From Jo Hardy,
Diocesan Administrator
working with the House of Bishops Secretariat
“It is good that one should both hope and quietly wait…” Lamentations 3:26
And so my time began a member of the secretariat in the House of Bishops. There are 12 of us who support the work of the House of Bishops from the initial submission of proposed legislation into the legislative database, through the final publication and distribution of the Convention Journal. In other words, we record minutes, type, enter into a database, copy, track the progress of resolutions and prepare the final documents that are ultimately recorded in the archives of the Episcopal Church. One person and an assistant on the platform of the House take the minutes and records the actions of the house. Another duo actually transcribes the notes. Although all of the modern technologies are still incorporated into synchronizing all of this, I was amazed to know that some of the staff use shorthand! There are also similar secretariats for the House of Deputies and the General Convention office.
My responsibilities including keeping track of the progress of legislation in the House of Bishops and communicating that information to the appropriate committee chair and the House of Deputies. This is done via a legislative data base, which like all computer systems, has frequent “glitches” which call for repeated intervention by the IT staff. When the houses are in session, it is amazingly busy here in the office, and I like the idea of my small participation in this process actually being part of the permanent record of the Episcopal Church. When the session rooms are quiet, I sit here and wonder if this would have been a good time to write my memoirs! I am learning the art of quiet waiting, and continue to work on turning these times into a spiritual discipline. This time of waiting does indeed heighten my expectation for some lively debate on the floor!
It is extremely interesting to watch the live feeds from both houses. My ears perk up when I hear discussions about the resolutions that affect lay pensions or the proposed denominational health care plan. I just heard over the feed that Resolution A138 – Support Lay Employees’ Pensions was just adopted by the House of Bishops. The resolution would establish mandatory lay employee pension system for employees who work a minimum of 1,000 hours a year. The Diocese of Michigan, unlike many other dioceses in the church, chose to participate in the lay pension plan back in 1991 when the original Resolution D165a was passed suggesting participation, but not making it mandatory. It will be interesting to see what happens in the House of Deputies.
Earlier in the Convention, I had the opportunity to attend the Eucharist sponsored Integrity. I especially wanted to hear Bishop Barbara Harris preach, and was not disappointed by her fiery sermon. It was a beautiful service and very well attended. I understand that this service is customarily one of the highlights of the convention. I definitely understand why.
I do not have much time to spend with our deputation or bishop, but am delighted when I bump into someone from home when I travel from the hotel to the deputation office. I have also seen so many people that I have met at other meetings within the church, and through my association with CREDO. It really is a homecoming – lots of hugs and enthusiastic greetings, so much like our diocesan convention. Everybody knows somebody who knows somebody that they know. It really is not take six degrees of separation here – it is really only one or two!
On the first Thursday, I started to do battle with a terrible head cold, fever, chills and all of the accompanying miseries. My immediate recourse for medication was the hotel gift shop – not necessarily a good plan, but the certainly the most expedient one. The financial toll of using a hotel gift shop as a CVS was a great learning experience: $11.99 for 6 doses of Dayquil, and another $10.99 for a bottle of 16 Advil! A much coveted and now rationed bag of Halls natural cough drops was $4.99 and not likely to be shared. It was expensive lesson, but I am grateful that I am feeling quite human today. Note to self: Don’t leave home without emergency meds!
It’s 11:15 a.m., and both houses have adjourned and will resume legislation at 2:00 p.m. I have some reports to file, then I am will resume my time of expectation, back to my quiet, hopeful waiting…
Thanks, Jo. It’s really good to get reports showing the parts of the Convention that don’t get covered as “news”, people doing other important work. And good to have the reminder that it’s not all about those news items: ah, yes, lay pensions and health care.