Mercy!

My wonderful wife nudged me at 5:15, to get up and get ready to try it again. My flight leaves at 7:30. Ugggh. I am not a morning person!  Syl drops me off at 6:20, I go inside, and – what is this?

The line to the ticket counter is even longer than it was yesterday afternoon! This is interesting. The woman in the line says she flies all the time, and she’s never seen a line like this before.  Since I have to check a bag, I can’t use an automated kiosk, but for that matter, I couldn’t even get to one if I wanted to. Oh well – I have over an hour.  

It took one hour. I got up to the ticket counter at 7:20. The flight is in 10 minutes. Blessedly, there’s not a line at the bag inspection, and I also breeze through the metal detector. We took off a half-hour late.

Arrive in Charlotte with a half hour to spare. The flight to Ohio was painless. By the way, if I had left my house at 5:45, I could have driven to Charlotte in less time than it took me to get there by USAir.

In the baggage area, the Diocese of Ohio had a huge welcome center set up. This lady couldn’t wait to help me! Took a cab from the airport, which is not that far out – about the same distance that CHS is from Charleston.

I took some pictures in the cab.  

Columbus is about the size of Charlotte, and looks fairly clean.  And they do seem to be welcoming.

 As I arrived at the hotel, guess who’s here! Our ECW representatives! 

That’s Catherine Quackenbush, Catherine Jones, and Margie Williams. My room is not available until 3:00, so I left my suitcase in Margie Williams' room, and headed out to the Convention register. 

It’s about three blocks to the Convention Center, and it’s a fairly long three blocks at that. The Convention Center is attached to the Hyatt Regency. This is the Hyatt.

This is the Convention Center:

It looks a lot better on the inside. See?
   

As this is the calm before the storm, there’s not much going on right now. Oh, look – here’s two of our delegates - Lonnie Hamilton and Mark Goodman, along with Mark’s wife, Dawn. The Goodman’s are originally from this diocese. I’m glad they are now from South Carolina.

  A great story - Last night, after Lonnie got here, he struck up a conversation with a delegate from somewhere who invited him to come to a reception. Lonnie went, and found everyone being so friendly and welcoming to him! It was a reception for Integrity. Oh my!

I run into fellow delegate Bob Bell! I wonder if he got invited to last night’s gala…
And Bobby Kilgo is here, and yes, Wade Logan did make it! Wade says he got here about 1:30 a.m.
I’ve talked to Kendall and Lydia but still haven’t seen either of them. I suspect we’ll get together tonight.

Here’s some pictures of the house of deputies meeting area, or “the floor.” Since this hall is not in use right now, the lights are dimmed, so these pictures are not all that great. They are taken from the South Carolina seating area which is about in the middle of the hall.

 Here’s a good friend – Tony Clark, of Central Florida. 

And here’s George Werner, the president of the House of Deputies.

 At 2:00, we had some opening remarks from the Presiding Bishop, Frank Griswold and from George Werner.  While on my way to my seat I ran into Rick Belser and his wife Annie! And Bishop Skilton! The opening remarks were held in the worship room.

The worship area is a huge hall with tables. The Eucharists will take place in this room and after we have the Eucharist, we will sit around these tables and have what George Werner calls "conversations" with other delegates from around the Church.

The stage area with the altar looks a lot more subdued than in recent years.

The Presiding Bishop spoke in generalities. As usual. He said he had been asked by members of the press to tell them how General Convention will act on the issues before us.  He says he finds speculation dangerous and unhealthy, and he trusts the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the legislative process.

He says his confidence is based on personal experience – he’s been to every convention since 1976, and says he’s seen our houses wrestle with issues and make very wise decisions. As he put it, some decisions have been costly and may have caused some anguish, but all have been worth it. No specific incidences of anguish were mentioned. I can think of some anguish I experienced as a result of the last Convention. A lot of it. And No, I don’t think it was worth it.

He went on to say that truth is discovered in Communion. (He cited an unnamed “modern Orthodox theologian” for that little pearl.) He said, “We’ve come to discover truth.” I think I prefer how Crammer put it in our Communion liturgy, "...and grant that all those who do confess thy holy Name may agree in the truth of thy holy Word, and live in unity and godly love." There's your truth.

A  few more quotes: “What damage have we done because people hold on to their partial truth, and refuse to go further in discovery!”

“The risk is falling into idolatry, worship and image of the church instead of the church itself. The result is fear and misunderstanding.” 

Neither of the above are exact quotes, but I do believe they are close approximations.  

His hope is that we will continue to “Dialogue” – to find common ground as our theme [Come and Grow] would observe.

The Presiding Bishop then quoted his hero, Thomas Merton.  I didn’t really get the quote – sorry. But Merton’s never been much of a hero to me. I prefer Lloyd Ogilvy.

Then George Werner spoke. He said he’s made a lot of friends over his years as the President of the House of Deputies. He said that in the royal navy there is rule that no officer is allowed to speak a discouraging word to his troops during war. He’d like to think he’s gone by that rule with us. He went on from there, but that's more than enough...

At 3:00 there was to be an orientation, but I had promised the ladies that I would pick up my bag from them at 3:00, So I hoofed it back over to the hotel and registered.

Pete Cooper is here! The "Bishop of the Pee Dee" is looking good!

Had a great supper with Lonnie, Bobby, Wade and Bob. After supper, we came back and had a meeting with our South Carolina delegation to get us ready for tomorrow. here's a couple of shots from that:
 

We begin again in the morning - 7:00 a.m with our committees. That's all for tonight from Columbus. Thanks for your prayers, and see you tomorrow!