We had the Seminary Dinners last night. Yale-Berkeley’s dinner was down the street at the Minneapolis Club. There were three members of my class at the dinner, and a number of people that I knew who had graduated in the years immediately before my own (’91). Somehow we managed to import the essence of Yale in Conneticut into that room. Maybe it was the dark wood and tastefully painted walls – maybe it was hearing the familiar cadences of Seminary speech – either way, it was a fun. We did run out of forks however for desert. (We Yalies know that you use a different fork for the salad and for the entree – they didn’t bring us another fork for our desert. Sewanee and Viginia were having their dinners upstairs in the building – apparently they didn’t have the issue with forks that we did. Not surprising I suppose…) Grin.

The morning is going to taken up with the Festival Eucharist and UTO ingathering. I’ve heard from many how impressive a service this is going to be – I’m looking forward to it. We meet this afternoon to take up the issue of consent to Robinson’s election. It feels like a day that history is going to be made. The Church is all over the news this morning, it’s the lead story on CNN and you can see the media presence all over the place. I’m praying that whatever happens we will witness to the world our own unique way of treating each other with civility while disaggreeing.

The most hopeful news that I’ve heard from the halls is that either way, no one is leaving the Convention. (There were some significant rumors that AAC people were going to walk out if they lost the vote this afternoon.) I’ve been repeatedly assured that they are going to stay and fight. Hooray! We need all the parts of the Body of Christ. We may not say that “we have no need of you” to anyone in the Church.

Pray for God’s Holy Spirit to be in the very air we breathe this afternoon. We seek to know and do God’s will. May God give us the courage to do whatever God is calling us to do.