I have seen the Church . . . and it is us.

I realized yesterday as I sat at Eucharist that for the first time in my twenty-five years as an Episcopalian, I was actually seeing our beautiful, wonderful, colorful church in all its diversity, and the experience reinforced for me how much I love being Episcopalian!

The bond that you and I share with these 2.1 million Christians seems almost palpable here. Most of us live in the United States but we also hail from seven other countries making us a truly international church. (A resolution asking that we cease making reference to "The National Church" seems a good one to me.) Our skins are darkest dark and lightest light, our language is mostly English but we have lots and lots of Spanish, a good bit French, and several Chinese and other languages thrown in for rich flavor. These are not some vague, theoretical Christian comrades. These are our brothers and sister Episcopalians and as I stood with them to take bread and wine, as we sang a classic Anglican hymn, a praise song, and a lively African song to honor our theme of Ubuntu, as we prayed in English and in Spanish and heard our Presiding Bishop talk to us of the beating heart of mission of our church, I was overwhelmed with the sense of community and was very joyful to be in this good place with these good people.

My body it seems, however, does not care too much for Pacific time. Yesterday morning (Wednesday) was my first full day in Anaheim and the first "official" business meeting of the convention. I finally just went ahead and got up at 4:30 a.m. (a respectable 6:30 a.m. in normal time!) and began reading the notebook full of new resolutions I received on my arrival. (These are in addition to the encyclopedic volume of resolutions I brought with me!)

After one day, I have come to the conclusion that the legislative sessions of conventions are mostly tedious and often downright silly ("Deputy Doolittle from the Diocese of Incoherent. Madam President, I rise to speak to the amendment as amended by the second amendment before the first." "You are out of order, sir, for your left sock is one inch lower than your right." "Point of personal privilege!" "Point of personal privilege allowed." "Madam President, we were not told . . ." "Please state your name and your diocese." "My apologies, Madam President. Deputy Wilforshire from the Diocese of Cashmere. We were not told that socks were required and our deputation is not wearing socks. . ." and on and on it goes.

However, business does eventually get done, resolutions passed and the work of the Church progresses. There are hundreds of resolutions, all of which go to committee before coming to the full House of Deputies for a vote. Many of the resolutions seem to be duplicates or to be very similar in nature and will be combined into single resolutions to be brought to the floor.

I hope you will be able to follow some of the convention as it progresses. I copied and pasted the following from the Diocesan website about helpful General Convention websites. Though I'm sure all of them are good, the first one - The Hub - is supposed to be a very nice site.

• Convention Media Hub: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/gchub

• National Church Website: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/index.htm

• General Convention Website: http://episcopalchurch.org/gc2009.htm

• Blogging Bishops: http://episcopalchurch.typepad.com/bloggingbishops/

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, is with us. Last night he spoke about the global economic crisis and spoke bluntly about how we have gotten used to lying to ourselves, learned to tolerate lying at very high levels, lied to ourselves about our place in creation and "limitless material growth in a limited environment." We have, he told us, lied to ourselves about our relationship with each other, our dependence on each other, about Ubuntu - "I am because you are."

Our correct action must be, Archbishop Williams said, a reversal of these lies. A season of transparency, of relationship building is necessary. A time of truth-telling about the world as it is must begin. And we must begin to talk about risk, about who ultimately bears the cost of excessive risk-taking, to tell the truth that it is the "least of these" who are most at risk. It is time to begin talking again about common good and not just what is good for the one.

Today is a new day and I am excited and anxious to see what is in store for us. We will engage today in something called "public narrative" about mission which I feel sure you will hear more about. Archbishop Williams will lead a Bible Study during the Eucharist today. The business sessions and committee meetings will continue. And I think I may join the choir.