The Arena of General Convention

This week many Episcopalians will make there way to our triennial gathering the General Convention. This is an important and awaited gathering of many leaders from around the church to undertake a portion of the governance we use to support our mission.

People are excited. I am excited. At our best we are a family reunion like no other. We are sharing our difference, we are setting aside deference, we are celebrating our diversity. At our best we are creating a church wide commons where ideas, excitement for the story, dispatches from the missionary front, and our love of God are shared. When we are doing this we are all in the arena. We are there with our tribe. We are dancing and singing together. We are working hard and playing together. We are learning from one another and we are sharing the road together. We hear ideas and we wonder about them together. We are belonging. We are creating. We are loving.

But we should always remember that the General Convention is an arena. If you love it you will enter it with ideas, creativity, and a desire to make something. Hopefully that is always to make our governance and structure work for our mission.

When you do this, when I do this, we are daring greatly. We are trusting one another enough to be vulnerable with our ideas and to share them with the body so that we might discern together what good might we be about on behalf of the God we believe in. When we do this we are the one in the arena. Brené Brown uses the speech often called The Man in the Arena to describe this moment - this space we inhabit when we risk.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

This is taken THE MAN IN THE ARENA is an excerpt from President Theodore Roosevelt's speech entitled "Citizenship In A Republic" delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on 23 April, 1910,
download PDF of complete speech.

Brown reminds us that when we enter the arena it is not about winning or losing it is about showing up and being seen. What we have to know and understand is that the arena - though we would like it to be otherwise - is dangerous. Showing up and being seen means you will as Brené Brown says, "Get your assed kicked." She goes on to say that if "courage is a value that you hold, this is a consequence, you can't avoid it." What you should know is that if the person who is taking you to task is not in the arena with you then you should not be interested in your feedback. Constructive, helpful, supportive, challenging about ideas, looking for common ground, building consensus are some of the many forms that people enter the arena with you to help co-create.

These people are the people in the support section. These are people who have empathy for you. They see and act as though their contributions are given in the spirit of mutual support for the common good. When the Episcopal Church is filled with people like this we are good. We are together and we are moving our mission forward.

There are others though who are not in the support section or not in the arena with us but are really against us. These are the ones not helping, supporting, or moving the creativity forward. These are people who make the arena unsafe.

We are so "hardwired for connection" that when we pretend we don't care we are actually cutting ourselves off. Even though their messages are ones of shame or even anger, we must recognize them as part of our family, part of the arena. We need to understand they are season ticket holders. they are sitting in particular seats.

The people inhabit three kinds of seats: cheap seats, box seats, and the critics section. The Cheap Seats are filled with the anonymous critics who pass judgment on us. They may be named, have a twitter handle, or Facebook Page, you may even know who they are because they are recognized cheap seat ticket holders. The reality is that they are not connected to you or your idea. They want to see you fail and even though they are sitting in your arena they may be naysayers and be working for an opposing team.

The box seats are filled with people who built or maintain the arena and give us the messages about the expectations we must meet. They are the ones who pass out power and take away power based on loyalty. They are the ones who are deeply invested in the arena staying exactly where it is. They will criticize all ideas, have none to add to the arena, and won't tolerate any thing challenging to shifting or changing who sits where.

The last of these is special seats are held by the critics. The critics are the people who give us the messages of shame, comparison and scarcity. These are the ones who demean people because of their difference, they offer shame messages in order to quite you, they compare you to others who "get it right", and they believe there is no possible way for your creativity to work or have any merit.

Thanks to social media these seats won't only be inhabited by people at Convention but there will be a ton of people all over shouting from the seats at those who this week walk into the arena. I am always aware that the General Convention is a wonderful thing and that it has its shadow side which can be ugly and mean.

What we do a lot of the time is we armor up. We move away from the creative idea, the opportunity for change, and either exit the arena and go quietly into the night - we move away. Or we move against and channel all our energy into defeating the people in those seats! This also saps energy from the work at hand. Or we try to placate the critics, cheap, and box seats.

Brené Brown reminds us that when we walk into the arena we are also in the same spot where we discover love, belonging, joy, empathy, creativity, and innovation

So we what do we do? We allow them to sit in their seats. But we chose to walk into the arena for the sake of these things.

Clarity of values - remember what you believe in. For instance, remember not the church and its structures but remember and hold close to you the image of the family of God that Jesus offers and into which Jesus invites us. Have your someone who will tell you the truth, who will dust you off, clean you up, and help you go back into the arena. Finally, remember that the biggest critic in the arena is you - its me. "We are so self critical. We have an ideal about ourselves. We orphan all the parts that don't fit for us. And, all that is left is the critic." Brené Brown says. But put in that seat you - the person who is your journey, your life, your story, and is excited and supporting you.

I leave tomorrow morning for General Convention. If I am honest I have sat in all of those seats in the past. This year as I step into the arena I want to enter it in a different way. I want to share what I have, listen to others. I want to help heal the past. I want to experience our difference and diversity. I want to create a peaceful commons. I want to be about the work of reconciliation and I want to help us be a better church that is a good steward of its resources and finally is focused on its mission. I am looking for others who want to do these things. I am hopeful we will be at our best.

When we are not and we get into the critics, the box, and cheap seats I hope we will hold each other accountable. When we use shame and other demeaning tactics to quiet people or to deal with our own fear and anxiety I hope we will hold one another accountable.

So I am at first prayerful. Prayerful for safe travel. Prayerful for our gathered family. Prayerful for all those who are going to serve, feed, and clean up after us for 10+ days. Prayerful and grateful for the privilege of serving at this church and being able to afford the time and resources to attend this meeting. And, finally prayerful that we will be at our best.

I am hopeful. I believe we have an opportunity to become the church that God beckons us to become. I believe we have at Salt Lake City the moment to take our next step into the future of a church whose mission is amplified for the future.

Here is a quote from Aeschylus' play "Prometheus Bound." After they have bound Prometheus to the rock...Cratus:[to Prometheus] "Go play rebel now, go plunder the god's treasure and give it to your creatures of a day. What portion of your pain can mortals spare you? The gods who named you the Forethinker were mistaken. You'll need forethought beyond your reckoning to wriggle your way out of this device." 


[You can watch the Brené Brown video from the 99 conference where she talks about this here.]

Come With Me To The Other Side

This is a sermon preached at Good Shepherd, Kingwood, Tx, following the Mother Emmanuel AME church shootings by Dylan Roof (aaaaaahttp://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/21/us/dylann-storm-roof-photos-website-charleston-church-shooting.html?_r=0).

It is based upon Mark 4 beginning at the 35 verse.

And, in some way tries to make sense about why we have a difficult time seeing this as an act of racism (despite Dylan's own clarity that it was an attempt to begin a "race war"). Why we want to make this about Christians. And, what we Christians might be able to do to open our eyes to the work that is before us.

 

Check out this episode!

3 Reasons Why We Must Take Up A Discussion on the Unicameral House at General Convention

The President of the House of Deputies Speaks Out Against Unicameral Body of the House

In a recent post to the House of Deputies, the president, The Rev. Gay Jennings sighted some very good reasons why she thinks we should not consider the proposal for a unicameral house. You can read her letter to the House of Deputies here.

She offered the first reason was to be a kind of balance or check on those who have, "the authority to hire, fire, discipline and shape the careers and ministries of members" of the laity, priests and deacons. This offers that the House of Deputies is an important balance. I agree. I think this is not automatically lost in a unicameral situation and room can be made that this balance is maintained, for instance through number of laity and clergy vs bishops, voting power, etc. So this is more of a hurdle and not a road block.

She then offers that because we meet from time to time that bishops (and I am one) control more of the governance. I don't think this takes into account the vast majority of meetings held each triennial of the CCAB's (committee, commissions, and boards) where joint governance is structured and undertaken through mammoth cost of time, gifts, and money. Furthermore, it does not recognize or honor the amount of work the Executive Council does on our behalf to govern the Church. Together the CCAB's and the Executive Council do the vast majority of governance while the House of Bishops spends about 3 hours each year on governance. So this doesn't actually work as a reason to not have a unicameral form of governance.

I agree that balances within the system are important and that all people, deputies and bishops, laity and clergy alike have a hard time looking as Jennings says, "beyond their own self-interest. It isn’t sensible to bestow tremendous advantages on one group within the system and expect that members of that group will never be tempted to use them. Checks, meet balances. Balances, meet checks." Of course what you see here is actually the huge amounts of power, time, and money that is being used for governance under the leadership of he laity, priests, and deacons - the deputies. It is funny though that the argument that Jennings uses is the same argument that the House of Bishops uses when they are fearful of the unicameral system.

Like Jennings I too, "want to be sure that our polity continues to allow bishops, clergy and laypeople to work together to create proposals, programs and advocacy agendas for the Episcopal Church. Right now, the House of Deputies, Executive Council and the commissions, committees, agencies and boards of the church are among the means through which that happens." And, I would not want "the ability to create a legislative agenda and lobby for it is in the hands of only one order of ministry." As you can see though that is a straw man for why we shouldn't have a unicameral. None of that is automatically taken out of the system if the unicameral is designed well and designed by the people of General Convention.

3 Reasons Why We Should Consider A Unicameral
Let me begin by saying that I think governance is important and we are going to spend time and energy on it. I like our system of two houses and believe those houses should meet in a unicameral gathering. Why? I offer you three reasons.

Cost
Governance costs money. No matter what you have to have it. But it should not be overwhelming or keep us from doing our work. At our General Convention I promise you we will do some things: we will cut budgets to our poorest mission dioceses that we support. We will cut ministries for youth. We will cut work with emerging ministries and new church starts. We will not pay the pensions for clergy and laity working in the poorest diocese so that they can have a living retirement like their peers in the U.S.

Transparency: I recognize if the 45% of us who don't give our full asking did we would also be in a different position and that is why in Texas I am working to fix that and together with my people are getting close to giving $800,000 of or our asking to the budget - while maintaining the other $1,000,000 in gifts we make to the Episcopal Church outside of the budget.

At the same time we will spend a vast amount of money at every level on General Convention. I went through and I added up the cost of General Convention. I added together the budget components that are visible, I added the tourist data on what an average person is expected to spend in Salt Lake City for hotels and food, I added in transportation cost, and I added in the salaries of those who help us run convention as it is formed in its two houses for eight days plus the four days of set up in advance and this is what I found out. I found out that by the first day of convention we will (in money spent by deputies and bishops and staff) write a whopping total of $1,125,000 roughly. And by the end of it we will have spent more than $11,125,000+ and I think that is really conservative. That takes out sunk cost for those salaries of full time church workers who could be doing something else. It also does not include the church and para-church organizations who will themselves spend large amounts of money to be present to argue for their budget or sell their goods.

Think of it this way. A small and poor diocese traveling from outside of the country could spend well over $20,000 for the event. A small to medium diocese will spend about $40,000. A large diocese might spend well over $100,000 given the numbers of people.

We are responsible for spending this money. Think of it another way. On the first day we could pay two full budgets of two mission diocese. By the second day, we could have restored all the funding we have cut from our mission diocese. We have a responsibility, a fiduciary responsibility, to ensure that we use governance to help mission and not hinder it. 

False Representation

We are a diverse and a church filled with great difference. This is something I am proud of and I want to celebrate and we in Texas are trying to reflect more and more this reality as it is experienced across our Episcopal Church and given our mission context. We are a place with many theological views, ethnicity, and many income levels. I am proud that our House of Deputies is diverse and I don't want that to change. I am proud of the diverse representation throughout our governance. I want to work with people of difference and listen and learn. I want to share and hear from others with different experiences and backgrounds. 

One argument is that a unicameral house would cause this experience of diversity in our governance to go away. We studied this and found that the diversity would not actually go down if we reduced the number of deputies. That seems important. 

But what is more important is to recognize that General Convention is a privilege. It is a privilege to those who can take off eight days of work, or who have eight days of vacation, or who have jobs that allow them to leave for eight days in a row. Most Americans get only 10 days all together on average. Then there is the expense. General Convention is a privilege because you have to be able not only to take off (and either lose wages or perhaps you are salaried) you have to spend - even on the cheap - $200 a day. That is a total of $1600 - not including your registration and travel. 

The number of people who actually get to speak at the microphone is a very small percentage of the whole who are gathered. Furthermore, on the most important issues there is actually a planned microphone strategy to decrease representative voices by those who know how things work. I know this is true in the House of Deputies from my experience. 

I say all of this because a smaller house, with diverse voices, speaking across all the orders, working together in a shorter time period with the best supporting governance could actually be more representative than it is today. 

Just because you have the numbers does not mean all the voices are heard or present in the room with you. A unicameral gathering of the two houses might actually do better at forcing us to listen to one another in our difference. It might actually model shared leadership. It could even help us to hear those voices that are difficult to hear because of size and the fact we are separated into two rooms.

A Hierarchy

Most of the comments about the unicameral proposal have to do with the fact that there is fear that somehow the House of Deputies will lose its voice or lose power. What is interesting is that no one has pondered or thought about the fact that by having two houses we actually strengthen a false hierarchy that is not meant by our constitution, canons or imagined in our ordinal.

By having two houses with bishops (who are a member of the clergy) in one and the rest of the laity and non-bishop clergy in another it actually makes it appear that there is a hierarchy to the church which has never been imagined. 

Some of the very things that those of us who believe in the shared ministry of the church, the mutual ministry among laity and every clergy order, the idea of shared governance is actually undermined by the fact that the House of Bishops is separated out. 

I want to protect the voices of those who are different than me. I want them to sound out and speak truthfully of their experience. I want them to tell me about the issues facing parishioners and I want to hear those voices for myself. I want to sit at a table with people not from my diocese and share the ministry of the church. I believe we can actually work together without the false hierarchy of a past age. 

A unicameral body with two houses meeting together can be, and should be, organized to support this work, decrease cost, protect and amplify voices of difference, and govern our church. 

I Don't Think It Means What You Think It Means: Unicameral

People keep using the word unicameral and I am not sure that people are generally aware that it has a variety of meanings.

People keep saying that the unicameral house will undo the two house system we have at General Convention. That could be true but it doesn't have to be true.

In this understanding they are using the term to mean one house. But that is not the technical definition of unicameral.

Unicameral means meeting in one chamber. So the integrity of the different houses in our system that typically meet bicameral form (in two chambers) could be maintained. They could in fact have provisions to meet separately when desired.

The way this works now is that we typically meet bicameral form and have provisions for meeting unicamerally. So it is that this General Convention we will actually have several unicameral meetings of the two houses. For instance on budget and on hearing the nominee presentations for Presiding Bishop. This is hardly going to be the end of the world.

If we chose to move forward with a unicameral meeting we could vastly improve our governance while at the same time providing for separate meetings from time to time in bicameral form. And, we could maintain the two house system and their integrity - which I have always supported.

So as you use the term make sure we are using it correctly.

150th Anniversary of Juneteenth: Notes and Prayer from the Prayer Breakfast

You can learn more about the celebration at this link for Juneteenth.

The Episcopal Diocese of Texas believes that God has a mission and that mission is the reconciliation of the world. We believe God’s mission has a church – and that is us. At our very best we are God’s people, doing God’s work of reconciliation. That work, this work, our work of reconciliation is to:

o Heal history
o To live with difference instead of expecting deference, and to celebrate diversity
o It is to create with god, to co-create, a peaceful commons for all of God’s family

We Episcopalians are proud to be part of the Island community, San Augustines, Grace and Trinity continue a great ministry work of reconciliation. St Vincents House is a legacy ministry where we undertake to make – with you our beloved community – a better Galveston

So it is on this day that we are proud to be considered your neighbor, to be invited here, to celebrate 150 years since that prophetic Juneteenth day.

And, on this day in the wake of Ferguson, Baltimore, McKinney and Cleveland Texas, and now Charleston and the Emmanuel Martyrs we have a lot to pray for our country, our state, and our city.

We have come a long way in 150 years but we have a long way to go

We must pray to change America but we must also pray to be changed for sake of America yes, but that we may better reflect God’s family – God’ peaceful and peacefilled family, God’s loving and forgiving family, God’s reconciling family…On this day I am mindful of our President’s remarks at the anniversary of Selma and the long way we have yet to go as brothers and sisters….so let us bow our heads so that I may offer a prayer for us on this day. Let us pray:

Heavenly father, creator of all that we are and all that we have, elevate the character of this nation. In this time of disruption disrupt us for what is true and is right. Disrupt us that we may move and act for the cause of freedom. We honor the courage of the long line of heroes that brought Juneteenth to a reality 150 years ago. We honor the courage of the men and women who make up the long line of heroes who have labored to bring emancipation into reality lo these 150 years. Let their lives, their story, disrupt us and give us courage. Let their non violence in the face of violence, their love in the face of hate, their hope in the face of despair disrupt our ways and remind us on this day that violence, hate, and despair tho they infect our nation shall not have the last word. The emancipation proclamation is call to action to continue the journey to freedom for all black Americans and all of God’s people. Every American – women, Latinos, Asian Americans - has been affected by this word of hope. This is our time, we write our story, and we will leave our legacy. So disrupt us that we may see our purpose to build a better nation, a better state, a better Galveston. Disrupt us that we may discard cynicism. Disrupt us that we may face boldly the sin or racism that is yet before us and that we will have a moral imagination, a sense of urgency to improve our criminal justice system, to roll back poverty, make opportunities for all people to make a living wage, to protect democracy with the right to vote restored fully for all people, to care for the migrant and immigrant, to ensure access to health care, to support the responsibility of each person to make their voice heard - to make a just society. So on this 150th anniversary of the reading of the emancipation proclamation let our voice sound out as it did on that day, let our actions be clear, and let our legacy be true that a second 150 years need not pass before racism, classism and violence are shed and liberty and freedom for all people are once again our nation’s heart’s song. Amen.