It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry

While riding on the train tonight out of DC, listened to the TEC Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori brief the 815 staff on the Primates Meeting in Dar Es Salaam. One would like so much to be charitable, to try to think of positive things to say, to encourage you to listen to it and be encouraged - but it was all one could do but to sit there, quietly, reflectively, actively engaging in a listening process in this forty-year conversation while we sit at the table la di da. One wanted to be calm, dignified, winsome, the epitome of serenity, to be able to say sweetly, ah, let us continue the conversation at the table in our listening process. And don't smash the plates.

She never once mentioned the fact that she's suing two hundred clergy and lay people in Virginia. No, not once. In her measured overtly-calm review of what transpired in Dar Es Salaam, she somehow overlooked the part about instigating lawsuits in her quest for conversation in the listening process so we can all be at the table - one way or the other. She just continued on in that ethereal, dream-like tone - but do catch the barbs, they are quite sharp.

Note carefully the difference she is making between the word "authorization" and the words "pastoral care." It is stuff like that that makes one want to jump out of their seat and start screaming down the aisle until one is thrown from the train.

Listen for yourself.



The best we could do when we got home tonight is put on this song below. It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry when everything is broken. If, as you listen to tonight's pesentation, try clicking on the song below and listen to both - at the same time. It's a rather interesting listening experience.