Doggone it, this would have been cool to attend, or even crash as a vistor 
, but alas other commitments will keep me away. Its too bad someone isnt live tweeting or blogging it, but the news updates will suffice. If someone has a time expansion machine and an extra couple hundred bucks-25, and wants me to live blog, I’d jump at the chance
If I do get some spare time, as I understand it, visitors can attend the plenaries for no charge, so I might try to catch one or two of them (the advantage of being local) I’d really like to hear Stephen Bouman, being I bugged him back when he was the Bishop for the Metro NY synod.
The workshops sounded cool too.. but alas too many irons, too little money, and not enough time.
Some useful links:
The agenda: http://www.semnsynod.org/assembly/2009/agenda.html
The resolutions: http://www.semnsynod.org/assembly/2009/resolutions.html
As expected, many are focused on the homosexuality debate, although world hunger, environment, and clergy/staff resolutions are included as well. Teaching intelligent design set me back a bit, but I guess its presence shows the diversity of the synod, and thats cool, but its also quite ironic that the discussion of such is at the Mayo civic center.
The workshops are super cool… I campaigned for Jack Nelson Pallmeyer when he was running for senate, his workshop on the Just War Doctrine would be great to hear… but thats where the $$$$ enter in.
I also think Islam-People of the Book by Dr. Charles Amjad-Ali would have been cool. It was one of the long term leadership discussions that our leadership team often had, but it was a real bear to move forward with. Whether I ever end up in such a role again is unlikely, but greater knowledge in the arena is cool no matter what.
Lastly, the LIRS workshop would be interesting to attend, especially since I had fairly close ties to Postville, IA years ago.
It would be a blast to be there, but alas, I dont have a time expander, nor even a DMC-12 to pull it off in its entirety. Hopefully I can catch a plenary session or two.
