convention is ova.

a post wherein I name people who don’t know they are being named and post a picture as well.

random conventioner: Mother Mimi wants to speak to you.
dana: uh. I don’t know who Mother Mimi is.
RC: She’s in the convention room over there.
dana: But I still don’t know who that is. Why does she want to talk to me?”
RC: I don’t know, but she said she wanted to talk to the ‘young lady in a green jacket and a red turban’.
Nancy: Come on, I’ll take you to her.
dana: uh… okay.

(we all know there’s only one reason someone wants to speak to the “young lady in the green jacket and red turban”)

In the end, it was a very nice priest who inquired if I was Muslim. Again I say, no. We actually talked for a little while, asked how I came to the Episcopal Church. Wherein I talked WAY too much and kept glancing at my priest who was standing there as well. As in “I think I told you all this before. Maybe…” and “I’m not real sure what I’m doing, what the hell am I doing?”

In the end, it was all good because she let me take her picture to document the Episcopal Women in Sport Coat phenomenon. And in the end it wasn’t all good because I couldn’t flip the picture the right direction when I tried to post it.

ECW

ECW is “Episcopal Church Women” and it is simply that. Women in the Episcopal Church. Every Episcopal Church (that I know of) has this organization. Some might be more active than others. But, when speaking of our diocesan convention, I believe there was something my ECW failed to tell me before coming. ECW (the ladies, not the organization) have a specific dress code that I was not informed of. A dress code that I cannot endorse and want very little part of. The ECW dress code is SPORT COAT. Yes, that’s right. WAY over half of the ladies on Friday morning/afternoon sported the “Lady Blazer” look. It was uncanny. Female priests and lay women alike were snuggled up in their sport coats (and honestly, the building temperature warranted them) I was overwhelmed. I believe confirmation must include a secret confirming of a sport coat.

Our priest told us that in ancient times, in the beginning of the church new initiates were not allowed to know everything about Christianity. Some things were kept secret until baptism because it was too sensitive of information for just anyone to know. She was publically using this as a statement that people were drawn to the early church because of the ways in which the early Christians acted to each other and the world. Now, I see it was also a secret message to those ‘initiated’ (aka ‘confirmed’) in the Episcopal Church, prospective members of The Episcopal Church might be allowed at the Lord’s Table, but they are not allowed to know everything about the Church. The Lady’s Sport Coat is most definitely esoteric information.

And Now I’m in the Know. What’s the logical next step?

Posting my sneak ninja’d photographs for you?