First Impressions

My travel yesterday on Southwest Air (Providence - Baltimore - Indianapolis) went very smoothly. I landed at 3 p.m, half hour ahead of schedule and caught a shuttle bus to the hotel. The shuttle bus was filled with Episcopalians, literally. We have taken over the Convention Center. All I could think of were those nuns on the bus. They are riding to focus on social justice. But our bus could have been riding for evangelism, a word you don't often associate with Episcopalians. People on that bus were so excited and one woman from the Diocese of Long Island was so certain that the way we are living the gospel in a changing world is so necessary, and so hope-filled.

In  front of the hotel I ran into my friend Rob Hirschfeld, bishop-elect in New Hampshire, who told me that the committee hearing for our new bishop-elect in Western Mass would be at 5:30 p.m. I checked in, and then got a text from another member of our deputation saying that I should be prepared to "say a few words" about Doug at the hearing. 

Baptism by fire! But it was very cool that this was my introduction to General Convention and even cooler when Doug got up and began his own introduction by saying that he'd been reading the newsletter from St. Francis, Holden (which went out electronically just the day before, on Tuesday) and he quoted a piece in there written by our youth delegate to the diocesan convention that elected him, about how his life had been changed forever. Very nice. He was unanimously approved by committee which means that sometime !this week both the full House of Bishops and House of Deputies will be asked to consent to his election.

There are a lot of purple shirts here (i.e. bishops!) I ran into Bishop Martin, for whom we pray every Sunday at St. Francis--the Bishop of El Salvador, and I conveyed to him the warm greetings of my parishioners, especially those who have traveled to El Salvador.