7/2/2015
Thursday — next-to-last day of General Convention. Where did the time go? I confess there’s something to be said for living in a place where somebody else cooks for you and cleans up after you!
Last night we went to “Utah Night” at the Mormon Tabernacle, featuring a series of musical acts, from Taiko drums to Navajo dancing.
Afterward I went to dinner with Alan Perry, an old friend of mine from Canada who suddenly turned up at General Convention, and on the way I discovered another delightful feature of Salt Lake City: orange flags for crossing the street! After dark (I haven’t seen them in the daytime) mid-block crosswalks are provided with a bin of orange flags on short poles; you take one before stepping into the crosswalk and return it to the bin on the opposite side of the street. What a great idea! (especially in a city with such very wide streets!)
This morning’s Eucharist celebrated the Rev. Charles Barnes, an American missionary to the Dominican Republic who was martyred there in 1938 for writing letters to the U.S. State Department about the slaughter and deportation of Haitians by the Trujillo regime. (An all-too-contemporary story!) Most of the Eucharist was in Spanish and accompanied by a fine Latino band.
As for the rest of the day: we worked! Both houses passed a resolution calling for some divestment from fossil fuels, though not enough. The House of Deputies cleared its whole calendar for Thursday, and we should be in good shape to adjourn in good time tomorrow afternoon. Wow!
Thursday Eucharist: a mother with baby on hip reads from the Old Testament