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.