Indaba - Not In 'da' bar!

(OK, so maybe I didn't make that up. But it's witty!)

Once upon a time, in a land faaar across the ocean, there was a biiig, big tent. It was called the Big Top. It was the blue-est tent anyone had ever seen, with two big spires and guidelines that would trip up even the least weary traveller. Well, I've decided I'm moving in there. Forget living in Birks when you've got the Big Top! My day today started with a 6:45 shift manning the doors at the Big Top. No one except for the people with the right lanyards and passes are allowed in there. I've had to pull out my scary security face a couple times already. Of course, the entire Big Top is fenced in (not quite the 10 foot fence Ms. Glendhill has been talking about if any of you are following The Times at all), so most people have the right passes already. I was also in the Big Top for evening worship before supper tonight, and then on the Big Top security gate until 22:15. See? This is why I'm moving in to the Big Top. I'm also on for the Eucharist at 6:45 tomorrow morning, so I'll just roll out of my comfy padded chairs and already be at work. It's foolproof!

Bishops' Bible Studies have now begun, as have Indaba groups. Most of the time we can't really sit in on them though, so the shifts have been a bit monotonous. It's a lot of sitting in the hallway for two and a half hours. Those one's aren't the greatest shifts (they've got nothing on the Big Top!). The topics do look interesting though. A lot of the talk at the conference in focussed on issues of social justice, in its quite varied manifestations. There's also a big focus on the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals), which quickly seem to be turning into the quintessential Anglican rallying point. I'm all for the MDGs, but I don't know how I feel about that.

Yesterday I was able to attend/work at a self-select session on Healthcare Networks, which was great and informative, but I have virtually no experience in the field, at least in terms of it's main theme, which seemed to be midwifery/infants/maternal health. Today, though, I managed to get into a session on Jesus, Evangelism and Other Faiths, which was basically an attempt to talk about soteriology in an interfaith-post-colonial context. Needless to say, I felt a bit more at home there.

For last night's plenary, we had Dr. Brian Mclaren as a guest speaker, talking about Evangelism in a post-modern context. I'm really confused by a lot of post-modern approaches to religion too. It's weird. I find I often arrive at similar conclusions to many post-modernists, but have a really different way of getting there. It seems really anti-institutional, which doesn't really provide for a great way of modifying existing structures, it just means recreating everything, over and over and over again. I'm not so sure that works. Tonight was Roman Cardinal Ivan Dias of the Vatican talking about Mission, Social Justice and Evangelism. Unfortunately I wasn't able to be there for that one, I was on gate duty. At least I got a radio with an earpiece :).

The Marketplace is also now open, and I've bought my first Rowan Williams book! It's called "Silence and Honey Cakes: The Wisdom of the Desert". A great author with an equally great theme, I can't wait to be awake enough to read it!

Well, that's about all I can think of right now. I'll try to send another update tomorrow. Thursday is London Day! Woohoo! Catch the news and look for the crazy people in the blinding orange jackets. That'll be us :). We're off to Buckingham Palace!

Adieu, tout le monde.
Nick.