...occasionally do work out. My final presentation for Mod.Ltg, "people" in the 20th cent. liturgical movement. This is, of course, a huge category - including such luminaries as Virgil Michaels, practically any other Benedictine, in fact, pretty much everybody active in the first part of the century.
So I went with Aimee Semple McPherson, early radio evangelist and founder of the International Foursquare Gospel Church. Why? Partly because I'm intrigued by the ecclesiological impact of early radio, partly because the was the first person on the list, and most of all she was a riot, as the image from one of her famous "illustrated sermons" shows. But, on top of all of that, I figured that if I did any of the big names, any of the catholics, and especally any Benedictines, Nathan would know them, if not personally, then at least know everything about their work.
But then again, this is Nathan, who knows everything. So it should have been no surprise when he and I were chatting and he saw the books I got out for show-and-tell and he said, "I'm sure you already saw this, but did you use the series of articles I wrote on her years ago?"
Oops.
But it went well, it was a very fun presentation on a very fun figure. Also the kind of "liturgical" things that we just don't talk about here - pentecostalism, the Salvation Army, and the very birth of the Emerging Church movement - Sister Aimee really built the first "mega-church", the Angelus Temple near Sunset and Glendale in LA. And everyone had a lot of fun with the talk, though I managed to go over by about 15 minutes. All in all, I may have spoken longer than I even prepared... perhaps this is indeed the point.
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UPDATED, even. A week later. Though I swear it was done on 3 hours of sleep and about the same amount of prep time, people are still talking about this seminar as if I set the standard by which seminars should be judged. I've received testimonials - which I think is appropriate - stating that my seminar inspired people to see modern liturgy in a new and exciting way. How odd.
