OTLCtech

Across the hedge and back

Martha Spong

On Sunday I visited the Catholic Church next door to kathrynzj’s Presbyterian Church as part of a class assignment for the online course I’ve been taking. We’re experimenting with using Spreaker, so here is the audio link. (Unfortunately the Spreaker embed doesn’t work with WordPress.com, only WordPress. org.)

I’ve included some photos of my field trip, in part because the proximity of the churches is a topic of interest around our house. When we move into the manse later this summer, will the priests in the house three doors down figure out that the female Presbyterian pastor has a wife? We shall see. There are also some conflicts about Catholic use of the Presbyterian parking lot. Here are some pictures to give a sense of how close the two are, in body if not in spirit.

 

My car with its UCC bumper sticker, parked next to the Presbyterian van.
My car with its UCC bumper sticker, parked next to the Presbyterian van.
The view from my car to the Catholic church.
The view from my car to the Catholic church.

 

And the view back the other way.
And the view back the other way.

 

The hymnal and pew sheet, which proved marginally useful.
The hymnal and pew sheet, which proved marginally useful.

 

The assurance that I was not welcome at the Table.
The assurance that I was not welcome at the Table. This was of course not surprising, but a source of sadness about the ways Christians are divided when so much of what we do and say is the same.

The class has introduced me to online resources I didn’t know about, including Spreaker and Wikispaces, and has been very helpful not only for future teaching but in terms of applications for my work with RevGalBlogPals. You can read about United Theological Seminary’s certificate program here.

 

 

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