Three Crazy Weeks

​So It has been a few weeks since I have posted, and sorry the last few weeks have been a bit of a departure from my sabbatical with a family time and then going back to work for two weeks with General Assembly. That is not to say that interesting things didn’t happen so I will pick up with a couple posts. The first we’ll call Family Time in Colorado and the second The PCUSA General Assembly.

​Family Time

​After leaving Wyoming I headed to Colorado. I honestly do not know when Colorado became a big thing in my family but the only long distance family vacations I remember as a kid were either Colorado or visiting my grandparents in Albuquerque, otherwise it was somewhere in Illinois, Iowa, or Wisconsin. I understand the draw for my family and the easy access to hiking and the outdoors and the reality that with so much unspoiled nature every time you go back to the same place it can be completely different. So it was fun to meet up with them and eventually my middle brother Steve for a week.  
 
For my first three days in Colorado was in the eastern foothills first in Ft. Collins, then two suburbs of Denver. During that part of the trip I made it to Estes Park and Golden a couple fun small towns as I bopped around to the breweries I was staying at through Harvest Host. On Wednesday I met up with my parents in Breckenridge, maybe my favorite town in Colorado, and then I made my way for two nights to the Central City KOA. Though the trek from Breckenridge to Central City was not the most fun ride as my phone said I 70 was closed and gave me an alternate route that took me a road that was so high people were still skiing at the resort there.
 
While the next few days were really uneventful, It was so nice to have time to be with the family and tour through so many memories and create some new ones.

GA – Sylvan Lake

​Every once in a while, I don’t think things through and just go with my gut. When I volunteered to be a Commissioner for GA I booked a site at Sylvan Lake thinking it would be a good place to sit though meetings with beautiful scenery and nothing to bother me and I was absolutely right. Looking back though it was one of my crazier choices on the trip as it was the only time I really needed electricity and stable internet and nether were available there. Thankfully, I only had to drive into town once for a gas refill to generate power and my starlink worked like a charm! So I lucked out. I was also glad for the lack of distractions as my committee assignment on Polity was pretty intense.

​GA – Salt Lake City

​Leaving Sylvan Lake I had booked a site for the week at a KOA that was in downtown Salt Lake City. I was a bit worried about staying there as I knew the realities of being a commissioner and already being tiered from the week before I took my time getting there, but once there I was amazed at this campsite. They had everything I needed and even though it was hot, the shady campsite kept everything nice a cool. The also had a really nice dog park for Joy with a free dog wash, imagine that!!!
 
After getting things set up I went out on the town exploring what Salt Lake City had to offer which was a lot more then I was thinking!  One of the first things I found out after getting the lay of the land was that it was Pride Weekend in Salt Lake City.  This was a real treat since it ended up being one of the most unique and welcoming pride events I have ever seen. They even had a place for neurodivergent people to enjoy the festivities. Though it was heartbreaking to hear the stories of families and individuals who have to fight for the very basic human dignities in their communities.
 
The in person GA started with a mixer which was great to meet the people we were on our committees with in person and learn about what our churches agencies have been up to which honestly was not too different from when I was at GA 8 Years ago with the exception of the merger of the GA with the Mission Agency. 
 
Sunday started for most with church, I took advantage of a day to sleep in so I did eventually making my way back to the pride festival before the plenary started for the day.  Plenary’s are the individual sessions of GA. We had two Sunday which mostly consisted of learning the systems and eventually voting in the new Moderators.  It was interesting that of the moderator choices, one duo was definitely rooted in the church as an institution and the others were looking for a more prophetic voice. Though politically I doubt they were far apart the commissioners voted overwhelmingly for the institutional candidates. 
 
This became a theme throughout the assembly as many of the decisions made were done based on the survival of the denomination over being bold to the truths of this world. I think the funniest thing was how hard it was for many to follow what was going on. This was happening so much I was basically holding a polity class in the back for the people around me so they could follow along.  In the end there were a few thing I learned that shocked me, like the fact that some churches would make pastors sign an NDA in order to get severance and that the organization in the denomination that caries out social justice through investing was making a lot of progress with the big oil companies to change practices and help the communities they are in.  It also surprised me that the denomination is still not quite sure how it feels about LGBTQ people.  This is a complicated statement because the actions would say something else but the move of lobbyist and the ease of how people were swayed to an argument of “traditional values” really shows how much work is still needed to be done.
 
Though the most frustrating thing is the things we are doing around Child protection, boundaries, and Clergy Ethics.  Yet again more rules were brought but, at least for the ones that had come before polity, the rules being brought are not really helpful and often could cause more problems. One in particular was that a presbytery  was seeking guidance on the mandatory boundary training and if a presbytery could give a waver for a pastor who was otherwise incapacitated. This sparked a long-heated discussion to which I really wanted to get up and say, “Is it really appropriate to have someone with Alzheimer’s sit through a mandatory training” I could only imagine my grandfather in his latter days doing that.  It is very evident that the denomination really needs to stop adding things to the book of order until the come up with a comprehensive approach and not one that it solely left to the presbyteries, many of whom don’t have the best resources to make that happen which is why those presbyteries seem to keep trying to solve the problem through legislation.
 
All that being said it was a great time. It was fun to be there with Sebastian and Rosalina and it was great to catch up with old friend and meet some new ones.
 
From GA, since I seem to not have had enough of Presbyterians, I decided to head to Ghost Ranch for a week of Art and relaxation, hopefully I post about that on Sunday or Monday.  That’s also partly why this is so late getting posted.