The following is an email exchange I had with a commissioner in the weeks following this year's General Assembly.
Dear Andrew,
In thinking about the debates at General Assembly, it seems that in the immediacy of what's happening on the floor, truth is hard to find, even in our own hearts. I'm sorry we didn't seem to get to the truth of several debates and I'm sorry for the way each of those motions were voted on. I still might have voted the same had the truth been spoken, but now I'll never know! And, we sometimes seemed to defend the status quo because we didn't want to waste time exploring a new option. That 'saving time' issue to me, is a HUMAN fallacy whereas God can take all the time in the world to get to the 'truth.'
Blessings,
A Commissioner
Dear A Commissioner,
Courts have been known to reverse themselves; for example, women's ordination, where the court reconsidered and reconsidered and reconsidered; and then in the 80s there was a move to reconsider again and the court moved on. Our polity gives people the semblance of expressing themselves as well as allowing them to express themselves.
God Bless,
Andrew
Dear Andrew,
Ideas on the floor seem to come out like gobbledeegook, they are awkward and unclear. There was heated debate about the Ecumenical and Interfaith Committee's changing its mandate. [This is discussed in detail by Roberta Clare and Calvin Brown later in this issue. -Ed.] My understanding of that debate came from the one-hour journey home with my minister; and between the two of us we were able to determine what people were actually trying to say. But that certainly didn't hit me on the floor of assembly… so did I vote correctly?… I don't know. (Let's hope we have healing on THAT issue!) Anywho, that was part of what I took away from assembly. The great part? Was meeting people from across Canada and getting to know people from my own presbytery better. That was dynamic and alive and wonderful!
A Commissioner
Dear Commish,
Truth is a slippery thing. Your truth is not my truth: even the 'truths' we share, we interpret differently.
Andrew
Dear A,
I have talked with someone else regarding speaking truth at GA. They said, and I think this is more accurate, that people spoke the truth for them… that they didn't necessarily articulate the truth well on the floor of assembly so we could know exactly the heart of their concern… THAT was the problem.
It wasn't that they missed the truth when they spoke (which I suppose suggests they are doing the opposite of speaking the truth (lying?) … which is NOT what I meant). In this way, this made the most hotly debated issues difficult. Some of us NEVER understood the opposition clearly, which means we NEVER saw the problems.
So I get to vote for the motion as I see it, while dismissing 'word-mongering' folks as inconsequential, when their truth remained unspoken, hidden and thus, left me truly in the dark about how I was voting.
A Commissioner
Commissioner, dude, relax! Please!
There are 300 commissioners on the floor. Each is, variously, going through the very (VERY) same process you are. But, in the numbers there is truth! You make the set of decisions as you see best. You made judgement calls, based on your experience and voted accordingly.
In short, it's not about you. At all.
Your vote was one of many others. You voted a certain way, others voted a certain way. Based on what you heard. And you heard a lot of stuff! A lot of it! Some clear, clean. Some messy. Some confused. Some brilliant. Some stupid. You filtered all that into a decision; and that decision was one-three-hundreths (or thereabouts) of the decisions on the floor.
That's the truth.
A.
