Opening Worship was magnificent today.

Scheduling demands that we in the Press room have to step out during part of the service for a press briefing. Usually it is just a five to ten minute talk to see what UM News is covering and if any of the Communicators present have anything to share with each other or the wider Church. As we were there, either during or immediately after we prayed, a chant was heard from on stage… What was said in that chant? I don’t know. Yet the music of the sung prayer was hauntingly beautiful. It filled the space. I was ready to hear more when I came back to my seat.

I would also lift up the whole of our sermon this morning. Bishop Eben Nhiwatiwa gave a message full of joy and hope and humor that speaks to the peculiarity of this significantly more genial conference we all have been taking part in. As he said, “I must be at the wrong General Conference!” None of us were prepared for how good we all feel walking and talking and living and serving together. (Sermon begins at 24 minutes into the stream.)

This is the last day that legislative committees meet to discuss the legislation before the body. The final amendments and edits to the petitions are coming together and the work of next week is being scheduled with each report that comes out of the committees. Today we passed the Social Principles contained in Paragraphs 164 and 165 of the Discipline. They attest to several important things, but most of all they attest to the rights of all people who walk this earth with explicit language. No people can be denied their civil and human rights, and we in the UMC made a big step toward affirming these innate rights in all people.

Coincidentally, this was also the day that I was photographing the communion service being held during lunch. Communion is my favorite ritual in the Church. Baptism may represent our new birth, but it is in Communion that we are given the energy to continue on in our new life. Bread and Wine (Unfermented or otherwise,) are blessed and it becomes for us the presence of Christ, the visible reality of his sacrifice for us. We share in that emblem of suffering and in it find life.

In West Virginia our Bishop, Sandra Steiner Ball, is overseeing the Susquehanna Annual Conference jointly with Bishop Cynthia Moore-Koikoi of the Western Pennsylvania Annual Conference. In partnership with our colleagues there, we decided we would help with story and photo coverage. The Church is relational in every aspect and so we have to strive to give tangible support to each other whenever we can. Also, it is just nice to be nice – sometimes you do not need a grand reason for it.

A goodly amount of people were gathered in that hallway, (afull article with all more specific details will be posted later and I will share it when it is available.) It was a moment of peace in the midst of the busy rush of conference.

This year has been defined by a Spirit of peace and joy and celebration and I pray that this will continue to be our Spirit. Even a peaceful gathering is taxing on people though. You get tired and uncomfortable, you get the strange crud that everyone seems to be passing around right now. You just get worn down, little by little.

Enter the Eucharist, a small moment of Sabbath in the midst of the world and its constant demands for more and more of us. We receive the simple gifts of bread and of the vine and they become so much more for us. Visible signs of God’s grace, tangible to the point you can taste them.

Holy, holy, holy Lord – we praise you because you come near to us in this blessed sacrament, this holy mystery. Let the Spirit of Joy and of Peace carry us through next week as well.