I turned over and awoke on my own this morning before the alarm had a chance to blast me into consciousness. Evidently I’m get getting enough sleep so far which is unlike every previous Convention by this point in time. I'm not complaining!

They've added barriers for us this morning as we approach the Hall.
  
No one seems to know why. I wonder if it has anything to do with the upcoming visit of the ABC? (That's episcospeak for the Archbishop of Canterbury, but I'm sure you knew that..)

There are a whole lot of flyers and "bribes" this morning to get you to vote for folks:

From the "Folks, you simply can not make this stuff up!" department - earlier this morning a member of our beloved "Youth Presence" testified before a committee, speaking in favor of one of the many resolutions seeking to move forward what has become known as the "full inclusion" agenda. The young man said, and I am quoting here... are you ready for this? He said:

"You know, the Biblical prophets didn't always speak for God!"

Mercy.

We begin the morning with “Public Narrative.”

We had the head of the Harvard project, himself, instructing us on what to do. His name is Marshall Ganz, of the Kennedy School of Government.

He stopped by our table to personally check on our progress.

This session was a teaching on the “Story of Self”  The subtitle was “What does commitment to mission mean to you?” 

Nancy Pickering of St. Helena’s joined us at our table! Nancy is here with the ECW presence. Great to have another face from home. 
We also had a priest from California at our table. She trains guide dogs to be companions for people with special needs and also teaches at a school for the hearing impaired.

We told our stories. Sigh…

In all fairness, I was at a table with Lydia Evans, the Bishop, Steve Wood, and Reid Boylston among others. It was not that bad. It just seems to me that we are wasting a lot of time that we could be using for more constructive purposes. Or we could cut the time off the Convention and let us go home earlier! They “Indaba-ed” at Lambeth last summer. This is our version of that Indaba process. They tells us that this is also part of Ubuntu. Mercy. What isn't?

The head of the project had three pre-chosen folks get up and “tell their story” as a way to show us how it was done. And then we did it at tables.

We were trained in this at our Province IV Synod meeting back in June. As it says on page 9, "Motivation is understanding that values inspire action through emotion." Let me translate that for you:
If we can just get you to hear the pain, we can trump any truth you think you have.

After our story-telling we moved into morning worship.

Ann Dennis of our SC ECW joined us at our table!
   
Like yesterday, I stayed through the Peace. Our pre-worship music today was provided by a rather large choir. They seemed to specialize in spirituals.

They were good, but I don't believe the words they sang were actual original spirituals.
Take a look:

Oh, I got it! these are the 1982 hymnal versions!

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowen Williams, was our… speaker. 

Well, I can’t call him our preacher.  Although he gave to us what clearly sounded like a sermon on today’s gospel lesson, I can’t “officially” call it a sermon.  I can’t officially call it what it actually was because our leadership won’t call it a sermon!

In today’s printed program, the archbishop’s words were characterized as a “meditation” and the literature distributed by the national church before Convention went to great pains to say that the Archbishop would not be delivering a sermon today. What I don’t know is why. Was the “meditation” wording a bow to those who were offended by the archbishop’s invitations to Lambeth? I honestly can’t speculate. Something just feels fishy for some reason. Can’t put my finger on it.

Here is yesterday’s program when the PB delivered the sermon:

Here is today’s program.
Why? Who knows! 

Steve Wood videoed “the sermon that is not to be called a sermon” and he plans to upload it to YouTube. I suspect by the time you read this report you will already have access to multiple copies of “the sermon that isn't a sermon.”

I do want to mention his opening remarks, because what he said in his opening remarks was, I think, where the real significance lay. First of all, the ABC thanked the Episcopal Church for our willingness to engage in, as he put it,  “the wider life of the Anglican Communion.” He said that willingness of ours “…had been costly for some,” but he didn’t explain what he meant by that. He did say that he knew that some felt compromised and rejected by the Anglican Communion’s official stance and he apologized for their hurt feelings. He said, “This has been hard and will not get easier.”

I would give my next year’s salary to know exactly what he meant when he said that.

The second thing the ABC specifically said was this:  “I hope and pray that there will not be decisions in the coming days that will push us further apart.”

Let that sink in just a moment. In the midst of all the dozens of resolutions that are being discussed here at Convention that could indeed push us further apart, the ABC asked us not to go there!

The ABC said that we (the Episcopal Church) are needed in the Anglican Communion. Here’s a fairly close to accurate quote: “If I felt we could do well without your presence there would not be a problem, but the bonds of relationship are deep.”

After leaving at halftime, several of us went over to the AAC presence and worshiped gloriously, just like yesterday. The Bishop of Western Kansas was the celebrant today.

(This is the bishop last night)

As I mentioned on an earlier day, not much has gone on “on the floor” of the Convention so far. Most of the heat and light is being generated in the hearings. The hearings are completely one-sided since there are so few of the opposition left. You already know the outcome of every hearing even before they happen.

If you want to see what I’m talking about, click here.

Do understand that even if a bill comes out of committee with a favorable ruling, it still has to pass both houses before it can be classified as an Official Resolution of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church. 

And of course, depending on the resolution, it may or not be paid attention to by a diocese, anyway!

Oh, that reminds me. Sarah Hey’s done it again. You gotta read this!
Like Kendall did yesterday, Sarah’s nailed it.

Oh - and she's added another article to it - Do read this one as well! It explains the process. Part two will be coming later.

We went back into legislative session at 4:30. I was late!  Blessedly, Lydia had already taken care of my paper distribution duties and all was well.

The Vice President of the House ran the show so that President Bonnie could be voted in for another three-year term.
By the way - Gregory, you are three for three on coats!

But before we said yes to Bonnie, we moved to a special order to vote for pension fund members. The voting got totally messed up. We (the house) could not figure when to vote and when not to. The voting transmitters didn't seem to be sending properly, people couldn't figure out what number to push... It was a three stooges moment if ever there were. We tried voting a couple of times, couldn't get it to work, and then we just completely gave up. Moved the pension fund vote to tomorrow. Mercy.

We voted for Dr.Anderson by voice – and she was elected with no opposition.
After that, she took over again as the chair.

We then went to a Special Order for a presentation from the committee on World Mission – This was the first of a couple of “special session” meetings that President Bonnie is referring to as “The Committee of the whole.”

It’s not exactly “the whole” however. The House of Bishops was invited and expected to be there and they declined to come! Whoa! The tension between the two houses seems to be getting more pronounced. 

Check out this comment from Gene Robinson. He seems a bit worried about his half of the whole.

At the beginning of our “Committee of the Half” Gay Jennings gave us the background on how we got B033. Want to see my take on it back in 2006? Click here.

Gay called on Deputy Dale of New Hampshire to present the second half of the talk.
Deputy Dale said when we passed B033 we gave no timetable on how long B033 should continue.

Dale said several options are available to us. We could:
1. Take no action – status quo – continue on as is.
(Doesn’t seem to be much energy there…)
2. Reaffirm actions of the convention.
(No one advocates doing that.)
3. Pass some of the resolutions that have been presented
to us (there are lots to choose from)

Deputy Dale said that most of the resolutions that we can choose from include statements stating our intention of continued full commitment to life of Anglican Communion. He said if we choose the #3 path, there are then several options:
a. Move beyond B033 and draft new statements doing what we want to do
b. Disavow any external restraint from Anglican Communion and say we are bound by our canons, and will only follow our own canons.
c. a third option would say that we are not of one mind on the issue, and we need to allow local option on the marriage and ordination areas.

OK – after that intro, we split into twos to “tell our stories.” Sigh.

We were to discuss it this way:

1. What is your story with respect to resolution B0033?
2. What is our story as a church with respect to resolution B033?
3. What is God calling us to do now?

Did you note who’s first in this order? Me!
Who’s next? Us.
Who’s last? God! MERCY!!!

We were instructed to pair up with someone you do not know, preferably from the table in front of you or behind you.  I went with the table in front of us – New Jersey.  I suppose I couldn’t have done it with the folks behind us. According to some folks, San Joaquin doesn’t exist…
Anyway, I told my story to John, the “senior delegate” from NJ.
A senior delegate is someone who has been to six or more conventions.  I’ve only been to five.

John and I could not have been farther apart if we had tried. It was pleasant, mind you, but every time I would say what I thought he would say, “Well, you have your opinion and I have mine.”

I think John’s a great guy. A Yankee, of course, but he can’t help that.
He’s probably saying the same thing in reverse about me right now.

Joy Hunter has been really pressing me to get a group shot of our delegation. I haven’t been able to comply as of yet because Lonnie is not allowed on the floor (he’s an alternate) and I wanted him in the picture. Joy has asked me about 31 times already and now she’s asking other delegates to ask me to take a picture. Oh, alright. I give.

Lonnie, I'm sorry you aren’t in the shot, and neither is the Bishop, but there’s the rest of us.

And with that I bid you a fond Good Night from Anaheim.  Really - Thank you for your prayers. I do mean that.  And please do keep it up. You are fighting this battle with us, and I really feel it.

God bless you all!