Midnight ride

The Methodist Federation for Social Action (as I told my friend and debate partner, these are the good guys) board meeting is in town. I'm not on the board. I volunteered with the head of the local chapter of MFSA to be of service as needed.

That service came last night in doing an airport run. The plane was to land about 11:40 pm. I monitored it online and it actually landed at close to midnight. I got to the airport at 12:15 and drove the young woman to a home 30 miles to the north, arriving there at 1:15. I was home by 2:00 and lights out by 3:00. I slept in this morning.

The board began its meeting about 8:00 this morning at Central UMC Church in downtown Detroit. My guest didn't get much sleep so she was powered by coffee during the day. I was invited (by the local host) to join them for dinner tonight. I got to the church around 4:30, partly to observe some of the discussion at the meeting.

When I arrived the full board was not in session because there was a private meeting by the executive committee. One board member wanted to oust the executive director though most everyone else thought she was doing a wonderful job. I hear that discussion will resume tomorrow morning at 7:30. I won't be there.

But soon the whole board reconvened. Much to my surprise the young woman I gave the ride to was chairing the meeting. Yeah, there were the usual personnel reports (who should we ask to join? -- no they didn't look at me), and finance reports. But there were a few interesting things before dinner.

MFSA was a lead organization in the coalition at General Conference last May to prod the denomination to be more inclusive. Preparations for 2016 are already underway. This time the question isn't whether to put up a tent for the Love Your Neighbor Tabernacle, but only where to put it. Already new coalition member organizations are being added.

The Communications Associate talked about the great things happening with Facebook and Twitter and that the website needs an overhaul. Here is an article he wrote for that website in response to the Todd Akin mess last August. He goes out to various district and regional conferences and talks to people about starting local chapters -- even in the South. He gives tours of the facilities in Washington DC. and talks to students, many of whom are future seminarians. In one recent tour the young man gushed, "You're a group that's actually for reproductive rights and gay inclusion?!"

One guy, whose title is Cross-Cultural Coordinator, talked about his recent trip to the Philippines and his plans for a trip to Africa. The United Methodist Church isn't in every African country. It depends whether the country had missionaries from England or America (or whether they allowed missionaries at all). So the West Africa region represents congregations in only four countries. And the cultural differences in West Africa are different from East Africa and from Central Africa. He is leading the effort to get MFSA chapters started there. He'll go in with plans to talk about 9 of the 10 topics MFSA is involved in and he's sure he'll get questions about the 10th -- that being homosexuality.

Today is Spirit Day, in which gays and allies were asked to wear purple as a sign of support for gay teens, especially bullied teens. So I wore my purple shirt today. It took a moment to notice most of the board was wearing something purple, even if it was only purple stripes in the socks or a grape "Faygo" (Detroit beverage company) shirt. Both prez. candidates were asked to wear purple today. I haven't heard about Romney. I didn't see a photo of Obama but did see he put a purple background on the White House logo on his Twitter feed.

Dinner was served in the Swords into Plowshares gallery space that is adjacent to Central Church. They exhibit artwork having to do with peace and social justice issues. At the moment they have a quilt show and several of the quilts are quite delightful. One quilting group asked each of their members to draw around her own hand on a piece of fabric and then cut out the hand profile. The quilt is covered in these colorful hands.

The local leader called a Middle Eastern restaurant to confirm the dinner order. The owner replied, "I don't have an order from you. I don't think I can get anything ready in an hour." So our leader called a pizza company. The restaurant owner showed up with food anyway. We had both. I had wondered how it is a Middle Eastern Restaurant also served pizza. It was all good.