I enjoyed this day off. I attended church at the Hollywood Presbyterian Church, which was the home church of Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, and Jimmy Stewart. It's an easy two-block walk from where I'm staying. The church is one of those wonderful old buildings with dark wood pews and balcony. It has beautiful stained glass windows depicting Bible stories, and I really wish I would have had more time to study every one of them, as I had planned to do after church.
But, as it turns out, a couple sat down next to me and welcomed me as a visitor. We got to talking and I told them why I was there--that I was taking the Act One class which will be held at the Mears Center in their church next week. They invited me to go to Sunday school with them after church, and the Sunday school class meets in the Mears Center, so I got to see where I'll be this coming week.
They are without their usual Sunday school teacher right now, so are having guests come in. She was telling me the teacher that was there today is wonderful. Knowledgeable, down to earth... When he began to speak, he told them that this series of five classes will be his last. You could hear the disappointment in the audience and I sensed this was a really big deal.
Then he announced that the first book he wrote, back in 1958 (published in 1961), didn't sell well at that time. But he has republished it and just yesterday, he received a box of books from his publisher. After 50 years, his book is back in print! (And, of course, I snatched a copy!) It is titled The Significance of the Synoptic Miracles: Taking the Worldview of Jesus Seriously and the author is James Kallas. He was on the founding faculty of the California Lutheran College (now University), was the President of Dana College in Blair, Nebraska, and played for the Chicago Bears. (He doesn't look like a big enough man to do that!)
He taught a wonderful class about so much church history. Here are some tidbits from my notes:
Greek is based on nouns. (What is it?)
In Hebrew, verbs are the building blocks.
This result is understanding God in different ways. Greeks think, "What is God?" Hebrews think, "In the beginning God created..."
This man also talked about Constantine and Alexander the Great. It was an interesting class!
After the class, my new friend and her husband (who are from Sweden, by the way. Have I mentioned my paternal grandmother was from Sweden?), decided I needed to meet Barbara, since she is a film producer. Barbara is currently producing her first feature-length film, Three Times a Lady. It looks like a fun time!
After all that, I took a walk down Hollywood Boulevard, which is only another two blocks away, looking for some lunch. That's about the time my roomy, Lisa, called and we met up and walked down the Boulevard to the Kodak Theatre where the Academy Awards are held. We saw street performers and lots and lots of stars in the sidewalk with names we recognized. It was a lot of fun.
Got postcards. Had lunch.
Tomorrow we start classes again at 9:00am until at least 9:00 pm for the week. Can't wait!
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