A Time to Listen

On Friday morning, Cecilia Smith+, a member of the clergy delegation, left for a day on a personal trip, so I had my first opportunity to sit on the floor as a part of our diocesan delegation. Despite my struggles to keep up with the resolutions being considered and the motions being made (it helps to have four people next to you doing the same thing: we flip around until someone finds the resolution being discussed and calls out something like "I got it," and we all look at where they are in their binder. It's kind of like a game of "find that verse"!), it was fun. We fly along from resolution to resolution until one hits a snag, and then it can get really boring and frustrating really fast as picky amendments are made and debated: we spent about 45 minutes on one sentence! Then, as the house gets tired and cranky, they start passing things that really need to be looked at. The House committed our church to abide by something called the "Earth Charter:" they handed out pamphlets, one for every table, and we had about 3 minutes to look at an eight page document before voting! As Joe Reynolds+ said, most of these are passed to be ignored. When I was telling her about it Kate said, "Then what are you people doing?! How much money are you wasting?" Actually, lots of people here will say the same thing. The problem is that if we were going to shorten this thing up, folks would have to give up their pet causes (like the Earth Charter) and focus like a laser on the work of the church: and no one is willing to do that. We have about the same amount of self-discipline as the US Congress: heaven help us!