I sent this out to wvmission but thought i'd put it here as well.
I am taking today's sessions off, and Richard Heller is sitting in my place in the House of Deputies. In response to some questions about our deputation's vote on D025, i checked with Debbie, our Chair, who discussed the question with the rest of our deputation. They all agreed to let people know how we voted. It was a vote by orders, which means it's public record. The vote was as follows:
Debbie Short - Yes
Charles Hunsaker - Yes
Amy Seitz - No
Sissy Poland - Yes
Cheryl Winter - Yes
Kevin Kelly - Yes
Eric Miller - Yes
Richard Heller (In place of Donald Vinson) - Yes
Donald said to let you know that though he was not on the floor during that session, he would have voted in the affirmative. It was approved by greater than a 2 to 1 margin in both orders.
The House of Bishops approved it yesterday, with an amendment. I think their vote was 99-45, with 2 abstentions. At least, that's the report from episcopalcafe.com. Abstentions are not allowed in the House of Deputies, by the way. From what i understand of the amendment, i expect it to pass easily in the HoD.
You can find the text of the resolutions, along with a whole lot of commentary on what they mean just by googling "D025 general convention." There's a lot of debate about whether or not this overturns B033 from 2006. I'll leave that for you to decide. If you look at the two of them together, though, B033 and D025, i think you get a good sense of where our Church is at the moment.
AS I read the postings for the last two days, I am in Gravett at Peterkin with the Intermediate kids. On Sunday I used a bi-lingual service that we had celebrated at the 2006 Convention, but cut and pasted the cover of the booklet to reflect the Ubuntu theme and copied the 2009 logos from the internet. I told them all about General Convention and we prayed for all of you. The themes for the week are around the theme of welcoming, acceptance, listening to one another, respecting people in their differences, and reaching out to those in our community that are disenfranchised. (They look like healing stories, but they are much more than that!) How appropriate for the work you are all doing there...I once again am amazed at the depth and breadth of the work of the Holy Spirit as we are knit together across the miles into the Body of Christ.
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Thank the children from us for their prayers, please, Faith. And thank you!
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