Since I spent the day at the diocesan convention, you get to, too …
The day started early — earlier than expected, as Katherine decided at 5:21a that she couldn’t sleep in her own bed by herself. About twenty minutes later, we acceded to her insistence — at which point she demonstrated she couldn’t sleep in our bed, either. Eventually Margie got her settled back in her bed — for a while. At 6:40a she again visited us, in time for me to get up and shower.
Off to the fabulous Holiday Inn DIA, famous across the Denver metro area for hosting sci-fi and gaming conventions, not to mention Episcopal Diocese of Colorado functions. No, it’s not a bad place, and they’d done a bit of sprucing up of the halls, but there’s never any doubt that you’re in a convention hall.
Appropriately, we had Anglican weather: cold and drizzly.
I toured the slowly opening exhibitors hall — the usual mix of bookstores, clerical supply vendors, program/charity booths, etc. Vaguely interesting, but nothing to blog home about.
In the past, the actual convention has been set up at round tables — grouped by region, I think, but largely first come, first serve — with the hall oriented long-ways, and big monitor screens at the front and midway back. This year they went to having the hall oriented short-ways, with the long, narrow convention tables to sit at. That’s okay, actually, though for a larger group the round tables are kind of nice, since the orientation minimized the distance from the podium. The screens at either side of the hall, though, were angled very poorly for folks in the sections to either side (e.g., us), as well as for the folks up front. Plus the glare of the overhead lighting made it difficult to see — ironic, since the podium was under-lit.
Conventions of this sort are one part inspirational devotion, one part politics, and one part boring reports. We had defined prayer sessions at the start, Noon, and close, which was nice. The music was a tad contemporary — I like a blend, but most of it was right off those Modern Xtian Worship Music CDs one sees flogged on late night TV. Mercifully, being Episcopalians, the amount of devotional arm-waving during the music is at a minimum.
(Side note: How would you like the material honor of your life be to have the convention hall at the Holiday Inn DIA named after you? Yeah, me, too. I have to wonder if it was a previous manager or regional VP for the franchiser.)
The convention this year is all higgledy-piggledy schedule-wise — in part by having Friday be the all-day session instead of Saturday (to allow some extra time — Saturday afternoon — if things get contentious and drawn out), in part with events shuffled around a bit to meet how the bishop wants to do things his own way. Which, frankly, has worked out pretty well so far.
Pointedly (at least, I got the point) many of the devotional passages during prayer and the hymns have focused on unity, peace, and humility (as opposed, say, to triumphal victory of Good over Evil). The opening prayer was Ephesians 4:1-3, which one could do worse than emulate.
That political aspect to things casts a pall over the proceedings. Though striving to see each person there as a prayerful man or woman, acting out of the best Christian motivations, it’s difficult to keep from ascribing sinister motives to things. A sudden flurry of nominations to General Convention from the floor, for example. Or noticing some Standing Committee members didn’t sign the letter from the Standing Committee (the bishop’s executive advisory council) that supports the Bishop’s Task Force findings. You see people chatting, or leaning over and making a comment in someone’s ear, and the mind immediately wonders what they’re talking about, joking about, conspiring about …
Rrg.
By the way, if you are someone who feels a sudden calling from God to stand to election as a delegate to the national convention, and you do print up the required biographical questions and mug shot for 600 delegates, please be sure to check for typos. It’s rather discouraging to see someone wanting to go to a triennial church legislative session, one that will set policy and practice for the national church as a whole, who expresses an interest (several times) in “cannon law.” Unless you’re thinking of besieging the conference hall …
Keynote speaker was James B Lemler. Interesting fellow, good speech on the need to focus on mission, not on peripheral issues.
Lots of status reports (the boring part) on Nifty Things Going On, from outreach programs to new initiatives in the diocese to provide clearer, stricter rules for folks doing youth ministry. Inspirational, as far as it went, but … a bit lengthy for late Friday afternoon.
The high point — or most significant part — was the vote on lay and clergy delegates to the 2006 General Convention (cannon … er, canon law requires them to be elected this early in advance). Of course, given what happened at the last GC, and what’s potentially at stake at the next, the question of who gets elected is pretty important.
Which starts getting into that “divisive” and “political” thing, but it’s also part of what we’re tasked to do, thoughtfully and prayerfully and representatively. The danger is when you stop looking at the individual (as self-described) and instead start saying, “Ah, he’s from that church, he must be X,” or “Oh, she’s from that parish, she must be against Y.” It’s one thing to consider the description of the individual to see if you think they can well and wisely represent the diocese in the next convention, another to have certain keystone issues one is for/against and judge candidates against that, and yet another (and worst) to simply be partisan.
And then you get into that whole “winning/losing” trap, which is even worse.
Anyway, we voted on the (expanded) ballots. We were delayed in the initial vote because of the large number of nominations from the floor (and the need to review their bios), so by the time the vote was taken, it was too late to get the results back. Which makes for some overnight suspense.
And we ended a scosh early, and I headed home. Tune in tomorrow …