Roll Calls, Worship and Decisions begin our work together.

Today begins our first Legislative Day. In the House of Bishops, we begin with the always exciting Roll Call. What a number of bishops of my ‘age’ in the House noted in informal conversation following the

Roll Call was how it surprised us that we are moving to positions of seniority in the House. Personally, I am surprised how much those other bishops have aged since we began together. I guess Jeannie continues to keep me young.

After a brief opening legislative session, we took a recess for our Opening Eucharist. It was beautifully planned with great music and a superb sermon by our Presiding Bishop. See the text of her sermon on the General Convention web site as cited on our Diocesan web site. In short, she called us to breathe in the Spirit and to turn our faith into actions. It was a well-conceived and delivered reflection. We sang one of my favorite hymns that seemed particularly approriate for this Convention and more generally appropriate for our life and times.  It is sung to the tune Jerusalem.  Check it out in our hymnal.  The first line is "O day of peace that dimly shines..." 

Following the Eucharist, we returned to legislative session. We addressed the first few resolutions to come before our House today. They were not particularly controversial, but there is a growing sense that we might be looking at new ways to seek funding of the Convention for various projects and ministries than we have in the past. The positive side of this is the opportunity it presents to build a budget from the bottom up. While it is not exactly zero-based budgeting, it at least tries to get at the nagging concern of starting with a budget that is based on prior experience rather than on current need.

The concern with such a new budgeting approach: without a specific financial commitment attached to any given resolution, it is hard to imagine that the resolution will be taken seriously since there is not proposed amount of money attached to accomplish it. It could therefore become either an unfunded mandate or just another “feel good” resolution about how the Church should act but without the resources to accomplish this vision. The implications of this new approach will have to be worked out over the next couple of days, or we will end up with good sounding resolutions but no enabling mechanism (funding) to see them put into effect.

Jeannie and I attended a reception for the Bishop of Jerusalem that was hosted by the Diocese of Los Angeles.  Some of you may remember that Jeannie and I went to Jerusalem and other Holy Land sites a few years back with the Diocese of Los Angeles. It was life changing to see that holy center of the world for so many faithful people.  It was also daunting to see on the ground the extent to which the land of the Holy One is also a land torn by centuries of strife.  I recall again the hope: "O day of peace that dimly shines..."  The evening was also sponsored by the American Friends of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem (AFEDJ). I am a supporting member of the AFEDJ. As such, I am aware of a resolution coming before Convention that would seek reconsideration of the funding of a hospital near Gaza that is owned and operated by the Diocese of Jerusalem. It is a critical and unique medical facility in as much as it treats Christian, Jews and Muslims without distinction. However, funding from the Israeli government has been drastically reduced in the last year. Not only has it been reduced, but it appears that it was cut almost overnight rather than with any transitioning plan to make such a shift in funding manageable. In essence, it appears to be a decision made by the Israeli government for strictly political reasons. My hope is that we can at least request and lobby for a restoration of funding to this hospital that has been caught in the cross-fire of local politics only to end up injuring the lives of the very people who can least afford to have such an inter-faith facility reduce its level of assistance. I ask you to study and reflect on ways we as individuals and as a diocese might better support the efforts of the Church in Jerusalem.  We serve there as a bridge. In that capacity, it is my hope that God's healing and guiding love might find a pathway to traverse the gap that seems to be such a divide between people of faith and passion.

An open discussion was held tonight on the fifty-plus resolutions calling for reform of the structures of The Episcopal Church. While it is a broader topic of discussion, this seems to focus more specifically on the ways in which the General Convention is structured, funded and the decisions it is asked to make that fall into a very large range of ministry concerns. The end result of this discussion and the work of the Structure Committee to effectively, efficiently and faithfully deal with them still remains in limbo while the Committee perfects its final resolution for Convention consideration. However, the debate is shaping up to be a question of whether we will only “move the chairs on the deck of the Titanic” or if we will decide to make basic changes that will set The Episcopal Church’s decision making apparatus on a trajectory to be nimble, responsive and faithful in being a 21st Century expression of Christ’s one, holy and apostolic church.

Tomorrow I will be serving as the Dispatch of Business chairperson for the day. This is a matter of attending to an agenda the Dispatch set in cooperation with our Presiding Bishop and other officers of the House of Bishops and then assist the House in moving along the business before the House of Bishops in an effective manner. I enjoy this work, and I look forward to the opportunity. May it be a new day for God's mission through our Church.

I look forward to sharing my impressions of the General Convention actions with you over the course of Convention. I also look forward to your being able to hear reflections of our Deputies as they experience the work of discernment we have been given to do.

Blessings, +Don