Long time coming=long blog

Continuation of 7.9.09:

After the legislative committee from 2-4pm, it was necessary for some coffee. I was actually quite emotionally charged after the committee meeting because it seemed to me that we, as the Episcopal Church, were trying so hard not to further offend the Anglican Community, but I was confused on what they were doing in order to stay in communion with us. I got a real sense of Our way or the Highway. However, I do not know if the Anglican Communion feels the same way about us. So I calmed down a bit and really actually wanted to figure out if they truly were doing anything (this is still a task I am working on throughout this Convention)

The next legislative session was from 4:30-6pm. At this legislative session we tried to elect 12 people to the Church Pension Fund Trustees, however, there was a lot of malfunction of in the voting key pads so we decided not to continue with it, and wait till another time where the kinks were all worked out. So we moved on to our first meeting as "The Committee Of the Whole" this is committee #8 (World Commission *the one I am reporting most on*) way of trying to bring this issue up slowly to the HOD and hear from the Deputies in order to gain some guidance on how the HOD feels about the issue of B033 in order to shape legislation accordingly. They began with approximately a 15 minute history on B033 and went into an activity.

The first activity was a 30 minute exercise where Deputies were asked to get with a Deputy they did not know and physically close to where they were sitting and talk about three questions with that Deputy. The questions were: What is your story with B033, What is the church's story with B033, and what should the church do now. I met with the head of the Deputation, also a Senior Deputy from Utah. He had much insight and brought up points I had not thought about. In the end he was in favor for moving beyond B033.

Immediately after the session was over I grabbed my friend and 19 year old 2nd time Deputy from Chicago to come with me to the National Cathedral reception. There were many people there and we spoke with the director of events who had put the reception on and learned more about all the National Cathedral in Washington DC has to offer. One most important thing was that they have hours and hours of videos of interviews with many influencial people, including Desmond Tutu.

After that around 8:15pm I grabbed another friend, 22 year old Alt. Deputy from South Western VA and we went to the opening reception of the Young Adult Festival (YAF) that started that night. After meeting up with another friend actually from our Diocese we all went out to the "Block" to a restaurant and had margaritas while discussing the future of our Church. Went to bed around 11:15pm.

Friday, July 10th:
Woke up again at 6am, attended the deputaion meeting at 6:30am where the debriefing from each of us is getting longer and more interesting as more resolutions move through the legislative committees.

I went to the only legislative committee meeting time scheduled for the day at 7:30-9am, and half way was visited by Rev. Samantha Vincent-Alexander, assistant rector at my church, roommate, and good friend. The committee said that they would meet again at 7:30pm-10pm, however, I believe this to be a closed meeting because it was not listed on the board for open committee meetings in the Convention Center *and either way I was not going to be able to attend*. The committee almost immediately got into sub committees because the hearing they had planned for D020 had no one signed up to testify for.

Samantha and I listened into the Bishop Elections and Anglican Communion subcommittee as they tried to perfect the resolution C061, which in the end they brought before the main Committee when they regrouped. After a lot of debating on grammer and word use the subcommittee came up with something that basically said this: All baptised persons will have access to any ministry and not have their discernment process discriminated against based on (all the normal things, marital status, sex, age, race, ethnicity) but here's the important part: sexual orientaion, gender identity or expression.

When the subcommittees came together and it was time to present this amended C061 there was much confusion on the presenting committee's part about whether they were just perfecting the resolution to bring to the House floor or to actually reccommend the resolution when it is on the floor of both houses. This kind of annoyed me...that is what committees DO...that is their job, how are you on a committee and not know that? This caused some slight confusion, and therefore not as many Deputies were on board with the resolution as perfected as once thought. However when brought to a vote there were 17 deputies who passed it to go to the HOD and 8 who voted against bringing it to the floor. The 4 Bishops in the group all voted against bringing it too any house. However, since the Deputies passed it my understanding is that it will first go to the HOD and if passed *without amendment* will go back to the committee for the Bishops on that committee to back a recommendation or not. Either way it will go to the House of Bishops *HOB* at that point, but with a recommendation it would look better to the HOB.
This could be one of the major resolutions we deal with at General Convention, this could be the resolution that moves us past B033. Stay tuned!

After that we went into Legislative Session where we did not do anything of real controversy.

Then was Eucharist. After Eucharist i went and worked out, got coffee and was back for the 2-6pm Legislative Session. John Baldwin gave up his voice and vote this session to Alternate Rev. Samantha Vincent-Alexander. At this session we voted and elected 6 Trustees to the Church Pension Fund. We also heard from the President of the Episcopal Relief and Development, and most controversially had an hour of talk on views of B033, where speakers who addressed the House won the lottery conducted the day before. John Baldwin had previously gotten a low number and gave it to Rev. Michael on our deputation, and he spoke ellogantly and with ease. My Deputy friend from Chicago was also able to speak. There were a total of 30 speakers, 20 of them for moving beyond and forward from B033 and 10 wanting to take no action. If you think about that, that's 2/3rds of the house on the side of moving beyond B033. Also there was much confusion and concern surrounding the resolution of accepting Rev. Luis (something) to become the Bishop of Ecuador that came from the Committee on Bishop Elections. A woman passionately spoke against this resolution saying that when the process was occuring in Ecuador a lot of shady actions were being taken in order for this man to come so far, and that half the provinces wanted him as Bishop but the other half did not, and that in many ways people were oppressed and it was not a fair and just process. This resolution was tabled until there was more documentated information for the Deputies to look over to aid in their decision on what to do.

7:00Pm I went with Samantha and Marilyn Meek to the UTO Dinner and it was absolutely wonderful. The food and company were lovely and the Bishop speaking was inspiring and humourous.

9pm I joined the Chicago Deputation for their social meeting and met up with yet two more friends from that diocese!

On the way back to my hotel I met up with some of the YAF participants who'd gone to the Integrity Eucharist who had nothing but great things to say about the service, I got to go to the one last Convention and I heard it matched up to that standard.

10pm I joined my diocese for their social time. I met up with the new Rector of Johns Memorial, the church I attended when I was at Longwood and found that he had brought at least one other student that I knew, and I was excited to see them.

11:37 I am finally caught up on my blog and am ready for some much needed rest! : ) I'll try not to take so long in catching up next time, so the blog won't be as long.