As I said yesterday, I gave the closing prayer in the forum. Here’s the followup story: I arrived at the Marriott Center half an hour early, but nobody was on the stand yet so I just sat in the bleachers (since being the first person on the stand is tacky). Fifteen minutes later I saw a lady on the other side of the floor, looking like she was looking for someone. Being ever-so-humble, I figured she was looking for me. Turns out I was right. :) (She was secretary to one of the academic vice presidents.)
She had me follow a techie up to the podium (there’s still nobody on the podium, but there were several hundred people already in their seats), where I stood there with my hands on the podium so the lightbox people could get the height adjustment for me. Both the microphone and the podium moved up and down several times while I stood there staring at everyone who was staring at me, trying not to look too self-important. ;)
After that I went back to the floor seats for another five minutes, waiting for more important people to get on the stand. Finally there were four or five deans and others up there, so I took my assigned seat: right behind President Samuelson (second row, center aisle seat). “Please let me not be on camera throughout the whole thing,” I prayed. Interestingly, there’s a red phone there which apparently connects to the sound booth. Maybe it’s just for emergencies. Maybe it activates a trapdoor behind the podium so they can get rid of speakers who go too far afield. ;) There aren’t any teleprompters, by the way (at least not transparent ones out beyond the podium; there were two screens built into the podium, along with a clock and a few lights and buttons).
Anyway, the forum itself was quite good. Dr. Elshtain spoke on C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man, which is basically an argument against moral relativism. Her remarks seemed to gravitate towards euthanasia/infanticide, though she mentioned a few other things as well. In spite of my efforts to concentrate fully on her talk, I found myself scripting my imminent prayer over and over again in my head. Folly. But I’m human, so maybe it’s pointless to try to escape folly.
For most of the talk I was quite calm, until I looked up at the clock and felt like a spear was thrust through my heart as I saw that it was already 11:35. (The forums and devotionals usually end between 11:35 and 11:45.) The next fifteen minutes were very, very long. Finally she ended, and we all gave her a standing ovation. Then the lights on the stand went up, which was a very handy signal for me to get up and give the prayer. :)
And I gave the prayer and that was that. The lights were bright but I could still see the audience rather clearly. (Until I closed my eyes, of course. :))
Afterwards, we went up to the Cougar Room for a Q&A session with Dr. Elshtain. Thirty or so people were in attendance, and the next forty-five minutes were full of questions and Dr. Elshtain’s answers. Good stuff. My stomach was starting to growl, though, so my concentration was unfortunately more intent on silencing it than I’d like.
When the session was over, I rode over to the alumni house (the visitor’s center) with two political science professors and a chemistry professor for the luncheon. I’d expected quite a number of people. Wrong. When we walked into the room, I saw only eleven or twelve seats at the table and panicked, wondering if I was really supposed to be there after all. (Especially because those already seated were either deans or former deans or academic vice presidents — I was just a little out of my league.
But at the foot of the table there was a place card with my name on it (imagine that!), so I sat down and tried to pretend like I belonged. Ha. :) May as well name drop: those present whose names I knew were Dr. Elshtain, Robert Millet (former dean of the religion department), Andrew Skinner (ditto), Terry Ball (current dean of the religion department and my Isaiah professor), David Magleby (dean of the College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences), Newell Dayley (academic vice president), Joan Naumann (President Dayley’s secretary), John Tanner (academic vice president), Scott Duvall (assistant librarian and the fellow in charge of having speakers like Dr. Elshtain come to BYU), Matt Holland (a poly sci professor and Elder Holland’s son — he’s the one who asked me to give the prayer, by the way), John Lewis (a chemistry professor), and Brent something-or-other (the other poly sci professor)). Paul Kerry had a place at the table but wasn’t there. (Which was a pity, since he’s a big C.S. Lewis buff.)
The food was great, and it was my security blanket in the face of a discussion on political philosophy. :) I dreaded any incoming questions about the discussion — I’m no political philosopher! — and luckily none came. Near the end of the luncheon, Dr. Millet brought up C.S. Lewis, to my relief. He said a while ago he’d gone over to Oxford with Dr. Skinner and a few others, and they’d had Dr. Kerry give them a tour of Lewis’s haunts. (I suspect they went to Cambridge as well, but I can’t remember.) I was pleasantly surprised to see how much almost everyone in the room had read Lewis. It was also news to me that there’s a BBC version of Shadowlands. I’ll have to check it out sometime. Anyway, I remained mute throughout the luncheon and thankfully nobody seemed to mind. I kept trying to look at them all as children of God — leveling the playing field, so to speak — but it didn’t work all that well. :)
The luncheon ended shortly after 2:00 with the presentation of a gift to Dr. Elshtain, and then she headed out for a radio show and we all left and went our separate ways. I sped back to work so I could feel normal again. :)
Phew! This has ended up a lot longer than I expected. It’s doubling as a journal entry, since I didn’t really want to write this all out by hand. :)
[tags]C.S. Lewis, BYU[/tags]
