ALTERNATIVE CHRISTMAS SHOPPING

If you are tired of the commercialism of Christmas or want to make a statement with your gifts of your Christian commitment to justice and peace, here are some opportunities to give non-traditional gifts:

Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) has a catalog of gifts in a range of prices for purposes such as assuring clean water supply in a village in a developing country, providing for child nutrition, mosquito netting and anti-malaria medicine and much more. Certificates of your gift are provided in exchange for your donation. ERD also packages and sells fair trade “Bishop’s Blend” coffee and coffee gift baskets. The ERD website is http://www.er-d.org/. You can also call Episcopal Relief and Development to order a catalogue at Phone: 800-334-7626, ext 5129

A similar way to make charitable giving fun is by giving to the Heifer Project. They use your donations to provide animals to alleviate hunger and help people become self-sufficient. You can give something as small as a hive of bees or as large as an ark and they give you attractive acknowledgement cards to give to people. Their website is http://www.heifer.org/ or you can call for a catalogue: (800) 422-0474.

A local opportunity for “alternative Christmas shopping” is at Plow Sharing Crafts, a ministry of the Mennonite Church which works with disadvantaged crafts people around the world who are paid a fair wage for their work. (Plowsharing Crafts is part of Ten Thousand Villages). You can find them online at: http://www.plowsharing.org/ Ten Thousand Villages is online at http://www.tenthousandvillages.com/ There are two locations in St Louis, one in Kirkwood at 151 W. Jefferson (314) 909-9401 and the original location in University City at 6271 Delmar (314) 863-3723.

Another fair trade option is MacroSun International. They have a location here in St. Louis at 1310 Washington Ave., 63103 (314) 421-6400, or visit their website at http://www.macrosun.com/.

Trinity Food Ministry is selling Christmas cards for $1.00 a card or if you make a donation in honor of someone, they will send an attractive card as an acknowledgement. For more information on that, call Trinity at 361 4655.

Dr. Mark Manary, a Washington University physician and a member of Gethsemane Lutheran Church, has started an organization called Project Peanut Butter, a ministry with undernourished children in Malawi. He uses a high nutrient food to stabilize starving children which uses peanut butter (made from locally grown peanuts, so the project also supports farming in Malawi) as a base. $25 will feed 2000 starving Malawian children. Donations may be sent to: Project Peanut Butter, 7435 Flora, St. Louis 63143. They also send an attractive thank you card if you make a donation in someone’s honor. You can find out more on their website http://www.projectpeanutbutter.org/.

Magdalene is a two year residential program working with women in Nashville with a history of prostitution and drug addiction. As part of the rehabilitation of the women and as a financial support Magdalene began "Thistle Farms" a line of bath and body products. These are natural products that are as kind to the environment as they are to the body. We showcased these products at our Holiday Luncheon this year and samples for viewing in the parish hall. Please check out their website at http://www.thistlefarms.org/ .

And of course you can always buy fair trade coffee, tea, cocoa and chocolate here at St Mark’s or make a donation to St Mark’s or one of its ministries or funds like the organ fund or access fund, in honor of someone you love. We’ll be happy to send a letter to your friends or family telling that a donation has been made in their honor.

All Souls' Day

So today is November 2, All Souls' Day, a day when the church remembers those who have died. More and more we blur the line between All Saints' Day-- when we remember those particular heros of the faith who have been outstanding examples in one way or another or whose lives have shaped the Christian tradition-- and All Souls' Day. We blur that line because we know that only God knows what kind of hierarchy of saintliness there is among us, how much each life matters to the coming of God's kingdom. And we blur that line because we have people in our lives who have been examples of wisdom and courage and faith who will never be "officially" saints for the whole church but who have been holy examples for us. And we blur that line because we believe that God makes us holy by our baptism in to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and calls us all to holy lives.
One of the difficulties about keeping a church blog is that many of the really amazingly wonderful moments in ministry are about being privileged to be part of the lives of other people -- I get to hear people's stories, to journey with people as they seek new direction in their lives, as they search for the sacred, as they make commitments to service in the world, as they face disappointment and setbacks, as they struggle with disease and approach death. But mostly, this is material that is not appropriate for a blog. I know there are people who blog about the most intimate details of their relationships but I don't think that a priest can write that kind of stuff about parishioners. But I thought I would post the homily I preached at a memorial service on October 19th on my moribund sermon blog. You can also listen to an old sermon there. Maybe more will appear to join it soon... Maybe not. Here is a quotation from Frederick Beuchner which a friend sent me yesterday

On All Saints Day, it is not just the saints of the church that we should remember in our prayers, but all the foolish ones and wise ones, the shy ones and overbearing ones, the broken ones and whole ones, the despots and tosspots and crackpots of our lives who, one way or another, have been our particular fathers and mothers and saints, and whom we loved without knowing we loved them and by whom we were helped to whatever little we may have, or ever hope to have, of some kind of seedy sainthood of our own."

- The Sacred Journey p.74

For the BIble Tells me So

For the Bible Tells Me So was shown here in St Louis, sponsored by HRC. It was well done, moving and amusing in that "laughing until you cry" way. I was especially touched by the story of the Robinsons and by Gene and his story made me feel proud to be Episcopalian all over again. As a Missourian (by adoption and grace) , I was also touched by the Gephardts' story.

But as the parent of a child who identifies as "gender queer" and another who identifies as bi- (both of whom are not at all clear that the church is a place they will find nurture as adults, grateful though they are for growing up in it in some ways) I noticed the following:

In the lovely animated segment which was a parody of the sex-ed films many of us grew up with but devoted to explaining sexual orientation, the issue of being "bi sexual" was dismissed out of hand in a way designed to make the audience laugh.

There was no household with a child who was gender variant or self identified as "transgender". In fact, in various ways parents described their gay and lesbian children as NOT like stereotypical gay men --portrayed as ridiculously effeminate and "limp wristed" and not like "butch" lesbian women. In other words, the parents acceptance of their childrens' sexuality seemed to be predicated on the fact that the children were gay or lesbian but still stereotypically masculine or feminine.

Please understand that I loved this movie. I loved in particular the story of the Poteat family, where theological convictions about the wrongness of the lifestyle of a lesbian daughter struggled alongside a love for that daughter and a commitment to remain in relationship with her. I was moved by the tragic story of the mother whose religious beliefs made it impossible to accept her child's sexual orientation until it was too late. I loved the stories of parents whose gay and lesbian children turned them into amazing activists. I plan to show this movie when it is available on DVD in my congregation. I have recommended it to friends. But even though it seems too controversial for many PBS stations, it was a reminder to me of how much work we, as a church, have yet to do.

Fall already?

I just sent out a new e-mail, artfully formatted, in the hopes that it will facilitate better communication in the congregation. On my grumbly days I feel that we don't have a communication problem, we have a listening problem or a reading problem. I just grumbled to someone at the Y that the meeting she was asking me if I planned to attend was one I never had heard of before. "I sent an email" she replied... Yeah, she probably did and I probably didn't read it or didn't transfer the info to my Palm or didn't synch it or... We all get so much data and have so many options for how to spend out time it is amazing any of us can keep track of anything...

In the email I included a link to this blog and to my shame I see that the last posting was in August. How interesting is that?

Since then we've had opening day, two "Children in Church"Sundays (or squirmy Sundays as some of our parishioners say), over a month of 9 a.m. "Life up Your Hearts", two Christian Education suppers in our talking about money series "The M Word". We've had a gifts discernment workshop, several meetings of our youth groups, two stewardship meetings, several choir rehearsals and much more.

Here is how The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori closed her webcast today:

One of my predecessors was fond of saying, "in this church there will be no outcasts." I concur, and I challenge each one of us to consider who it is we would most like to be rid of. That person, my friends, is the image of Christ in our midst. There will be no outcasts in this church, whether because of sexual orientation or theological perspective. God has given us to each other, to love and to learn from each other. May God bless each and every part of this body.

If you missed it (I did) I think you can watch it here .

Kiva Suppers -- Eat in to Help Out

A group of about 18 Saint Markans gathered for a supper on August 12th. The rector (me) and Senior Warden and spouses were the hosts, our children and their friends provided extremely efficient and amazingly cheerful help. We ate in the parish hall. The guests were to bring money, whatever they would spend on a night out (and that night out might be at McDonalds or at some amazingly fancy restaurant) and we would pool our money and use it to give microcredit loans through the website Kiva.org. The menu was local food from the Tower Grove Farmers' Market-- Lamb kebabs from Prairie Farms, roasted veggies from Biver Farms, a tomato salad with tomatos from various local vendors and local potatoes with herbs from the Speller garden. The desserts were a raspberry tart with local raspberries and jam from Centennial Farms in Augusta, a plum berry crisp featuring blackberries from Centennial Farms. The wines were not so local, which was probably okay, too... We raised (including a couple of donations from people who loved the idea but could not attend) $550. While dinner was getting ready (and we ate local tomato and Black Bear bakery bruschetta with local goat cheese and another kind of bruschetta from local egg plants) people browsed on the Kiva Website for worthy entrepreneurs. We decided on two -- a farmer in Azerbajan and a woman shop owner in Nigeria. But by the next day, when we had set up a Pay Pal account for the church, these two entrepreneurs had been fully subscribed. So Sue, the treasurer who set up the Paypal account, and I "shopped" for other entrepreneurs and this is what we came up with:
http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=15912

http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=16015

http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=15484

http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=16073

These loan recipients are like the original ones in representing more than one area of enterprise, more than one geographical area and in at least one case, our loan helped the recipient achieve his or her total loan goal.

It is amazing to think that $550 could make such a huge difference in the lives of four people and their families, allowing them to take businesses to the next step and to be economically independent and able to educate their children. To most of us around the table, $550 is an amount of money we would notice-- not just the kind of change you'd drop on the street and not bother to pick up-- but for few of us was it a life changing amount of money, either. It reminded us of our many advantages and privileges as Americans and maybe made us think about our regular patterns of giving and whether as individuals we might want to become KIVA investors.

Toothpaste and the paradox of choice

Today I was in the supermarket and thought I should buy more toothpaste as the tube we are currently using is almost used up. When I was a child, we used Colgate toothpaste and it seemed to me that it came in only one flavor. Other families used Crest and others used Pepsodent, although obviously not very many because it went out of business. I had a strong preference for Colgate but John came from a Crest family and I became a Crest convert. But recently when I have gone toothpaste shopping I have noticed that there are more and more KINDS of Crest. There are gels and creams, there are kinds that whiten, kinds that help with sensitive teeth, kinds that have mouthwash to prevent bad breath, kinds that protect against cavities, kinds that prevent against tartar, kinds aimed at kids, kinds with baking powder (the kind I hate the most) and kinds that do various things but have non minty flavors like cinamon, citrus and lemon. There is a kind called "nature's expressions" which comes in Mint and Green Tea, among other flavors. So I am standing there looking for the kind I like, which has Scope and something else in a stripy paste. Can I see it? Can I figure out which-- of fhis vast range of choices-- it is... not really. My goal, of course, is to find the brand of Crest which tastes the most like the Colgate of my childhood. Anyway, as I stood there, wondering which flavor I wanted and which attributes, I was thinking, not for the first time, about an NPR interview I heard with a man called Barry Schwartz who wrote a book called The Paradox of Choice:Why More is Less which describes this very dilemma -- we think as a culture that choice is a good thing but then we are overwhelmed by the problem of choosing. Here is a link to the interview. John's dad always said that Coleman's mustard made their money from the mustard that stayed on the plate not the mustard you put on your meat. I wonder whether toothpaste manufacurers have discovered that the secret to profitability is having so many kinds of toothpaste that desperate consumers buy a kind and CAN'T STAND IT and go back for a different kind the next day...

Catching up... and new Blog

Maybe I am not cut out to have a blog.

So much has happened... so much to report... and I have not made time for any of it.

But I'm writing now to point out that I have made a blog for the General Convention Deputies from Missouri to respond to the Draft Anglican Covenant. If this is interesting to you, you can find it here: http://draftcovenantresponse.blogspot.com

I gather that the office of the bishop will be doing something when the House of Bishops' response is ready but I wouldn't want to miss the opportunity to offer input, whenever it is offered. I'll be offering discussion this Sunday and next at 9 a.m. at St Mark's.

On the Road with the Organ Committee

During 2006, the organ committee has visited several organs in the Saint Louis area, including the Dobson tracker in the First Unitarian Church and the Casavant tracker at Principia College. Last week, four of us (Lydia, John, Bob and Barbara) went to Chicago to visit four more instruments. The purpose of this is to identify organ builders from whom we would like to have bids. At each instrument, those who could play the organ (Bob and Barbara and sometimes the local organist would play for us as well) played a variety of music, so we could hear what the instrument would be like leading hymns and liturgy and for preludes, postludes and concerts. We listened to different stops (or groups of pipes voiced to sound in a particular way) and listened to see how certain stops sounded with other stops. Ideally, each stop is beautiful by itself but blends wonderfully with every other stop. Because we were listening to tracker (or mechanical action) organs, we wanted to be sure that the sound of the action wasn’t noticeable above the sound of the pipes. Another factor we looked at was the “feel” of the action: how sensitive and responsive are the keys to the touch? We tried to assess how well each organ builder had adapted the organ to the space in the church itself. Failure to do this can make an instrument sound too loud, too soft or too muddy. We looked at how each builder had designed the organ to complement or enhance the architectural look of the building. We are hopeful that this trip, undertaken at our own expense, will help the organ committee to identify three builders from whom we would like to have bids. We visited the 21 stop Halbert Gober organ (Op. 11) at Bethany Lutheran Church, Crystal Lake, IL ; which had a spectacular case

the 19 stop Hellmuth Wolff (Op. 37) at St. Giles Episcopal Church, Northbrook, IL ; The 23 stop Lynn Dobson organ (Op. 81) at Kenilworth Union Church, Kenilworth, IL and the 27 stop Martin Pasi organ (Op. 15) at the Episcopal Church of St. Paul, and the Redeemer, located near the University of Chicago. Here is a link to the Kenilworth organ on Dobson' site, showing how the organ itself was built. Here (below) is a picture of the interesting embossed pipes on the Dobson.

Below is a picture of the Pasi in St Paul and the Redeemer. I really like the ribbons over the altar, too.

Below is a picture of the Wolff at St Giles' Church, Northbrook and here is a link to the Wolff website for the specs and other information.





What are trackers, anyway? Well, right above this is a picture of the insides of a tracker instrument and you can read one church's explanation of how organs work here I suspect that I'll be editing this soon with some input from John Speller on websites that explain how organs work.

Painting the World

Today was the day that the youth of St Mark's, with lots of help from adults and younger children, painted a map of the world on the playground of Scrugg's School. Scruggs is an elementary school in south Saint Louis, more or less due east of the church. We have at least one parishioner who attended Scruggs (probably 50 years ago) and we have a parishioner who teaches there. Over the years we've tried to support the work of this teacher and she helps us to learn about the lives of the children in the school. A few years ago, our Outreach Committee partnered with Faith Beyond Walls, an agency which tries to encourage people of different races and faith traditions to work together, to paint a map of the US on the otherwise rather bare and barren playground. This year, a new generation of youth group got a small grant from Faith Beyond Walls intended to encourage youth groups to engage in ministries of service in the community. And with the money they bought a stencil of the world and a bunch of bright and new paint. So today St Markans touched up the US and painted the world. Three children from the neighborhood stopped by, as they had a few years ago, to see what we were doing and to help. Kids at Scruggs come from all over the world, including Bosnia, Somalia, and Afghanistan, so a map of the world is probably a good thing to have. Parishioners donated some jump ropes and balls and things to the athletic department for playground use and I think there was enough paint left over to paint squares for hopscotch. Anyway, here are a bunch of pictures of people at work and of their handiwork. Anna recruited four of her friends from Metro, so that St Louis School grads were doing something for a new generation of SLPS kids. Something odd is happening with the photo uploading. Blogger keeps saying I have done it successfully but no photos appear. Be patient I'll add them soon.

Coffee, coffee and paper

A friend brought me to the Saint Louis Coffee Oasis at 8 Euclid Street, which is at Euclid just north of Laclede. With luck you can park on Laclede. It has lovely decor, a wonderful whimsical painted wall with a camel saying "I'd walk miles for coffee from St Louis Coffee Oasis" or something similar. They have traditional espresso drinks and then Arabic coffee in various permutations, including an Arabic Latte which has wonderful spices in it. Today Anna had Arabic Tea which seemed to be infused with sage and other herbs and was served in a lovely gold trimmed tea glass (which is a little hard to hold when hot.) They put the Latte in a big glass but you get a Java jacket. They also have many different kinds of baklava and other Middle Eastern treats and lunches including Spinach Pie and Gyros. They advertize Free High Speed internet but I have not tried this. It looks as if this may be wired not wireless since there are little ethernet sockets along the wall, but I'm not sure. They also have tables outside, as many Central West End restaurants do, but with temperatures again in the high nineties or low hundreds, the attraction of sitting outside was rather limited for me.

On Sara and Laclede, over in that area on the fringes between Saint Louis University and the Central West End, there is a newish (year old?) coffee house called 6 North. It is 6 North Sarah. It is in a big new building of "loft style" apartments. The decor is lovely, they have some fabulous artwork including lovely luminous landscapes and huge watercolors of exotic plants. They have comfy chairs as well as tables. The ladies' room (and I assume, mutatis mutandis, the men's room) is decorative with witty sayings about coffee like "Behind every great woman there is a great cup of coffee." They serve Kaldi's coffee. I almost always prefer my coffee drinks hot but one day last week I succumbed to an icy granita like mocha drink there which was absolutely delicious. I have never actually had anything to eat there, but they have a list of enticing sandwiches and a display of delightful pastries.

Next to 6 North is a wonderful paper store called Sage Papers. They have cards, little notebooks an array of social stationary you can put through your printer (make your own cute baby announcements, for example), some lovely art paper or wrapping paper and much more. They also have elegant French correspondence cards marked GL which I am unable to resist. Lovely powder blue, lovely lined envelopes. They had wonderful paper boxes you can use for distinctive present wrapping or decorating. They also had whacky coasters that looked like flipflops.

And did I mention that all this is across the street from the wonderful restaurant Terrene which I believe I raved about here a few months ago. When Mo and Anna were at Metro, we drove up and down Sarah all th time and all this elegant and interesting stuff has sprung up there now we no longer spend so much time in the neighborhood. Oh well.

After the Starm

Today is a lovely and sunny day and there is a breeze and the humidity is manageable and it is only in the 80's. But even now as we drive through the city it seems that more traffic lights are out than are on, houses and shops are dark and huge branches and even trees still lie on sidewalks and across streets. I missed the storm itself on Wednesday evening. I was driving back from Cape Girardeau where we had had a post General Convention session. All the way up 55 there was sheet lightening and regular lightening. No rain, not much thunder (or not that I could hear with windows shut and A/C on high.) Every now and then the radio would offer a warning about thunderstorms with high winds but since I didn't know what counties I was driving through or what counties were affected by the warning, I decided to just keep driving.I guess the storm must have passed through St Louis while the bishop and deputies were fielding questions about the difference between straining the bonds of affection or breaching the bonds of affection within the Anglican communion. But when I got up to St Louis Hills there were trees and branches down everywhere. The church and its new roof appear to have been unscathed and the big elm in our backyard, alarmingly large and close to the house, held up just fine as did the big tree in the Memorial Garden.
Less fortunate was the apartment building on Clifton on the other side of Nottingham from the church. Streets around the church look like this. Murdoch and Locke were both blocked until well into Thursday. St Mark's was spared when the power went out on Wednesday but Thursday night the lights flashed on and off and then went off altogether until Friday afternoon. Ironically, Friday afternoon there was a second big windstorm which caused even more people to lose power but our power came back shortly after it passed through the area.

Friday AM Anna and I went to the Bread Company with all the other orphans of the storm. According to the power company there were 10,000 people without service in our zip code and it seemed as if most of them were at the Bread Company. I was there from 8 to 9:30 during which time over 150 people were served (you had to take a number.) There was the kind of survivor cameraderie that I've experienced waiting for a ferry off Nantucket after a hurricaine or the kind I imagine people had in London during the blitz, when whole families would go down into the underground to wait out air raids. People were helping one another figure out the Panera free WiFi , passing on what they knew about who had power and who didn't, exchanging rumors about when the power would come on, etc. Those of us who were there to plug in our laptops and get our email shared tables and electrical outlets, no longer strangers but companions.

The incredible heat of last week made me crabby and lethargic and then the power went off. When I think of all the places in the world where people are living with disrupted electrcity, I realize how little patience I have and how dependent on technology (my cordless phone, my computer, my cell phone) I have become and how spoiled by air conditioning I am. I would not have lasted ten minutes in the aftermath of Katrina or in Beirut or in the parts of St Louis where the mayor does not live and which are still waiting for power to come back on.

Post GC

So now I am in Saratoga Springs NY at the Organ Historical Society annual convention. We've been driving around upper NY state and southern VT in pouring rain, visiting churches which have historic organs and hearing short "demonstrations" of the organs.

Meanwhile, I've been talking with people at Pride about GC and hearing from colleagues and others who feel betrayed and wounded (as is completely understandable) by B033. I have been reading online all the various conspiracy theories -- that the HOB placed undue pressure on the deputies, that the deputies were misled about the level of support in the HOB for B033, that somehow the whole convention, including the PB election was manipulated by people on the fringes, left or right. I've read or heard various expressions of the view that B033 was a wasted effort because the right had already decided to leave TEC before they ever came to convention and that nothing we did has kept Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, SC, etc. from seeking alternative primatial oversight and condemning TEC for failing to respond adequately to the Windsor Report. Meanwhile, I am reading about the Archbishop of Canterbury's reported comments, which suggest that voting for language against my conscience may not have made much difference to him either. Would I vote the same way if I had it to do again? I am not sure. The day I would like to replay is Tuesday, on which we had a chance to bring more acceptable wording to the floor and failed, outmanoeuvered by people who are better at Roberts Rules and the HOD rules than I ever thought about being...

I still believe that there is nothing that God can't make something of, however, that we did the best we could do and we can't right now predict or control how others will feel about it nor how it will all play out in the life and future of TEC and the Anglican Communion.

Scenes from GC 2006

These are a couple of pictures of the MO deputation, taken when our bishop and resigned bishop were on the floor before the PB election. Below is a picture of the UTO box, thanks to Reynolds Whelan. At some point, someone in our deputation suggested that instead of using the UTO box in the usual way, putting in an offering every time we were thankful for something, we should use it as a kind of curse jar. Every time we were tempted to say something mean about the Elections Secretary (who in other contexts we know to be a delightful and competent person) and the voting process and the people who get up to the microphone to say things that don't need saying or, even worse, to say, "I think I can save the house some time if we just..". The box got pretty full most days -- and fuller still when we did indeed give thanks for the election of Katharine Jefferts Schori as our new PB.
Finally, just in case you might not have realized it, here is a photo of GC as a room amazingly full of all sorts and conditions of people.

The hardest day, Wednesday June 21

During the listening sessions and in other conversations leading up to GC 2006, I found myself saying that I had no idea how I would be voting because I had no idea what resolutions would ultimately come to the floor to be voted on. If you had told me in May of early June that I would find myself voting for B033, I would not have believed it. Here is my version of how and why it happened, which I hope makes clear some of the General Convention experience. I make no claim to speak for other Missouri deputies in this narrative.

Before a resolution comes to the floor of convention, it has been worked on by a committee, which has held public hearings as part of its process. Usually there are other vetting stages, for example each resolution is copy edited and checked for canonical issues. And then Dispatch of Business figures out how and when it will come to the floor. There are 22 legislative committees, all of which have the same process, so there is a ton of legislation coming to the floor. In addition, of course, each resolution has to pass in both the House of Deputies and the House of Bishops in the same form. This year’s convention had 9 business days – previous conventions have had two or three more. Committee 26, the Special Committee charged with the Windsor Report response resolutions, had the resolutions which came out of the Special Commission appointed by the Presiding Bishop and President of the House of Deputies plus various resolutions which came from dioceses, bishops and individual deputies. The hope was that they would have presented resolutions for both houses to vote on before the PB election, but that did not take place. They worked and worked and worked and held hearings including a giant hearing with at least 1,500 people. Strong opinions across a spectrum of belief were expressed on the authority of scripture, sexual orientation and behavior, the relationship of the Episcopal Church to the wider Anglican Communion, the meaning and propriety of expressing regret or repentance and so on. If you have strong feelings about this matter, you probably can pretty much guess for yourself what the speeches were like.
And although both houses had passed easier resolutions: regret for straining the bonds of affection with the Anglican communion, commitment to work towards an Anglican covenant, commitment to a listening process, willingness to have DEPO and, of course, money for the Anglican Consultative Council in our budget and commitment to the Millenium Development Goals, it was not until Tuesday that we got a resolution responding to the Windsor Report for a Moratorium. It arrived, and its language was pretty unacceptable to most of the house.

A161 (Anglican Communion: Election of Bishops)

Resolved, the House of Bishops concurring, that the 75th General Convention of the Episcopal Church regrets the extent to which we have, by action and inaction, contributed to strains on communion and caused deep offense to many faithful Anglican Christians as we consented to the consecration of a bishop living openly in a same-gender union. Accordingly, we are obliged to urge nominating committees, electing conventions, Standing Committees, and bishops with jurisdiction to exercise very considerable caution refrain from the nomination, election, consent to, and consecration of bishops whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion; and be it further

Resolved that this General Convention not proceed to develop or authorize Rites for the Blessing of same-sex unions at this time, thereby concurring with the Windsor Report in its exhortation to bishops of the Anglican Communion to honor the Primates’ Pastoral Letter of May 2003; and be it further

Resolved that this General Convention affirm the need to maintain a breadth of responses to situations of pastoral care for gay and lesbian Christians in this Church.

Resolved that this General Convention apologize to those gay and lesbian Episcopalians and their supporters hurt by these decisions.

It seemed too negative and too extreme. The apology at the end appeared gratuitous and unhelpful. For many people, at least for me, the “exercise considerable caution” language would have been much more acceptable. Meanwhile, someone rose to limit the time of debate on the motion and someone else rose to offer an amendment which used the even harsher language of “moratorium”. By the time the house had debated the amendment, there was no time left for a more moderate amendment. We voted the original down. I certainly was not savvy enough to know that in voting against it, I was assuring that there could be no more debate of this matter. There was an effort to reconsider, which I supported, but it did not prevail. This would have meant that the Episcopal Church was refusing to offer any response to the Anglican Communion on the matter of gay bishops, it would mean, as I understood it, just ignoring those in the Communion who had objected in 2003. Then the PB called the combined session, our bishop made it clear that this was our last chance as a house to respond to the WR, which I took to mean, our last chance to remain in the conversation with the Anglican Communion. More than that, our new PB elect, for whom I have huge admiration, asked us to vote for the language of B033, language which I would not otherwise have supported. Also, many respected members of the HOD, including GLBT people and allies said that they would be voting for B033 even though they did not want to. This was more or less what Bp Katharine Jefferts Schori said, assuring the house that this language did not close the door to anyone.
So I voted for B033, even though it went beyond my comfort to appease the larger communion, even though I knew it would be very hurtful to many LGBT people. There was much language at convention about sacrifice, how we in North America must sacrifice for the good of the whole communion. I agreed, however, with Ruth Meyers when she passionately observed that no one can make that sacrifice on behalf of others, straight people cannot ask that sacrifice of gay and lesbian sisters and brothers. But I also believe that as the Anglican Communion unravels, B033 allows the Episcopal Church to claim the high moral ground – we went as far – and maybe further – as we could go to stay in the conversation with the Anglican Communion. We cannot be said to have failed to take the Windsor Report seriously and I think we could have been considered to have done that if we had not made some kind of response to the “moratorium” request. I wish we had had a response which calls for others in the communion to take seriously the call for mutual listening and for an end to invading diocesan boundaries but time was up.
A sadness for me is that we have lost the traditional assumption within the Episcopal Church that the job of Standing Committees is to ascertain that the canonical requirements have been met in an election. Now we are asking SC’s to judge whether a person, not the process of election, is a challenge to others in the communion. And we are in the business of judging generally, I’ve had people say not entirely in jest to me that people who drive SUV’s or people who are agains the full inclusion of GLBT people are challenging to them so if they were on the SC they would vote against them.
A greater sadness for me is that we spent so much time and got so much press attention for this and for the PB election that many other things we did are obscured:

• We adopted MDG’s and called dioceses and individuals to live into them


• We entered into interim Eucharistic sharing with the United Methodist Church


• We expressed the view that the teaching of evolution in the schools was not in conflict with a belief in God as creator and WAS the best scientific thing we could do


• We adopted the Revised Common Lectionary


• We expressed our regret for our complicity as a church in the institution of slavery and called for an investigation of how we might contribute materially to repairing the harm done by slavery

Who else is blogging from GC ?

It is a little late, I guess, to post this, but someone asked who else from MO is blogging from GC and this is what I know:
Mike Kinman, who has done a fabulous job of the Episcopalians for Global Mission presence and hosted a triumphant U2charist blogged a little but got overwhelmed by work. His blog (which is always worth a look) is http://revmikek.blogspot.com/
Trinity CWE member Matthew Owings has been here for the whole time and has been a delightful and intelligent visitor to Missouri deputy gatherings. He has been blogging here
http://gencon2006.blogspot.com/
Kate Ketcham who is the Wash U Campus Ministry Lay Chaplain has been blogging athttp://bluestockingchic.blogspot.com/

I think that my fellow clerical deputy Ron Clingenpeel has been emailing the cathedral listserve daily, but I am not sure.

Non Missouri blogs are: Nick Knisely of the diocese of Bethlehem http://www.entangledstates.org/

the blog of the Diocese of Washington
http://blog.edow.org/weblog/

Sarah Dylan Breuer's blog
http://www.sarahlaughed.net/gracenotes/

She is also the editor of the Witness http://thewitness.org/contents.php

All of these guys have links to other blogs, too. Explore and enjoy. I am planning to write about yesterday later today.

Windsor Response, Last Day

It seems to me that the technological aspects of this convention are working less well than at others I have attended. The voting system continues to be so difficult for some deputies that our deputation decided to make the UTO box into a "curse jar" -- covenanting to contribute to it every time we said something negative about the voting process or about the way in which it was being explained to us. And now it appears, when we have big lines at the microphones to speak, that the electronic queuing system doesn't work right, so that the chair doesn't know who is at which microphone and why and who is up next. Anyway, yesterday we got to work in earnest on the Windsor Report Responses. We left at 7:30 Monday night in a fair degree of disarray about A161 which is the one responding to the WR request for a moratorium. Tuesday we voted down A 161. The procedural motions seemed to create a situation in which there was no possibility amending A161 as it came out of the committee to a form more like what came out of the special commission, so the whole thing went down. Today we are having a joint meeting with the bishops and a committee has been working on new wording so despite the fact that the media is already saying things like "US Anglicans defy church" we are still hopeful of offering an acceptable WR response. We did pass two other WR resolutions but 161 is probably the most contentious.

Meanwhile the new title 3 (mainly repairing the too hasty title 3 revision in 2003) passed fairly easily last night, thank goodness.

Presiding Bishop Election

One of the unforgettable moments about this convention came when the election was announced. It is the custom of the house not to applaud-- especially in situations like this, when a difficult decision has been made which may cause pain to the "losing" side. There were whoops of enthusiasm in the gallery -- which was packed and which was duly admonished. But on the floor you could feel sharp intakes of breath and tears springing to the eyes unbidden. The amazing thing about this election is that even people who thought she was the best candidates thought "but that will never happen" because of her gender and because of some fear that a female primate would just exacerbate the tensions in the Anglican Communion. What was so wonderful -- for many of us-- was that the right thing happened even though we barely dared to hope for it.

Saturday Already

So, here I am getting ready to go to my legislative committee meeting this morning and I have not posted since the first legislative day. The convention is so intensely covered by the ENS that there is not much that I can add. I have started to post a couple of times, then overwhelmed by sleep have gone to bed without successfully saving my draft. Pretty pathetic. The house of deputies continues to work very slowly. Our electronic voting system seems to be beyond the technical skills of the house, probably because we are too old to know how to program our own VCR's, etc. There seems to me to be quite a lot of unnecessary speech on the floor -- people asking questions or making observations from a microphone which would have been better dealt with in a private way, people saying micro-editing things on the floor, offering views which would have been better done at the hearings, bits of legislation coming to the floor which have to be withdrawn and worked on more. One session caused John to comment that it was like some kind of comedy program. But everyone is playing nicely. Highpoints for me have been: seeing old friends, the PB's forum on reconciliation at which our own John Danforth did a fabulous job and then Dr Jenny ten Paa spoke completely differently and absolutely wonderfully, the liturgies which are wonderfully varied and all extremely well done. Each day there are "visual preludes" displayed on screens. These are lovely slideshows of original art, which also play during communion. I wonder whether some of the triviality on the floor is related to Windsor Report Anxiety -- maybe if we fritter away our time we'll never have to get around to the tough decisions.

First Legislative Day

Today was the first official day of convention. We got up early, walked up to the convention centre, had a quick fast food breakfast and I went to the Ministry Committee meeting. We are almost done with our task of looking at Canon III:5-9 which is much better than the revision of the equivalent canons in 2003. These canons are about the ordination process of deacons and priests and the life an ministry of priests and deacons. Oddly, although I am not a detail kind of person, I love working on canons and am surprisingly good at finding things which need to be changed or rationalized.

Anyway, after the meeting, we went to Eucharist. The screens were full of slideshows of pictures of artwork. There is a table for the children in the children's program. The choir of Trinity Church Columbus sang -- the were great. The sang early American music -- but not in the styl e of shape note singers, but well. They had a small instrumental ensemble with them which was also wonderful. The organ for the event is a "virtual pipe organ" according to our bulletins.

The first legislative day was mostly a day of ceremonial activities: lovely visit from the Archbishop of York who brought greetings from the Archbishop of Canterbury (which you can read on the Episcopal News Service website.) Messengers go to the House of Bishops to tell them we are all organized and ready, corresponding messengers come from the House of Bishops to tell us that they are ready, too. Greetings from the President of the Episcopal Church women, introductions and where appropriate elections of all the officers of convention and all the people on the dias. Greetings to the representatives of the Church in Liberia who are with us (not sure if this is a first or just that they are not always able to be there.) There was much discussion of the many flags which hang behind the podium. They are a reminder that the Episcopal Church is not JUST the Episcopal Church of the USA but is an international body, including people from Equador and Mexico and Haiti and Cuba and other sovereign nations. At the same time, there is some confusion about the flags. The Haitian flag turns out the be an out of date flag and no one seems to e able to tel lwhich of the flags is from which of the many nations. There is much High Tech about this convention, so we spent some time practicing voting with our little voting devices which look a bit like TV remote controls. We practiced voting "yes " or "no" on an imaginary motion to make cucumber sandwiches the offical food of the Episcopal Church and we practiced election style voting by choosing our favorite hymn out of a list of four. Previous conventions have had electronic voting for "yes" and "no" but I think that this is the first time we are not having paper ballots for elections. For lunch we went to the North Market, just a block or so from the convention centre. This is a delightful place, with some produce -- including Ohio Strawberries and raw buffalo meat-- and lots of prepared take out food. After surveying the scene we opted for the Indian stall, which was tasty and reasonable, even though they did run out of the lamb curry right before I reached the head of the line. Tamsen and I went on a scouting expedition afterwards for tomorrow's lunch options. We also found a wine stall called "the Grapes of Mirth" which is such a great name...

My committee keeps on working. We had a joint hearing with Canons on Title III but hardly anyone came to testify, which either means that all the changes will sail through without any difficulty at all OR it means that people will endlessly argue on the floor things they should have brought up at the committee hearings... We shall see. The schedule is tight -- I dashed from the floor to the diocesan meeting in the Renaissance and back to the convention centre for a hearing. Tiring. Dinner in the hotel, whose real restaurant is under construction. And so to bed.

General Convention Orientation Day

Well, I have a ton of things to post about Easter and Confirmation but today I am blogging about General Convention. We arrived yesterday evening and settled into our hotel, the Columbus Renaissance. We met for our regular diocesan deputation meeting and social hour Sunday night and then we went to a wonderfully stylish and delicious restaurant featuring "contemporary southern cuisine" called the Brown Stone. Convention gets so busy that we may not manage to eat together again, but this was a delightful evening. Our candid waiter warned against ordering the Creme Brule. I chose not to believe him, but he was right. Otherwise, my dinner (fried chicken with garlic broccoli and roasted asparagus) was perfect.

Today we had room service breakfast because we were so tired from travel, etc. It was okay but probably not worth the extravagance. It might have been worth the extra hour of sleep, however. I went to the organizing meeting of my Legislative Committee, the Ministry Committee (number 14-- apparently there are 22 committees inscrutably numbered 1-26). Our job is to hold hearings for resolutions assigned to us and to bring them to the floor in the best possible form. I am on the subcommittee which is working on revision of Title III, 5-9. The Standing Committee on Ministry Development has worked for three years on this and other resolutions, but we are "another pair of eyes" picking up inconsistencies and trying to make it as clear as possible that the ordination processes for Deacons and Presbyters are parallel. Our committee also has a subcommittee studying new sections of Title III on bishops and their continuing formation, one on the process of reception/ordination of people ordained in other faith traditions and one on "other" resolutions. Tonight we had our first hearing.

Meanwhile, I only had a short time in the exhibit hall but managed to make my first purchase, a lovely scarf with a salt effect wet on wet design AND a lovely celtic border. What more could one want in a scarf! I am thinking that the artist might be able to make us a pottery communion set for Lent.

The afternoon was spent hearing addresses by the Presiding Bishop and President of the House of Bishops and then "deputy orientation" at which I picked up the helpful data about the 22 committees numbered one to 26. The PB talked about matters before us and talked a little about the false dichotomy between "holiness" and "justice", which reminded me of the very helpful essay by Timothy Radcliffe, O.P. about the tension between "kingdom Catholics" and "communion Catholics" in the May issue of the National Catholic Reporter (available online here ). Radcliffe's point (and, I think, Griswold's) is that this is a false dichotomy and that if we listen closely to each other we will discover that we have much in common underneath the surface of our divisions. This is where I found my thoughts going, whether this is what Griswold was saying or not-- kind of like sermons, where what you mean to say is not necessarily what people hear. but it may be what the Spirit means you to hear.

Then there was a "conversation", coordinated by Rob Voyle of the Clergy Leadership Institute which allowed tables of ten, with a trained conversation leader, to discuss what we feel passionately about about being a Christian, based on our life's story, what we love about the Episcopal Church and what we imagine the best outcome of this GC will be --- an appreciative inquiry approach to listening to others, really. not unlike the conversations we had at our diocesan listening sessions. That was quite fun. The people at my table were very charming, although most of us were clergy and generally seemed homogeneous, both demographically and in our thoughts. But I found myself feeling less cynical and more hopeful about the future of the church which was, presumably, the aim of the exercise.

Then off to the social/meeting time at the Renaissance. I decided I'd take the lovely complimentary shuttle, to save time and energy, since I am a fairly slow walker. Turns out the shuttle took longer than even my slow waddling walk would have taken. Then after touching base briefly, back to the convention centre for committee hearings. John came to those and we ended quite early. The two of us went to another delicious restaurant which was having a rack of lamb special (yum, yum, when in doubt, order the lamb is one of my restaurant mottos) and it turned out that Monday is half price wine night. The restaurant was Due Amici, only a block from our hotel. My dinner was so delicious I didn't even ask how John liked his. But it looked rather tasty, chicken marsala on a bed of risotto with green beans. Oh, the lamb had garlic sour cream (or cream cheese?) mashe potatoes and broccolini. John had the gelato sampler, which was also quite good, we both had coffee.

After checking in with Anna who is watching over our house and had a doctor's appointment, we watched the tail end of a documentary about the Blitz on WOSU. And so to bed.