Katie visits a seminary.

It seems like every time I think to give my synod the finger in some official capacity, they remind me they're okay with eating with me and I have to stop and think.

I write on the occasion of my very first visit to the city of St. Louis. I was only there briefly, and in cooperation with Wheat Ridge ministries, which I learned was not just Lutheran but an LCMS flavor of Lutheran in its organization when Garret, the helpful hotel desk attendant, handed me complimentary breakfast tickets for my two mornings, and attributed them to the church body that had brought me to the city.

I shrugged and pocketed the tickets. In the end I didn't use either of them; Morning #1 I had camped out in the Business Lounge, taking advantage of my first computer access in ten days to hammer in some worthy revisions to the play Wheat Ridge Ministries has commanded. Morning #2 I was on a shuttle to the airport by 4:30am.

One thing I did have time to take advantage of: a few free hours in the afternoon and charity from Pastor Jim brought me for the first time to the Concordia Seminary campus.

I went to their chapel first. It was empty, and I wandered, and I surprised myself by crying. Like, a lot. A few hours passed, and Pastor Jim found me, and we headed out for beer a little earlier than we had planned, after I apologized to him: "It stings to be here in a way that I didn't adequately anticipate."

This is what I found myself thinking on, wandering down the campus paths: the simple question, of what they teach people here about me-and-Word-and-Sacrament. That love - do they want their students to think it springs from my pride? Or that it's the work of a Tempter? Really? No shit I upset myself.

Happily I'm coming off a run with Soul Purpose that included The Hard Part, my favorite play that we do for two reasons. IT'S FUN. And it's about a girl whose dearest love is considered unclean by the community that raised her. That hit hard this past week. Because in the very effort to embrace what the community cuts off, Hannah, hero of The Hard Part, moves into a position she never anticipated: cutting herself off in anger from the community. And while I sit and contemplate "giving my synod the finger in some official capacity," Hannah confronts me with another gesture, her hand raised, outstretched to the Son of God: "I hate my neighbors... If you choose, you can make me clean."

It's making me think. But I know now I won't ever be able to study at St. Louis.