ACC-15: Canadian perspectives

I knew I’d run out of steam and fall behind!  I need to catch up, but I’d suggest that you read Sue’s and Peter’s blogs before mine since I’ll try not to repeat much. Monday was a full day of presentation on work accomplished, and then resolutions. We heard about the work of the Mission [...]

You may see that I’m slowing down a bit…not every evening. This is for two reasons…the first is that we are getting tired, and the days are long and full. The second is that we have had some good time off, an acknowledgement of the first point made.

Yesterday, though, before we went off for a break, we had some really important and frank discussions in our reflection group about the Instruments of Communion. Our group of eight or nine has been together long enough and has made enough progress that we can speak from our very different perspectives with openness.

One of the interesting things that has been put in place by the organizers/designers of this meeting has been the addition of Regional Meetings…as a region (in our case, North America), we have gathered now three times to discuss topics from our somewhat common position geographically. So, we’ve been meeting with our colleagues from The Episcopal Church. The discussions have been fruitful and energetic. We have dug deeply into the topics of the agenda, yesterday, into the environmental concerns. We are keeping notes of our work, and have taken the interesting step of seeing whether we can meet as a group mid-way between the ACC meetings, to keep ourselves on track with what we say we might do to respond to these topics.

We begin each day with an early Eucharist…it sets the tone, and also gives us a run at another liturgy from the amazing New Zealand Prayer Book. I’ve used this book to help frame intercessory prayers, but only once have experienced its Eucharistic settings. The words leap off the page and into your heart and mind, partly because they are new, and different, and partly because they speak so movingly of the faith.

Well, we saw good liturgy in action today with great elegance and joy added in. The opening service for the ACC-15 meeting was this morning in this gorgeous modern cathedral in Auckland. More bishops per square inch than I’ve seen before, superb choristers, an organ that shook us to our boots on occasion, a sermon that was spot on about inclusion of all in God’s love…what more could you ask?

Today was still a “getting ready” day…after a good night’s sleep, three of us went off to the Auckland Museum, a place where one could easily spend three days. The displays of Maori history and stories along with magnificent carvings were awe-inspiring, especially the incredibly large canoe carved out of one tree that seemed to be about three rooms long. A good display too from the islands which connect with New Zealand. There was a whole section on the nature of volcanoes and their role in forming the land we are now visiting. The news that volcanoes erupt only every 5,000 years on average did not much to quell the concerns that this might be the year.