Deal or No Deal

There is always a certain "opening night" energy at this point of General Convention: the volunteers' aprons are crisp and bright, the greetings of friends and colleagues not seen since last convention sincere and energetic and the vendors and booth tenders are busy unwrapping their wares and arranging their buttons and pamphlets. So here are some quick musings on this first day of Getting-Convention-Going:

I've been here since Friday and today the Exhibit Hall opened, credentially began and it was my first foray into the cavernous convention center which will become very much our home-away-from home for the next ten days. As for us, we've spent most of our time so far getting volunteers organized, our work center and booths set up, and tracking the errant Fed Ex delivery — (scheduled for by 10 a.m. Saturday now promised by "sometime" Monday. We'll see!) I'll leave momentarily for a briefing for bishops and deputies on the pending legislation and our hopes for this convention.

What's our "agenda?" I couldn't say it any better than Michael did in his sermon last night … and the words that keep echoing from me from it are "We speak of what we know …" There's some calming reassurance in those words from John's gospel … "we speak of what we know."

Nobody's asking us to do anything other than speak of what we know. Speak of our lives made fuller and more holy by the Spirit of God present in them in and through the Episcopal Church. Speak of a church enriched and enlivened by the work and witness of LGBT Christians who want nothing more than to serve their Lord and live out their lives in relationship with their beloved and in communion with the saints. Speak of the mission and ministry of the church we love — and how sick unto death we are of having it hijacked by those determined to scapegoat LGBT vocations and relationships as expendable bargaining chips in the game of Anglican global politics.

What we know is that we are here in Columbus ready to move forward in mission and ministry while others are intent on drawing lines in the sand issuing ultimatums and piloting an Anglican version of the ridiculously popular game show, "Deal or No Deal."

Here's what we know: the Episcopal Church is smarter than that, more faithful than that and more determined to live out its historic commitment to the Gospel imperative than that. That's what we know.

Voices of Witness…

The clock is ticking away and Vic, our editor, is racing against it. My flight to Columbus leaves in a few hours and we are rushing to get the final edits done on the Voices Of Witness video. This video project has been in the works since last September when we began taping at the home of All Saints parishioner Adelaide Hixson. She graciously let us spend two days interviewing "voices" who consented to be our witnesses to being in a parish that not only supports gays and lesbians, but celebrates them. Each and every "voice" was powerful, articulate, and faithful. That is why we are down to the last few minutes, scrambling to finish the edits. We didn't want to cut out anything or anybody. We had over 30 hours of videotape to whittle down into 40 or so minutes. What a challenge and what a privilege! I am so impressed by my fellow parishioners: gay, straight (or as Archbishop Desmond Tutu says…"so-called staright"). They were open and honest and compelling and down-right brilliant! We are so lucky to have had such a wealth of participation. This video will be a gift to the church from Claiming The Blessing. It is an opportunity for the greater church to listen to the voices of those who have flourished in a parish where the call of our baptismal covenant..to respect the dignity of every human being….. is lived out every minute of every day.And what a gift it was for me to have been a small part of telling this story. VOICES OF WITNESS premiers at General Convention on Tuesday, June 13th. Stay tuned for VOICES OF WITNESS to play in a parish hall near you.Louise Brooks

Executive Producer & Director

VOICES OF WITNESS

What We Know

I commend to you the homily preached by Integrity past-president Michael Hopkins at our Integrity Volunteer Orientation and Eucharist last night here in Columbus. Always a gifted preacher, Michael articulates our call to speak our truth in love to a church that will sometimes not hear it firmly grounded on the doctrinal foundation of the Holy Trinity. It was truly an inspiring beginning to our work here together at General Convention 2006. — Susan

What We Know

We speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen.

Here we are, a gathering of orthodox Christians celebrating the Feast of the most blessed, glorious and holy Trinity.The timing of this General Convention, so much earlier than it has been in the past, was a point of some controversy, but one wonders if it was not a piece of the divine humor to help make it be so. It is as if God is saying, “Focus on the mystery of my life before you start mucking around any more in your own.”

For me, one of the important things to remember and hold dear about the notion of the Trinity was that long before it was codified in doctrine, it was testified to in experience. The Trinity, for the early Church, was a way of talking about the experience of God, not a way of defining what that experience should be.

Anything we call Christian Truth has always worked that way. It was first an experience of the People of God, and only afterwards a doctrinal statement.

Those who criticize us for lifting up our experience and asking the Church to discern with us the work of God in it rather than “making the theological case,” are simply mis-remembering how it works and has always worked. Theology always follows experience.

That is precisely what the readings for Trinity Sunday mean to remind us about. It was Isaiah’s awesome experience of God that led him to his “yes” to mission. It was Paul’s experience of God’s “yes” to him that enabled him to speak of God’s “yes” to others. And in the Gospel reading, it is an experience of God, rather than theology about God, into which Jesus is trying to coax Nicodemus.

“How can these things be?” Nicodemus asks. Jesus’ answer is revealing. After a gentle chide, he answers.

We speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen.

Among other things, this is a statement of how Jesus does theology: from experience. It is, I believe, how Integrity, specifically, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons generally, have been making their witness and helping the Church do its theology for the last thirty years and more.

It was thirty years ago in 1976 that Integrity first had a presence at General Convention, a presence that resulted in a promise from the Church of our full inclusion, a promise we are still waiting to be fulfilled. For thirty years—11 Conventions—we have kept coming back and doing two simple things—offering our experience as Christian people to the Church and asking for the promise to be fulfilled.

Read it all

Convention Octave of Prayer: Trinity Sunday: Grow in All Ways Into Christ

by The Right Rev'd Chilton Knudsen

"We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.  But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together with every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love."  - Ephesians 4:14 -16 When our son Dan entered into early adolescence, those well-known growth spurts enveloped him in cycles.  Often, some parts of Dan grew while other parts remained stubbornly boyish, untouched by the growth spurts happening in various parts of his body.  At one point, his feet were of adult size while his arms and legs were still short and plump with the roundness of toddlerhood. His waist would grow, but his legs didn’t… and vice versa.  A downy mustache grew on one side of his upper lip but not the other.  His voice would sometimes resound impressively with the bass tones of a mature man; at other times, his childlike treble would soar, birdlike and pristine.Growth happens to us in uneven ways. Read it all.