Friday Thoughts from Mark Crawford

Day 3 was of the longest with two legislative sessions. The House of Deputies adopted special rules to hold a "Committee of the Whole" in order to provide two opportunities to revisit the Resolution B033, the controversial resolution passed at the end of the last General Convention that called for the "restraint to consent to the election of any person whose manner of life presented a challenge to the rest of the communion."

The session on Thursday allowed deputies to talk one on one with another person about their reactions and feelings concerning this resolution. We were required to sit with someone we had not previously met. I talked to Canon for Hispanic Ministry in the Diocese of Utah.

The other opportunity to discuss Resolution B033 arose this morning in a session where 30 deputies were chosen by lot to speak. The spirit in the House was one of respect and patience. The decorum does not allow us to applaud or cheer. Each deputy presented his/her views clearly and concisely. Two minutes goes very quickly. Most spoke in favor of repealing the resolution as discriminatory to gays and lesbians, but others stated that allowing the resolution to stand would maintain our position in the Anglican Communion.

The resolution to repeal B033 has not come to the floor, but will probably appear early next week. The Archbishop of Canterbury, in his remarks before the sermon at yesterday's Eucharist, expressed his hope and anxiety that General Convention would not make decisions that would cause further divisions in the Anglican Communion.

The highlight of the each day is the community worship. Various local choirs and volunteers from both houses provide inspiring music. Today, the President of the House of Deputies, Bonnie Anderson, preached a sermon on unity on the text from Ephesians 4, "one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all."

Each day is filled with many meetings, however, there are delightful moments of reuniting with old friends and making new ones. Today I had coffee with the Dean of the Cathedral in Capetown, South Africa, who came as a special guest of the President of the House of Deputies.