My Mother's basic palliative for most of my hurts and scrapes was to say "Go to the medicine cabinet and bring me the bottle of Mercurochrome." She knew that by the time I got back, the hurt was probably over. I feel like pouring a vat of Mercurochrome over my head right about now. On second thought, I would just turn all this grey hair a terrible red color and I am not ready to let go of my pain just yet. The sting of the Mercurochrome as I recall would take my mind off the original hurt but in this case the sting of the adoption of the triennial budget calls for something a little stronger. I need the flight home to decompress.
Both Houses adopted the budget – the House of Bishops without discussion and the House of Deputies with too little too late. There was a modest attempt to restore funding for the women’s program and the anti-racism office but it was too little too late.
If there is a bright side, there is something to take your mind off the sting in this cutting climate and it’s the additional $300,000 that has been allocated for Hispanic/Latino work. Granted it is a far cry from the $3.25 million requested but the additional money is testimony to the outstanding work done by the Hispanic Staff Officer and his Task Force. The Convention was provided a compelling report on Outreach and Evangelism to Hispanics that outlined how the additional funds, if awarded, would be used to plant congregations and develop worship resources. I hope we haven’t set the Task Force up for failure by providing less than 10% of the amount they requested to do their job while expecting 100% of the same outcome.
Another piece of good news is the reduction in diocesan assessments of 21%. Long Island has faithfully held its budget commitment at about 16% even in the face of our own shortfalls and struggles and the voted reduction in assessment will get us nearer to the full asking.
Another piece for me to remember is that in the Diocese of Long Island we are fortunate in that we have the Mercer School of Theology. We don’t need a school of theology to do anti-racism work (we can do it by creating a diocesan committee or commission) but it helps to have the school as a resource. We are far more fortunate than others.
In the days ahead, we will be exploring all the implications for work to be done at the diocesan and congregational level and how we will generate the resources to enact the work of the convention.
Some of this will be new and a few old dogs will need to learn new tricks but we will manage. We will do better than manage.
I’m looking forward to the coming days as we explore new mission opportunities and new ways to be the church together.
And besides, Mercurochrome is now banned by the FDA.
7/17/09
7/16/09
A LA LA Day on L A Night
When the Presiding Bishop opened the joint session for the purpose of receiving the budget for the Triennium, she indicated that the budget would feel like death.
About the same time, I noticed my Blackberry vibrating. I had a message. The sender wrote, "My job is being eliminated, can we get together?" My heart sank. My Blackberry started vibrating again. A text message from a colleague about another friend had arrived. After the third message arrived on the now I know why they call them "Crackberries," I shut down the computer, packed up and left the joint session.
What in the name of God were they thinking when it was only minutes before the joint session that they advised staff who are in Anaheim (and who had been asked to engage with the public and put a human face on the national Church Center) that their jobs were being eliminated.
A human face was put on the budget for me as the names of the 37 staff people began to dribble out. Mind you – the budget hasn’t even been adopted.
In Pastoral Theology 101 folks in the ordination process learn the basics of human relations.
In Clinical Pastoral Education people learn a methodology of delivering news especially bad news, and human resource studies have dwelt on the day of the week, time of day and setting for telling employees that they were being let go.
Didn’t anybody think of the pastoral implications of what they were up to yesterday? Where were the chaplains? People can’t travel back home with the same sense of self worth that was packed for the trip out.
Survivor syndrome is beginning to set in for the remainder.
What a thoughtless mess.
About the same time, I noticed my Blackberry vibrating. I had a message. The sender wrote, "My job is being eliminated, can we get together?" My heart sank. My Blackberry started vibrating again. A text message from a colleague about another friend had arrived. After the third message arrived on the now I know why they call them "Crackberries," I shut down the computer, packed up and left the joint session.
What in the name of God were they thinking when it was only minutes before the joint session that they advised staff who are in Anaheim (and who had been asked to engage with the public and put a human face on the national Church Center) that their jobs were being eliminated.
A human face was put on the budget for me as the names of the 37 staff people began to dribble out. Mind you – the budget hasn’t even been adopted.
In Pastoral Theology 101 folks in the ordination process learn the basics of human relations.
In Clinical Pastoral Education people learn a methodology of delivering news especially bad news, and human resource studies have dwelt on the day of the week, time of day and setting for telling employees that they were being let go.
Didn’t anybody think of the pastoral implications of what they were up to yesterday? Where were the chaplains? People can’t travel back home with the same sense of self worth that was packed for the trip out.
Survivor syndrome is beginning to set in for the remainder.
What a thoughtless mess.
7/15/09
Mickey's Shame
Hail, Hail the Hale and Hearty are back. Blessedly I found my inner Red Bull and have come roaring back because we are in that part of Convention that separates the wheat from the chaff.
If any of you are thinking that I was off at Disneyland yesterday having fun and that’s why I didn’t get anything posted let me quickly get that notion out of your head. Wrong – it was a day of meetings and listening. However, I did have an encounter of another type with Disney.
The Episcopal Network for Economic Justice, Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice and the Disneyland Hotel Workers held a march and vigil for economic justice for the hotel workers. I joined the group.
Almost daily we are gently reminded to be generous in our tips to our wait staff and chamber maids and in her homily on Sunday, the Presiding Bishop was rather direct in her request to all convention goers to be generous to all the housekeeping personnel who are assisting us so marching and tipping seem to be “doing the right thing!”
The issue that took us to the street was Disney’s proposal to make all the employees “regular casual” in order that health care and other benefits would no longer be part of the worker’s compensation.
You know my feelings about playing the hour’s game to reduce benefits to employees so this action of Disney is a grave matter of economic injustice.
Shame on you Mickey! Shame, shame double shame.
What you are doing is Goofy.
If any of you are thinking that I was off at Disneyland yesterday having fun and that’s why I didn’t get anything posted let me quickly get that notion out of your head. Wrong – it was a day of meetings and listening. However, I did have an encounter of another type with Disney.
The Episcopal Network for Economic Justice, Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice and the Disneyland Hotel Workers held a march and vigil for economic justice for the hotel workers. I joined the group.
Almost daily we are gently reminded to be generous in our tips to our wait staff and chamber maids and in her homily on Sunday, the Presiding Bishop was rather direct in her request to all convention goers to be generous to all the housekeeping personnel who are assisting us so marching and tipping seem to be “doing the right thing!”
The issue that took us to the street was Disney’s proposal to make all the employees “regular casual” in order that health care and other benefits would no longer be part of the worker’s compensation.
You know my feelings about playing the hour’s game to reduce benefits to employees so this action of Disney is a grave matter of economic injustice.
Shame on you Mickey! Shame, shame double shame.
What you are doing is Goofy.
Update for John Andren's Blog
Gentlereaders of John Andren's Blog,
In his most recent posting discussing the Province 2 Caucus and Bash, he listed the dioceses that make up the Province. John was probably tired when posting thereby omitting three dioceses - Haiti, the Virgin Islands and Convocation of Churches in Europe.
Mon Dieu!
In his most recent posting discussing the Province 2 Caucus and Bash, he listed the dioceses that make up the Province. John was probably tired when posting thereby omitting three dioceses - Haiti, the Virgin Islands and Convocation of Churches in Europe.
Mon Dieu!
7/13/09
When Ubuntu Isn't Enough
Day 6 - Four to go on this legislative Tour de Anaheim. My body especially my legs are crying for mercy. Now the tough slog is ahead.
Sunday, July 12 was the last day to pass any resolution with budget implications and in an unusual move, Holly McAlpin, the Co-Chair of the Joint Committee on Program, Budget and Finance requested prayer before asking Deputies to not pass a flurry of resolutions with dollars attached and that the committee was already seeking to close a $14 million budget gap. The Joint Session to receive the budget will happen on Wednesday.
I have no idea where we are on the legislative calendar. The special orders that led to the overwhelming passage of D-025, the resolution affirming that ordination is available to all baptized people and seen as the response to 2006 B-033 consumed significant amounts of well spent time. The consent to the election of Rev. Luis Fernando Ruiz Restrepo as bishop of the Diocese of Ecuador Central has been another major time consumer.
Today's chapter of this tragic opera featured the chair of the deputation from Ecuador Central urging his defeat and an Ohio deputy and the consultant to our Nominating Committee was urging his approval. I really don't know what to make of it. If the deputation from Long Island had urged the disapproval of Father Provenzano and deputies with no relation to the situation were urging something different, I just don't know if I would take kindly to that kind of decision making. This seems a bit paternalistic when deputies in their wisdom know more than the locals.
Adding to the consumption of precious minutes was the voting machine fiasco. If those machines can't get any better, the Convention should return to the red and green cards of days gone by. The Ecuador Central vote, after three misfires with the voting machines, 835 paper ballots were distributed. I seem to recall the machines having the same problem in Columbus. What I do know is that this is the kind of thing that saps everybody's energy. I hope the energy bars will be provided when the denominational health plan and mandatory lay pension come to the floor.
I passed Canon Scott Hayashi, Canon to the Ordinary in the Diocese of Chicago, in the hotel lobby and we exchanged greetings. Scott lamented through this day.
"Ubuntu just isn't enough -I need a Red Bull."
I don't know about a Red Bull but on this Day 6 I too need an energy lift.
Sunday, July 12 was the last day to pass any resolution with budget implications and in an unusual move, Holly McAlpin, the Co-Chair of the Joint Committee on Program, Budget and Finance requested prayer before asking Deputies to not pass a flurry of resolutions with dollars attached and that the committee was already seeking to close a $14 million budget gap. The Joint Session to receive the budget will happen on Wednesday.
I have no idea where we are on the legislative calendar. The special orders that led to the overwhelming passage of D-025, the resolution affirming that ordination is available to all baptized people and seen as the response to 2006 B-033 consumed significant amounts of well spent time. The consent to the election of Rev. Luis Fernando Ruiz Restrepo as bishop of the Diocese of Ecuador Central has been another major time consumer.
Today's chapter of this tragic opera featured the chair of the deputation from Ecuador Central urging his defeat and an Ohio deputy and the consultant to our Nominating Committee was urging his approval. I really don't know what to make of it. If the deputation from Long Island had urged the disapproval of Father Provenzano and deputies with no relation to the situation were urging something different, I just don't know if I would take kindly to that kind of decision making. This seems a bit paternalistic when deputies in their wisdom know more than the locals.
Adding to the consumption of precious minutes was the voting machine fiasco. If those machines can't get any better, the Convention should return to the red and green cards of days gone by. The Ecuador Central vote, after three misfires with the voting machines, 835 paper ballots were distributed. I seem to recall the machines having the same problem in Columbus. What I do know is that this is the kind of thing that saps everybody's energy. I hope the energy bars will be provided when the denominational health plan and mandatory lay pension come to the floor.
I passed Canon Scott Hayashi, Canon to the Ordinary in the Diocese of Chicago, in the hotel lobby and we exchanged greetings. Scott lamented through this day.
"Ubuntu just isn't enough -I need a Red Bull."
I don't know about a Red Bull but on this Day 6 I too need an energy lift.
7/11/09
An Ode to a Tree
Thank you Joyce Kilmer for giving us the great line, "I think that I shall never see, a poem as lovely as a tree...". If you could see what we are doing to some untold number of trees, it would break your heart.
Anyone who can hold a pen or type/word-process a few lines can issue a publication it would seem. Each morning when you leave the hotel, issue papers are in the lobby. If you fail to find one there, in a gauntlet leading up to the main doors of the Convention Center, volunteers are passing out their papers. Thousands of these things are being printed. The Convention produces a daily paper, The Daily, that is stacked up everywhere.
Just inside the main door there is a gigantic table with paper all over it - position papers on the various pieces of legislation, announcements, campaign materials for those running for office, and God only knows what else is on that table but there are thousands of sheets of paper on the table and they don't seem to be moving. If that's not enough, at the daily Eucharist we get a daily bulletin that averages about 15 pages - but they tell us that their paper is from well managed forests. Even so, I think they make 3,000.
Then there are the official papers having to do with the Convention itself. The 850 deputies get a pile of paper everyday more than once a day with new legislative information, a daily calendar and messages from the other House and the bishops get similar packets throughout the day. The Triennial delegates are getting papers and the spouses are getting papers.
It's just silly - that's all I can say especially for a Church that continues to pat itself on its collective back for its care of God's creation and stewardship of resources. And all the while passing more resolutions about stewardship and care of creation. Duh!
But take heart, Conventioneers can have all the paper we want; we can't have a bottle of water. Water bottles are not permitted. We are overusing drinking cups but let us be grateful for something. In addition to the flash drive I pleaded for in my posting Blue Book Blues, perhaps we could be given an individual canister and have the cups removed as well.
Maybe real conservation is something the Youth Presence could shame us into because dear readers, please remember ... Blogs are written by fools like me, but only God can make a tree.
Anyone who can hold a pen or type/word-process a few lines can issue a publication it would seem. Each morning when you leave the hotel, issue papers are in the lobby. If you fail to find one there, in a gauntlet leading up to the main doors of the Convention Center, volunteers are passing out their papers. Thousands of these things are being printed. The Convention produces a daily paper, The Daily, that is stacked up everywhere.
Just inside the main door there is a gigantic table with paper all over it - position papers on the various pieces of legislation, announcements, campaign materials for those running for office, and God only knows what else is on that table but there are thousands of sheets of paper on the table and they don't seem to be moving. If that's not enough, at the daily Eucharist we get a daily bulletin that averages about 15 pages - but they tell us that their paper is from well managed forests. Even so, I think they make 3,000.
Then there are the official papers having to do with the Convention itself. The 850 deputies get a pile of paper everyday more than once a day with new legislative information, a daily calendar and messages from the other House and the bishops get similar packets throughout the day. The Triennial delegates are getting papers and the spouses are getting papers.
It's just silly - that's all I can say especially for a Church that continues to pat itself on its collective back for its care of God's creation and stewardship of resources. And all the while passing more resolutions about stewardship and care of creation. Duh!
But take heart, Conventioneers can have all the paper we want; we can't have a bottle of water. Water bottles are not permitted. We are overusing drinking cups but let us be grateful for something. In addition to the flash drive I pleaded for in my posting Blue Book Blues, perhaps we could be given an individual canister and have the cups removed as well.
Maybe real conservation is something the Youth Presence could shame us into because dear readers, please remember ... Blogs are written by fools like me, but only God can make a tree.
Oh What a Nite!
Oh What a Night! Of the things that I have been looking forward to at this General Convention, last night's reception for Ed and Patti Browning was at the top of the list. I was fortunate to receive one of the coveted invitations to a reception in their honor to celebrate the launch of a book honoring the XXIVth Presiding Bishop. It was wonderful. XXIV, XXV. and XXVI were all in attendance in one place but this was XXIV's night.
Staff colleagues from my days at the Church Center, activists from back in the day and a bunch of bishops who were associated with Bishop Browning's time as Presiding Bishop were all in one place. It was old school at its best. Sheryl Kujawa-Holbrook took a leave of absence to write the book and Brian Grieves, David Perry and Peggy Beers are overseeing the project that will be published by Forward Movement Publications in time for Christmas. All involved with the project speak of it as a labor of love and love was in the room. A lot of air kisses and fake hugs are flung around during the eleven days of Convention but last night every hug and every kiss was genuine for both the giver and to the receiver. It was the Episcopal Church that I love.
Oregon has been very good to Ed and Patti because they looked marvelous after all these years and when he said "I hoped that you would come" my heart skipped several beats.
It was quite a night.
Staff colleagues from my days at the Church Center, activists from back in the day and a bunch of bishops who were associated with Bishop Browning's time as Presiding Bishop were all in one place. It was old school at its best. Sheryl Kujawa-Holbrook took a leave of absence to write the book and Brian Grieves, David Perry and Peggy Beers are overseeing the project that will be published by Forward Movement Publications in time for Christmas. All involved with the project speak of it as a labor of love and love was in the room. A lot of air kisses and fake hugs are flung around during the eleven days of Convention but last night every hug and every kiss was genuine for both the giver and to the receiver. It was the Episcopal Church that I love.
Oregon has been very good to Ed and Patti because they looked marvelous after all these years and when he said "I hoped that you would come" my heart skipped several beats.
It was quite a night.
