Fr. Heinz has tagged me (and also very kindly included me in his list) for this meme:
What five people - past or present - inspire your spiritual life??
Hmmm...
OK, we know that our Lord Himself has to be at the top of the list, so He is assumed. Your five simply follow Him. In Lutheran circles, we will also presume "Fr. Martin of Wittenberg" as well. :-)
So the five would be additional people who (humanly speaking) have greatly impacted your life of faith and love on this earth.
For me:
Norman Nagel - he opened a world that I never dreamed of as he taught us to be "nothing but given to" by the Lord.
Kenneth Korby - as Cwirla once said, if Nagel taught us the Gospel, Korby taught us the Law. YOUCH. Great insights.
Thomas Nelson Green - Dean of Students at Concordia, Bronxville, whose love for our Lord and His Eucharist was positively infectious.
Alexander Schmemman - only known through reading his writings (though I was at one service with him at St. Vlad's - Holy Cross Day 1980), yet whose insight into Christ and His Church never ceases to delight and astonish. He's the master of stepping outside the question to let you ask a bigger and better one.
Arthur Carl Piepkorn - again, known only from his writings, who enabled me to remain a Lutheran Christian by showing the true catholicity of Lutheran doctrine (and with him, I have to also mention, though only a "recent" friend, Charles Porterfield Krauth).
Now I have to tag some others. I tag Fr. Asburry; Fr. Brown; Mrs. Heath Curtis; and Fr. Michael Keith
It always amazes me when I find out that a pastor I respect came out of Bronxville. It's such a rare thing, and it's always a pleasure.
ReplyDeleteI missed Dean Green by a year, but I have his "Pastoral Ministry" notes somewhere. Much better than the notes I got from Kurt Bodling.
Thanks for the tag! I thought about it and posted a response.
ReplyDeleteAlan,
ReplyDeleteI actually have very fond memories of Bronxville - but I DO try to forget the silly and sinful things I did as a college student!!! The choir was my life while I was there - the big group, the tour choir, and the chapel choir. I loved it. And English with Ralph Dorre. What that man could draw out of literature! And Slubs just being Slubs. :)
Mike,
I've already checked it out!
I missed out on Dorre--he was my advisor my Sophomore year, but he had retired before I got to any of his classes. And Sluberski was in Russia until I'd switched my major. Brilliant English professor, I hear, but an awful theologian.
ReplyDeleteI have fond memories of Bronxville, too, and in many of the same areas. I was in Festival, Tour and Chapel Choirs, and going to Germany was the second-biggest highlight of my college years. But I also remember some of the crap I was taught in my theology courses, and it doesn't surprise me that most of the guys who went to seminary out of Bronxville in my years there turned out to be wingnuts. There are exceptions, of course, but they're exactly that: exceptions.
Ask a boring person, get a boring answer. :D
ReplyDeleteRebekah,
ReplyDeleteYou are anything but boring!
Oh, dude- - - I'm Fr Brown. Um, man, that's normally my dad. . .
ReplyDelete