I spent most of the day yesterday traveling to Salt Lake City. What a beautiful city, I had great views of the mountains and the lake as we descended.

I was able to catch much of the Presiding Bishop candidates presentation. This was held in the House of Deputies, I think for the first time. They showed videos from each candidate, who then had a few minutes to speak, followed by Q and A. The election is Saturday. Bishop Curry from North Carolina has to be the front runner, but history tells us handicapping this race is dangerous. Never know what happens behind closed doors in the House of Bishops.

It took three forevers for my room to be ready, so I wandered the downtown SCL area a bit. It’s pretty warm here (97), but it’s a dry heat! Actually it was way more comfortable than South Florida.

The deputation from Mississippi met briefly to work on a resolution we will present to committee today. This is a great team, folks! It is a joy and privilege to work with them. More on this resolution once it is submitted and in the pipeline.

Last night I attended the first legislative hearings for the Special Committee on Marriage. They heard testimony on A037 (submitted by our Task Force on Marriage to continue and expand the work), C007, C009, and D026. The latter three have to do with changing liturgies to be inclussive for same-gender marriages. Tonight they take on A036, which we are the Task Force submitted, calling for canonical revision of the canon on marriage. More on that later.

If you go HERE, you can see the text of resolutions and track them as they are edited by the committee and eventually by the House of Deputies and House of Bishops.

After the hearings we had a wonderful reunion of our Task Force on Marriage team, almost all of us are here. We shared dinner and talked strategy and, as always, laughed a lot! They even sang Happy Birthday to me – a day early. Yep, today is my birthday!

General Convention is a marathon so I am off to the races again. Today I really look forward to seeing a bunch of old friends from around the church. I will try to check in both with the marriage committee and the social justice one, as I am interested in anti-racism resolutions. I am hoping we can put additional funds into anti-racism training and put some teeth into encouraging ALL our leaders to attend. To that end, we need more trainers trained and updates to our materials, which costs money. Money we need to spend!

Blessings to all. Comments are welcome!