VIEWPOINT – Do you remember the Armour Hot Dog jingle?

Big Kids, Little Kids, Kids that climb on Rocks                                                                                                                                                Fat Kids, Skinny Kids, even kids with Chicken Pox 

That song has been stuck in my head since I first arrived.  I’ve never seen so many Episcopalians in one place and if you can imagine it, they’re here!  I’ve seen a real life scribe (dressed as if from Robin Hood) that does beautiful work.  I’ve seen monks; I’ve seen clericals galore and I’ve even seen a green and gold sports jacket with a purple bowtie!  We are a diverse group indeed!  And that is just one of the reasons I am Episcopalian.  If we are anywhere close to as different in our thinking and culture as we are on the outside, it’s amazing to think we can agree on anything.  But we do.  In fact, we agree on a lot.  

As we stood in opening Eucharist this morning, we began with African tribal songs, accompanied by a choir of volunteers.  We then proceeded to move into a traditional liturgy that most, if not all, recited from memory.  That, in of itself, is amazing.  I stood and said (and believed) the same prayers as the Robin Hood scribe and the woman dressed in traditional African tribal dress.  BP Schori gave the address today and she focused on Mission.  I could never do her words justice so if you’re interested, I suggest you click on the link on the Home Page and listen to her there.  So even though I sat at a table of 8 strangers, by the end of Eucharist I had met most of them and had made 3 new friends.  Bishop Fitzpatrick’s wife from Hawaii even gave me chocolate covered macadamia nuts to bring home for the kids!  So what looks so different from the outside turns out to be much the same on the inside.  I hope we can stay focused on our sameness and build from there.  

For committee meetings, I am assigned to cover the Structure Committee.  It meets in a Ballroom in our hotel with seating for 250.  I think it got one of the larger rooms because Bishop Robinson sits on this committee and has been very outspoken on issues of human sexuality.  In the one open meeting so far however, there were only 10 observers in attendance and only one resolution had any speakers.  That particular resolution had to do with requiring churches to report energy usage on their parochial reports.  So not much of interest in the Structure Committee yet but I’ll keep going and I’ll keep you posted. 

One very fun thing for me so far has been to put names with faces.  I have been corresponding with several people over Twitter that are in attendance.  I actually met one of them this morning after Eucharist and we have a planned “tweetup” this evening where I hope to meet a few more.  I strongly believe that the more we connect with people here and the more we really get to know one another, the better we will be able to communicate with one another and possibly even resolve some of our differences.  

P.S.  I was one of the kids that climbed on rocks!! 

God’s Peace,

Kelley Kimble

Lay Deputy, St. Philips, Uvalde

DWTX from Anaheim - The 76^th General Convention opens today in Anaheim, California, and the Diocese of West Texas is well represented with bishops, deputies, alternate deputies, women, visitors, exhibitors, and the communications team. Children of the aforementioned have come with their parents and descended on Disneyland, Universal Studios, and the hotel swimming pool. Occasionally the kids have peeked in on what the adults are doing (boorring). fifteen-year-old Amy Read summed it up on her Facebook page: “Wow, that’s a lot of priests!”

For the next ten days, you can expect to hear from us daily through this e-newsletter and our daily blog. The latter will have news postings from the communications team on the ground in Anaheim plus viewpoint postings from our deputies and alternate deputies. Our bishops will record a message daily – you can hear it here or on our blog. We will update late at night, so this should be in your mailbox each morning.

Meanwhile, the team at home will be twittering, updating our Facebook, and updating the website. Wow, that’s a lot of stuff!

So stay with us, and let us hear from you. You can comment on our blog page or send an email to Marjorie.george@dwtx.org.

 DWTX from Anaheim  - The Episcopal Church’s 76th General Convention officially opened Wednesday morning, July 8, but by this past Sunday area hotels and the Anaheim Convention Center were already awash with the familiar blue-and-red Episcopal Church logo.

Deputies, bishops, visitors, and exhibitors began arriving Sunday, and by Monday lines were long at hotel registration desks. The Convention began Wednesday with a legislative session at 8 a.m. and a 9:15 a.m. Eucharist at which Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori officiated.

Clearly, the issues over human sexuality have not abated in the three years since the 75th General Convention, held in Columbus, Ohio. More than a dozen resolutions on the table at the 76th Convention deal with sexuality issues, including several that call for the repeal of a resolution passed three years ago that asked The Episcopal Church to “exercise restraint” by not consenting to the election of any bishop whose lifestyle presents a “challenge to the wider Church.” The resolution, titled B033, was widely acknowledged to apply to those in homosexual relationships.

As these resolutions began to surface, President of the House of Deputies Bonnie Anderson asked that two special sessions be convened “to exchange information and viewpoints among the deputies” and to “inform” the committee to which the resolutions have been assigned, the Committee on World Mission.

Those hearings are tentatively scheduled for either Thursday or Friday of this week.

Eight resolutions call for the inclusion in the Prayer Book of some sort of blessing for same-gender marriages. The resolutions go first to the Committee on Prayer Book, Liturgy, and Music where they could be combined or amended, or sent forward to one of the Houses with or without a Committee recommendation.

The diocesan deputation will be closely watching both of these topics; Deputy Susan Hardaway serves on the World Mission Committee, and Deputy Drew Cauthorn has been assigned as the chancellor to the Prayer Book, Liturgy, and Music Committee.

DWTX from Anaheim - Through the art of public narrative — sharing your story and listening to others’ stories — Episcopalians can discern the challenges they are called to confront as a congregation, a community and a church, and move into action.

“Public narrative is a language of mission,” said Marshall Ganz, who teaches the process at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. “It is a leadership art … accepting responsibility to enable others to achieve purpose in the face of doubt, uncertainty and challenge.”

On July 7, Ganz provided an introduction to public narrative to more than 1,000 bishops, deputies, visitors and guests attending General Convention. During the conference, which officially began July 8, participants will be given the opportunity to learn it in three sessions.

The public narrative project is a direct response to resolution D043 passed by the 75th General Convention in 2006 that called for a dialogue on mission in the church and is part of a Harvard University research project, said the Rev. Gregory Straub, executive officer and secretary of General Convention.

Diocesan representatives are encouraged to go through the public narrative project training as a group and take the skills home and adapt them to their diocese, churches and communities.

“Narrative, story telling, is how we learn to access the courage to confront the unknown, to make choices to act upon them, choices informed not only by our head, but by our hearts,” Ganz said. “Narrative, then, is a way we can communicate our own values, experience the values that we share with one another, and find the courage to confront challenges to those values that require action. Through public narrative, we learn to link our own calling to others.  It is a way to put Ubuntu into action”.  (Ubuntu, a Zulu or Xhosa word that describes humaneness, caring, sharing, and being in harmony with all of creation, is the 2009 General Convention theme.)

The art of public narrative includes the “story of self,” the “story of us” and the “story of now,” said Ganz.

“The project doesn’t end with General Convention,” said the Rev. Michael Pipkin, the project’s General Convention coordinator and priest-in-charge of the Falls Church Episcopal in Falls Church, Virginia, adding that 200 public narrative coaches have been trained and will be deployed to the Church’s 110 dioceses to train others.

Source: Episcopal News Service, writer Lynette Wilson