A HUGE DEBT OF GRATITUDE

       
    
         THANK YOU!

...to everyone who participated in General Convention 2012 of the Episcopal Church.  Although the time period for you to accomplish your tasks was compressed, you completed your work and served our church admirably.  Those of us who were not in attendance owe you a huge debt of gratitude for your dedication and fortitude in facing the difficult challenges.  May God bless you and give you rest, refreshment, and peace.

STORY OF THE DAY - BROKEN DOWN

this is a machine that's supposed to 
make people good & true & kind & the 
funny thing is that it works best when 
it's completely broken down so everyone 
has to stop what they're doing & get 
together & figure out how to fix it. 

From StoryPeople.

TEC GENERAL CONVENTION 2012 LEGISLATION

Legislation passed at General Convention which causes me to rejoice.

• Authorized blessings for same-sex unions in dioceses with the agreement of bishop of the diocese.

• Explicitly included transgender people in the work and witness of the Episcopal Church and as candidates to the ordained ministry.

• The Rev. Canon Gay Jennings elected President of the House of Deputies.

•  Byron Rushing elected Vice President of the House of Deputies.
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About the legislation on restructuring, we'll see who is appointed to the task force and how that goes.  What I do not want to see is more power yielded to the bishops.  The hierarchical structure of TEC is entirely a good thing, but our shared governance by laity, clergy, and bishops is, I believe, our great gift to Anglicanism.

The budget?  That's not my area of expertise or even understanding, so I'll leave the commentary to others more knowledgeable.
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Legislation passed at General Convention which saddens me.

The resolution on the Anglican Covenant at its core says, "as a pastoral response to The Episcopal Church, the General Convention decline to take a position on the Anglican Covenant.”

Both Elizabeth Kaeton, who was present at GC, and SCG, who, like me, observed from afar, write with excellence about the failure of the Episcopal Church to take a position on adoption of the Covenant.

Elizabeth:

I understand the politics. Honestly, I do. But, I think the statement is inherently dishonest.

We could have easily said "no" to the Anglican Covenant in the House of Deputies.

I think we could have even released ourselves from being held hostage from a very few purple shirts in the House of Bishops and let our 'yes' be 'yes' and our 'no' be 'no'.

The folks on the legislative committee, however, chose to be careful. I keep hearing a line from the Sondheim play, Into the Woods, "....and I was so careful, I forgot how to care...."

I don't know when "pastoral response" became synonymous with "weak" and borderline duplicity.  We kicked the can down the road on this one, sacrificing a great chunk of our integrity on the altar of expediency. 

I can't imagine that our friends around the Communion can't see right through this one.

Given the other acts of courage in which this convention has engaged, this one is an embarrassment.

Le sigh.

SCG:

It's as if we are on a game show of "Who Wants the Anglican Covenant?" and the Episcopal Church is sitting on the hot seat, saying, "Gee, Meredith.... ummm... we think it's "No," but, well, gosh, "Yes" means we get to go meet with important people.  Ah, gee, ummmm...maybe, well, maybe we could ask the audience, but ummmmm...."

Meanwhile, those of us sitting at home are screaming at our computer screens: "No!!!  The answer is No!!!!"

Perhaps they needed the "Phone-A-Friend" option.  Call Scotland.  Call the Anglican Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand, and Polynesia.  Heck, call the 26 diocese in the Church of England who had the guts to say "No"!

Please read both posts in their entirety.

From everything I've heard from those who were there and from what I've read here at home, the representatives of No Anglican Covenant Coalition, moderator, Malcolm French, and US convener, Lionel Diemel, both did a terrific job of advocacy at GC for a polite but firm "no" to adoption of the Anglican Covenant, and I thank them from my heart for their hard work.  The results were not what we hoped, but that is no fault of theirs. Well done!

Those of us in NACC who walked with our English friends (virtually speaking) through their courageous vote to defeat the Covenant in the dioceses in the Church of England and with the Scots through their clear vote against adoption at General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church, so wanted TEC to support their brave stands against the odious Covenant with a polite but firm vote against adoption.  That TEC was unable to demonstrate support of our friends causes me shame and disappointment.  The legislation  that was passed smacks of hypocrisy, since there is no money in the budget for the "task force of Executive Council to continue to monitor the ongoing developments with respect to the Anglican Covenant" (whatever that means). Does it mean we'll sit and watch while other churches have the courage to make a decision one way or another?

Meanwhile, General Synod of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia passed legislation stating that the church is "unable to adopt" the Covenant. Congratulations!

SOUTH CAROLINA DEPUTATION LEAVES GC

Due to the actions of General Convention, the South Carolina Deputation has concluded that we cannot continue with business as usual. We all agree that we cannot and will not remain on the floor of the House and act as if all is normal. John Burwell and Lonnie Hamilton have agreed to remain at Convention to monitor further developments and by their presence demonstrate that our action is not to be construed as a departure from the Episcopal Church. Please pray for those of us who will be traveling early and for those who remain.

Thanks to Susan on Facebook.

TODAY'S LESSON

And God promised men that good and obedient wives would be found in all corners of the world.

Then he made the earth round....and laughed and laughed and laughed...

 Don't blame me. Blame Doug.

NACC STATEMENT ON VOTES ON ANGLICAN COVENANT

                                              No Anglican Covenant Coalition

Anglicans for Comprehensive Unity

noanglicancovenant.org

NEWS RELEASE

JULY 11, 2012

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

COALITION STATEMENT ON THIS WEEK’S VOTES ON THE ANGLICAN COVENANT

INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA – Two days ago, the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia rejected the Anglican Covenant.  Yesterday, the Episcopal Church voted to “decline to take a position on the Anglican Covenant,” and to continue to monitor the progress of the Covenant until the next General Convention in 2015.  No Anglican Covenant Moderator, the Rev. Malcolm French, has issued the following statement:

The wind has clearly gone out of the sails of the Anglican Covenant.  There was not even a single dissenting vote when the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia declared itself unable to adopt the Covenant.  While our Coalition would have preferred a clearer “no” from the Episcopal Church, the resolution passed in Indianapolis is scarcely more than an abstention – and the commitment to “monitor the ongoing developments” rings hollow when we consider that the same General Convention phased out funding for the Episcopal Church staff position for Anglican Communion affairs.  Perhaps they will monitor the situation by following #noanglicancovenant on Twitter.

The next major step in the Covenant process will be at the Anglican Consultative Council meeting in Auckland, New Zealand, this fall.  We understand that there will be an attempt to introduce a ratification threshold and a sunset date to the Covenant process.  Depending on the details, our Coalition is likely to be broadly supportive of both initiatives.

--------------------------------

The No Anglican Covenant Coalition is an international group of Anglicans concerned about how the proposed Anglican Covenant would radically change the nature of the Anglican Communion.

noanglicancovenant.org

The Rev. Malcolm French (Canada)                        +1-306-550-2277

The Rev. Jean Mayland (England)                            +44 07966 921247

The Ven. Lawrence Kimberley (New Zealand)        +64 3 981 7384

The Rev. Canon Hugh Magee (Scotland)                +44 1334 470446

Dr. Lionel Deimel (USA)                                            +1-412-512-9087

THINGS THAT DEPRESS ME

As many as 500,000 Louisiana residents — mainly working adults — won’t get government health insurance as a result of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s decision to reject a Medicaid expansion in the law overhauling the federal health care system.

Jindal has said on national television that the new health care law recently found constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court is too costly and allows government to intrude too much into private lives.
Executives of the LSU-run and community hospitals voiced concern that Louisiana could suffer a “double whammy” because the new law decreases money to pay for the care of the uninsured, while increasing funding for Medicaid coverage for many of those same people. Jindal opposes state expansion of Medicaid.

Insurance executives also say they’re worried about Jindal’s opposition to setting up a state-run clearinghouse that allows consumers to shop and compare policies, according to Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon.
....

DHH Secretary Bruce Greenstein, who is Jindal’s chief public health lieutenant, declined comment again Monday.

He has refused a dozen requests for an interview about the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, since June 28.

If Louisiana expanded Medicaid, the federal government would pay 100 percent of costs for the first three years, then 95 percent for the following three years and 90 percent after that, under the provisions of the ACA. (My emphasis throughout)

So tell me how Jindal's decision not to participate in expanding Medicaid makes any %#@&*$ sense at all.  Why is the secretary of the DHH in hiding and refusing to comment?  Greenstein will have to say something sometime.  What will he say? 

The man who has the title of governor is running around the country, making a fool of himself trying to get Mitt Romney elected, and, in the meantime, leaving the Gret Stet of Loosiana in the hands of surrogates to run...the Gret Stet, which is at the bottom of the surveys in all the positives and at the top in all the negatives, and who, when he does take action, runs the state further to the ground.  By the time Jindal finishes his term, the state will be underground.

AH...EVENTS

 

Your vision after cataract surgery generally doesn't deteriorate over time. However, sometimes the lens capsule that holds the implant becomes cloudy. In such cases, the cloudy capsule can easily be treated with a laser to make it clear again.

Yesterday, after we dropped off my car to have a scraped fender repainted, Grandpère and I continued to the ophthalmologist's office in New Orleans, where I had tests and pictures taken to monitor macular degeneration, which - Thanks be God! - has not progressed since last year.  Then the doctor performed the laser procedure mentioned above to clear up cloudiness in my right eye.  Once the blurriness from the eye drops was gone, I could see an immediate improvement in the clarity of my vision.  What had been my bad eye was now the good eye, and I could see, after the fact, how cloudy my vision had been, and how cloudy the left eye still is.   In a month, I will have the left eye done.  All went well and without pain, but after the hours in the doctor's office and the various procedures, I felt worked over, and we still had to face the traffic before we made our way out of the city and back to Thibodaux.

We returned home after picking up my grandson from day camp; I picked up my laptop and went to my son's house to stay with my grandson until his father returned home from work.   When I reached home later in the evening, our landline phone service was out, so we went through all the procedures of unplugging each phone to check if one of our phones was the problem, but all seemed well there.  This morning, the phones were working again but with static on the line, so I called the repair service and gave my information to the automatic voice connected to no person, and someone is to check the line by Thursday.

The cleaning lady arrived early and began her work, followed by the termite inspector come to check for the little critters.  No termites were found.  As I was eating my toasted Italian bread for breakfast, I crunched down on something hard, which, when I took it out of my mouth, looked like a small stone, and I thought, "What the hell is a stone doing in my bread?"  Upon a closer look, and a strange feeling in my mouth, the "stone" turned out to be a piece of an upper molar.   My dentist will have a look this afternoon, and I'm sure I will need a crown.  Non-stop events take their toll in old age, but I realize life could be much, much worse...whine, whine, whine.  Sorry, sorry, sorry, but I had to do it.

The stained glass eye pictured above hangs in the doctor's office.

PRAYER FOR GENERAL CONVENTION OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH & FOR GENERAL SYNODS OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH IN AOTEAROA, NEW ZEALAND & POLYNESIA AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

Almighty and everliving God, source of all wisdom and understanding, be present with those who take counsel in General Convention and two General Synods for the renewal and mission of your Churches. Teach us in all things to seek first your honor and glory. Guide us to perceive what is right, and grant us both the courage to pursue it and the grace to accomplish it; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (The Book of Common Prayer)

Note: I added the Church of England General Synod to our prayers.

MY WEEKLY REMINDER