San Antonio in August is hot

Yes, it has been a while.

Back on August 4th I flew to Austin, Texas. My brother's family were in the midst of putting on a summer musical through an organization that provides performance experience for home-schooled kids. The show was Seussical. My brother's son and three of his grandkids were in the cast. His wife was head of the costume crew, his daughter was choreographer, and another son was in the pit band.

On Thursday, August 6 I took Greyhound to San Antonio to attend the Reconciling Ministries Network Convocation. My report of Convo is on my brother blog. Though Convo ended a week ago it took that long to write my report (in the midst of trips to visit my dad).

Convo was held in Travis Park United Methodist Church. The current sanctuary held its first service in 1886. It was enlarged in 1902. Among other additions was a youth wing completed in 1950. As part of that a cool stained glass window was installed. The whole thing is 50 feet high and was the tallest in America at the time. Here it is. I'm standing outside the east side of the building with the late afternoon sun shining through the glass.

Yes, San Antonio in August is hot. Late afternoon temperatures hit 100F every day. Even so, two of the three evenings I had supper along the River Walk and spent time before eating stretching my legs by walking around the central loop or along the San Antonio River up- or downstream of the loop. Here's a picture of a bit of the River Walk.

Standing straight

Tonight was our annual Dedicated Reconciling United Methodists potluck and program. Much to my delight there were 60 of us, including another member of my own church! That's far different than the dozen or so we get for our monthly inclusive services.

The speaker was Louise Ott. She had been a dynamic pastor in the UMC and even spent time as a district superintendent (in charge of perhaps 50 churches). She made news around the region when she revealed she is lesbian, was in a long-term partnership, and was resigning her UMC job and credentials to be a pastor in a more welcoming denomination. Yes, that long-term relationship meant that for many years (perhaps almost two decades) she was in violation of the denomination's rules.

Louise began her message with Luke 13:10-17. This is the New International Version:

On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.

Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue leader said to the people, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.”

The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?”

When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.

As she began to read I knew she would refer to herself as the bent-over woman. And she did. With that as the background she told about why she stayed in the UMC for so long and why she finally left. She then turned to us and thanked us for being the ones to reach out to heal and to straighten. She noted when the leader complained about healing on the Sabbath, he didn't direct his comments to Jesus, but to those in need of healing. Come back to be healed when our traditions permit it. Her whole message was wonderful. Not many sermons get a standing ovation.



Alas, the evening had a bit of sadness to it. I had only a brief time to talk to Jill, the executive director of MFSA (the organization whose board meeting I sat in on this past week), so asked her husband Bob how the rest of the meeting went.

I had heard a bit about this story on Friday, but it didn't play out until Saturday. There was one person on the board who did not like Jill and the work she was doing. This was in spite of a very successful (perhaps most successful) year for MFSA, including all that work around General Conference, and a staff who think she's the greatest. This person convinced enough other board members to fire her. That group then proceeded to slash the budget. Some of the staff will leave out of loyalty to Jill and disgust with the board. Others will leave because their positions were cut. Many board members will likely resign. A good number of Jill's initiatives, especially the efforts to open dialogue with African churches, were scrapped. It seems the whole purpose of the organization was gutted.

Bob did not know why this person had a vendetta against Jill. So what I say next is pure speculation. MFSA has been on the vanguard of progressive causes within the denomination and has been for over 100 years. I get the impression that this person is actually a hard conservative who infiltrated the board to eliminate a progressive voice. And yes, there are organizations who would be delighted in such a fate. One of them is the Institute for Religion and Democracy (which should be named Religion Without Democracy) who have been attacking the progressive side of several of the big denominations. By "attacking" I mean completely silencing their competition, not just out-maneuvering progressives on important votes. I repeat that I don't know whether this is true and I don't know if IRD is involved.

Bob says Jill will land on her feet and is looking around for what she might do next. However, she will not go back to Washington to pack up her apartment and will instead rely on friends to do that for her.

This story does have a personal component. I've gotten to know Jill and her work over the last year as she attended the DRUM First Sunday services. It was partly through her stories of hope about what she and MFSA had accomplished and were planning to do that convinced me to go to General Conference so that I might witness the historic elimination of the gay prohibitions in the UMC.



Essayist Terrence Heath discusses the rise and fall of a Conservative talking head. Within the essay Heath discusses the funding of the Conservative propaganda machine. Have some talent describing the Conservative point of view? If good enough for notice, the Right will groom you and prepare you for the national stage. There is a huge investment (the term Heath uses) in media companies, think-tanks, advocacy programs, university programs, college newspapers, and more. A talented wordsmith could get a good job for life. The Left has very little that can compare -- we just haven't invested in it.

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.