GC77: Ready, Set, Go for Day 1

The morning started with a 3.2 mile run with Joshua, Mallory, and Sarah. We met at the White River Trail at 5:30am (it was still dark outside and 75F). It was a nice 39-minute run, while we watched the skies brighten to start the day. Mallory and I ran together while the two speedsters leapt ahead. It was fun to run with Mallory, and grab the chance to chat about our lives. We ended the run with a 6:30/mm sprint to the end.

Then, after getting all cleaned up, I had the pleasure of meeting up with my Mom. First, we visited the House of Bishops Secretariat, then the Exhibitor Hall, and finally to the hotel to share a meal together. Mom had to leave for MIchigan afterwards, so it was a treat to be able to eat and talk together. She will be back here on Saturday for the duration.

Then I rested a bit before heading over to the Westin Hotel to listen to testimony at the Program, Budget, & Finance (PB&F) committee meeting at 12:30pm. Many Chicagoans testified before the Committee, requesting that funds be reallocated for key ministries like Youth and Young Adult Formation programs, the Episcopal Youth Event, the official Youth Presence at General Convention, etc.

One person testified saying "If it takes a village to raise a child, then the whole church needs to be engaged and funded to support young adult ministry programs, particularly those young adults who are not touched by campus ministry programs" ( for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being to attend a non-traditional college).

Every penny we take away from youth and young adult ministries represents a person who may not receive our message of hope -- people who need to hear the good news but who may have never heard it, or worse, may have heard a distorted version of His Word.

We heard story after story about how the drastic, sometimes draconian cuts in the proposed budget will impact the effectiveness of our ministry and mission as a church. The Bishop of El Salvador made an impassioned plea saying he "had no words" to explain the devastating impact the cuts would have upon South American dioceses. "Cuts have been made to our budget since 2007. We cannot continue like this."

The meeting room was way too small for this gathering, with people sitting on the floor (like I did) to people outside the room several rows deep who were trying to peer in and listen to what was being said. I am told that subsequent meetings will be held in larger space. I surely hope so.

After the budget hearing, we moved to the Convention Center to the House of Deputies where we listened to presentations by both the Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies. Both deputies and Bishops attended this joint meeting, followed by orientation meetings to explain the rules of order, how to use the voting technologies, etc. This instruction is very useful, particularly to new Deputies who may not be familiar with how legislation is handled in a body of our size.

By the time we concluded, it was 5:00pm and I had been awake for 12 hours. But now the fun part of the day began. Joshua, Lee Gaede, and I went to the baseball stadium next door to the Convention Center and watched the Indianapolis Indians dominate a game, winning 5-1 with four home runs during the game. We sat in a block of seats reserved for Convention Deputies and had a great time. It was 104F when the game started, so we were quite thankful that we were sitting in a shaded section of the stadium!
After the game, we went to Champions for dinner (they make an awesome Cobb Salad) and then visited our Deputation Hospitality Suite. We had quite the discussion about Palestine and the Peace and Justice issues involving the Middle East and our country's actions regarding that region.

Then Pat Abrams and I left to go to the Deputies of Color meeting at 10pm. This meeting was also quite interesting as discussions surrounding the budget cuts and certain resolutions, and how they will reduce the effectiveness of the larger church in its Anti-Racism commitments -- its ability to conduct trainings, encourage diversity, and hold diocese accountable to their efforts to reduce institutional racism. It seems that the church has fallen back upon its commitment to addressing institutional racism in recent years and this is unfortunate. Funding for anti-racism trainings may now be delegated to the Provinces rather than Dioceses, which I do not believe will lead to adequate oversight, accountability, or consistency in implementation.

Today was a very long day. I am almost too tired to blog (so if my words are not as cogent as they ought to be, I apologize). I am heading to bed now so that I can get some sleep before tomorrow's 5:30am run. Thursday will be a full day of legislation, hearings, committee meetings, and our first Eucharistic celebration as a convention.

May the fun begin!

Location:Indianapolis, IN

GC77: Arrivals, preparations, celebrations (and Spiderman?)

On Tuesday at 8:30am, Joshua and I, both Alternate Deputies for the Diocese of Chicago, began our journey down to Indianapolis, IN to participate in the 77th General Convention of the Episcopal Church. This convention is Joshua's first and my fourth.

The drive down was pretty simple, with only one major construction-related traffic jam to contend with on I-65 South. We had breakfast along the way at an 'oasis' over I-294, where we ate at Panda Express . Yeah, not exactly breakfast food but it was tasty nonetheless. The drive only took us about 5 hours, including our stopover at Panda. Not bad!

We parked the car, got checked into the Marriott hotel, and immediately ran into Shawn Schreiner from Chicago and letting her know that we were here. Then we headed over the Convention Center (right across the street!) to get our badges and take a quick tour of the Exhibitor Hall, where we picked up a few packets and some cool 'Episco Swag'. We met up with several friends along the way, Jed Holdorph, Mallory Holding, Ted Main, Richard Hogue, and friends from the Episcopal Conference of the Deaf. We also spent some time in the Episcopal Service Corps booth as well as the National Cursillo booth (whose next conference is in Chicago in 2013!).

Then we walked over to the White River State Park, which is only a couple of blocks from the Downtown Indianapolis Marriott hotel, to check out the start of the White River Wapahani Trail where we planned to run on Wednesday morning. Man, is it hot! It was 98F as we walked to the trail.

Once satisfied that we knew how to get to the trail tomorrow morning, we decided to head back to the hotel. I needed to change into nicer attire because I was heading to the Dinner/Gala of the Union of Black Episcopalians at 5:30pm with my Mom. There were celebrating the 35th Anniversary of Women's Ordination in the Episcopal Church. That was an awesome celebration, and I was honored to meet one of the honorees: Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas. What an amazing person! And my mother was the person who spoke about Kelly's accomplishments and made the award presentation (how cool was that!). They also honored Canon Bonnie Anderson who is the President of the House of Deputies.

Later that evening, I had some fun with Joshua and another running buddy Kipp. We decided to go see the new Spiderman movie since there was a theater within walking distance of the hotel. Great movie! Of course, that meant our first day at General Convention ended at 1245AM! (And of course, that means little rest before we get up at 5AM to go on a 3-4 mile run to start the next day)

Tomorrow will be the first day of the Convention. For those on legislative committees, they have an all morning meeting to kick off their process for conducting themselves during the Convetion. For the rest of the Deputies and Bishops here, we get started with a presentation by the Program on Budget and Finance (PB&F) of the proposed budget for national church. The budget is going to be a critical business issue facing this Convention so it is fitting that this will be the first item to hear about formally (we have already received the budget proposal online).

After that will be presentations by the Presiding Bishop, Rt. Rev. Katharine Schori, and Bonnie Anderson, President of the House of Deputies. Then we have Deputy Orientation sessions. After dinner will be Legislative Committee meetings, followed by a gathering of the Chicago Deputation to conver and discuss the plans for the following day.

Location:Indianapolis, IN

Time for a "gut check" on my Goals

So in January, I laid out some goals for this year. I felt it was time to 'come clean' with my progress, re-assess, and re-commit for the last six months of this year.

Losing another 50 pounds

Well, gotta be honest on this one. I have lost and regained, and lost and regained the same 5-10 pounds all year long. Partly due to doing a little too much snacking and a few too many splurges (mostly during lunches with my office mates). My meals at home are great, but I really have to stop the snacking.

Other players here are my training and race schedules. I do need to eat to maintain the energy levels necessary to run 20-30 miles every week. If I don't nourish my body, it will not perform and I increase the potential for injury. People have told me that it is hard to lose weight and train for marathons. I am beginning to see their rationale.

Lastly, my body is accustomed to my running regimen. It is becoming more efficient in handling the demands I am placing upon it during running. That is a good thing. But it also means that I have to really start 'changing up' my workouts in order to 'shake up' the body into working harder. I plan to use cross-training to accomplish this.

I do not believe in the time remaining this year, with my race schedule as it is, that I will achieve a 50-pound loss in 2012. But I would at least like to see 20-25 pounds of it gone.

Maintaining a healthy, active lifestyle

On this score, I am doing a great job! I said that this would be the year of the Half Marathon. And to date, I have run four Half Marathons, and I have four more left to run, plus a 20-mile race. I qualified for membership in the Half Fanatics running club which was another goal I achieved in January.

I walked the AVON Walk for Breast Cancer and had a phenomenal experience! I raised $2500 for the cause, walking a total of 39.3 miles (a full marathon and a half marathon distance) in two days in early June. I cannot even begin to express how amazing that weekend was. I wrote up some thoughts on my Healthy Living blog if you are curious.

Lastly, I did register for the Chicago Marathon this October and have been busy training for this event. This will be my first 'running' Full Marathon. I am very excited and nervous about this one. But I will be prepared! I have run 11 races so far in 2012, and have another eight remaining including the Chicago Marathon.

Read the entire Bible

I began this journey but in recent months have allowed this to slip behind. I have been maintaining a spiritual discipline in other ways, listening to sermons and spiritual podcasts as well as keeping current on issues that will be discussed at our Episcopal General Convention starting July 3rd.

But nonetheless, I need to get back to the Bible and finish what I started. Reading the Bible can be enlightening and rewarding, and sometime a bit confusing. It was not laid out to be read 'in sequence'. That is why we have what's called a "Lectionary" to help put the readings in a chronological sequence that follows the Church Year (I hear those readings at church on Sundays).

Learn a new skill

I have decided to learn more about the Java programming language, specifically in relation to web development. This has become even more significant given the recent developments with Oracle and their 'ownership' of Java and what ripple-effects that is having on the development community.

So, there you have it. I will touch base again on my goals later in the year and see if my progress is continuing.

My Reflections as 2011 comes to a close

Wow! Did you think I had been totally absent for the past 4 months? I am not surprised. It seems like after the Mission Trip I took down south for Katrina Relief work, and the Chciago Comic Con, I just dropped off the face of the publishing world.

But alas, it is just that with life being so busy, and with so much of my free time being taken up with my training for my upcoming Half Marathon race at Disney World next Saturday, I have only had time to post on my Healthy Living/Running blog. I am afraid this poor blog has paid the price. For this, I truly apologize. I will aim to do better in 2012.

But to keep things in perspective, I really have done pretty well as far as blogging in 2011. In fact, as I look back upon 2011, I think the year has been pretty positive and I have done pretty well on the resolutions I published here at the beginning of the year. So here is my final review of my resolutions.

Lose another 75 pounds

This has been a great year health-wise for me. I lost a total of 55 pounds in 2011, bringing my total weight loss since beginning my journey to 112. In the past two months, my weight has stablized due in part because of gaining more muscle mass while losing fat. I determine this because while my weight is staying the same, i am still losing inches off my waist, hips, and arms. So it is all good. I did not reach my 75 pound goal but I consider 55 a significant achievement and will place this in the "win" column!

Make exercise part of the regular routine

On this score, I have to say "Boo-yaa!" Since the beginning of 2011, I have been walking, running, biking, strength training, and swimming. I have allocated from 3-4 days each week to these activities and to great effect. I took up running in April, and since then I have run over 730 miles, run in 13 different races, logged over 150 'foot' hours, and burned over 108,000 calories in the process. I have over 188 exercise sessions in my logbook for this year! My first week in 2012 will include my first Half Marathon race so I have no intention of slowing down! Yet another resolution in the "win" column!

Post a blog each week

When I posted this resolution, I only had one blog. Now I have two! In 2010, I posted nothing on my blog. In 2011, I have made 25 posts to this blog and 72 postings to my Healthy Living blog. That's a total of 97 posts for 2011 which is far more than one posting per week! Score another in the "win" column!

Improve my spiritual discipline

This is an area where I feel I can always improve. I was very active in the first part of 2011 with my Cursillo Reunion Group, meeting with the group or another Cursillista on a weekly basis. I participated in a Christian Journey study group at church which met monthly to discuss and support one another on our journey towards a better understanding of what God is calling us to do.

In the Fall, I started teaching the high school Christian Formation class at church on Sunday mornings. This has been really rewarding for me, and hopefully the youth who have been attending feel the same. I want to do more with the kids next year, adding activities and other events outside of Sunday morning. And I spent more time this year studying the Bible, and working with the youth of our Diocese on retreats, mission trips, and other church-based activities.

To conclude 2011:

This has been a fun year! Getting more healthy, losing weight, gaining strength and endurance, learning how to 'run' and doing these races (race reports are on my Healthy Living blog), and doing a lot of things with my Youth Ministry work. I also was able to attend the Chicago Comic-Con, the Episcopal Youth Event, and had fun with new techie gadgetry. And let's not forget having the awesome opportunity to play a cameo role -- in full Klingon costume and makeup -- in this year's production of "A Klingon Christmas Carol"!

In the next post, I will share with you my thoughts about goals for 2012!