Lutheran Theological Seminary in Tshwane: Home for many

“My name is Stefan, and I am one of the few non-theologians living on the campus of the LTS; in fact my profession is computer science. In the  later months of last year, 2011, when I was on the lookout for a new place to stay not too far away from the university where I work, I also informed the members of the nearby St. Paul’s parish and asked them to kindly keep their eyes open for me, too. Not much later I was informed by a leading member of the St. Paul’s parish about some available accomodation on the premises of the LTS,  after I had already viewed a number of other places which all did not suit my needs. The memo “LTS” was the last entry on my “to view” list, and soon I was lucky to get an appointment via Salome, the friendly LTS secretary. After Salome had shown to me the place and the available accommodation, it was immediately clear to me that this is what I wanted and needed; here in this particular atmosphere I wanted to stay. Not much later the rental contract was signed. Because I work at university for up to 60 hours per week – being a committed academic is not a usual “9 to 5” office job – people do not see me very often on the LTS campus during daytime. My “invisible role” at the LTS is not only to provide a little bit of financial support to the seminary through my monthly accommodation fee (which I consider more fruitul than paying rent to some private house owner in the secular economy) but also to serve as a “point of stability” in House “Segoe” where other LTS guests are moving in and out quite frequently. Thus I can continuously keep my eyes open to spot small issues of maintainance, which need fixing, and to report them to the secretary as soon as I spot them. Occasionally I can also fix small things by myself if the task is not too complicated, e.g.: glueing a broken pottery object, screwing a bolt into a wobbly chair, and the like. Whenever, in the moonlight hours after work, you hear some dissonantly distorted bluesy-jazzy choruses and tunes emerging from the chapel of LTS into the night: that is probably me, having switched the electronic organ of the chapel into Jazz mode, talking to Jesus Christ in the universal language of music which does not require any particular words. In contrast to more “classical” opinions about “appropriate” church music, I consider Jazz indeed indeed as a very suitable way of talking to Jesus Christ, because the art of Blues and Jazz (like almost all great art) historically emerged from terrible experiences of alienation and suffering, and who in the universe could understand alienation and suffering any better than Jesus Christ himself in his loneliest hour on the holy cross? Being a non-Theologian and an un-ordained layman I cannot seriously compete with the LTS-professionals in any subtle theological or doctrinal discussion, however I use the LTS-library to stick my nose into some book of theology for at least a few pages every evening. Recently I discovered in the LTS-library a copy of Richard McBrien’s book-like-a-brick, “Catholicism”, with its more than 1200 pages. If I manage to read only 4 pages of it every evening, then I will have it “done” in less than 1 year 🙂 Last but not least I should also mention that – at very rare occasions – I get the chance of a conversation with the director of the LTS, bishop Wilhelm Weber, in our common mother language (German). For all this I am very grateful. Is this “luck” or is this “grace”? Like all good academics I shall leave the final question un-answered, as an exercise for the readers.”