Monday, September 21, 2009
What's left of The Left
I'm here at the fall gathering of The Consultation - which is a coalition of thirteen independent organization in the Episcopal Church committed to peace with justice.
You can read our Platform for General Convention 2009 with post-convention report here.
You may not have heard about us, because we are mostly an intentionally 'under the radar' kinda group. Except when things gotta get done, and then we use our fairly wide network of relationships to advocate. Things happen more in quiet, if not private, 'conversations of influence' to provide solidarity, if not direct action in issues of peace with justice that are a concern to our constituent members.
We have been known, however, to take public stands and public actions when necessary and appropriate. We are formulating a few of those stands and actions here, in fact. You may well be hearing about some of them in the days and weeks ahead.
I'm a big fan of Veggie Tales. I adore Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber. This is one of my favorite clips from VeggieTales. It's called "Pirates Who Don't Do Anything." It's silly and fun and, I think, sums up my experience of being on the Steering Committee of The Consultation these past 12 years.
Yup. We're "what's left of the Left" as Lily Tomlin once said (or, was it her Beloved, Jane?), but we're also "Pirates who don't do anything" - at least, it may look that way on the outside. And, that's just the way we like it, thank you very much.
But, we're Pirates, nonetheless - ones who work for justice with peace in The Episcopal Church.
Please keep our work in your prayers.
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7 comments:
You know reading this I cannot quite tell if you think more should be done or not?
FWIW
jimB
That's right, JimB.
You and the whole Consultation are in my prayers. Work hard. Fly low. Laugh often. That's my prayer for you.
Well, I went to the Consultation website and read all the issues papers from July...some really good stuff there! I especially liked the articles re: covenant and anglican constitution. they spell out expressly and concisely the genius of the anglican way.
It is beyond me how any ABC would not see that, the unigue christian expression that we have in anglicanism, is something worth fighting for and upholding. In this world of fear and ever greater polarity, religions tend to pull the ropes in tighter and tighter circles; until mostly what is excluded, is God.
Yes, there appears to be a need for a fundamentalist liturgical baptist/catholic type church...but let it not be at the expense of killing the unigueness of the Anglican way. Anglicanism is a rare thing upon the earth, as far as religions go.
I feel the ABC is mistaken if he thinks his current approach is going to bring peace and unity to the communion. Fundamentalism, by nature, will either conquer or separate...it is generally not in its makeup to co-exist.
blessings Dan
Thanks, Margaret, it was a great meeting. We got LOTS done and lots of plans are underway already for GC 2012. The juices are pumping.
One of the things we talked about is, contrary to those who say that the ABC "just doesn't understand how TEC works," he understands it quite well, thank you very much. He simply doesn't care.
Love me some veggie tales. Our rector was at a high school gathering a few years ago, and they were stunned that he was not aware of Veggie Tales. They made him sit down and watch some, and at that point, he became a big fan as well. So much fun (and so hard to get those songs out of your head once they are there!) Sometimes "not doing anything," or at least not trying to do too much, is the better (if harder) approach.
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