The Adventures of Miss Canada in St. Louis: Special Features and Cut Scenes

Having just written a long and semi-incoherent post on my feelings about America and Americans, I thought I needed an extra post to put in all the interesting things that didn't fit anywhere else. These then, are the things which, I were to make a DVD about my experience in St. Louis, would go on the extra disc. Some of them aren't properly edited, and they don't fit in with the story arc of my experience, but I thought they were interesting enough to be included on the side.

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Not only was Desmond Tutu's daughter at the conference, I also met the great-great-niece of Pushmataha, the Chocktaw chief who talked to President Andrew Jackson about native treaty rights (as you well know, that didn't go too well). I also met an auto-cephalus (not connected to Canturbury) neo-monastic Anglican man whose uncle is David Hyde Pierce. He told us stories about sneaking 'David' into his graduation ceremony and being on the set of Frasier. This is the same guy who gets up at 5:30 every morning to pray. Strange.

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One of the most interesting experiences of the conference was my roundtable group, which I think I have mentioned was led by a single black woman who is the associate pastor of a church in Kansas City. Since the group was all women, we ended up talking about women's issues a lot and getting very vulnerable with one another. We also, very frightenly, bore out statistics when it slowly came out that three of the eleven of us had been sexually abused by men (all, even more frighteningly, by pastors). Since we all, at some level, knew we didn't ever have to see these people again, we were a lot more truthful than we otherwise would have been. All three young women, while describing their experiences, said at one point or another, "Now, I've never told this to anyone back home." It was powerful.

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I came home more confused than ever about whether or not I want to go into ministry. I have remembered that I love helping people and preaching, and many pastors told me you have a great chance to do both when in ministry. But there was also a lot of discussion about the hard things of the life, the loneliness and the hard work and people on planes randomly confessing to you. One quote was "Ministry is the worst job you'll ever love." I'm not sure I can do that. But it seems to contain so much of what I'm passionate about. And having lots of other people around who are absolutely and totally conviced and commited to becoming a pastor only served to throw my own indecision in sharp relief.

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Also, I actually missed bible study. We went to plenary sessions and church services and workshops galore, but at no point did we actually study the bible. And I missed that. Whether I agree with it or am frightened by it, find it relevant or obsolete, it seems that I am addicted to Bible study. I want to dig in to this book which has changed so much of history and figure out what it's all about. And considering all the contentious issues which we skirted around (what we believe about salvation, our own calling, women in ministry, homosexuality) I was surprised we didn't actually take the time to see what the Bible has to say about these things, and the different ways in which it's been interpreted.

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The food there wasn't very good. I say this with the taste of my own, still-warm fresh bread in my mouth -- the food was starchy, meaty, fatty, and often unnapetizing. One night we had a picnic dinner which consisted of buns, various chunks of processed meat, fried bread, BBQ sauce, ribs, lemonade, and (almost as an afterthought) some glutinous potato salad and coleslaw. It was only when we went to a cafeteria one afternoon that I actually had access to some whole foods, and even then the carrot sticks were scary and the cottage cheese tasted like white plastic. Our last dinner was very fancy, with an appetizer of blue cheese-apple-walnut-spinach salad (which I know sounds gross, but it was good!) and grilled zucchini and squash, and risotto and the inevitable meat and potatoes. But the scary thing was, most people didn't eat their salads (I ate three just to stop them from going to waste) and ignored the vegetables, coming back with bland off-white plates piled high with turkey, potatoes, and buns. It made me sad, because while I understand my food tastes are not those of everyone, I felt bad for their arteries.

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My first noteworthy experience upon getting back into Canada could not have been more perfect if I'd tried. I handed my passport and customs paper to the young man at the booth, and he looked at my Kingston address and said "So, you must go to Queen's then." Surprised, I said yes and asked him how he knew the city. He smiled knowingly "the Aberdeen Street Homecoming party" he said, referring to the biggest annual drunken brouhaha at Queen's. I laughed, he stamped my papers, and told me to go to Clark Hall Pub on Monday nights, when his buddies played in a band there.

I could have kissed the guy. After five days which felt like several weeks of experiences (both good and bad), I was home.