The Diet of Worms

I couldn't help it. When I saw this sign, I thought of good ol' confirmation class, learning about Martin Luther, and the "Diet of Worms." Well, I was in 8th grade then.

My confirmation class was really boring, but I learned a lot. I actually remember most of what I learned because we memorized the whole book. My brain wasn't overfull then. We didn't learn anything "relevant" or learn about putting Christian ways into our daily life. We didn't do any service or any lock-ins. We didn't do any fund raisers. We just sat there every Saturday morning for two years, and we listened to the pastor tell us what to memorize and then we listened to the other students repeat what they had memorized from the week before. There was no rebellion. There wasn't even any discussion. This was back in the last century, and nobody had told us that learning was supposed to be fun.

I am somewhat grateful that I learned all that stuff. But I'm really grateful that before we could be confirmed we had to read books about Martin Luther and write a paper about his life. So I learned about the Diet of Worms....and that is something that is bound to stick in the mind of an 8th grader.