It has been almost two weeks since I attended AFCon, the Ancient Faith Writing and Podcasting Conference, which took place in a little under 48 hours on June 13-15. It is a conference put on by Ancient Faith Ministries, an Orthodox Christian organization in the US which has substantial publishing and podcasting/online radio arms. I am an Orthodox Christian myself, and while I was not sure how much my writing interests would overlap with Ancient Faith’s, there were a few people I wanted to meet.

Overall, I am glad I went, though June has also been an incredibly busy month for indexing. I was quite stressed going into the conference, and now that the conference is over I still haven’t had time to think through how I want to proceed. Still, here are a few thoughts and impressions so far.

• The venue, Antiochian Village, in rural western Pennsylvania, really is like an Orthodox hotel. I’ve never been anywhere quite like it.
• I am really glad I made the effort to attend the daily services, including the early morning ones. I think the services helped to ground and settle me, as I was off-kilter from stress and being around so many strangers and in an unfamiliar place. I have also never heard anyone sing the gospel readings quite like Father Andrew Damick. Beautiful. 
• I need to sing the hymn “Rejoice, O Bride Unwedded” more often.
• Speaking about singing, the small music session that Benedict and Talia Maria Sheehan led was perhaps the highlight of the conference for me. It was so relaxing to casually sing folk songs and spirituals with a large group of people. You can read more about small music here.
• I did talk to the editors at Ancient Faith Publishing. No solid plans yet, but it was helpful to get a better sense of what they are looking for, and to receive their encouragement to write. 
• I really appreciate Fr. Stephen Freeman’s talk on shame, particularly his distinction between shame as how you feel about who you are and guilt as how you feel about what you have done.
• I am still thinking through Deacon Nicholas Kotar’s talk on culture creation, which also ties into the Sheehan’s small music. Dn. Nicholas’s talk was excellent, and avoided the pitfalls of romanticization of the past, eurocentrism, and setting up an us/them dichotomy. Where I stumble is the question, which culture do I create in, or, which culture do I belong in? Put another way, which cultures am I allowed to create in? I often feel like my identity is fragmented between my various experiences and contexts. For example, my childhood in Taiwan versus my current adulthood in Canada. Or, growing up Evangelical and now being Orthodox. Or even British Columbia versus Alberta. I usually feel like I exist on the margins of whatever community I find myself in. That said, culture, in this context, was defined as what people do when they are together, which seems a pretty accessible definition and one I can get behind. 
• I scribbled down a couple new ideas for stories. Maybe my next writing projects?
• I appreciated Angela Doll Carlson’s weekly practice with her Sunday School class of identifying one thing that is beautiful and one thing that is true. 
• I did not realize that copyright would be so interest. Many thanks to Eric Jansson for his talk. 
• Thank God for priests who are nerds. The Tolkien panel, moderated by Fr. Andrew Damick, was a fun way to end the conference. Lots of moments for laughter. Though as wonderful as the Lord of the Rings is, I would like to see more attention given to newer works, to see if we can find and nurture contemporary equivalents. 

The next AFCon will be in two years. Hopefully I will be able to attend again. In the meantime, back to writing (and not just indexes, though back to indexing too).