Bringing it all back home

And now it’s over.

After the roller-coaster of the last two weeks, the 76th General Convention ended quietly, civilly, pleasantly Friday afternoon. Deputies packed up their paperwork and cleaned off their tables, then headed to hotels to pack, print out boarding passes in the lobby, and line up outside the UPS store to ship home heavy boxes of convention materials.

It was the deputies’ turn Friday to vote on resolution C056, which bishops passed on Wednesday. That’s the resolution that calls for a “generous pastoral response” to gay and lesbian couples, especially in jurisdictions where gay marriage is legal. It also calls for the church to do the theological study of same-sex blessings and to gather examples. The measure passed overwhelmingly, by 72 percent in the lay order and 68.5 percent among clergy.

There was 35 minutes’ worth of spirited debate before the vote. When the results were announced, there was no reaction. The house simply moved on to its next order of business.

“This is the mind of the house at work,” said the Rev. Gay Jennings, a deputy from Ohio who headed the committee that handled much of the legislation dealing with human sexuality.

I know there will be lots of questions when your deputation gets back to Southwest Florida, so it may be worth noting a couple of points:

* This resolution calls for “generous pastoral response” to gay couples. Well, we offer generous pastoral response to everyone. That’s what we do. Nothing new here.

* No one has authorized any rite or ritual for same-sex blessings. The resolution says,  “Let’s look at them, let’s see what’s out there, and let’s do the theology behind this issue.” That’s slow, patient work. The House of Bishops, in drafting the legislation, specifically invited “theological reflection from throughout the Anglican Communion.” We want to keep talking to our Anglican brothers and sisters, some of whom have ideas different from ours.

* The resolution honors “the theological diversity of this Church in regard to matters of human sexuality.” In other words: We know that reasonable, prayerful Christians disagree on this subject.

* * *

One of the casualties of the bare-bones, $141-million budget adopted for the next three years is the end of Episcopal Life as we know it. There’s no funding in the budget for the monthly tabloid newspaper we’re familiar with. The Church Center plans to turn it into a quarterly glossy magazine starting in 2010.

On a happier note, legislation was approved encouraging every congregation and diocese to “participate in one new or ongoing project that engages in a relationship with another part of the Body of Christ in the world.”At committee hearings, the backers of this resolution said they wanted to encourage Episcopalians to think outside the box, do mission outside their comfort zone. That could be across town or around the corner. Start thinking about what your project will be.

Another healthy piece of legislation is “The 80-Cent Solution.” If every one of us donated 80 cents a year, we’d be able to double the number of Episcopal missionaries around the world. Eighty cents is a lot less than we all spend on coffee every day. I’m hoping someone in our diocese will take this on and come up with a clever way for us all to put in our 80 cents’ worth.

* * *

There are images from convention that will stay with me a long time. Among them: A hotel ballroom packed with young people, rocking out to the music of U2 and getting wildly fired up to support the Millennium Development Goals. The Rev. Mike Kinman, former director of Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation, challenged them all: Text somebody, or tweet, or update your Facebook status with this pledge: “I am working and praying to eliminate extreme poverty.” (I checked: They did.) When people who could be anywhere they want at 9 o’clock on a Friday night want to come to a U2charist to dance and sing about Jesus, we must be in pretty good shape.

“It’s time to end chapter 76 in the book of life in the House of Deputies,” president Bonnie Anderson said in her closing remarks Friday afternoon. It’s time for me to pack my suitcase and get a few hours’ sleep before the airport shuttle comes at 5:57 a.m. Two weeks ago, when I flew West — how long ago that seems now! — I was thinking about the spacious skies, the amber waves of grain, the beauty and bounty of our country. Now, heading home after the life-changing experience of General Convention, I’ll be marching in the light of God. — Judy Stark

Down the home stretch

The air is leaking out of this balloon.

The mood changed overnight at convention. On Wednesday we were crazed, tense, frantic, overwhelmed by the work that lay ahead of us. Overnight, like a cold front moving in after a steamy day, things changed. There was plenty of work to do but suddenly it seemed manageable. We went at it calmly and deliberately.

The exhibit hall closed at 2 p.m., and people have started taking down decorations from their tables in the House of Deputies. People are ready for this one to be over. It’s time to go home.

The big task Thursday was passing a slash-your-wrists budget that represented a cut of $23-million. For several hours in the morning, deputy after deputy approached the microphone moving amendments to restore funding for projects and initiatives close to their hearts. All of them were defeated. It’s a recommendation of the Committee on Program, Budget & Finance that if you restore funds for Project A, you have to show where you’d cut from Project B. Nobody wanted to go there.

The final vote was quiet, almost anticlimactic. Then a deputy rose to request that we pray “for those who are going to get the ax,” i.e., people at the Church Center in New York and elsewhere whose jobs will disappear as a result of the budget cuts we approved. Chaplain Frank Wade stepped to the dais to lead us in prayer. You could feel the mood changing: A few minutes ago the conversation was all about us and how our favorite programs were going to be hurt. Now we realized the victims here are the people at “815,” the church office: program officers, staff, executives. Chaplain Wade asked us to “look into the frightening mirror of the budget and realize our choices have faces.” It’s one thing to zero out a line item. It’s quite another to realize that someone will soon be without a job because you said “Aye!” when the vote was called.

* * *

Deputies this week approved a resolution repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery. This doctrine, which originated with Henry VII in 1496, holds that “Christian sovereigns and their representative explorers could assert dominion and title over non-Christian lands with the full blessing and sanction of the Church.” It gave explorers such as John Cabot and Sir Walter Raleigh the right to claim lands from Native Americans, and the monarchy often referred to those indigenous people as “heathens” and “infidels.”

During the debate, a Native American deputy rose to remark dryly, “I thank Henry VII for discovering me and my people. I don’t know where we would be without him.”

* * *

Sometimes debate drones on as we vehemently agree with each other, and deputy after deputy takes the microphone to say, in effect but at length, “Me too, what the previous speaker said.” Sometimes we take up innocuous resolutions one by one — measures that no one disagrees with. People, this is what the consent agenda is for!  Sometimes it’s just annoying, like being asked to approve a 20-page resolution minutes after it is distributed. I begin to understand the shortcomings of the legislative process: It’s yes/no, up/down, and creates winners and losers. There’s no room here for nuance, for gray area, for both/and. I am feeling slightly more charitable toward the Florida Legislature.

* * *

One day this week our worship service was a paperless Eucharist. No printed program. The words to the hymns were projected on big screens, as were the response to the Prayers of the People. It worked well; everyone seemed to be able to follow along; and it was a gracious and dignified service with Bishop Mary Gray-Reeves of El Camino Real as the celebrant. The preacher was Bishop Steven Charleston, a familiar figure to those who have attended “Believe in a Miracle” in Southwest Florida, who issued a prophetic call to save the planet.

“For years now the environmental movement has told us that there is a clock ticking, a clock ticking, a great organic ecological clock that is ticking away the time of our lives to that when we no longer will be able to reverse the damage that we have done to this planet through our own greed, negligence and ignorance,” said Charleston, assistant bishop of California and provost of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco.

* * *
Thursday morning I sat in on the House of Bishops. This is a smaller, more collegial group than the deputies. They sit at round tables with a microphone in the center and hold up a big card with their table number when they want to be recognized by the Presiding Bishop to speak. This is much more casual than the 800-plus deputies, who have to line up at microphones to speak.

The bishops were discussing whether retired bishops should be allowed to vote in the House of Bishops. J. Jon Bruno, bishop of Los Angeles, was arguing to let retirees retain their votes, saying, “We shouldn’t emasculate them, or whatever it is for females.” PB Katharine Jefferts Schori stepped right in: “Don’t go there, Jon,” she said. Cue the laughter.

* * *

As convention draws to a close, some people of a conservative bent are feeling ignored and shut out. They think the convention has been one-sided and say that people whose viewpoints have prevailed are doing the victory dance. I’ve been amazed at how some of the national media have overstated what the bishops did Wednesday in passing the resolution urging generous pastoral care for same-sex couples and starting a process of studying the theology of same-sex blessings and collecting examples and drafts to examine at General Convention three years from now. Deputies will get that legislation Friday morning.

“A lot of the anxiety outside this place is reflected in misinformation,” the Presiding Bishop told the House of Bishops on Thursday morning. Some people, she said, are spinning the news in ways that aren’t accurate. “When we go home our job will be to correct the misinformation.” – Judy Stark

Bishops offer “generous pastoral response”

In another astonishing surprise in a convention that’s been full of them, the House of Bishops on Wednesday voted 104-30 with two abstentions to provide “a generous pastoral response” to gay and lesbian couples, particularly in areas where gay marriage, civil unions or domestic partnerships are legal.

Acknowledging the “changing circumstances” in the United States and elsewhere as laws change, the resolution asks that theological resources be gathered and liturgies designed and brought to the 2012 General Convention for consideration.

The House of Deputies, which has approved by large margins this week several other pieces of legislation relating to human sexuality, will take up the resolution on Thursday.

Bishop Smith voted in favor of the resolution.

Bishops gathered informally earlier in “indaba groups” — the small groups for sharing and deep conversation in which they worked at the Lambeth Conference last summer — to decide how to deal with the issue. Bishop Smith said he voted in favor “because I was part of the conversation to reshape that whole resolution,” C056.

Before the final vote, there was a parliamentary maneuver to discharge, or kill, the resolution. Bishop Smith said he “first voted to discharge because I hoped not to have to vote on it at all.” But the discharge vote failed, 94-42.

Bishop Smith said the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music has been asked to work with the House of Bishops and the Anglican Communion in an open process “to do the theological work” surrounding same-sex blessings, to gather resources, and to report to General Convention in 2012.

Bishop Smith he told Bishop Gene Robinson after the vote, “I’m not sure I can vote for same-sex blessings in three years.”

Several bishops underscored that Wednesday’s action is a small step, according to Episcopal Life Online. Bishop Andy Doyle of Texas, who voted against C056, said, “Nothing we did today actually did anything other than provide for the collection of and design of rites for a conversation. That’s very important to understand. We didn’t bless or move toward blessings any more than we were.”

Bishop Jeffrey Lee of Chicago, who voted for C056 and was part of the informal indaba group, said, “There’s a lot of ground between here and there,” i.e., blessing same-gender relationships

Lee said, “It doesn’t really change from a previous General Convention resolution in 2003 that recognizes congregations are operating within the bonds of our common life by responding with a wide range of pastoral responses to the needs of the members of the church.”

Bishop Smith said he will have more to say to the diocese on this topic after convention. – Judy Stark

A long, long trail a-windin’

While the bishops were making history Wedneday, the deputies were up to their hips in the quicksand of legislation. With little debate they swiftly approved a denominational health plan and a pension plan for lay employees.

They also approved a resolution urging the president of the HOD to appoint deputies under age 30 to legislative committees at the next convention. Younger deputies — only 2 percent are under age 25, and just 3 percent between 25 and 35 — had been cranking that their elders say they want to attract young people and want to hear their voices, but they don’t put them in positions of responsibility.

Earlier this week, both houses approved the addition of a lengthy list of names commemorated in the church calendar. The current book of saints we remember is Lesser Feasts and Fasts. The new edition, to be called Holy Women, Holy Men, will be used on a trial basis for three years. Among the proposed additions: Bach, Handel and Purcell; W.E.B. DuBois; Christina Rossetti; and Frederick Douglass.

* * *

HOD president Bonnie Anderson warned Wednesday that we may be called into a special session Thursday evening (after working all day) to keep pace with the tsunami of legislation. I’m already envisioning another dinner on the run from Subway. I’ve eaten so many meals there I’m starting to feel like Jared, their poster boy for weight loss.

The budget was unveiled this afternoon, and it’s grim, as anticipated. The drafters have cut $23-million (you read that right), and there’s scarcely a program that escaped the knife. Some had their funding cut by 100 percent. The annual “asking” from dioceses is scheduled to drop from 21 percent in 2010 to 20 percent in 2011 and 19 percent in 2012. The 0.7 percent of the budget for the Millenium Development Goals, which disappeared in an earlier draft, is back.

You can’t amend the budget to restore funding to your pet project unless you name what else you’d cut to find the money, i.e., who else’s pet project you’d cannibalize. So we will likely howl with pain, hold our noses and approve it. It is not a pretty sight. – Judy Stark

The pressure’s on

We’re getting testy now.

The legislation is starting to snowball. The clock is ticking. So the word now is: Move it, move it, move it. Git ‘er done. Pick up the pace. Where last week we were deliberate and thoughtful, now we’ve moved into the lightning round.

With too much work and too little time, the attitude in early-morning committee meetings is: Will this do? Let’s don’t beat this one to death. Don’t waste time on a lot of amendments. Good enough is good enough. Yet still we tweak, lest our language trip us up: Should we say “the” Anglican Covenant or “an” Anglican Covenant? Are we talking about a “response” to something or a “commitment” to it? Do we want to mandate this, or just encourage it? Which word will fly in the House of Bishops?

On the floor of the House of Deputies on Tuesday, the tension was showing. President Bonnie Anderson said in so many words that she didn’t want to see a lot of points of personal privilege, announcements, or questions that could be answered elsewhere.

Resolutions approved by the House of Bishops are coming to the House of Deputies. If we tack on any amendments when we approve them, those resolutions will have to go back to the bishops for another approval. Given the short time, chances are good the bishops will never get around to revisiting them. So there was clear pressure among the deputies Tuesday: Forget about amendments, they’re a death knell. Just let it be. We can fix it at the next convention.

There’s little patience for nuance and nicety. There were some cranky exchanges on the floor.

On Tuesday morning, deputies complained that too much time was spent debating amendments, leaving no time to discuss the main motion. So we passed a rule to fix that. By afternoon people were complaining that there was no time to introduce amendments and they felt steamrolled. There will be some motions Wednesday morning to fix this.

Either way, generosity of spirit is in short supply.

* * *

Everyone is talking about D025, the resolution on open ordination (find the text at episcopalcafe.com). But as our bishop, Dabney Smith, said this afternoon, a whole lot more has been approved that hasn’t grabbed the headlines. Such as:

* A major evangelism effort targeting Latinos/Hispanics, creating 46 new congregations in the next three years and finding ways for existing small Anglo churches in Hispanic areas to reach out to their neighbors.

* Five Marks of Ministry, a set of priorities that will guide spending and program from 2010 through 2012. Those proposed priorities are: doing justice and alleviating poverty; claiming our identity; growing congregations; strengthening governance and foundations for mission; and promoting Anglican partnerships.

* Of special interest to Southwest Florida, the missionary Harriet Bedell (1875-1969) has now been placed on the permanent calendar of saints. The church remembers her on Jan. 8. Her commemoration had been approved for trial use in 2006; now this Episcopal deaconess — who worked among the native Americans in Southwest Florida — is approved permanently.

* * *

There will be 10 celebrations of the Eucharist during Convention, each one serving several thousand people at the main altar and at 12 stations around the hall. Here’s what it takes to deliver the body and blood of Christ, according to the Episcopal Life Convention Daily:

16 cases of wine
300 to 400 pounds of bread
120 goblets
12 trays
80 baskets

* * *
We’ll get the budget on Wednesday, and we’re already hearing that every line item has taken a hit, there’s plenty of pain for everyone to share. The bishops on Wednesday will consider a resolution about same-sex blessings. We’ll keep slogging through resolutions, consent calendars and elections.

We deal with stress by nonstop nibbling. At our table we have M&Ms, both plain and peanut, and plenty of homemade goodies, both sweet and savory, prepared by our senior deputy, Joan Kline. Other deputies come trick-or-treating at our table, hoping for a handout, which we’re glad to provide. We’re all in this together. — Judy Stark

Conservative voices harder to find

Dear friends of Southwest Florida:

It has been an incredibly busy time for your deputation. And we are humbled to be allowed to represent you.

Our deputation is diverse on many issues but respect each other and genuinely listen to each other.

The conservative voice in The Episcopal Church here at General Convention is quite diminished in number and that is challenging for some of us. I believe that it is important all voices are heard.

I do stand on the traditional interpretations of Scripture and doctrine and have had opportunity to share this witness. My prayer is that somehow we can stay together as TEC in the Anglican Communion.

Thank you all for your prayers for our deputation and Bishop. We need them and appreciate you all in our diocese.

In Christ’s Love,
Pastor Sharon Lewis+ chair

This is where we are

This afternoon, by a margin of 2 to 1, the House of Bishops approved resolution D025, the measure that opens the door to gay and lesbian candidates in all orders of ministry. Deputies approved D025 on Sunday. I have to say, I’m surprised — I wouldn’t have bet on it — but what you’re seeing here is the mind of the House of Bishops at work.

Bishop Smith voted no; you can find the roll call at episcopalcafe.com.

“This is the truth about where we are as the Episcopal Church,” several bishops said. Yes, we are open to all; and yes, we are concerned about our relationship with the rest of the Anglican Communion. Yes, there will be repercussions, for people in the pews and around the Communion, but our bishops seem to be willing to deal with them. This was a history-making day.

* * *

Today we sat in legislative session for two hours in the morning and four and a half hours in the afternoon. We’re about two days behind schedule, and we’ve passed the halfway point of convention. We’re going to be hustling from here on out.

Deputies vote in several ways. Usually it’s by voice vote. Occasionally it’s by show of hands. And sometimes we vote with hand-held devices about the size and shape of a cell phone. On the keypad you press 1 for yes, 2 for no, and the results are available instantaneously. These devices are great. When they work.

Today: Not so much. We were electing members of the Trial Court when the devices ceased to work properly and it looked as if 100 votes just disappeared or weren’t counted.

While the staff investigated the vanished votes, deputy Debby Melnyk of the Diocese of Florida rose to offer the help of her deputation. “We have some expertise dealing with flawed ballots,” she told House of Deputies president Bonnie Anderson.

The hall burst into laughter and applause. Anderson brought us back to order — we don’t applaud in the HOD without her permission — but conceded, “If we were going to applaud, we’d applaud that.”

(And what happened to the vanished votes, which actually totaled 83? Well, three people voted for someone who had already been elected. Eighty people voted for lay candidates at a time when we were supposed to be electing clergy candidates. Never mind!)

* * *

I like to spend part of every day cruising the booths at the exhibit hall. I always stop for a cup of Bishop’s Blend coffee at the Episcopal Relief and Development booth (where I picked up a free coffee scoop). Then I move on to see what else is new. Every day I find a group I’ve never heard of: the Episcopal Network for Animal Welfare, the Episcopal Women’s History Project, Appalachian Ministries. At the National Episcopal Health Ministries you can enjoy a chair massage. At the Episcopal Disabilities Network booth they bring in service dogs every day. I like to go by to scratch some ears and rub some tummies and get some puppy kisses. Can you tell I’m missing my little boy, Corky the Irish terrier?

* * *

A major piece of legislation won approval in the House of Deputies today: the revision of Title IV of the canons, dealing with clergy discipline. Give a big shout-out to our Southwest Florida deputy Roger Schwenke, a member of the committee on canons, who has been working on this revision for nine years. The Deputies obligingly refrained from on-the-floor amending, rewriting, wordsmithing and otherwise inflicting death by a thousand cuts on the revision and moved it swiftly to passage.

Thanks to Roger and the rest of the committee who worked pastorally and legally to rewrite a canon that had been based on the Code of Military Justice (!!) and reworked it into a document that reflects what we’re about as a church.

Tuesday: We legislate, therefore we are. More early-morning committee meetings, then all-day legislation. Our cavernous meeting hall is always cold. I’m wearing two sweaters, a jacket and socks to stay warm. — Judy Stark

Still Anglican, still Episcopalian

The big news of the day is that the House of Deputies approved resolution D025, a response to B033, the resolution passed at General Convention in 2006 that placed a moratorium on the election of gay bishops.

Sorry to boggle you with all that convention-ese of resolution names and numbers.

I think it’s important to point out what this resolution does and doesn’t do, before we all start wringing our hands and doing the Chicken Little thing. The sky has not fallen. Even one of the deputies who crafted the bill said, “This is not a great leap forward.”

The bill reaffirms the continued participation of the Episcopal Church in the Anglican Communion. It encourages us to be involved in work throughout the communion, and it reaffirms the financial support of the Episcopal Church for the Anglican Communion. (These are some of the very deliberate steps toward reconciliation that I’ve talked about in earlier posts. The “bonds of affection” with our brothers and sisters around the Communion are important.)

The resolution also recognizes that same-sex relationships represent fidelity and holy love. It recognizes that gays and lesbians in same-sex relationships have exercised ministry in the church.

It acknowledges that God has called and may call any individual in the church to any ordained ministry in the church, in accordance with the discernment process set forth in our Constitution and Canons. This one’s important. No parish is going to be forced to call a gay rector. No diocese is going to be forced to elect a gay bishop. As anyone who has ever served on a search committee knows, we have lengthy and painstaking discernment processes to determine who it is God is calling to be our next spiritual leader. And in the case of bishops, Standing Committees and bishops will still have to decide whether to approve the election of every bishop. (The church jargon here is “giving their consents.”)

Essentially, this resolution is saying that our Constitution and Canons carry greater weight than a General Convention resolution. And our canons already say we don’t discriminate.

The resolution also acknowledges that the Anglican Communion is not of one mind on these matters. This is hard. We’re all not in the same place on this. Reasonable, prayerful, committed Christians can disagree. My mother and I don’t agree on this. We’ve agreed to keep loving each other anyway.

The approval was by a margin of more than 2 to 1 in both the clergy and the lay orders. When the results were announced, the rules of the House of Deputies were in place, so there was no applause, no cheering.

What now? Well, only the House of Deputies has passed this resolution. It goes next to the House of Bishops. Some people are speculating that they’ll take a more conservative view than the Deputies. In the next few days Convention will take up a number of other measures relating to human sexuality and same-sex blessings. Sunday’s vote certainly showed the mind of the House. Now it will be interesting to see whether that 2-to-1 margin holds as the week unfolds. At 7:30 Monday morning I’ll be at a hearing on some of those resolutions yet to come.

* * *

The Rev. Frank Wade, chaplain to the House of Deputies, has been grounding us in prayer at the start and end of every legislative session. On Saturday, he observed, “Christianity is a verb. It is something we do. We call ourselves followers of Jesus because Jesus was going somewhere. If that weren’t the case, we’d have to say that we’re ‘attached to Jesus’ or ‘stacked next to Jesus’ or ‘filed under Jesus.’ “

* * *

At a Sunday morning breakfast sponsored by the Episcopal Women’s Caucus, president Elizabeth Kaeton remarked that “members of the Episcopal Church Women wear white gloves. We wear boxing gloves.” (The caucus advocates to advance the role of women, particularly clergy, in the church, and supports progressive causes.) Later Elizabeth Habecker, vice president of the Episcopal Church Women, stepped to the microphone with this correction: “We don’t wear white gloves, we wear work gloves!”

* * *

How You Know You’re in California: Fellow deputy Roger Schwenke and I grabbed a sub at the Subway a block from the hotel at lunchtime today. (Ah, the glamorous life of a conventioneer.) We discovered some differences from the fare that’s offered at the Subways in Southwest Florida. Here, you can order jalapeno-and-cheese bread, and for a slight up charge you can add avocadoes to your sandwich. How California is that? – Judy Stark

Imagine my surprise!

In her sermon this morning, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said that a few days before convention, she had looked at the listserv for members of the House of Deputies. This is an online bulletin board where we deputies have been exchanging information, trading ideas, debating (and sometimes hollering at each other) for months.

She said she had read with interest a lengthy exchange among deputies about what to bring to Anaheim — what’s the must-have, don’t-leave-home-without-it thing to be sure to pack. Deputies offered lots of responses: bring inspirational photos of your church, pack some energy bars for days when there’s no time for meals, bring the charger for your electronics, and so on. (One deputy even offered instructions on how he dries the socks he washes in his hotel bathroom.)

I sat in the huge hall, open-mouthed, because I was the one who posted the original query that started the discussion.

Imagine that! I inspired the Presiding Bishop’s sermon!

She went on to relate our concerns about what to pack to today’s Gospel, from Luke: Travel light, take no purse, no bag, no sandals. In other words: Travel light.

The other lesson for me: Sometimes the most important thing you can do is raise the question. Others will chime in with answers, but someone has to ask the question first. Another reason to love the Episcopal Church! It’s always okay to ask. – Judy Stark

Wish you were here

One of the themes I hear repeatedly — on the convention floor, in the trade show, at meals, in committees — is regret for the absence of conservative voices at this year’s convention. There’s a split in the family, make no mistake. Those who have chosen to leave the Episcopal Church are missed.

“The church has lost a voice, a voice that was a part of who we are and who we were,” Assistant Bishop William Skilton of the Dominican Republic said at a committee hearing this week. “One of the fears I have is that it will be totally lost.”

The rancor is largely gone, as are divisive and hurtful actions like holding separate Eucharists, which happened at last General Convention. At a committee meeting Saturday morning to craft the wording of a resolution on same-sex blessings, the Very Rev. Sam Candler, dean of the cathedral in Atlanta, urged “appealing to voices from across the spectrum” and “inviting participation from around the Anglican
Communion.”

Friday morning, the head of our deputation, the Rev. Sharon Lewis of Holy Spirit, Osprey, spoke to the House of Deputies about  the need to stay in relationship with others. Comparing the church to an airplane, Pastor Lewis said, “If one wing is removed, the plane will spiral down.” Later she reported positive feedback and support from people on all sides of the issue.

* * *

At Friday night’s Integrity Eucharist, the preacher, Barbara Harris — the first woman bishop in the Episcopal Church — was at her usual no-holds-barred best. “If you don’t want GLBT folks as bishops, don’t ordain them as deacons,” she said. “Better yet, be honest and say, ‘We don’t want you, you don’t belong here,’ and don’t bestow on them the sacrament of baptism to start with. How can you initiate someone and treat them like they are half-assed baptized?”

Saturday night, I accompanied Canon Gigi Conner of St. Peter’s Cathedral to the dinner given by Episcopal Divinity School, her seminary, where Bishop Harris was also present. We chatted with her, remarking on her comments the night before. “I’m so old, I can say whatever I want,” said Bishop Harris, 79, “and I don’t get called into somebody’s office to explain myself.”

* * *

The heavy-duty legislation is starting to move. Title IV, on clergy discipline, likely will come to the House of Deputies on Sunday (yes, we work Sundays too), and the House of Bishops has approved a pension plan for lay employees. The language of the resolution on gay bishops is now out and will come before the Deputies on Sunday or Monday.

But there are moments of loopiness. The last two days a stray pigeon has found its way into the huge deputies’ hall, and we watch with amusement as it swoops and dives around. “Look, it’s a dove, the Holy Spirit,” someone shouted the first time it made an appearance.

Saturday afternoon deputies got a 10-minute break to read candidate bios before electing members of a trial court of a bishop. The hall’s piped-in music was turned on during the break, and it wasn’t long before the entire house broke into an enthusiastic chorus of “You Are My Sunshine.” It’s the little things that keep us sane.

* * *

When we all go to Disney World in Orlando, we approach by car through several miles of beautifully landscaped grounds. Not so here. Disneyland is literally just across the street from the convention center, ringed by motels. You walk there. En route to breakfast every morning we encounter brigades of moms and dads and kids and strollers on their way to the original Magic Kingdom. You can see the rides and structures from the sidewalk.

We’ve quickly learned that the restaurants here don’t speak “sweet tea,” but they’re big on pomegranate and peach tea.

I want to thank all of you who have responded to these postings. I appreciate your feedback! And thanks to all of you who are keeping your deputation in prayer. We are strengthened by your prayers as we struggle to discern what the Spirit is saying to God’s people. Thank you for this opportunity to serve. — Judy Stark