Lutherans: 'Peace not Walls'

This is the first major piece I wrote after returning from the Gralla fellowship program for Jewish journalists in the summer of 2005. (How long ago that seems!) I learned a lot at Gralla, but the most important lesson was how to think like a journalist.
I scrounged up this story myself, after a friend told me the Lutherans would be holding a convention in Orlando and that some anti-Israel resolutions were on the bill. I spent the weekend with the Lutheran delegates, learning their terminology, the various viewpoints within the church, and the key ideas that surrounded their vote on formally condemning Israel's security barrier. I made friends, but there were cultural differences: It was 8 a.m., the hall was filled with me and 1,000 Lutherans from all over the U.S., and (nice Jewish reporter that I am) I went in search of the table with the lox, bagels, cream cheese, juice.... After I'd circumnavigated the room without success, my Lutheran press counterpart asked me what was up. "Where's the food?" I demanded. "Oh," he said matter-of-factly, "we never have anything but water." I defy any other religious group to be so perfectly orderly and polite for three hours in the early morning with nothing but water....