Wednesday 2 July 2014

Omaha

And so our time in Omaha has very nearly come to an end.

It's been a great time!

It feels as if we have done the history of the USA through the eyes of a single city!

We have seen the Omaha people's children telling the story of the indigeneous American people through dance and song and story telling in a remarkable children's theatre!  How moving!

We have been to the Union station and seen where the Union Pacific railroad began as the transcontinental railroad was completed and the offices of the railroad today.

We have done a fraction of the Lewis and Clark trail and seen the story of the first explorers who opened up the west.

We have followed in the footsteps of the pioneers and their wagon trails into the Great Plains ... and seen how that trail led to the birds flying free only to be help captive in a gilded cage belonging to a bank!

We have done a bridge telling the story of Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement.

We have crossed the Missouri, the longest river in the USA, and walked from Nebraska to Iowa.

And we have traced the story of the Pilgrims who arrived on the Mayflower right up to today and beyond as we have shared in the NACCC annual meetings and conference.

Yesterday began with the third and last of my Bible lectures, looking at the way the third part of the Old Testament, the writings, can be read through the eyes of Jesus.

My Bible lectures have offered a way of reading the difficult bits of the Bible and especially the Old Testament by looking at it using the strategy Jesus shared with his closest friends and followers on the Road to Emmaus on the day of resurrection.

We then took time out and visited the Joslyn Museum and Art gallery with its wonderful galleries of American art.

We went round to look at what had originally been built as Nebraska's Capitol building on Capitol hill but has now been a High School for more than a hundred years.

That was great for me as I have been reading an Omaha based novel while we have been here and managed to finish it last night.  Omaha gold tells the story of Abraham Lincoln and the founding of the Union Pacific railroad here in Omaha in the 1860's and weaves it in with the story of the discovery of a box in the mud of the Missouri by a student from the high school.  A thriller that has at its heart the journalism of the Omaha World Herald newspaper [slogan:  A Free People A Free Press].  A great read which I managed to finish late last night ... or was it early this morning?

We watched the final half hour of the USA game in the Spaghetti works and were sad to see them lose after a gallant effort that took them into extra time.

It was then round to the Urban Abbey for a coffee and to pick up a couple of books, in particular the latest Walter Breuggemann, Reality, Grief Hope - three urgent prophetic tasks.

Back to the conference for the final act of worship - which I will record in a separate blog.

Then burning the midnight oil talking ICF and plans for the future with Sharon and friends, and meeting up with Doug Gray.  His grandfather, Henry David Gray, had been a good friend to my father and he had met my mother at one of the ICF events.  Great conversation around the impact of the internet age on ways of being church -- watch this space!

It was somehow a great way to finish the weekend with our friends from the NACCC - Felicity and I have known folk from the NACCC for as long as I can remember.   The Congregational Federation is a small famkily of churches stretching across the UK; likewise, the NACCC is a small family of churches stetching across the USA.  We share the same story.  We are very much part of the same extended family of churches within the much greater family of Christ's church.

So it has been good to share!


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