about all kinds of stuff.  Once again, the Deke and I had great conversation and some really good laughs with one of the fine "young people today", a "millennial", one of those "kids" I read so many complaints about online.  Ha!  Like so many of "these kids" the Deke and I run into at different places and enjoy listening to and yakking with, Nate is a great guy.

3.  Later, we met Nate's roommate, Adam, and the evening became even more fun as, among other things, Adam regaled us with stories about the Truffle Festival he'd been working at over the weekend and the crazy things privileged people say, especially when they regard as invisible a twenty-something like Adam who is driving them somewhere or doing other work for them and they talk frankly and arrogantly, as if they were in private.  We got some great laughs out of his stories -- and he got some great material for comedy writing he is doing.  Sometimes we paupers love to laugh at the princes and princesses. Ha!