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.