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Here are a few pictures from Bowen Island. I may post a few more in the next couple of days.  The one with the still water and ducks is of the place where I watched some salmon spawing on Wednesday.  Still amazed at all that…

I’ve started the journey back. After 3 days sharing a room with a charming new friend from Ohio, I am luxuriating in the silence of a hotel room I get to have all to myself. My little introverted self can only take so much togetherness and then it’s time to call it a day.  The conference was illuminating, I learned some new skills I look forward to using at work and return home deeply saddened and troubled by much about the Episcopal Church.  We had lively and engaged discussion about the conversation the church needs to have with itself.  But we skirted around an enormous issue related to power, who has it, how it is shared (which also means how it’s relinquished).  And the absences were as important as who was present.

I reconnected with some folks I’d met earlier this year who are doing some really good, innovative work, met others who are doing other intriguing things.  But by and large, we are folks who work out on the edges, where our power is very, very limited.  Our dear friend Tom is working hard to find a place for us at the big boy/big girl table, but I seriously doubt that those who have the power are willing to listen, let alone face into the amount of power they must give up, in order for new ways of being the church to thrive.  Hard stuff to consider, harder still to discern how I can be faithful to my convictions, to the fragile, bumbling and beautiful little community I serve, and to a God who I most often find not in the order, but in the chaos.

Ah well, the ruminations that happen when one is tired, sitting in silence, missing all that is dear about home.  I hear I may have a “gravel path” in the air tomorrow with some clear air turbulence and I thought I remembered booking my flights through LAX and instead have a 3 3/4 hour layover in Houston.  But. There will be some tailwinds that will move the plane through the air faster. Plus, I will get to slip into my own bed tomorrow night and that is good.  I love my bed…