GC July 13

Our HOD morning session began with speeches from our youth presence which has seat and voice but no vote. Zach Brown zeroed in on that fact as he deplored the lack of youth involvement. He said you can't grow the church without the youth. Will you let us be leaders?
We then returned to debate about the consent to the Bishop of Ecuador Central, a diocese that is very conflicted. Much testimony was in Spanish with translation sentence by sentence. Their debate time was doubled to make up for this. Most of the testimony was in favor of consent, but the opposition was obviously very unhappy and alleged impropriety in the process. Still most of this testimony was in favor of consent, and we eventually voted for this.
We have also been told that the Venezuela deputation had been refused visas in spite of intervention by the church.
We spent a lot of time voting for candidates for Pension Fund Trustees and the committee for the trial of a bishop.
Our Eucharist featured a wonderful children's 'choir, Young at Arts. They did a great arrangement of both versions of 'This Little light of Mine".
The Gospel was Luke 10:29-37, the good Samaritan. The sermon was by Courtney Cowart Head of disaster response Diocese of Louisiana. She spoke of the dark forbidding road to Jericho known as the bloody way. All angels hold their breath. There is a new reality with one catalyst, a Samaritan. The choice to act with mercy was revolutionary. Two thousand ears later there is another Jericho in a hurrican ravaged city with thousands abandoned. A woman holds a sign, "I am American too". Thirty Seven Million Americans live in poverty. Come , find Ubuntu in New Orleans.
Communion was celebrated by Bishop Singh of Rochester. We used the Missa Appalachia by Johnathon Dimmock, a friend of Meredyth Ward , one of our clergy deputies. The Bishop has a fine singing voice and the setting is beautiful. There were also some fine music to sing during the communion including "Precious Lord"
Our deputation met for lunch and we discussed what might happen with D 025 in the HOB.
Our afternoon session was a long slog and we attempted to shorten it b suspending certain rules to speed things up. We are behind in our calender. We voted several more times in order to get a majority of votes for candidates. WE voted changes in title IV disciplinary canons , a long and complex revision. To my great frustration, several people attempted to make amndments on minor matters which slowed things to a crawl. Such work is best done in a committee, not a house with over 800 members!
We went past the 6 pm quitting timee , but refused to extend it further. We were invited to a reception by the diocese of Long island to celebrate their new Bishop Larry Provenzano who was a menmber of our deputation until his election this spring. It was a very nice party, and just before that, I learned that D025 had passed the HOB with only minor amendments. This is tremendous news! I spoke with Bishop elect Provenzano about the decision and he said that hearts were changed during the debate.

peace and good night
John