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.