Wow, what a day! I am
so tired but not ready to sleep. I need
to share my day.
My alarm went off at 6:00 a.m., very early for me. Sarah and I headed over on the bus to the
convention center, arriving around 7:30 a.m.
We joined the Jericho March which was already in progress. I grabbed a sign, making sure it had the word
“love” on it. We walked around and
around the outside of the convention center singing. We paused when we got to the Martin Luther
King statue and greeted delegates coming off the train. I smiled and said good morning to all of
them. The crowd continued to grow and we
got louder and louder. On the seventh
time we circled the building; we were in full force and many cameras were aimed
at us. At the end we stopped by the
statue and sang in a round led by Mark Miller.
We chanted “tear down those walls!”
The walls didn’t fall but we have hope.
Sarah and I entered the plenary session to hear what was
going on. The bishop in charge was
trying to explain to the delegates how to use the electronic voting
system. It was painfully slow and the
bishop commented that at this rate they may not finish until August.
We left and walked over to the LYNC lunch. This time we sat with a pastor named Bea and
had an interesting conversation. We
hurried over to the plaza for United Methodist Women’s “Don’t Poison Our Water”
rally. We were handed cowbells and signs. There were a number of good speakers who told
us how polluted water affected lives in their communities. The crowd was fairly large and not just
women.
We returned to the convention center to sit in on more of
the plenary session. We noticed a group
of people gathered outside the hall.
Most of them were wearing “Black Lives Matter” T-shirts and we knew some
of them. Sarah commented that something
was happening so I asked one of them.
The answer was that they were disrupting the session and we were invited
to join them. We chose to go in and sit
down and got up to join them as they walked in.
We chanted “black lives matter” and that changed to “gay lives matter”
then “trans lives matter.” We circled
around the room. Many people in the
stands were on their feet cheering. It
seemed like nearly everybody had their cameras out. We ended up back in the center again and a
black, lesbian clergy woman started the group pounding on the table. We circled around it. The clergy woman began talking about the
people who have been left out by the church.
Someone else led us in prayer then we began to sing. Soon we returned to chanting and marched out
of the room. It was an amazing
experience and we just happened on it.
Sometimes you just need to be present and be ready.
After sitting a bit and visiting with some women in the UMW
lounge, Sarah and I joined the volunteers at the Jupiter Hotel for snacks and
conversation. At 5:30 p.m. Bishop Tolten
delivered a rousing speech to all of the volunteers. Following that there was a nonviolence
training; I popped in and out of that since I’ve been through that before.
At 8 p.m. our Love Your Neighbor Coalition meeting
began. We started with song and
sharing. Plans for the next few days
were discussed. And then our leader,
Steve, got up to make an announcement.
Members of the board stood with him and gay clergy were behind them (a
cloud of witnesses). Steve said that the
Council of Bishops is meeting to discuss a split. The proposal is to set up a commission to
work on it. There would be a special
General Conference in 2018. During that
time there would be no trials and no persecution of LGBT clergy. The bishops were actually meeting while we
talked. Everybody was stunned and rather
emotional. LYNC is not taking a position
but waiting for the bishops to lead. We
finished in prayer and song then people stood around talking. Sarah and I stayed for communion then caught
the bus to go “home.” What a day.
Written on 5/16/2016
Written on 5/16/2016
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