7/11/09

I have found that the General Convention has three stages: the greeting, the great bewilderment, and the convergence. These happen over the ten days, but they also happen within one day or even one meeting. First is about meeting. We see old friends; we meet new friends. It’s like going to college as a freshman. You find your dorm and your classes, and figure out who all these other people are and who you are in relation to them. This part has been wonderful. Being on a Legislative Committee means you work very hard with strangers and you become a community over the Convention.

I want to tell you how touched I am to have the Archbishop of Canterbury come across an ocean and a country to be with us and to express his appreciation and love of The Episcopal Church. The House of Bishops was also graced with having the 24th and 25th Presiding Bishops, Edmund Browning and Frank Tracy Griswold III, be with us. Both of these men have had a profound effect on my ministry.

At some point, however, the fatigue, the complexity, the pace, the sheer number of people affect you, and you enter the Great Bewilderment. It’s where you wonder if anything meaningful can come from this process. It’s where you sit through meetings for hours arguing over the wording of a resolution, about which you actually are not passionate, but you have become passionate about this word being in this sentence. It’s where you hear all the perspectives on an issue and wonder to yourself, “So can our Church stand on any one position?”

If we were by ourselves, this is where we would remain. But we are not. There is grace everywhere, especially here, and God’s grace often comes and brings people together in amazing ways. Yesterday, the House of Bishops passed a full communion agreement with the Moravian Church. We have been working on this at least since 2003 and I was on the dialog committee from 2005-2007. It was an amazing moment, and is a wonderful expansion of our Church, especially for those of us who live in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Right now, I confess that I am in the Great Bewilderment to see how our Church can take all the resolutions about human sexuality and find the great Convergence. The resolutions around B033 and same sex blessings go everywhere. However, I am hope filled because in the past I have seen deputies and bishops in General Convention let go of their political stances to win a point or a cause and collectively be moved to discern God’s will. In the middle of bewilderment it’s hard to believe it happens, but I know it does. Scripture and tradition and our own history tell us so.

I admit that I am tired and that I am not filled with zeal to return to day long meetings. However, I believe in the One who is the great Convergence, and I believe He will do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

Keep us in your prayers.