God sticks his head out of heaven.
      He looks around.
   He's looking for someone not stupid—
      one man, even, God-expectant,
      just one God-ready woman.

   3 He comes up empty. A string
      of zeros. Useless, unshepherded
   Sheep, taking turns pretending
      to be Shepherd.
   The ninety and nine
      follow their fellow.

   4 Don't they know anything,
      all these impostors?
   Don't they know
      they can't get away with this—
   Treating people like a fast-food meal
      over which they're too busy to pray?

   5 Night is coming for them, and nightmares,
      for God takes the side of victims.
                                        Psalm 14:2-5 The Message

Most of today's Heat and Light took place in the House of Bishops. It's old news for the junkies among us, but if you haven't heard, hear here. We in the House of Deputies will probably get it tomorrow.

You can always catch a complete summary of the events of the day each day at the same website. Go Here.

Lastly, Kendal Harmon's statement on Tuesday's actions is an absolute must read. Classic Kendall from God's gift to South Carolina.

Ok - moving on... Welcome to Day Whatever of the General Convention.
All I know is I have two days left. And Friday is a fly day for me.

We're singing a lot of songs in the HOD.
President Bonnie calls on Sam Candler of Atlanta to choose a song and "pitch" it for us.
We sang two today.
My Executive Associate, Leslie Rose emailed me and suggested the song I should sing:

Just one more night (well two)
And i'm comin' off this
Long & winding road

I'm on my way
Well, i'm on my way
Home sweet home

Haden Mc Cormick said he was going to suggest this one to Sam Candler:

(Tune of Folsom Prison Blues)
I hear the train a comin'
It's rollin' 'round the bend,
And I ain't seen nothin’ like it,
Since, I don't know when,
I'm stuck in General Convention,
I know I can't be free,
But those people keep a-talkin',
And that's what tortures me.

But the song that keeps running through my head is this one:

Out of luck, I'm out of my head
Out of self-respect, I'm out of bread
I'm under-loved
I'm under-fed (Spiritually)
I want to go home!

It never rains in California,
But world, don't they warn ya?
It pours! Man! It pours!

We began today by finishing up the voting for trustees and the like. That took almost an hour. 

Lonnie joined us today - Reid acted as an alternate.

The first bit of legislation we looked at was A177 denominational health plan. A138 Mandatory pension system will be covered next.

Both are taken out of their normal order on the calendar, but they want to make sure we get to them (and of course, pass them…)

The chair said this will save us all kinds of money.  What it will do is centralize authority at 815.
Three in a row got up and urged support -  For “fairness,” Pres. Bonnie moved to pro and con.
First up, another pro. That’s four in a  row,  “Please support this – It’s a matter of justice.”

A Dallas deputy spoke against it. First one!
Next, someone else spoke for it.
An Albany rep got up and asked questions – his questions counted as an "against."

After the Albany deputy, a member of the committee got up and said, “There has been a lot of discussion about why we should not support this. As a member of the church pension fund, let me tell you why we should...”
There had been exactly two against it and one of them just asked questions!  Talk about a pre-planned speech!
David spoke again.

Time ran out.

Lydia asked about the non-covered foreign dioceses in TEC.
They said they are working on it…
A177 passed. Very little opposition. SC opposed.

Next, the director of Forward Movement spoke to us.
We learned that separate Spanish writers are now being used to write Forward Day By Day devotions in Spanish, instead of simply translating the English-speaking writers. "After all," the director said, "Elizabeth I and Henry the VIII don’t exactly conjure up warm fuzzy feelings with some of our Spanish readers."

Then why are they in the ANGLICAN church?  Oh sorry – I forgot. This is TEC. Nevermind.

Broke for mid-day worship and lunch at 11:20.

At the AAC Luncheon spoke to Bishop David Anderson

Guess who celebrated?
David used the 1928 Book of Common Prayer for today's worship.

In the afternoon session, we began with debate on A138. Outside we had another protester.

David spoke again
A138 passed.

We adjourned for a special joint session of the houses to consider the budget. We were joined by both Bishop Lawrence and Bishop Salmon!

The PB&F folks explained the budget – in the discussion on the budget they explained we had to cut in many areas and some were going to be hurt. There will be staff cuts and budget cuts.

One area that won’t be cut is lawsuits. We are told that there must be money available to, as they put it, "protect the valuable property of our dioceses where necessary."  That jewel was mentioned at least twice and maybe three times.

They said church can no longer sustain a ten-day convention (side comment: Nor can we!) They recommend a reduction in Convention by at least two days.

The budget was handed out. Soberly, quietly.  Quite a contrast in previous years where they used to play a loud rock song and dance down the isles handing out with glee. I still remember Denver 2000 where they played, "You Cant Always get What You Want" as the hand-out song.

The budget used to be full color and slick paper.

Not this year.

We paused for pics with the bishops. We are missing Reid in this picture, but here it is!

Lydia wanted you all to see this one:

Back to legislation – We joined the democratic party for six or seven straight resolutions urging Congress to do this or that.
For example, there was D039 – entitled "fix our broken labor laws" It showed our support for “card check”

Then we did other things like show our support for civil rights for transgendered persons.

A167 was ...interesting – It dealt with the "trafficking of humans." It urged us to devote a sunday to the cause and the sermon should speak specifically and only on that issue, and there was even a litany for us to use that decried trafficking in humans.

We passed it, but we went back and did it over it again because some folks weren’t able to get the chair’s attention to make amendments. 

An amendment proposed getting rid of the liturgy against trafficking.  One priest said he supported getting rid of it because the liturgy mentioned the wrath of God and he would never speak of the wrath of God!

Mercy!

A man spoke in favor of amendment getting rid of the liturgy saying, “We occasionally have children in our services and we need to be sensitive to words we use and actions we take."

(At Holy Cross we have children in all of our seven services more than "occasionally.")

He went on to say that he has his children with him here at convention and his son went through the convention exhibition hall and came out with a handful of condoms and said, "Daddy, what are these?"

I haven't been in the exhibit hall, so I guess I've missed my distribution of condoms...

The amendment passes. We canned the liturgy. Wow!

On and on it went - by 6:00 we were dead tired.

All of us.

Speaking of tired, I am that. It's now 1:00 a.m. (4:00 home time)

Do keep praying!  Just two more days to go.Good night from Anaheim!