{"id":1165,"date":"2012-05-04T05:51:02","date_gmt":"2012-05-04T12:51:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/gc2012\/?p=1165"},"modified":"2012-05-04T06:00:09","modified_gmt":"2012-05-04T13:00:09","slug":"reflections-on-the-last-day-by-amory-peck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/reflections-on-the-last-day-by-amory-peck\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections on the Last Day by Amory Peck"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Post submitted on May 3, 2012\u00a0<strong>by Amory Peck<\/strong>, First Elected Lay Delegate to General Conference and Conference Lay Leader. Mary Simpson-Stanton praying during morning plenary on Friday, May 4 by Patrick Scriven.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Friends,<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m up, dressed, mostly awake. \u00a0Ready to head to the last day of General Conference. \u00a0The main thought in my head is \u201cI want to go home.\u201d \u00a0Home to my partner, Linda, of course. \u00a0Home to regular routines. \u00a0Home, too, to Garden Street UMC \u2014 it will be especially good to be in a reconciling congregation this next Sunday. \u00a0Home to my Annual Conference (not everyone\u2019s in agreement there, but most are wonderfully supportive of a fully inclusive church. \u00a0Home to the Western Jurisdiction and the ways we do church and God.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re reading this post, you\u2019ve most likely been following the actions of General Conference. \u00a0You know that yesterday (Thursday) morning was wrenchingly difficult. \u00a0Not only were the petitions on full inclusion soundly defeated, but, the discussion was difficult \u2014 and, at times, hateful. \u00a0One translator apologized \u2014 and then (according to my French speaking friends) tempered what was being said.<\/p>\n<p>The joy in the day was the support of the PNW delegation, standing, singing, praying and crying with hundreds of others. \u00a0When we gathered (illegally) around the communion table, when we broke bread and took the cup together, we were truly in the presence of a loving God.<\/p>\n<p>And so, we\u2019ll gather for one final day. \u00a0We\u2019ll continue the business of conference. \u00a0Business that, I\u2019m afraid, has too often been motivated by attempts for power and control. \u00a0Business that has been focused on the tedium of details on how we handle business and short on how we live out the Gospel.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s certainly time to end this note. \u00a0I\u2019m bone-tired, fuzzy minded, but fortunately aware that I should stop rambling.<\/p>\n<p><em>Thank you for reading along.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Amory<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Post submitted on May 3, 2012\u00a0by Amory Peck, First Elected Lay Delegate to General Conference and Conference Lay Leader. Mary Simpson-Stanton praying during morning plenary on Friday, May 4 by Patrick Scriven. Friends, I\u2019m up, dressed, mostly awake. \u00a0Ready to head to the last day of General Conference. \u00a0The main thought in my head is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1165","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pnw-delegation"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/mary-s-s.jpg?fit=640%2C427&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-iN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1165"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1170,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165\/revisions\/1170"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}