The Convention is over and I am sitting in the airort waiting to go home.

(George Werner has just turned over the gavel to Bonnie Anderson, signaling the end of GC 2006 and the end of his tenure as President of the House of Deputies. Polly Getz begins to express her relief as the pressure cooker is turned off.)

Many of the folks who were at the microphones during the last 10 days are here waiting too. I am sitting accross from 2 prominent Dallas deputies (Michel & Martin), 2 from Ft. Worth (+Iker & Cantrell), and 2 from El Camino Real (Wadell & Romero) are in the next section.
(As we get closer to flight time, more are coming to sit here and I won't try to update. You get the picture.)

(It is interesting to be a Fly on the Wall, as I am not known to many of the Anglican Communion Network folks. )

Canon Barry Beisner and his wife have just walked up. He was consented to be Bishop of Northern Calif. He and I have known eachother for a few years and exhanged our hopes that we can move forward in the mission that God has called the church to pursue.

The conversation in the security line was about GC and about plans for getting home. Instead of hearing names called to speak, we are hearing some the now familiar names called for standby.

I spent a good 20 minutes talking with Bp. Bob Anderson, Assisting in LA and formerly of Minnesota. All but a couple minutes was about a tool for parish growth and spiritual development. He was telling me how a survey from ChurchSmart Resources has been well used by congregations in the LA Diocese to help them become more vibrant in worship and more broad in leadership.

It was exciting to hear him talk about the significant spiritual growth and maturity of these congregations.

It was exciting to hear someone talk about something besides sex and the Anglican Communion.

Having written that, let me say a final word in this forum about the big resolution -- B 033.
It is not the last resolution, it is not the only resolution, but it gets the most attention.

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Resolution B033

Title: On Election of Bishops

Topic: Bishops

Committee: 26. Special Legislative Committee

House of Initial Action: Bishops

Proposer: The Rt. Rev. Dorsey F. Henderson Jr. (Upper South Carolina)

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Resolved, the House of Deputies concurring, That the 75^th General Convention receive and embrace The Windsor Report’s invitation to engage in a process of healing and reconciliation; and be it further

Resolved, that this Convention therefore call upon Standing Committees and bishops with jurisdiction to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion.

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This is a scaled down version of A161 which was defeated the night before. It is consciously minimalist. It focuses only on the consecration of bishops. It is limited by the nature of a resolution. It should be thought of as having at most a 3 year effect. It can be repealed, changed, or extended in Anahiem in 2009.

Practically speaking, I imagine that it may be challenged soon as several dioceses are already in process with episcopal elections.

My flight isw being called, gotta go.

We went very late last night, not finishing until after 9 pm.

The resolution that I posted here previously was defeated.

I can't comment on all the reason why people voted against the resolution, but one that moved me was the apology clause.


It seemed disingenuous.

The legislative time was spent on debating a substitution that was at the end ruled out of order.
As a result there was no time to improve the resolution.

This morning, we will be meeting in a special Joint Session of the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies.

It is my hope that we can come up with a response that is faithful to both this hope for the Anglican Communion and the hope of our Gay and Lesbian community for justice.

I anticipate that this will not be easy and that we will work all day to accomplish it and most of the other work that we have to do.

Today we received 2 resolutions from the Windsor Report committee (Committee 26) this morning.

(left - the Rev. Katherine Tyler Scott and the Rev. Frank Wade co-chair the committee.)

I have appended the first, A 160, in the form in which it wa approved by us. Now it goes to the Bishops.

The first big redlined section is the original resolution from the Special Commission. The section below is the the substitute crafted by the General Convention Committee 26. The changes we made to it are in italics. The redline section is what we replaced.

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Resolved, the House of _____ concurring, That the 75^th General Convention of the Episcopal Church join the House of Bishops’ March 2005 “Covenant Statement” in expressing “our own deep regret for the pain that others have experienced with respect to our actions at the General Convention of 2003 and we offer our sincerest apology and repentance for having breached the bonds of affection in the Anglican Communion by any failure to consult adequately with our Anglican partners before taking these actions.”

Resolved, the House of Bishops concurring, that the 75^th General Convention of The Episcopal Church, mindful of “the repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation enjoined on us by Christ” (Windsor Report, paragraph 134), express its regret for breaching the proper constraints of straining the bonds of affection in the events surrounding the General Convention of 2003 and the consequences which followed; offer its sincerest apology to those within our Anglican Communion who are offended by our failure to accord sufficient importance to the impact of our actions on our church and other parts of the Communion; and ask forgiveness as we seek to live into deeper levels of communion one with another.

--

We used about 50 minutes of discussion time for this resolution, but it is like a football game with the clock stopping, and time outs. It took over 90 minutes to process the debate leading to our vote.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) we finish with Resolution A 161 which I have appended below.
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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.

--

We have been debating the resolution as you see it.

The most conservative of the Deputies do not think it goes far enough and do not like any of the changes from the original. The folks on the other side, including me, belive that "urge to refrain"
sounds like "moratorium." Several of the speakers pointed out that it seems odd to take an action, "urge to refrain," and then at the end apologize to those whom that action specifically targets.

When we begin our work tomorrow, we will be allowed to propose ammendments. There are 15 minutes of debate left (barring a motion to extend debate). It is unlikely that this resolution will make it out of our house without changes.

In debate, one person related the pain of this moratorium on the ordinations of partnered gay bishops to being invited to suffer with Christ in the Crucifixion.

I am not prepared to make a decision that forces that action on a whole group.

Jesus askes each of us to pick up our cross daily and follow him.

He does not invite us to choose the cross for others.

I am not unaware, that there are decisions that are hurtful to one group or another, that, nevertheless, are the right decisions.

This means that there are folks who, though generally supportive of full inclusion of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, believe that it is necessary to delay that inclusion for the sake of others, in our Episcopal Church and around the world.

Or it means that we move forward with full inclusion, and accept the hurt this will cause.

I am reminded of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.s challenge: "Justice delayed, is justice denied."

Please keep all of us in your prayers as we discern what is right and best and what we believe God is calling us to do.

I missed posting yesterday because I was too tired when I finally goy back to my room.
The BIG news was our election of the Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori as the 26th Presiding Bishop!

She needs all our prayers to faithfully take up the challenge that is before her.

The House of Deputies confirmed her election with an overwhelming majority.

Out of 111 dioceses, 94 voted to confirm.
Bp. Mathes believes that she is the person to lead the mission of God that has been entrusted to our church.

Yesterday, Committee 13 took up 3 resolutions related to Baptism as Full Initiation.
Three of the great leaders in Liturgical Theology and Christian Formation addressed us.

The Rev. Louis Weil, The Rev. Lionel Mitchell, and the Rev. John Westerhoff spoke with one accord about the importance of understanding Confirmation as a pastoral sacramental rite that must be closely connected to deep Christian formation and disconnected from credentialing for ministry. The truth is that one needs confirmation to administer a chalice, but there is no credential for leading christian education. I have attached a picture of the 3.Westerhoff, Weil, and Mitchell

Jarvis took a picture of McDougal and me during a slack monent on the floor of the HOD.

Today was eventful.

Committee 13 had our Hearing on Lesser Feasts and Fasts.

Relatively few speakers. The one we were expecting about Joan of Ark did not show.
The Rev. Jennifer Phillips, (who sits next to me at committee meetings), did speak.
She talked about how Joan, a young woman of great faith, who was not sainted soley for dying a virgin, was an inspiration to her from the age of nine.

We are getting closer on the Rites of Passage. A sub-committee is perfecting language before we send it to the House of Bishops.

This evening the Hearing on the Windsor Report Resolutions was a packed house.

A total of 1500 chairs were filled.

Between 45 and 60 people spoke.

The committee that was conducting the hearing seemed engaged and attentive. The audience was respectful.

Of the many speakers, there were few different perspectives.

Most of the folks who would call themselves Reasserters (conservatives) asked for clarity. They dislike nuance and call it "fudge."

The progressive speakers are concerned with statements of regret and with no "public" rites of blessing.

2 or 3 speakers asked for the resolutions to be passed as they were.

Paul Nancarrow (Seabury class of '86) suggested that the Convention adopt a total Moritorium on consecrating ANY bishops until the next convention in 2009. This would give the Anglican Communion some breathing space and would not put the burdon only on the backs of our Gay and Lesbian members. Eventhough we operated w/o bishops for 150 years, it may not get much attention.

I fell down in my discipline of posting Daily, yesterday. I was too tired.
Today is the 2nd Legislative Day, but it feels like a week has gone by.
The work of Committee 13 has proceeded very well. We have scheduled hearings on all the legislation that we have received and we have accomplished the hearings on most.

Today we will be focusing on the additions and revisions to the Lesser Feasts and Fasts.
The Principles of Revision will be discussed. These additions to the Calendar will be considered.
Harriett Bedell, Deaconess and Missionary
Anna Julia Heyward Cooper, Educator
James Theodore Holly, Bishop of Haiti
Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, 1980, and The Martyrs of El Salvador
Tikhon, Patriarch of Russia, Confessor and Ecumenist
Vida Dutton Scudder, Educator and Witness for Peace
Frances Joseph-Gaudet, Educator and Prison Reformer

We are also considering Joan of Arc.

Tonight the BIG event of public hearings will be happening.
This is the hearing for the most controversial resolutions of the Special commission responding to the Windsor Report.
There will be 1500 seats. Each Deputation will be guaranteed 5 seats (5 x 111) and the rest will be first come first served for anyone. This is to make sure that deputies and bishops have the ability to testify and hear testimony, while making the process open and manageable.

Our deputation will gather in Bp. Mathes' suite following to debrief.

Yesterday, the Archbishop of York brought us his greetings and a friendly letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury.

In our work, committee 13 learned that one way to slow down the process of legislation is to change the name of a resolution. We did this on several occasions Monday. Each of those was returned to us for correction. It seems that this is the one thing that may not be done to a resolution.

Even if there is a wholesale substitution, the name stays the same.

I assume that this make the process more manageable, and the name is actually not part of the resolution anyway.

We recommended the Alternative Burial Rites with minor changes.

The Rites of Passage are getting a great deal of attention. I am finding that some of the prayers about which I was most concerned, were also of concern to others.

At the beginning of the process, I was inclined to "return to sender" but now I think that I could support the publication in the Book of Occasional Services (BOS).

More later.

Committee 13, Prayer Book, Liturgy and Music meet for a total of 5 hours to get a jump on our work for the convention. We have about 50 resolutions to deal with so far.
Each of them needs a Committee Hearing where we receive testimony, and then we deliberate.
All our work is advisory to the whole convention, so we advise approval, rejection, discharge (consideration is either not needed or not desired), or referral to another committee.

We can amend portions or substitute the whole content. Then the 2 houses consider our recommendations and accept, reject, or modify them.

For the legislative work to progress smoothly, the committees need to get to work fast, otherwise there is nothing for the Deputies or Bishops to do.

I will say more in my next post.


This picture was published in the Desert Sun this morning (Monday) along with an article.

The reporting was a little sloppy and some carefule wording was dropped so that my answer appears more strident than it was. Also there are a couple inaccuracies.


Here is the link to the story: http://www.desertsunonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060612/LIFESTYLES06/606120342

Most of the businesses in the area were closed. So I had breakfast at the hotel. It was very average.

There was a full house for the Eucharist at Trinity Church at 10:30 on Sunday.

Two of the PB candidates were present, the entire delegation from Liberia, Susan Russell of Integrity, and the entire grants committee of the ECW (Episcopal Church Women). Also Cam Allen from St. Paul in the Desert was at the service.

Next Sunday, the House of Bishops will elect the Presiding Bishop at this location -- superseding the main service of the parish.
Allisyn, Jarvis, and I got registered. New this year, we each have a code to input when we wish to speak on the floor of the House of Deputies. We took a tour of the exhibition hall, had lunch (yummy home made potato chips) visited the HOD and found that we are seated in the front row. No snoozing for our deputation. (We rate this location because Polly Getz is one of our deputies and is also the parliamentarian for the HOD and will usually be on the platform -- except to vote.

Finally, I got back to the room and found two friends, McDougal (L) and Finigan (R). McDougal has been to GC '97, '00, and '03. I think Finigan has missed a couple. One or the other usually are on the floor of the HOD and have friendly greetings for all.

After new members of the deputation straggled in we went for dinner. Presiding Bishop Griswald was leaving as we waited for our table. It was perhaps the last evening of no responsibility for the rest of the convention.