Light in the Fog

This reflection is about yesterday at General Convention.

General Convention is slogging along at a painfully slow pace.  Although the length of GC inevitably makes the whole experience feel like a marathon, I think the feeling of slowness is because of an inability to get anything done.  I went into yesterday morning frustrated that we were moving slowly and that important committee work was taking so long. I went to the governance and structure committee meeting in the morning to sit in solidarity with others from the Mississippi Deputation as that committee greatly struggled to come to some resolve.  It was a frustrating experience just watching the process; I can only imagine the frustration in actually being on the committee.  It was only 15 minutes before the morning Eucharist that I realized the committee was so bogged down that they were not going to join the rest of the community for worship.  (I'm about to get on a soap box) I believe many of the problems that committee is struggling with can be grounded in this decision.  If there isn't time for worship, if there isn't time to gather as the Body and to receive the nourishment and strength of Christ, then why are we even here?  Everything we do needs to be grounded in the beliefs we live out through our worship.  Needless to say, I was very sad to hear that the committee would not join us for worship.

After worship we headed into our legislative session for the morning and slogged some more through elections and resolutions.  We did make a bit of headway before adjourning for the morning. In the afternoon we came back and made real progress on resolutions that will actually mean something for the church.  We passed a resolution thats aim is to update the process of calling a bishop and we passed a resolution seeking to continue the work of the Marriage Task Force. We committed to supporting the work of planting churches and revitalizing congregations along with starting a new initiative that would strengthen our evangelism through social media.  The Book of Occasional Services will be revised and we will get new liturgical resources for honoring saintly people. On the social justice front we passed resolutions supporting handgun purchaser licensing along with a decrease in gun violence. 

Finally, the Deputation from Mississippi rose and we spoke to a resolution, written by us, to affirm the removal of the Confederate Battle Flag from all public, government, and religious institutions.  Two other people spoke in support of the resolution and it passed the house resoundingly.  I am posting below the remarks I made before the House of Deputies in support of this resolution. 

There was a great deal of activity in the House of Bishops yesterday.  They voted for the canonical changes that would make the marriage rite gender neutral.  I will not speak with authority on this subject so I invite you to check out David Knight's blog www.itinerantpriest.org

I ask your continued prayers for the Mississippi Deputation as we continue the marathon.  Please pray for the governance and structure committee.  Please pray for the repose of the soul of Sharon Wilson, a good friend to many in our deputation who was killed earlier this week up in Vicksburg.  Please also pray for the community of Vicksburg as they wrestle with this tragedy.  

Remarks Before the House of Deputies

I rise, on behalf of the whole Mississippi deputation to support this resolution

As this resolution states, symbols are important and they help to shape our belief and our continued understanding of God in the world.  To continue to allow the Confederate Battle Flag to have a place in our churches says something about the episcopal church. We believe it is time that we remove that symbol - which for some is claimed as a symbol of heritage but for many more has and continues to be a symbol of slavery, racial injustice and violence, and now, more than ever, a sign of the white supremacist movement.  The Confederate Battle Flag has no place in a church that calls all baptized persons to respect the dignity of every human being.

But this resolution goes one step further.  It challenges us to get out of our churches and engage our public and government institutions in a conversation about such a toxic symbol of hate having any place in our current civic life.  While only a first step in starting the hard conversation we need to have about racism, acceptance of diversity, and dismantling institutions that tear down some while lifting others up, this resolution is symbolically important and shows that the Episcopal Church is on board with the conversation that is happening on a national level right now.

We felt as the deputation from Mississippi that we needed  to speak to this issue. But this isn't just our issue, and so we call on the whole church, as people of God, to join with us to remove this symbol of hate and oppression and to work toward bringing equality to all people.  thank you.