Greatest Treasure

My daughter's wedding celebration on the 4th of July in Las Vegas was an intense event that has engendered in me the entire spectrum of emotions, from satisfaction and contentment that she is happily married to a partner who will love and support her in her life, to sadness and disappointment that life is so hard and daunting for other young people I know and love. There is a part of me that longs to be able to fix the things that have gone wrong for these young people, and, of course, I can't, and I know it.

The juxtaposition of myriad happy moments with news of schism in the church, recurring illness of several beloved friends, and bad behavior by celebrities and government officials everywhere just makes for a confusing end to a celebratory week. I find myself taking things seriously again and choking on the bile that rises up from the unfairness of disease and poverty and the stupidity and perfidy of famous people with their privilege and position.

I am reminded once again to tend the little patch of garden I've been allotted in my part of the world, to pet my cat, smile at babies, drop some coins or folding cash into the cup, and say a prayer for those I encounter who look down in the dumps or in pain, whether physical or psychic. Those are the things that I can do, and that I should do. It sometimes seems like it would be easy to give up, to say, "Damn it, damn it, damn it," stamp my feet in frustration, and retire to a life of quietude and insulation in my room.

But that's not how most of us are made. We are made for each other and wither when we do not have the approbation of colleagues, friends and family to say, "Good job, well done, glad for the presence of you." We are made for each other and need the interference of others in our lives just as we need to engage, disrupt and poke around in the lives of others in order to feel alive, to feel the reflection of ourselves in and on others, and likewise to reflect others back to themselves for their wellbeing. Ubuntu: I am, because you are. Namaste: the divine in me greets the divine in you. Yin Yang: interconnected and interdependent - this is the way of the world. 

In an email conversation with a fellow parent, she mentioned her experience of going away to college, an expected event that involved getting on a plane and going off to the big city, prepared to be independent and to solve any problems that might arise on her own. I think that we have somehow messed up in the way that we have raised our kids with so much coddling and privilege. It feels like our children are experiencing independent adulthood at a slower pace, later age, than we did and than their much older siblings did. Part of it is that as older parents, we were able to provide a lot more support of all kinds, which we did willingly.

Raising kids is never easy, and you never get it quite right. You just do the best you can and hope for the best. Luckily, all of the kids in our extended family have turned out great, without too many scrapes and bumps along the way. Their greatest treasure is knowing that they have this huge, loving, supportive family that they can truly, truly count on, no matter where they are, no matter when the need arises. I just wish that all kids had this advantage of a family that loves and supports without judgment and condemnation. I just wish . . .

The Gift of Being Slow

I've been thinking a lot about the gift of being slow. . . slow to anger, slow to respond, slow to speak my mind. It's a bit countercultural in the sense that our contemporary culture is based on speed . . . getting things done fast, checking things off a list, driving the shortest route quickly, so that we can move to the next task, assignment or appointment.

The gift of being slow when responding to something that causes your emotions to flare is that the passage of time allows you to reflect on what has been said or done. You get to put things into perspective, so that the words or actions don't get blown out of proportion to what's true of the overall relationship.

If you take a mental step back, away from the immediacy of the words and actions, you also get the chance to reflect on the possibility that you may have misheard the words or misinterpreted the actions. It is possible that you just might be mistaken and that the immediate response you might have given would cause harm to the relationship.

One of my practices when I was working in a large banking organization was to slow down my response to requests from senior management. I had observed that a couple of my senior managers routinely asked for fact-finding reports, driven by their own immediate emotional response to a situation, and then they didn't utilize the information and on occasion, even questioned why the information was being sent to them.

Those senior managers were showing their concern and care about situations through the act of asking for those fact-finding reports. My deliberate slow response was my attempt not to react to those senior managers' anxiety and to utilize my limited staff resources responsibly. Obviously I was judicious in my slow responses, recognizing what was important vs. what was urgent and anxiety-laden, since being unresponsive to senior management could be a real career killer.

Recently, I have been exercising slowness in sharing my opinion about events and situations. (Thus, I have accumulated a number of posts that I've written but not posted right away. That's why suddenly I am posting several from seemingly out of nowhere.) I find that taking the time to reflect on what I want to say always yields more nuanced responses from me and more receptivity from the other. For me, I have noticed that the tone of my delivery is greatly enhanced by being slow to respond. I can usually avoid getting personal and being in attack mode. I am less pedantic and offer suggestions rather than solutions. I can share examples of when I had made a similar or the same gesture or mistake. I am more likely to see facets in what has transpired or been said, including sometimes the opposing views of the other.

You cannot know the mind of the other, but you can take some time to reflect on what might be motivating the words and actions of the other. Such reflection just might help you to see another side to the issue at hand. Such reflection just might help you to see how your part in the situation is interpreted by the other, and whether you are perceived as heaping fuel on the fire or helping to defuse an intense situation.

Ultimately, being slow to respond is about managing my own anxieties. It is easy to get pulled into the emotional content of the other's strongly held opinions, which sometimes get delivered in the form of angry outbursts or invectives and personal attacks. I don't like being called names or being accused of unbecoming behavior any more than anyone else.

However, as a leader, it is incumbent on me to discern the difference between the true content of the other's complaint or concern and the anxiety the other is expressing. My job as a leader is to respond to the content and not to the anxiety. Easier said than done, but worth thinking about and addressing with a genuine willingness to modify one's own behavior and responses.

Betwixt Living and Dying

When Herb was first diagnosed with end stage renal failure fifteen months ago, we turned our focus to dying and all the permutations and ramifications of the death of a husband, partner, father, breadwinner, friend and all around good guy.

Living with a diagnosis of an end stage illness is always waiting for the other shoe to fall. You go about your business and fill your days with busyness, but you also have one ear turned towards the cosmic, alert to the sounds of the clockwork universe slowing, a ping out of place that stirs your heart. You wait even as you live and you do.

We had decided with courage and bravado not to stop living as we were used to doing, because neither one of us wanted to stop being who we are, who we were. Herb didn't want to be the "sick guy," and he didn't want me to stop being the person he has always loved, the one with a multitude of interests, friends and causes.

But, still, there is a part of you that waits for an alarm to sound that will call you out of your everydayness and fling you into the activities of hurried, important phone calls to make arrangements with doctors and airlines, rushing to the airport to be where you're needed, talking to family members and comforting and calming, recalling that you are the best of the best when it comes to someone to be in charge in case of an emergency. It is exhausting.

Then he lived, and lived, and lived, and after more months than those hinted at but not quite promised, I decided that I couldn't live that way any more, and I decided to stop thinking of Herb as dying. That shift of framing where we were at was helpful for a short while. It gave me some breathing space to inhabit my days more fully, less distractedly.

Then it seemed like we were at another turning point. We came back from the Alaskan Inside Passage cruise with Herb enjoying the entire experience and not being overly taxed by the travel and excursions. But three days after our return, Herb came down with a bug of some sort that laid him low again, and I worried. This time, I was scared, and I said to him, "It's time to think about moving back to Colorado, to live where the rest of the family lives, because I don't want you to die alone."

Fast forward another month, and everything has settled back down. It turns out the bug was just a fleeting bug, here for four or five days and gone. Herb's energy returned enough that he took a consulting assignment that he said was really fun, his word. It was intellectually stimulating to help solve engineering problems and fun to be busy and productive.

Today we travel to Las Vegas for the big family and friend celebration of our daughter's marriage to her partner of four years. We are so excited for our girls and for our family. This is the same Chinese family that told me forty-some years ago when I married my son's father, an Irish American, that their children wouldn't be allowed to marry anyone who isn't Chinese. Of course, as time progressed, many of their children married non-Chinese spouses, and they love those spouses and the children of those unions. I am so proud to proclaim that this same Chinese family is rallying in force and with joyful acclaim to see Cecelia and Jamie married as the first LGBT couple in our family. (The girls were legally married in Massachusetts where they live earlier in June.) Hallelujah! The God of Ages is great indeed.

Being Offline and Coming Back

I've not posted much the last three months for a variety of reasons. None of those reasons has been lack of subject matter or emotions. Indeed, it would be fair to say that there has been an excess of emotion, too raw and immediate to share for one like me who tends to be considerate in just about every respect. I think this is the part of me that my daughter has criticized several times in the past - what I interpret as her interpretation of a lack of emotional authenticity or depth on my part.

The word that comes to me is restraint. I think that I am a person of restraint, a restraint that arises naturally out of the core of who I am, when it comes to how my actions impact others. On the other hand, when my actions have impacted me alone, I have lived episodes of intense extremes and excess, gulping and grasping as many experiences as I could, as quickly as I could. And of course, the passage of time has ameliorated many of those excesses, dampened them simply because as one gains people and things in one's life, one loses discretionary time.

Herb and I have been a unique couple that way. He claims a self-named family motto of "Nihil nisi ad excessum," Latin, meaning "Nothing, if not to excess," and that family motto became his and mine for many years. When we got into pinball, we would play literally all day at a local pinball parlor without stopping to eat. The same thing with bowling, when we once played from the time the bowling alley opened until it closed, and our fingers were swollen from grasping the 16-lb bowling balls. When I paired with Herb, it was hard for me to remember restraint, because he always encouraged me to "go for it."

Upon reflection, I recall that even as a child, I didn't do much emotional falling apart when things saddened, angered or frustrated me. I was always concerned about the effect of my potential emotional outbursts on the people around me, about how my responses would make them feel. I remember having bouts of anger and people knowing that I was angry, because I tended to stay angry for a long time. My youth was filled with sarcasm and sharp, well aimed words. That's why Margaret Atwood's early poetry (see Power Politics, an early book of poetry) really spoke to me. But I don't recall any tantrums or eruptions, which I admit might be selective memory. I believe that my mother and my brother have different memories of a scary, angry girl.

So, from my perspective, it doesn't feel like I am "stuffing" my emotions. I think that this containment of my emotions is part of the way in which I experience my "self," which I would describe as very self-contained, self-reliant and self-defined. I think this is related to eating the mango from the pit and never the mango meat that has been sliced and served to everyone else by me. It has been fewer than ten years that I have allowed myself the luxury of tasting from the mango meat, because my inclination is always to offer the meat to the rest of the family first.

Yet I have always had a capacity for joy and spontaneous enjoyment of the smallest things. I laugh loudly and often and even giggle. My urge every time I complete the journey into the center of a labyrinth is to break out into a dance like the Peanuts dog character, Snoopy, jumping into the air for the pure joy of being at the center.

Well, I'm coming back. I expect to be posting again regularly, and I'm thrilled to have my voice back in this forum. I've been through some health adventures with Herb, which I'll tell about later. There have been a plethora of church meetings for which I've had heavy work assignments before, during and after. I've talked about them in other forums such as Facebook, Twitter, the HoB/D listserv, and various meetings where I've given presentations and reports, etc. I certainly have had no shortage of words in the past three months that I haven't posted here regularly. I've missed all of you terribly.

from Power Politics, an excerpt from a favorite poem:

We are hard on each other
and call it honesty,
choosing our jagged truths
with care and aiming them across
the neutral table.

The things we say are 
true; it is our crooked 
aims, our choices
turn them criminal.

Alaskan Inside Passage Cruise, May 23, 2010

I, clothed in nature
he, in a white bathrobe
observe the streaming by
of islands and inlets
green with spring

Dreams and wishes
blend into a soup
of contentment and regret

At some age, too advanced
for further adventure
you lose the ability to count
your blessings too numerous
your body's aches too unpleasant
You focus your mind
and your vision
on what's immediately before you
Your attention turns to God

God of All Creation,
scatter my molecules
among the stars
for future generations
to inhale and breathe me in
May my loves and experiences
mean something to humankind
May my life be a sweet refrain
that resounds like an echo
of a good idea
the memory of a good meal
the scent of a fresh mountaintop breeze
that calls your soul to soar.

Las Vegas Tips for Cece & Jamie's Wedding

Herb and I are very excited that so many family members and friends have already RSVPed to attend Cece and Jamie's wedding celebration on July 4th in Las Vegas. Herb and I have recently been frequent visitors to Vegas and have some tips for those of you who perhaps haven't experienced Vegas as much.

The key to having fun in Vegas, as with any other vacation, is to have some ideas in advance about what you want to do and how much time and money you're willing to spend. Vegas is big with many different casinos and shopping venues, and you'll have to make some choices about what you want to see and be realistic about getting up and down the Strip (Las Vegas Blvd.) and downtown to Fremont Street. 

Be sure to wear comfortable shoes for walking and standing. I saw a lot of women carrying their beautiful spiky heels in the evenings and walking barefoot down the street. Also carry a shirt or shawl to cover up in the air conditioned casinos, even in July. If you're arriving earlier than 3:00 or 4:00 PM, your room might not be ready; so be prepared to check your luggage with the bell desk and begin your vacation.

Getting Around


Check out the Viator airport shuttle here. For a roundtrip transfer in July to any hotel on the Las Vegas Blvd. Strip, the fee is $11.99, and no reservation is required for arrivals. You do need to book a pickup from your hotel though, when you leave. A taxi from the airport to a Strip hotel will run in the range of $20 to $30 including tip depending on traffic. Don't let the taxi driver take you on the freeway, because it adds distance and cost. The airport is very close to the Strip.

Cab fares can add up, but the bus at $3 per ride or $7 for a 24-hour pass is a good deal for getting around the Strip and going to downtown Fremont Street. The monorail that takes you up and down the Strip has limited stops and costs $4 a ride, but be warned that you have to walk all the way through very large casinos to get to the monorail stops. 

There is a free shuttle that runs until 1:00 AM between the off-Strip Rio Casino Hotel and Bally's on the Strip. There are also free monorails between the Excalibur - Luxor - Mandalay Bay Casino Hotels; the Bellagio - Aria - Crystals; and the Mirage and Treasure Island.

Gaming


If you like to do any gaming at all, it's a good idea to know in advance what your gaming budget is going to be and to take the appropriate amount of cash with you. I like to travel with some small bills, too, like $1's and $5's for tips. Be sure to set aside enough cash to pay for your transportation to the airport when you leave and parking when you get back to your departure city.

I am always saddened when I am standing in line at the ticket redemption center (machine) and see a young person or couple in front of me taking an expensive cash advance on a credit card, because they are seduced by the gaming and hadn't planned ahead. Herb and I know we're going to lose money if we gamble, and we factor that into our vacation planning. It's a lot like playing video games or pinball; you put a lot of (figurative) coins into the (slot) machines.

Whether you choose to play a table game or slot machines, be sure that you're alert and paying attention. It's easy to get confused amidst the lights, loud music and noise and make a mistake about what you're betting (and losing). 

If you're going to try the different casinos, two Players Cards worth getting are the Total Rewards card good at Paris, Planet Hollywood, Caesars Palace, Imperial, Rio, Harrah's, Flamingo and Bally's and the MGM-Mirage card good at the MGM Grand, the Mirage, Bellagio, Aria, Monte Carlo, New York New York, Excalibur, Luxor, and Mandalay Bay. Players Cards are like frequent flyer cards; they award you points based on how much you play and you earn comps like free meals, free play and free future rooms. 


The reason Herb and I have been to Vegas several times recently is because we have earned enough points to qualify for comped rooms at Paris, Planet Hollywood, Bellagio and Caesars Palace. We play slot machines, and it's the thru-put that counts, not the amount you actually lose or win, for earning points. 

When you sign up for a new Players Card, if you haven't had one before, most casinos will give you $5 or $10 in free slot machine play. The Winn's Red Card awards a free buffet after you earn your first 55 points on their players card, which isn't hard to do, and the dinner buffet is a fabulous $39.90 value, definitely worth taking advantage of.


Eating


Meals in casino restaurants, even the 24-hour coffee shops, will add up quickly, but there are some alternatives that are good and inexpensive. Most casinos now have a cafeteria style sandwich shop where you can buy soup, salad and sandwiches for under $10. Some of the smaller, older casinos also have beer and hot dog deals for $2 and $3. Coffee shop and restaurant portions are typically huge, so sharing a meal is a good idea, not just to save money, but to avoid throwing food away. Herb and I often order an entree and an appetizer, or two appetizers and share. 


In April and May, the Harrah hotels had a special 24-hour buffet deal that allowed you to visit any of their seven buffets in seven properties for $34.95 with a Total Rewards Players Card ($39.95 without). We bought our buffet deal at Planet Hollywood at noon and ate lunch, then returned for dinner that evening and breakfast the next morning. Had we not been so tired from walking around so much, we would have ventured off to another hotel's buffet. The Village Buffet at Paris has great French food, cooked at different stations representing cuisine from different parts of France. The Planet Hollywood Market Buffet had especially good Mediterranean food with couscous, hummus, baba ghanoush and dolmades.


Some of our favorite not-too-expensive eateries include:

• Hash House a Go Go - The fried chicken and waffles entree was amazing and plenty for two. They only charge a $1 plate charge.
• Carnegie Deli - A trip to Vegas wouldn't be complete without a trip to this fantastic 24-hr deli. It's impossible to eat a sandwich by yourself; it's just too much food, even for two sometimes. Their plate charge is $3, but you can always order an appetizer or a dessert, and share everything.
• Todd English P.U.B - A new restaurant in Crystals with many beers on tap and a unique menu. We liked the dirty chips which were fried chicken livers and homemade potato chips. The small portion of the corned beef sandwich was more than two people could eat, and the meat was very lean.
• Victorian Room at Bill's Gamblin Hall & Saloon on the Strip - We liked the Chinese meals with their good quality meats, large portions and accompaniments like soup, rice and fortune cookie at $9.95. Definitely to be shared, even for a hungry person.
• Earl of Sandwich at Planet Hollywood - Really good sandwiches for under $10, and it's open 24 hrs.
• Pink's outside of Planet Hollywood - You sit outside on the patio, and the hot dogs come in wild combinations such as two hot dogs plus pastrami in a tortilla. It's inexpensive, under $10, and you can order a beer.
• For crepes, dessert or savory, try Paris or the walkway that connects the Mandalay Bay and Luxor. They're large enough to share, especially as a snack and not a main meal.
• Food Courts exist in the shopping malls as well as in some of the casino hotels now. We like the one at New York New York for its variety.

If you're into drinking bottled water, the cheapest ways to buy bottled water are either to tip the cocktail waitress a $1 on the gaming floor or to buy it from the street vendors who are selling out of ice chests. Otherwise, the hotel shops charge $3 and $4 for a 20 oz. bottle. If you're willing to walk a bit, there are stores like Walgreens, CVS and the ABC shops were the prices are more reasonable.

Shopping

There is lots of shopping in Vegas, both upscale and for us regular folks. The big malls are The Forum Shops next to Casears Palace, The Miracle Mile next to Planet Hollywood, the Grand Canal Shoppes in the Venetian, and Fashion Mall. There is also shopping in some of the walkways that connect various hotels as well as on the second floor of Excalibur.

Clubs


Herb and I can't tell you much about clubs, because we don't frequent them. But here are some Web sites that might be helpful.

List of clubs and their cover charges:

http://www.lasvegas-how-to.com/lasvegas-nightlife.php

List of club options for the under-21 set:

http://www.ehow.com/list_6461070_18-over-clubs-las-vegas.html

Sightseeing

Right in Vegas there are a number of sights and casinos worth taking the time to see. The themed casinos are really like an adult fantasyland with over the top decor and free entertainment. Our favorites include:

• The Conservatory and the dancing water fountains at the Bellagio.
• The Forum Shops next to Caesars Palace.
• The Grand Canal Shoppes at the Venetian.
• The Paris Casino and the walkway heading into Bally's.
• The Miracle Mile next to Planet Hollywood.
• The Fremont Street Experience downtown - Not to be missed. Free video shows on the hour at 8:00, 9:00, 10:00 and 11:00 PM on the huge screens covering the pedestrian mall.
• The volcanos at the Mirage.

Well, guys, I could go on and on, but you need to come discover Vegas for yourselves! Herb and I, and Cece and Jamie are looking forward to seeing you in July!

ELCA Church Council Meeting of April 2010: Part 3

I am long delayed in getting this post written and posted online. Between last month and this month, much life has happened, including eight days of vacation with my husband. Much as I love the "stop everything normal and get outside of your life" aspect of vacations, I am also enough of a contemporary American to resent being taken away from the everyday work of my life even as I am thoroughly enjoying my vacation experience of being physically and mentally away from work, volunteering and family. My husband and I have always said that there should be no line of demarcation between "my real life" and "work life," and I feel that especially intensely these days. I am always grateful for the work that God has given to me.

Renewing the Ecology of the ELCA: LIFT - Living into the Future Together

In March, 2009, the ELCA Church Council authorized Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson to convene a study group in conjunction with its Executive Committee and the Conference of Bishops for the purpose of surveying the environment in which the church finds itself today. Executive for Administration, the Rev. Wyvetta Bullock, stated that the LIFT task force grew out of changes in the world and the ELCA after its first twenty years, evolution of relationships domestically and globally and changes in giving patterns and philanthropic support. 

The LIFT project calls the ELCA to answer two key questions: (1) What is God calling this church to be and to do in the future? and (2) What changes are in order to help us respond most faithfully? The scope of the LIFT task force is framed by four key areas:  Identity, Mission, Relationships and Sustainability, which includes funding, governance and administration. Please read the charter here for detailed information about this effort, which will culminate in a report to the 2011 Churchwide Assembly. 

Pastor Bullock led the Church Council in a small group discussion of two questions, which raised the following points:

What do you believe are the most important questions LIFT should address?

§  Lack of knowledge/transparency on how the Church Council works for the people in the pews.

§  The need for better ways to define and articulate what our common identity and mission are as ELCA Lutherans. People in the pews ask, “What’s the ELCA to me?”

§  What work is essential to the church? At what level is it best done? How do we connect it to the people?

§  Pastors are gatekeepers. If pastors aren’t supportive, then thoughts wouldn’t be communicated to the people.

§  The jargon that we use is a barrier to communications.

§  What about using streaming video of church council meetings?

§  We get letters asking us to overturn what happened, and we don’t have that ability/capacity.

§  What does it take to become a fully informed member of the ELCA?

§  If we want to flatten the way we do things, why don’t we have a churchwide assembly that involves one from each congregation and make it as fun as youth assembly?

§  Are there new ways to organize beyond the congregation?

§  How do we live into being more inclusive, especially around immigrant communities and what they bring to the church?

What thoughts or ideas do you have about how the governance of this church could be improved?

§  Are assemblies and the frequency of meetings appropriate for the needs of the church?

§  Look at changing old ways, such as the number of synods. Fortify what we have instead of doing away with things.

§  Evaluate socio-economic factors. People who don’t have the economic means might not be able to participate.

§  Are councils and the congress of bishops appropriately integrated? For example, include the vice presidents of synods, too.

I am excited to participate in the next LIFT conference in August as part of the ELCA's ecumenical partnerships and to represent The Episcopal Church as designated by our presiding bishop, the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori. 

On April 20, 2010, subsequent to the recent ELCA Church Council meeting, futurist Ozan Sevimli of the World Bank made a presentation to the LIFT task force, which may be downloaded here. I highly commend this six-page document, which highlights the global repercussions of the current economic crisis and its impact on world poverty and comments on denial, sacred cows, change leadership and seminaries within those contexts. Mr. Sevimli describes the global and generational world today and suggests that so-called imaginary sacred cows "blind us and distract us" and cause "many of our churches to be inward looking instead of being outward looking." 

I must point out that one cannot discuss the work of the LIFT task force without also looking at the 2007 Blue Ribbon Committee on Mission Funding, which addresses an ongoing concern for all Christian denominations today: shrinking giving and dollars for mission work. 

From an Episcopal point of view, the questions that my colleagues and I continue to ask at all levels of the church's leadership are "Why are today's church members no longer feeling connected to our churches?" and "How do we change how we 'do' church so that we become relevant to our members and their lives?" We believe that we must answer those questions at the same time we are studying and enhancing our stewardship efforts regarding such typical church subjects as pledging, tithing, legacy giving, oblation and gratitude. It is not enough to address funding issues without focusing in on the very structures and philosophies of the way in which we organize ourselves to be the missional church for the sake of the world. And we need to eliminate "We can't, because . . . " from our thinking and conversation and instead, ask, "How can we . . . ?"

Giving for mission is so much more complex and comprehensive than merely writing checks or changing wills to give dollars. The ELCA Church Council and Conference of Bishops are engaging in one-on-one stewardship conversations and a focus on telling Stories of Faith in Formation. Storytelling is clearly a foundational piece in any effort to transform an institutional culture. Storytelling is an important element of approaches such as Appreciative Inquiry and Public Narrative. Stories connect people to each other, across generations and cultures. The sharing of stories is a renewed emphasis on the interconnectedness of the people of God that churches serve and  embrace as members. It's an affirmation of the importance of each person's experience and that these experiences have basic elements in common while differences could be categorized as stylistic or contextual. And just as our stories are interconnected, so, too, should be the application of our personal resources to the common good that surrounds and undergirds our interconnectedness.

Presiding Bishop Susan Johnson's Remarks

Bishop Susan Johnson, the presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC), also attended the ELCA Church Council meeting as an ecumenical partner. I was eager to converse with her about the reported discussions that the ELCIC has held with The Anglican Church of Canada, The Episcopal Church's counterpart to our north. The two Canadian churches are in conversation about the possibility of sharing headquarters space in the nation's capital in Ottawa. Currently The Anglican Church is headquartered in Toronto, and the ECLIC is located in Winnipeg. 

I am particularly interested in this subject, because our respective denominations, the Lutherans and the Episcopalians/Anglicans have laid off large numbers of staff and vacated significant space in our headquarters' buildings resulting from budget cuts caused by declining pledge and investment income. Ownership and pride in a sole proprietary headquarters space is one of those sacred cows that must be reviewed with a sober eye and "let go of" so as to get out of the way of God's mission. We as the church must begin to renew our faith by living into the theology that "God's mission has a church" and that "the church is mission."

Bishop Johnson remarks covered a number of topics, which included:

•     The ELCIC is following in the footsteps of the ELCA and released its first draft of a proposed Social Statement on Human Sexuality on April 15, 2010, which will be addressed at its National Convention in 2011. 

•     The ELCIC is undertaking a review of the structure and size of its synods to realign itself to be a more responsive "church in mission for others."

•     The theme of its forthcoming National Convention in 2011 will be "Covenant People in Mission for Others."

•     Ongoing work and conversation is taking place with regard to "treaty living" with indigenous peoples, which builds upon the ELCIC's 2007 renewal of its pledge to continue its work on human rights and justice issues for native peoples.

•     Bishop Johnson and the ELCIC are focused on calling people to spiritual renewal in an age where people are consumed by the consumer culture, which means an emphasis on regular attendance at corporate worship, daily personal prayer, regular study of scripture, regular and appropriate giving for mission, and a commitment to sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Bishop Johnson closed her remarks with the story of St. Augustine, who had two daughters named Anger and Courage: Anger that things are the way that they are and Courage to make things the way that they ought to be. Bishop Johnson suggests that we eschew anger rooted in hopelessness and proclaim hope and use anger and hope appropriately.

I am going to close this post here, and I now recognize that I have one more post on the April ELCA Church Council meeting that I want to write. But it will have to wait while I catch up on some other writing that I want to share on this blog. Thanks for reading! And remember to feel free to comment here, too.