Canon Neal Michell, Saturday, July 10, 3:12

Today we heard Ray Suarez, Correspondent of the Lehrer Report News Hour preach at the daily Eucharist. He spoke of our being a welcoming church, made references to his and his family's involvement in mission trips to the Lakota Reservation and Honduras and so many of the things we as the Episcopal Church have to offer.

I have been serving on the World Mission Committee. This has been particularly time-consuming. We have been dealing with this convention's response to B033 (the moratorium on consenting to bishop elections whose lifestyle would cause a problem in the larger Communion) and the Covenant, among other issues. On most days my day starts with committee hearings at 7am and ends with the close of committee hearings at 10pm.

I am impressed with the thoughtfulness of everyone on this committee and their awareness of the importance of our place in the Communion and not wanting to do anything that might jeopardize our place among out Communion.

We crafted the Special Order of Business for the Convention to discuss the B033 related issues. We had individual sharing and then randomly drawn individuals speaking at the microphone followed later that evening by a two-hour open hearing on B033. The work is really exhausting but truly important.

By the way, I bought a Mickey Mouse watch at Disneyland on Monday. So, Mickey's big hand (minutes) is on the '2' and his little hand (hour) is on the '3.' That means I am going to get ready for the next legislative session.