The Home Stretch - Steve Keplinger, St. David's Page

Hi all,
We are coming down the home stretch here in Anaheim. So much happens every few hours here, it is difficult to give you anything but the highlights as I see them and the things I think might be most important to all of you. That is particularly true now that we are in the last two days of legislation, when the large majority of resolutions come flying at us all at once. I urge all of you to read the daily reports and Toni Marie Sutliff's blog too.

Here are the items that stand out for me in the last few days:
1) We passed final approval of adding half a dozen new people into Lesser Feasts and Fasts. The list includes Frances Joseph Gaudet and Oscar Romero.
2) We also approved for trial use for the next three years of a gigantic list of other people to add to our Holy Women, Holy Men list. Our list of honored people is beginning to look like the saints painted on the wall at St. Gregory's of Nyssa in San Francisco, and I personally think that is a good thing.
3) We passed resolution C014, which says we will do a new theological study of Christian marriage and what that means in our present world.
4) We adopted D015, a resolution for merciful and humane treatement of God's creatures.
5) D025, the big legislation regarding where we stand in the Anglican Communion and our statement that all baptized persons can serve in all ways in the Episcopal Church, passed The House of Bishops with an amendment adding a line about the ways of the Holy Spirit being a mystery. In the House of Deputies, we approved the amendment by a huge margin.
6) Speaking of the Holy Spirit, we all have seen Her flying in the hall of the House of Deputies, though some spoil sports suggested that it was actually a pigeon.
7) There have been lots of ecumenical resolutions too, including A075, an agreement to Eucharistic hospitality and joint mission with the Presbyterian Church USA. The Presbyterians already approved this at their General Assembly in 2008, so with our adoption it is now official.
Our agreement with the United Methodist Church continues, not yet full communion, but getting closer. We are now in full comunion with the Moravian church and we are beginning such discourse with the various African Methodist and AME churches.
8) Back to the environment, we adopted C070, signing on to The Genesis Covenant, which is about reducing greenhouse emissions at least 50% in the next ten years.
9) We passed a health care package for all full time lay and clerical employees of the church. Jody Gebhardt will also be excited to learn that we passed a new pension plan that makes her eligible to be in the system. She works just a hair over the number of hours necessary to be eligible.
10) Not just concerned about justice for our own, we also walked in protest with Disney hotel employees, whose health care benefits are in jeopardy of being taken away.
11) Our friends at Page Regional Domestic Violence will be happy to know that we passed D096, a resolution about prevention of domestic violence and educating our clergy more about how to handle it.
12) Mike Atkinson will be happy to know that we passed A142, the anti-racism resolution too.
13) We also passed a new budget for the next three years that takes into account the state of the economy and the difficulties will be facing. It included cuts of 23 million dollars, which means that this is going to become much more of a bottom up church, with it being up to us at the local level to make things happen.

Time and again throughout this Convention, it has become clear what it is that we want to make happen as a church. In two words, it is mission and evangelism. For example, while most everything else was cut, our commitment to the Millenium Development Goals stayed totally intact. Our desire to care for those in need and spread God's love to all is the will of this church. It was so heartening to me to hear the entire church supporting just what we have been doing at St. David's.

There are hundreds more, but these stand out for me.
In addition to the legislation, General Convention offers myriad opportunities to experience worship and preaching and prayer in so many forms. I have been particularly moved by these events:
Every day of Convention, we have Eucharist between legislative sessions at mid-day. We have been exposed to a great variety of fantastic music, from African to Hispanic to Native American to European. Almost all of it came from our many Hymnals and I have lots of challenges for Mary and Virgil and all of us to try, if you are game.

On July 14, The House of Deputies was visited by interfaith guests from over 30 faith traditions. They concluded their time with us by three of the group, a Jewish, Muslim and Episcopal cantor all chanting for us. The Jewish cantor began and after they all prayed solo, the the three canted together. Three Abrahamic traditions with three very different melodies, but together they were amazingly beautiful, a great metaphor for what we can all be when we honor and care for each other.

Many evenings, we also have various Eucharists. I was particularly moved by the Integrity Eucharist, where The Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson presided and The Rt. Rev. Barbara Harris preached. Her sermon was delivered in typical Bishop Harris fashion, where she never pulled a single punch. "If you don't want GLBT folks as Bishops, don't ordain them as Deacons. Better yet, be honest and say. 'We don't want you, you don't belong here,' and don't bestow on them the sacrament of baptism to begin with." Then to thunderous applause, she exclaimed, "How can you initiate someone and then treat them like they are half-assed baptized?" Jean and I just spoke to Bishop Harris in the hallway and I told her how much that sermon moved me. "If you're not going to preach the truth," she said to me, "why bother?" Amen, sister...I mean Bishop.

Last night, Jean and I went to an emerging church service in the LA arena, hosted by the Diocese of Los Angeles. We broke open light sticks instead of using candles and watched a magnificent painter form each theme of the evening, while videos showed in the background and a band played on. It was not liturgy in my sense of the word, but it certainly showed us a way to reach Gen X and Y folk who have had little exposure to church. The sermon that night was by Brian McLaren, whose Jesus Creed we have used a few times at St. David's. In it, he suggested that sin occurs whenever we break the connection we have with each other and all the world, any violation of the wholeness of God's creation. Salvation then, is the restoration of that wholeness and is what Jesus does throughout the Gospels. Sounded just like something we might hear at St. David's, but in a way I had never quite heard before.

Tomorrow is the last day, which means we will be inundated with legislation. We are still hoping that the companion animal resolution makes it to the floor, as well as some other creation oriented resolutions.

Overall, this has been an amazing experience for me. I have been challenged, moved, inspired and exhausted by it all.
Blessings to each of you.
Steve+