Sunflowers and Fireworks

When people learn that I've been to General Convention, the question they most often ask is, "what's it like?"

Well, it's like the biggest family reunion you've ever imagined. You are impressed right away with the sheer size of it: the immensity of the spaces set aside for meetings and worship, the hundreds of people moving about and settling in seats, the months of planning that preceded the orderliness of it. I love to watch people move about the long, broad concorse that connects our meeting rooms, greeting one another, chatting in groups, welcoming newcomers, hustling off to the next meeting or hearing or worship service.

Then there's the diversity. There are people here of every size and shape and color and age. There are deputies and bishops and visitors from far away, speaking unfamiliar languages and wearing wonderfully exotic clothing. You are impressed anew by the breadth and reach and glorious embrace of The Episcopal Church.

Best of all, everyone seems to be happy to be here. I see it in the t-shirts and beads and buttons sported by folk who might not wear them at home, in the big sunflowers worn by all the folks from Kansas, including their bishop, in the stuffed animals that perch on the diocesan signposts on the House of Deputies floor. (Need I tell you ours is a moose?) I feel it in our worship and when we are at prayer during our legislative meetings.

Finally, there is our love for the church and a shared devotion to the mission of the church. That, after all, is why we are here: to take part in the governance of The Episcopal Church and to work at discerning and empowering that mission.

For me, that work mostly takes place in meetings of the Joint Standing Committee on Program,Budget, and Finance, to which I was appointed by House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson a couple of years ago. The committee is "joint" because it comprises both bishops and deputies, "standing" because it meets and works during the triennium between conventions, and "program, budget, and finance" because it recommends to the convention the budget that will support the program of the church during the next three years.

There are 27 of us on PB&F, and we've been meeting frequently, often with Church Center staff, to assess revenues and apportion expenses. I don't have to tell you that it's not a fiscally comfortable time for the church--you already know that in your congregation, and it's a reality in our diocese. But uncomfortable times can also be enormously creative and productive times, and PB&B is at work on a creative budget. It will be presented to a joint session of the convention--both the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies present--Wednesday afternoon.

Every night at 9:35 the fireworks go off at Disneyland, a loooong California block away. I'm often walking across a fifth floor lanai to my room at that hour, coming home from a PB&F meeting, and the booms remind me to thank you for this extraordinary opportunity and immensely satisfying work.

Blessings,
Judith