Monday, July 21, 2008

Past few days

The last few days have been a bit of a whirlwind. There have been final preparations for the beginning of the conference, the beginning of The Spouses Conference, the opening Eucharist, and lots of worship and singing.

All the bishops have commented how wonderful the retreat was and the spouses are beginning to get settled in. We have had few injuries, and all seems to be going well.

The Ecumenical Guests arrived Saturday. It is so much fun to see the attire of the leaders of the many different Christian traditions represented. From the Lutheran bishops who resemble Anglican bishops, to the Salvation Army representative's military based uniform to the beautiful and detailed robes of the orthodox representatives, it was a very interesting site. These guests were formally welcomed at worship that evening.

Two more points:
1. The ten foot fence:
There have been rumors of a ten foot fence which surrounds the "Big Top"- the large blue tent in which many conference events are held for the purpose of intimidating people.
This is not true... the fence is a bit under six and a half feet high and was required by the insurance company for the tent. There is a lot of expensive equipment in that tent such as lights, headsets, microphones, etc and no perfect way to secure it as it is a tent. While I'm sure the fence does provide some sort of "people" security as well, its primary purpose is to conform to the rules of the insurance company.

2. The HOB is deliberately excluding +Gene from attend an HOB meeting this morning.
Yes, +Gene is not invited to this gathering. The conference has scheduled provincial meetings for province (or region) of the Anglican Communion on campus as official conference events. Every event at Lambeth has a very specific requirement as to who is allowed in. Most events are exclusive.
Before every event at Lambeth Stewards are told who is allowed in (people are colour coded- bishops and bishop's spouses are on the same color but have different badges).
Because Bishop Robinson does not have a purple lanyard, he would not be allowed in to the room where the provincial gathering is being held.
There isn't anything we as stewards are allowed to do about it, it can only be taken up with the Lambeth Secretariat.
I agree that +Gene should be able to meet with his province, so please don't start with that. Simply, it is not the bishop's decision to make.

Lasty, if as you are reading this blog, you don't see something discussed that you would like to know about, please email me or post a reply, and I will be happy to talk about it. So much is going on at Lambeth that it is hard at times to distinguish between what people are hearing about/find interesting and otherwise.


In peace,
Allie
A Lambeth Steward

8 comments:

Margaret said...

Allie,
Thank you for your postings. I've been away and have just caught up. I don't think you want or need any of us to direct your thoughts with questions. Rather, we need to hear exactly the kind of things you have been posting - real life at Lambeth, honest impressions of people you meet. Just tell us what you want to and we will be richly blessed by hearing your voice.

Jane R said...

Thanks for the update! Now I can start my day :-).

Prayers for you continue.

Paul (A.) said...

Any thoughts on the possibility of comparing and contrasting the two Eucharists yesterday? I read somewhere that the Integrity/Changing Attitudes one was in an open field. Was this so?

David said...

Well, if *I* were a bishop in TEC (perish the thought!), I'd decline the meeting at the official venue and take my purple-lanyard self off to a decent pub & meet with +Gene there. I'd also encourage as many of my fellow bishops to do the same as I could manage.

And if some Lambeth bureaucrat started squawking about it, I'd tell him/her to stuff it (in a loving way, of course - then I'd invite them in for a beer ;)

But yeah, no pickin' on Allie or the rest of the stewards on this - they aren't the ones who get to decide.

Allie said...

Paul- I'm working on that one! I have the photos and an outline, I'm just trying to make it coherent!

Catherine said...

This is news, Allie dearest. Don't know that we have time to wait for coherent. Just keep posting your marvelous, Spirit-filled vignettes.

LKT said...

OK, so I'm going to be the skunk at the party, here, after all of these people saying just keep doing what you're doing, but I want to know about the injuries! "We have had few injuries," you say. What kind of injuries do people get at Lambeth? I'm dying of curiosity.

Allie said...

Nothing exciting... stubbed toes, a twisted ankle, someone got dehydrated... rather boring stuff like that.