Well, today was the first official day of GC. It might not seem like it because I and many others have already been blogging on GC for a few days now. But, there is a lot of work that gets done before the official start. Largely, the time up until now has been used in legislative committee meetings. Legislative committees receive resolutions to discuss and to vote on before said resolutions make their way to the House of Deputies and the House of Bishops. Oftentimes the resolutions are amended in committee and people outside the committee are allowed to speak for or against the resolutions. This is very similar to how congress works. I digress.
Today started out with our first legislative session. This might sound exciting but actually it is the most most boring hour in the whole GC. There is a great deal of parliamentary procedure that has something to do with organizing the House of Deputies and making sure that all of us approve of the people who are in charge. This takes about an hour and so our first legislative session basically consisted of making sure we were ready to start legislating.
From there we headed to our first morning worship. The only negative thing about worship was the actual space, which is abysmal. There is a large pillar right in the middle of the space so not only is there no center aisle but the view of the altar is obscured. Anyway, worship was beautiful and well done (except for the pillar) and even though the distribution of communion was incredibly awkward and at one point I saw Bishop Gray using large arm waving to help Bishop Marble find his way back to his seat, overall the experience was uplifting and meaningful. It's important for the work we are doing at GC to be continually fed through the Eucharist. I am glad that each day we will be invited to worship together.
After worship it was on to more legislative committee meetings. I sat in on Prayerbook, Liturgy, and Church Music. The topic of testimony was the centrality of the Eucharist and how small churches are struggling to remain vibrant without being able to offer weekly Eucharist. The proposed resolution would look for new ways to bring the sacrament to congregations that have no priest. It is interesting that we have so well indoctrinated the church to the centrality of communion within the 1979 Prayer Book that congregations just don't show up for Morning Prayer. Having served in small rural congregations and hearing the testimony of many faithful people concerning this topic, I think it's important that the church come up with creative ways to address this issue. Over lunch the most creative idea that our deputation could come up with was sending the consecrated elements by drone to rural parishes. :-)
The testimony in Prayer Book, Liturgy, and Music this afternoon centered on the revision of "Holy Women, Holy Men" which is in and of itself an expansion of "Lesser Feasts and Fasts." I have concerns about this new edition and how it might take away the importance of some pillars of our faith by placing them along side good and faithful citizens who are worth knowing about but not worth venerating.
Last this afternoon the House of Deputies gathered again to consider the resolution for new rules of order. The hope in these new rules would be to help streamline the process of legislation. There were many people who questioned and tried to amend the new rules - I was not one of them. We ultimately passed the new rules resoundingly. Tomorrow will be our first opportunity to see how these new rules affect our ability to legislate.
After supper tonight I headed to the committee hearing on Structure. The Rev. Canon David Johnson can speak more eloquently to what was discussed but I will say that there was some convincing arguments made for getting rid of provinces within the Episcopal Church (provinces are like regional groupings of dioceses that allow for collaboration and networking) and for turning our legislative governance into a unicameral body where bishops, clergy, and laity all meet together in one house. It will be very interesting to see what the committee recommends in terms of this legislation.
So, today there were lots of beginnings. With those beginnings there were some definite hiccups and do overs but for the most part, the machine that is GC is moving forward with its business.
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