It was a jam-packed day to be exceeded only by tomorrow.
There were long legislative sessions in the House of
Bishops in which we dealt with the necessary business of the church plus a lot
of issues where we were just voicing our moral sentiments.
But the more interesting things happened in the Structure
Committee and at the Asian lunch. Last night there seemed to have been a shift
in the sentiments of the Committee. Afterward a subcommittee met late into the
night to work on a resolution to substitute for the 40 or 50 or so resolutions all
calling for major structural reform. When they came back this morning, they had
settled in on an independent task force to create a restructuring proposal.
Between meetings today, that group worked tirelessly on a draft resolution
creating the task force. They presented their product tonight. It is already a
thing of beauty, but we worked it over in the Committee, having a very positive
reaction but also offering a number of creative suggestions. The drafting
committee is at it again even now and will be working on it tomorrow. We will resume
over the noon hour to and spend a couple of hours perfecting the most important
resolution for the overall mission of the church in quite some time. The spirit
of the committee has shifted from basic anxiety to basic excitement – with some
anxiety still fluttering around. That is good. No anxiety would mean no real
danger of change.
The most pleasant part of today was having lunch with
Episcopal Asian Ministries – a huge gathering at P. F. Chang’s. I sat next to
Bp. David Lai of Taiwan. We used to share a table in the House of Bishops. I
saw Bishop Malecdon, Primate of the Philippines, and his Secretary General and
Chancellor, Floyd – both of whom I knew from my visit to Manila. I saw Mimi Wu
and Fred Vergara of EAM, and our own Filipino & Pacific Islander Missioner,
Fr. Arsolin Almondiel, was there to introduce me to Bishop Maximo, Primate of
the P.I.C, our communion partner (as in we are in full communion) in the
Philippines. I met a priest named Irene from Guam, Peter Ng, and many Asians
involved in ministry here.
When the Episcopal Church comes to Indiana, you notice we
are here! We look like the world. We look like the family of God.
2 comments:
What of the move to sell off 815? NYC is admittedly very expensive but I never got any sense what would replace it? What is the alternative on the table?
I must be very out of touch because honestly when I heard the idea I thought no way is that ever going to pass HoD. And it did. Or maybe I don't know enough about the alternatives. BTW, how did our NV delegation vote on that issue? Matthew wright
I don't know how the Nevadans voted. There has been a huge push to sell 815 for a long, long time. They almost did the deal to move the Church Center to Chelsea Square to live with General Seminary during the Griswold years, but the Church backed out at the last minute. Proposals usually have to do with moving to a more central, less expensive location. The problem of course is that this is a lousy time to sell real estate. Part of the building is empty which would drive down the price further. The original proposal was a complicated process with lots of wiggle room. The Structure Committee amended to force a sale within 3 years. That was amended on the floor to mandate selling sometime before Jesus comes. It may or may not happen. "No man knoweth the day or the hour."
Post a Comment