An Alternate View: A Day of WOW in #GC78

Today was amazing!! The highlights were that I got to catch up with a good friend - a brother in the SSJE (Society of St. John the Evangelist) who I hadn't seen since the 1990's), I had lunch with one of my best friends at one of my favorite restaurants, and the sermon at the morning worship service was outstanding!
Sermon by Becca Stevens - link 
Brother Jim and me 

I'm way too tired (lazy?) to write much more at this hour, but I'll simply let others do the work for me :-) I'll add that I never imagined my tweet would be quoted in Mashable and Buzzfeed, but I think that's pretty cool! In each case, I waited until the last vestiges of the president of the house's voice sounded as she read the voting results in each case BEFORE I pressed send.

I gave a play-by-play tweeting that several folks said had them on the edges of their seats. It was riveting and a bit stressful too. I'm not able to type with two hands yet on my iPhone and since wifi was off, I had to make sure I was ready with the important tweets and correct with numbers of amendments and resolutions. Super fun work though :-)

After attending a portion of the "Utah Night" event at the Salt Lake City Tabernacle, I checked my phone and it was blowing up with folks letting me know I had been quoted in these articles. Nice surprise! Here are the two small articles.

1. Mashable article
2. Buzzfeed article
While I am personally very, VERY happy with the way today's voting turned out, I am conscious of the fact that not everyone was rejoicing in the House of Deputies, among my colleagues and friends, and among members of the Anglican Communion.With that in mind, I am extremely proud of our church for being able to discuss both sides of any issue, for being able to center decisions and discernment in prayer, for reaching out to all even though all may not agree on something, and for taking risks, albeit slow risks. I'm very proud to be an Episcopalian all the time, but maybe a portion more today.
Here's a photo of our Diocese of Louisiana Deputation and then some scenes from around the Tabernacle area. Salt Lake City is very pretty and also extremely clean.

EDOLA deputation (not pictured: Edgar Stearns and me :-)

An Alternate View: Salmon, Deputizing, and Baseball at #GC78

Monday, Day #5 of #GC78

"Who eats salmon for breakfast?!" my bishop asks as he swiftly walks by on the way to his legislative committee. I'm not really a morning person. If it were 9:00 instead of 7:00 and I had a coffee, I might have been able to think of a comeback. I have a vague notion that lots of people eat salmon for breakfast. I love my bishop, so I'll let him have this one....this time :-)

The General Convention has a tough schedule. One has to be fully coherent and functional by 7:00 AM and ready for a looooong day of work. Today was my first day as a Deputy on the floor of the House of Deputies so I had to be here to register and change credentials at 7:00 AM. I'm used to complaining about ACDA (American Choral Directors Association) reading sessions at 8:00 AM! Let me tell you, those sessions now seem like cake. 
CAKE I tell you.

(Solely for the purposes of this blog, I got a cake-like item in the afternoon and enjoyed eating it ....)
- No legislative committee session for me this morning so I took some time and chatted with friends.
- Community Eucharist at 9:30 I'm glad to see that most people attend these services. The Media Hub is fantastic so I hope you're occasionally watching from home.

The Lux Singers from Salt Lake City sand beautifully this morning. The Pilgrim's Hymn (Paulus), O Magnum Mysterium (Victoria), and Bogoroditse Devo from Rachmaninov's All Night Vigil were a few of their selections. It was nice!

                                  

The Archbishop Vicken Aykazian of the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church in America preached and afterwards congratulated Presiding Bishop-elect Michael Curry. 

Also recognized was the 100th Anniversary of Armenian Genocide and The Episcopal Church's hospitality to Armenian refugees who came to the US. The Archbishop was wearing an amazing pectoral cross.

                 

- 11:00 my first legislative session as a Deputy! :-)
View from the table with MARTY the crawfish and Jacques the Duck

Today was my first time going to bunch w/ the deputation. We went to Café Molise 

                 

- 2:15 session until 6:00

It was exciting to follow the legislative procedure from the floor and to track the many amendments. I got to vote several times today! I reached a point where the language and rhythm felt a easier to gauge and predict and I could usually tell who was coming up for what. There were a lot of people who just came up to speak and hear themselves. There were also times of robust testimony from both sides of an argument. 
- Here's my Twitter stream again in case you want to see my play-by-play of the proceedings. I ran over to the House of Bishops as soon as we had recess and came in to hear someone testifying against a canonical resolution. He was reading the Bible and calling for members of the LGBT community to know and to prayerfully abstain from mutual sexual gratification. As soon as he finished, I had to leave, but at the end of the day, we got news that the House of Bishops DID pass key resolutions!!!! Check out my friend Melodies Woerman's Deputy News post!

Now, for a bit of fun, members of the Diocesan deputations from Louisiana, Western Louisiana, Tennessee, and Western North Carolina all went to the Salt Lake City Bees vs. Albuquerque Isotopes baseball game! I'm sure there are tons more #GC78 folks here too!

It was SO HOT! but is now starting to cool off. FINALLY, a breeze! I sat next to Bill Bryant from the Diocese of Western Louisiana. He is a priest who was formerly a chemist so of course we exchanged jokes about isotopes and chemistry! :-) FUN!

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned,
Caroline :-)

An Alternate View: #GC78 Marriage Equality News from the Supreme Court

THIS
"Supreme Court Declares Same-Sex Marriage Legal in All 50 States"
and this (from Hilary Clinton's Facebook page and now all over the internet)                                                   
I am SO HAPPY FOR SO MANY PEOPLE!!!
This morning, the Committee on Marriage was meeting while the Supreme Court decision came out. There were folks raising hands to speak and inform everyone. When the information was read, there was some applause and then a moment of prayer. Someone suggested that the hearing adjourn because it was an intensely emotional moment and many needed to make calls to family and friends as well as write press releases etc. So many people here are extremely elated by the decision, but there are many who are not. All seem to be handling it very well and respectfully, but this will surely spark and change some conversations in the Marriage Committee. I can't wait to see what will happen with Liturgy & Music and Marriage Committees. Here is the link to A037, the resolution to Continue Work of the Task Force on the Study of Marriage.
http://www.generalconvention.org/gc/2015-resolutions/A037/current_english_text