Thursday (Joseph Butler)

  • Task planning at home, Morning Prayer in the cathedral.
  • Read and responded to the draft of a member survey prepared by the lay leaders of a congregation in transition.
  • Processed several emails.
  • Took a scheduled phone call from Bishop Bill Love of Albany. He is my assigned Peer Coach for the first three years of my episcopate. We spoke for about 45 minutes.
  • Reviewed and provided feeback on a service bulletin draft for my July 15 Sunday visit to St John's, Albion.
  • Met over lunch with Fr Gene Tucker, who looks after not only the parish of which he is the rector (Trinity, Mount Vernon), but, as priest-in-charge, three other congregations of the Eastern Deanery, and, as dean, three more as well. We talked about the gifts and challenges facing each of these communities.
  • Further developed and refined my homily for Trinity Sunday, to be delivered at Trinity Church in Jacksonville.
  • Gave consent to the retirement of three other bishops. Yes, bishops have to get permission from a majority of their colleagues in order to retire, even when they've reached the age when the canons mandate that they do so! (This entailed printing out forms, signing them, and giving them to Sue to mail to New York.)
  • Took a chunk of time to give detailed feedback on a set of proposed interview questions from the Search Committee of another congregation in transition.
  • Filled out a couple of surveys that the College for Bishops had hoped I would have responded to some weeks ago. Some things are only gotten to when they're gotten to.
  • Hand-wrote five notes to people who were in written communication with me following my election and consecration. There are more in the queue, and my plan is to dispatch them in batches of five until there are no more. See above re when some things are gotten to.
  • Evening Prayer in the cathedral.

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