The Brighton Line

Bingo players around the world share a call and response lingo. If the caller says "I-22, little ducks," the response is "quack-quack." If the caller says "G-59, the Brighton Line" the stupid response is "woo-woo". I think you get my drift. I had a woo to rhyme to phew experience on the Brighton Line.

I had an alternate experience to the alternate experience of the alternate experience that was Lambeth one evening when I went to one of the seven wonders of the opera world - an evening at Glyndebourne. Glyndebourne is like Tanglewood on steroids. The strictly black-tie affair with champagne-laden picnic hampers oft served by butlers was quite a change to life at the University of Kent.

My very dear friend, Dr. Michael Sansbury, arranged this outing feeling that I, like a Fresh-Air Fund child, needed a day and evening in the country. Mike in his Trews and Prince Charlie and I in a left over evening frock from the crossing scrubbed up nicely headed off to Lewes to see Carmen. We rode in these outfits on the train headed for Brighton.

Brighton was hosting the Pride Parade that day. You should also know that we didn't have a hamper or butler. We ate our intermission meal in the restaurant.

I learned an interesting thing about Pride in the UK. When it was a protest gathering seeking human rights and full inclusion of LBGT folks, the organizers did not have to pay for the security details, police and crowd control apparatus. Now the event is charged a fee for the police, etc., because officialdom deems it a celebration -- mission accomplished. This word apparently has not trickled down to Lambeth Palace.

After one of the most enjoyable evenings in my entire life, we boarded a coach back to the train to travel back to London. One stop later my humming the arias and reveries of the exotic Carmen came to an abrupt halt as all hell broke loose.

Our coach was set upon by drunken revelers from the Pride Parade. I think they decided that the bourgeois establishment looking passengers seemed right for intimidation but little did they know that I was from Brooklyn and had seen it all. They were loud and rude. One particular stand out was a silly little confused queen wannabe who was throwing his dress over his head showing off his codpiece. Maybe he thought he was the flirtatious Carmen but this Car Man, with apologies to Michael Bourne, couldn't cut it. Not only was his mother's dress ill-fitting and way out of style, it was the wrong color for him. He was so tacky that I wanted to slap his manscara off!

I had to catch myself and remember that he, too, was one of God's children and that he was my neighbor that God calls me to love. Following God has never been easy and I was being testing. This ill-fitting dress wearing person, he,too, was one of the many who was being denied full inclusion and he, too, was one of the children of God that Lambeth was discussing. I have to admit that I was glad that he was a far piece from the University.

I wanted to say to him "Child! Do you know what people are going through - have gone through - will continue to go through - for you to have the right to act a fool in this coach? If you don't, you need to wise up and next time, get a better looking dress and some shoes that match."

The Pride revelers departed at Clapham Junction and we continued on in a strangely silent coach on the Brighton Line - woo - phew!

The Re-entry Blues in a Minor Key

We're baaack! And no, I didn't post as promised on Wednesday. My mind was too cluttered and my fingers too tired. After sorting the laundry and going to the cleaners, I went to pay my garage rental before going to the office to post. When I saw my car, I thought - that's me--a flat tire, dead battery and out of gas. I also had to deal with the blankity-blank computer so here goes today - Thursday. That's re-entry blues in B flat.

The endurance boot camp for bishops seemed to just end Sunday night after the closing service. A steady, fairly heavy rain prevented a sustained round of good byes for Team Long Island with all their new friends. They returned to the hotel to meet me for dinner. For our last dinner, we stayed away from a discussion of the Indaba Reflections Report and just enjoyed and reflected on the fellowship we had built among ourselves over the three week period. We also celebrated the dining room staff that had learned all our peculiarities. A coach load of pilgrims to Canterbury arrived on Sunday and they shared the dining room with us. The ladies with their freshly permed tightly curled white hair looked for all the world like a group of cauliflowers. Margaret, the leader of her Wednesday night Bible Study group, came around to collect all of our autographs. She was thrilled to meet a happy remnant of the Lambeth Conference.

Monday gave us the opportunity to delve into the Reflections Report. There is much that we can agree with in the report and I wish I could stop there but I cannot because the closing portions present challenges especially as we begin to consider who will lead the Diocese of Long Island to the next Lambeth. We will be reporting in much greater detail on the document and its implications for The Episcopal Church and our diocese, in particular.

The first day back into the office was not a gentle segue from the alternate reality that had become my past existence - vacancies to fill, two petitions from unhappy vestries, a priest from another diocese behaving badly, an elderly alone sick retired clergy needing attention, the stark realities of the 2009 diocesan budget and the continuing challenge of finding E flat clarinets, bassoons and oboes for the children's symphony orchestra in Haiti. That's a mere taste of my daily reality. So now, go figure how to Indaba that!

Speaking of Indaba, since the Indaba groups were the unifying and organizational element of the Conference, I wanted to enter the names and email addresses in a group thingy to get an email message off from Bishop Walker while the after-glow was still shining brightly. Not possible. There was not a cogent listing of names and dioceses even to make up a grouping. "They", the mysterious they, said for security reasons a participants list was not produced. I say baloney! The list of participants was just one more thing that never got properly organized. When I returned the Bose translation equipment, I asked if they wanted to check off the names of the persons to whom they had been given and was told "we don't have a list." One can only hope that the bishops will be provided with a basic listing of names, dioceses, provinces and email addresses in the not too distant future so that the essence of the Indaba spirit can be maintained. But then again, why am I expecting a list when we have never received the initial registration packet. But then again...as New Testament people, we live in hope.

Just a few more lines on the bags - the Indaba bag especially. Dirty clothes have an uncanny way of expanding. I don't know if it's a law of physics or what but OMG! At Heathrow, when we put our bags on the scale at the check-in counter, we learned the sorry truth. What was really sorry was that Bishop Walker's big bag couldn't go through the chute it had expanded so. The family to my left was being told that they would have to unpack their bags because they were overweight. What to do?

I put the Indaba Bag with the shield of the Diocese of Long Island and Lambeth 2008 inscription on the counter facing the agent. She looked at the Indaba bag, then me, then Bishop, then the luggage, then the scale, then the Indaba bag and finally back to my face with the pleading eyes. The thought of having to unpack in plain sight as the other family was doing was unnerving me. She looked back at the Indaba bag and announced her decision. I graciously paid a modest fee and took a don't ever do it again lecture with a smile as she summoned a man to take Bishop's big bag away unweighed. It's my fantasy that in addition to being an American Airlines agent with a heart - she was an Anglican.

Saving the Best Wine for Last?

And then there were no more ordinary days. It's hard to believe that we have come to the near end. Today there will be more packed in than ever before starting with Bible Study, Indaba, two self-selects and ending with an 8:00 p.m. closing plenary. Pray that it's cool in the tent or the closing report will have the effect of a bedtime story. The closing Eucharist will take over Canterbury Cathedral tomorrow. The service is scheduled for 6:00 p.m.

Now that the end is here I can honestly say that one real tangible sign of the success of this small group process, known as Indaba, is that Bishop Walker has hung in there with his groupies to the very end. Bishop Ottley says his group has been the high point and Mrs. Ottley has made us all a little jealous because she has been raving about her group every evening that we have been together.

My set of fringe group friends and I have probably become more radical. Denying admittance to the Eucharist because one doesn't have the right color or right material thingey around one’s neck especially when you ran out of the supplies because of improper ordering has gotten my back up. Bishop still doesn't have his registration materials but I guess it doesn't matter much now. Back to us at the fringe, I am honored to be one of the unintended caught in the “safety” net that was laid for our LGBT brothers and sisters.

I understand security and the need to protect all the participants - I'm from New York - I get it. But and it's a big but, it's the Eucharist for crying out loud! I shan't be going to the closing service at the Cathedral Sunday. I can wield enough influence to get a ticket but all my fringe friends can't get tickets so I shall remain with the fringe on the fringe.

I have committed to writing several more reflections here to conclude this series. I've promised one on the Indaba Group. I am also going to reflect on Right of Admission Reserved, the role of the cathedral in the city, the companion diocese process, who threw whomever the proverbial bus, some general reflections and an open letter to the 8th Bishop of Long Island.

Further thoughts on Lambeth will be offered in the September Dominion. Bishop Walker will be writing his reflections in his usual column. I am giving over Canon's Corner to Senora Ottley. I am telling all of you this now because I am returning the purloined computer just as soon as I hit the send button. We return to Long Island on Tuesday. Why Tuesday? Tuesday is a song best left unsung but the blog will return on Wednesday.

When we return we will need to face into all the dynamics of the implications of what we have done for the life of our diocese and on a more mundane level we will need to try to understand why the telephones and server were down for the better part of the last five days. As one Sub-Saharan Bishop said, I'll quit my complaining. I thought you lived in the first world. Garden Ctiy.

Thank you dear readers for holding me to this discipline. Thank you Canon Lee for all your behind the scenes technical support. Thank you Bishop Ottley for coming to my rescue when my computer failed. Thank you Bishop Walker for allowing me to serve you and the People of Long Island. Until next week...is this really how Maureen Dowd got started?

The Home Stretch

We're coming into the home stretch and not a minute too soon! The bishops are all starting to look like Joe Palookas - rubbery legs, leadened arms, ears all cauliflowered and eyes puffy - as they are sent back into the ring, actually the big top, for one more round. Like a good corner woman, I have been giving my bishops, to borrow another sports metaphor, the win just one more for the gipper speech 'cause the folks at home are depending on you...well maybe my readers are depending on you...well maybe I'm depending on you so that I will have something to write...well actually it's you, you are depending on you to do the right thing. I have too many sports things going on here but I thought the 14th round of a championship fight sounded better than describing horses getting ready for the glue factory besides the animal rights group are really big here.

Yesterday the Conference devoted all of 90 minutes to the elephant in the room - human sexuality - and depending on your group leader, you may have had the conversation in triads, quads, Bible Study Group octet formation or in a few cases, by full Indaba. Where I get confused is when there are many sub-groups, how does the Indaba listener listen and how do the unlistened to voices get fed into the listening process?

On the one hand, I would like to give kudos for not giving this one topic any more time and attention than any other but, on the other hand, we can't be ostriches about this thing and pretend a great cloud isn't hanging over the entire Conference. This waiting until people are hang-dog tired has to be part of a strategy to wear them down - just wear them down and maybe they'll be too tired to talk.

As one voice from the pew, I really don't appreciate the timing. These folks are so tired and that Big Top is so hot and humid that meaningful conversation has been shifted and pushed to the margins just for the sake of some fresh air. We have spent a small fortune to get to this point in the proceedings and now we see time slipping away. Today is the penultimate work/study day. There will be a hearing on the human sexuality portion of the conference report as well as Bible Study and Indaba. Today's topic is the Windsor Process and Covenant - the penultimate work day - let's not rush into these important matters.

The conference report hearings have turned into an opportunity for the same ilk of voices to give pre-prepared addresses to the largest possible gathering under the pretext of word smithing - or getting your licks in by any means possible.

So now, today we have entered the home stretch but alas things aren't always as them seem. Unlike the diocesan tracks of The Big A and Belmont, if you're looking in the wrong direction, you might miss the finish line as they enter the home stretch at the Lambeth Derby.

Real Indaba Needed

Up until her departure yesterday, Joan Grimm Fraser, Rector of Holy Trinity, Hicksville, was the "go-to" woman at the International Anglican Women's Network (IAWN) stall or booth to most of us. You would go to her for a ride to town, go to her for help with arrangements, go to her for help setting up the dinner and so I have gone to her for a really great line that I wish had been mine. At the Long Island gathering, she was reflecting on the IAWN's Dinner in an English Home event and offered to me that is what Indaba is supposed to be. That was real Indaba."

About 60 or so people - bishops, their, in this case, wives, network members, locals and assorted camp followers - gathered under a mighty twin oak for dinner and extensive conversation. For me, it was the truest modification of what Indaba is touted as. I am sure that in days going forward and perhaps for years in post conference analysis, Indaba is going to be the whipping girl for this Conference but that observation will be offered in a separate post.

The IAWN's gathering was an opportunity for a meaningful exchange with no pre-set questions and no intended outcome. We might still be talking if we hadn't become sweet meat for the mosquitoes.

The IAWN is an official network of the Anglican Communion. Kim Robey, Christ Church, Oyster Bay and Staff Officer for Women's Ministries at TEC, is on the Secretariat of the Network and Joan Fraser is the volunteer we all wish we could clone, at a minimum. IAWN, in addition to the English Country Dinner, sponsored a Tea and Conversation with Bishops and Spouses, Prayer Walks and a lunch panel on Theological Education for the Empowerment of Women. I was one of the panelists.

I realize that the opportunities are limited for fringe and private events on this highly controlled and tightly manipulated Conference schedule but---for the women bishops to put their gathering opposite the Women's Network seemed like a dissing of the people who helped get you invited to the big dance in the first place. Not a woman bishop made an appearance at the education panel or dinner. Without so much as a walk-on, the absences were noticed and felt.

Maybe some real Indaba might be needed here.

A Tribute to Ted

Excuse the intrusion into the blog space with this personal message but I am compelled to pen a line or two of tribute for my friend Ted Webb. I received the news of his death and these few words are making their way to Trinidad in my place.

Mervyn Ted Webb was a Black aviation pioneer who served as one of the first Black Wing Commanders in Her Majesty's Air Force. He flew many important and top secret missions into Rhodesia and with his rank and by his demeanor he caused the apartheid era policies that were in place at the RAF base to be eliminated.

After hanging up his military uniform, he became a captain for BOAC - British Overseas Airlines Corporation - being the first Black man to don their uniform and sit in the cockpit. He was present for the birth of BWIA and trained a generation of pilots of color in the West Indies. When he joined the ranks of management at BWIA, it was his job to allay the fear - But Will It Arrive!

Two years ago, Ted and his wife Judith came to New York for the graduation of their daughter from Marymount College. They stayed in my home as I had enjoyed their hospitality many times during my visits to Trinidad. Ted took ill and they remained with me six months for post surgical chemotherapy and radiation.

From time to time when he was able, they would visit the Church of St. Luke and St. Matthew. One sure thing about cancer, it tends to cause one to seek a deeper knowledge of their faith so Ted and I enjoyed many great conversations about the Anglican Communion and, yes, that very same topic that is practically on every lip and heart here. I enjoyed our time together.

Ted passed from this life as he had lived his with stature, great dignity and looking forward to the promise of his new life with Christ.

May the souls of the faithfully departed rest in peace.

Almost heaven, Southwest Virginia

During the recent Democrat Party primary campaign season, Hillary Clinton was running up the score on Barack Obama in parts of Southern Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky and all parts of the abutting Appalachian Trail. Those white people could not relate to that black guy with the funny sounding African name. Over zealous media bloviators described the citizens of this region as salt-of-the-earth red, white and blue Americans - red neck, white trash and blue collar.

Not so fast - hold on a minute! Over the years, I've come to learn and appreciate a different story especially about the good mountain people of Southwest Virginia - the Diocese of - that is. For over thirty years, the hard working mountain people of the Diocese of Southwest Virginia have been in partnership with The Sudan. That relationship started long before church activists including me heeded the call of Bishop Heath Light to march for workers' rights against the Peabody Coal Mining Company. That was even decades before Darfur became the cause du jour and it was cool. These good folk have prayed together and supported one another mostly sight unseen for thirty years so let's not use that intolerant red, white and blue paint brush so fast.

Bishop Neff Powell has been nurturing the partnership over the years in a diocese where turning inward and focusing on at home needs could have been the path of least resistance. Last year when I was in the diocesan offices, I noticed an adopt-a-day chart where individuals, organizations and congregations were being asked to sign up for a day to cover the daily operating deficit of the diocese. Even in the face of those struggles, the good mountain people fulfilled their commitment to The Sudan.

At yesterday's hearing on the third document of the Windsor Continuation Group, the Archbishop of The Sudan spoke again offering a not too helpful clarification on his earlier statement condemning the American Church. After back pedaling around, the condemnation stood.

I know how Archbishop Deng-Bul's words will play in Peoria but I can't imagine how they will be received in Roanoke. Is his condemnation of the American Church reverberating in the hills and hollers of Southwest Virginia? How did his friends receive those words? Words are powerful even in this little slice of heaven known as Southwest Virginia.