Nativity of St John the Baptist

A 7:30am start time to a meeting is harsh and challenging. A 7:00 start time is inhumane and brutal. But I was at my place in the (cavernous) room set aside for Committee 11 right on time--glad, in this case, for the time zone setback that supposedly made it feel like 8:00 to my body. We met for 90 minutes, heard testimony on resolutions having to do with resources for music in small churches, translations of liturgical materials into other languages, and the like. Then we began the legislative sausage-making business, and voted to report out about a half dozen resolutions with an Adopt recommendation, save for one that would have asked the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music to produce a series of essays on Christian initiation. See details here. 

At 9:00 we gather in the House of Deputies chamber for initial remarks from the Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies. An hour later, the bishops adjourned to our own chamber for a lot a tedious but necessary organizational issues (like learning how to use our "virtual binders"--dedicated iPads with all the resolutions and reports--everything that would have been in loose-leaf form in conventions past.
Lunch at Olive Garden with our deputation chair, Kevin Babb. (Brenda was on a bishops spouses event.)

From 1:30 until 4:30 we were back in joint session of the two Houses for the purposes of hearing from the four candidates for Presiding Bishop. We saw a two-minute video from each one introducing himself, heard slightly longer opening statements from each, then several rounds of random questions in certain set categories that each one was asked to respond to. The Twitterverse was comparing it to ecclesiastical Jeopardy. Overall, a valuable exercise.

Then there was a welcome generously long break, with time for dinner. Brenda and I found a nice Mexican place, with very tasty mole sauce.

From 7:00 until nearly 9:00, I was back in committee, with more hearings, this time on resolutions related to the liturgical calendar. (See the link above for the substance.) Sadly, we then got bogged down in some procedural issues--the order in which the committee should consider the resolutions--and there's not an entirely satisfying path out of the thicket. Somehow, something will emerge.

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