Subject: Integrator volume 98-2 From: Chris Ambidge Date: Sun, 5 Apr 1998 14:09:51 -0400 below the line is Integrator volume 98-2, for deposit in: http:/www.qrd.org/qrd/religion/orgs/integrity/integrator/ ------------------------------------------------------ INTEGRATOR, the newsletter of Integrity/Toronto volume 98-2, issue date 1998 03 19 copyright 1998 Integrity/Toronto. The hard-copy version of this newsletter carries the ISSN 0843-574X Integrity/Toronto Box 873 Station F Toronto ON Canada M4Y 2N9 == Contents == [98-2-1] WAYS OF PRAYER AND CELIBACY / by Sister Thelma-Anne SSJD [98-2-2] DEAR BISHOP ... / more anonymous responses to the 1997 House of Bishops statement, by gay priests (or soon-to-be priests) (A) by the Rev Gareth Gay, (B) by Simon Seminarian [98-2-3] AFRAID OF FALLING IN LOVE / by the Rev Bob Webster [98-2-4] HOW FAST CAN WE DANCE ON THE HEAD OF A PIN? / by the Rev Douglas Graydon [98-2-5] GAY AND LESBIAN MATTERS WILL BE DISCUSSED AT LAMBETH [98-2-6] INTEGRITY AT GENERAL SYNOD 98 [98-2-7] A MATTER OF ORDINARY JUSTICE / Archbishop Tutu on Homosexuality and the World Council of Churches [98-2-8] HARRY BENNETT MEANWELL 1920 - 1988 (A) Requiem Aeternam / by Chris Ambidge (B) A Memory of Harry / by Sherry Coman [98-2-9] A COMPELLING MODEL FOR RECONCILIATION / the Bishop's Dialogue Group is the subject of an editorial in the March 98 *Episcopal Life* 98-2-10 ANNOUNCEMENTS / (a) elections, (b) Coming up at the Sorrento Centre, (c) wanted: theme for the next retreat === begin text === [98-2-1] WAYS OF PRAYER AND CELIBACY by Sister Thelma-Anne SSJD I have been asked by our editor if I, as a member of a religious community living by the vow of celibate chastity, as well as a friend and supporter of Integrity and its aims, would contribute my thoughts on the subject of celibacy, especially as it relates to the debate about celibacy as a requirement for lesbians and gays. First of all, let me say that the world "celibacy" is often used when what is really meant is abstinence from sexual activity. Celibacy is more than just abstinence. It is a call and a way of life. Although there are people who live out this call on their own, for me celibacy is inseparable from community. Indeed, those who follow this call outside a formal community usually have some sort of community, whether a support group or a link, perhaps through private vows to their bishop, with the whole church. There is something highly intentional about celibacy. It is a response to what is perceived as a call from God to a particular form of the Christian life -- not a better or "higher" form, but a distinct vocation within the Body of Christ. In the understanding of religious communities like the one I belong to, celibate chastity, for those called to it, is a response to God's gift of sexuality, a way of releasing its creative and generative energy to further God's reign, to love without the need to possess, and to reach out beyond oneself to embrace all humanity. One does not become celibate by default. When I entered, forty years ago, as a young woman without sexual awareness or experience, I simply accepted celibacy as part of the package. It was not until mid-life, when I became aware of my sexuality, that celibacy, and with it my vocation itself, became problematic. Not without profound struggle, I moved to a conscious choice of celibate life in community, rather than alternatives which powerfully attracted me. For me, the deciding factor was the strength of community life. Over the years, I had become deeply integrated into my community, and the thought of tearing myself out of its living fabric ultimately outweighed any satisfaction I could imagine outside. Not only did I find peace in living the celibate life, I also came to appreciate my sexuality as a positive and life-giving energy. I can love deeply as a celibate. Being in touch with my sexuality is essential to the vigour of my life of prayer. When I fall into desolation, routine, or rebelliousness, it is usually because I have slipped back into the heresy that I am a disembodied mind and that my body is a nuisance, an unpleasant reminder of needs and urges I would sooner forget. In this sort of denial, the casualties are not just prayer and a sense of God's presence, but also creativity, joie-de-vivre, compassion, flexibility, and the capacity to respond to beauty. This is not surprising; our spirituality and our sexuality flow from the same source, the deep well-spring of God's creative love within us. I have embraced the celibate life in community because I find it is a channel of grace. For me, it is life-giving and sustaining. I believe it is the way of life to which I have been called by God. It is not the only way. Lesbian or gay couples who have been in faithful partnerships for years, some of them close friends of mine, have found the same sense of call and grace in their life together. If a state of life is experienced as a gift of God, if it nourishes prayer and sustains life in Christ, if it releases energy for service and witness -- if, in short, it meets the criteria that celibacy meets for me -- then I cannot doubt that it, too, is blessed by God. And if so blessed, how can we, the church, withhold our blessing? [Author box: SISTER THELMA-ANNE is a member of the Sisterhood of St John the Divine, and lives at their Mother House in Willowdale. She has led the annual Integrity/ Toronto retreat for many years now. Her regular column in *Integrator* is called "Ways of Prayer".] ======= [98-2-2] DEAR BISHOP ... In the November 97 issue of *Integrator*, we printed the text of the 1997 Statement on Human Sexuality by the Canadian Anglican Bishops. In our last issue, we printed responses from eight lesbian or gay priests. In this issue we have three more responses, which we didn't have room for in the last issue. [98-2-2A] by the Rev Gareth Gay I think the bishops have painted themselves into an even tighter corner than they did in 1979. It is obvious that you cannot authenticate the "image-of-God-ness" of lesbigay people on the one hand, and on the other hand deny them the only intimacy and physical expression of the "sacrament of sex" available to them, in honesty and integrity with who they are before God. By granting the former, they make their latter objections moot. This forked-tongue speech really impairs the bishops' pretence to speak with integrity. Likewise, to express awareness of the depth and breadth of the gift lesbigay people are to the church, and then to deny them the right to be accepted for who they are -- to live in the same kind of relationships heterosexual clergy are allowed to live in -- is again the height of hypocrisy. And it is patronising and condescending. At the heart of the matter is the unquestioned notion that all intimate, loving relationships "for mutual support, love and comfort" must be marriage relationships, and that marriage relationships, by definition, must be relationships of one man and one woman. (It's interesting that they are applying the language of the marriage exhortation to our relationships) This I think is where we need to compel the bishops to push the envelope, and suggest that there maybe are other kinds of intimate, loving, mutually supporting relationships apart from classical marriage. I think the union of a man and a woman who have made a commitment to each other not to have children is not, within the strict definition, a marriage, but it is still something blessed by the church. I think the marriage of persons, one man and one woman, when the woman is beyond the age of childbearing is not, within the strict definition of the term, a marriage. If we take the procreation of children out of the equation, then covenanted relationships of two people "for their mutual comfort and help" in which "they may know each other with delight and tenderness in acts of love", do not require two persons of different sexes in the right hormonal state to produce children. It seems to me that we human creatures who are homosexual in orientation need to be stressing that the intimacy we need goes far deeper and far broader than simply sexual acts, though those sexual acts are essential to sacramentalising the intimacy. That needs to be stressed, since our opponents constantly reduce our desire for binary intimacy to sex acts only. There is much to take heart from in the 1997 statement, but it is based on an absolutely indefensible distinction between being and doing. I maintain that only God is pure being. The rest of us become by doing. And "homosexual acts" cannot be arbitrarily limited to the physical penetration of anatomical members into anatomical orifices. For me, breathing is a homosexual act, and not to accept homosexual acts while accepting homosexual orientation is to ask me to exist without breathing. = = = = [92-2-2B] This response is not from a priest, but rather from someone training to enter the priesthood by Simon Seminarian The bishops concluded their statement on homosexuality by quoting one of the greatest testaments to love written in scripture, by the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 13. What an appropriate and respectful way of saying we need time. I continue to read the text from Bishop Michael Ingham's talk For God so loved the world, given at St Leonard's, Toronto in September 1996 [see *Integrator* volume 96-4]. One of the clearest messages I got from that evening was the powerlessness of the bishops if the people in their pews are not ready to accept something. Of gays who "live in committed sexual relationships for mutual support, help and comfort", the bishops express a desire "to continue open and respectful dialogue with those who sincerely believe that sexuality expressed within a committed homosexual relationship is God's call to them. ... We ... seek together the fullness of life revealed in Christ." Every sentence of theirs hints that more is to come -- that we are called to love still more fully. May the dialogue continue. And you can be sure it will. There is no magic wand to wave. Even God must wait patiently for us to come around to Paul's eloquent description of what we are about. As is always the case, as the dialogue continues and it is vital, the theology will lag safely behind until more acceptance is found in the pews. That the bishops discuss so heroically and that gays in the Anglican church are so vocal is God's spirit no doubt. And the mutual respect is there. Just get all this action at the grass roots and the bishops will feel further empowered to "know as we are fully known." ======== [98-2-3] AFRAID OF FALLING IN LOVE by the Rev Bob Webster It is a genuine pleasure for me to hear my bishop share the excitement he feels at the kind of discussion / debate taking place over homosexuality in the House of Bishops. He has spoken of the kind of respect and openness that has been evident as people from very different perspectives share their thoughts and reflections. It is very exciting for him to experience and participate in discussions like that, which could all-too-easily have ended in wrangling and hostility, but didn't. It is also encouraging to see the additions to the 1979 statement. It is encouraging, even if it has taken a long time, to hear the church say that I am "created in the image and likeness of God" and that I am "entitled to equal protection under the law." These statements go some distance in supporting and encouraging lesbigay people in the face of hatred, discrimination and murder. However, the underlying message is still that I am unworthy. As long as my sexuality is rejected, none of the other statements really has any impact. If I am denied the right to engage in a life long relationship, fully expressed in the wholeness of my being, then I remain invisible at the levels where pastoral care and socio-political justice matter. As long as my sexuality is unacceptable, I can be nothing more than a "needy object" for pastoral care in spite of five words to the contrary. What else can I be? I am not equal in the eyes of the church. I am flawed at best. My very desire to be in a committed sexual relationship puts me beyond the blessing of the church. I pray for the day when I will not have to be afraid of falling in love with someone, and being forced to choose between the love for that person and my love for the church. If that day doesn't come for me, I pray it will for lesbigays who come after me and, like me, rejoice to serve Christ within the church. [Author Box: THE REV BOB WEBSTER is rector of St Mary Magdalene's, Winnipeg. After consulting with his bishop, he felt that openness is best, and so specifically requested to have his real name attached to this article] ======== [98-2-4] HOW FAST CAN WE DANCE ON THE HEAD OF A PIN? by the Rev Douglas Graydon I have lived and worked within the HIV/AIDS gay, lesbian, and straight world for over ten years since my ordination. During most of that time, I have also lived with the stigmatisation of homosexual people by society and the church. I have struggled to present in my ministry the Christian truth that all people are loved by God for who they were created to be. Throughout those years the consistent message I hear from gay and lesbian people is that they desire nothing more from the church than that which it already extends to everyone else. Simply the celebration and nurturance of the fullness of humanity, the celebration of the person as they are created by God. The acknowledgement in both spirit and deed that God is part of their life, and that they are full members of the family of God. The church fails profoundly, I believe, when it chooses to value people differently. The universal message of God's saving grace is lost, or at least significantly compromised, when the full human-ness of an individual is drawn into question. To sustain a faith system which implies that God creates flawed individuals is at its best bad theology and at its worst, pastorally destructive. The latest statement from the House of Bishops on human sexuality captures this tension beautifully and moves the church one step closer to an even more indefensible position. To uphold the integrity, dignity and created worth of the homosexual person on one hand, and then to limit the expression of that humanity on the other hand, borders on the bizarre. As a priest working at Casey House Hospice, a palliative care centre for persons living with HIV/AIDS, this document is untenable. I hear the word "hypocrite" whispered by non-Anglicans who read this statement. Pastorally, I do not know how to use this document. Recently at a lecture exploring spirituality and health, I was reminded of the following: Spiritual (faith) leaders are those people who love life and who strive to uphold principles of integrity and dignity, not only within their own life but within the lives of others as well. In this respect, we are all called to be spiritual leaders. We are called to hear the one voice of God as expressed through this divinely diverse creation in which we live. With that in mind, while I believe that this latest statement does move us as a community of faith into a more honest and open place, I continue to lament how we choose to place barriers between us and the love of God. I lament how we continue to value members of our family differently and how we as a result cause pain and grief. [Author Box: THE REV DOUGLAS GRAYDON is an Anglican priest, and pastoral counsellor at Casey House Hospice] ======= [98-2-5] GAY AND LESBIAN MATTERS WILL BE DISCUSSED AT LAMBETH Every ten years, the bishops of the Anglican Communion meet at the Lambeth Conference at the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury. When they come together later this year, lesbian and gay Christians will have opportunity to share some of their experiences with the bishops. Members of Changing Attitude, an organisation that works for gay and lesbian ordination, have been invited to address the conference delegates. The Most Rev Njongonkulu Ndungane, Archbishop of Cape Town, will chair the "Called to Full Humanity" section of the conference. This section will deal with some of the most pressing issues facing Christians in the next decade, including the environment, human sexuality, international debt and poverty, racism, medical rights and human rights. Archbishop Ndungane met with Dr Coggan, Archbishop of Canterbury, in February to discuss the agenda for the "Full Humanity" section. Archbishop Ndungane later noted that there are various divergent views in the Anglican communion on human sexuality, especially with regard to homosexuality, and that the conference will approach the subject "in a sensitive, caring and responsible manner." He added that there is a possibility that an international commission will be established to study further the issues related to homosexuality, and to report back to the different structures of the Communion. The human sexuality sub-section will be chaired by another South African, the Rt Rev Duncan Buchanan, Bishop of Johannesburg. While decisions taken at Lambeth are not binding on the member provinces of the Communion, they do carry moral force and will give direction to the Churches over the next decade. Archbishop Ndungane said that several theological principles will undergird the work of the "Full Humanity" section at Lambeth. They are: # Justice, which seeks to create and preserve right relationships; # Love, as the greatest human challenge; # Respect for and appreciation of the dignity, integrity and sacredness of the human person (as protected by human rights); and # Freedom in Christ as the promise of release from captivity which Christians are called upon to proclaim and protect. Those of you who have been reading *Integrator* for a very long time may remember our last mention of the Lambeth conference. In 1988, we had heard of lesbians and gays being excommunicated as "notorious and evil livers" in the diocese of Sydney, Australia, and asked our bishops to raise our concerns with the Australian bishops at Lambeth -- and they did as we requested. It appears that homosexual concerns continue to be part of the Lambeth discussions. [with files from Theo Coggin and the Church Times of London.] ========= [98-2-6] INTEGRITY AT GENERAL SYNOD 98 Every three years the Anglican Church of Canada meets in General Synod. The last meeting was in Ottawa in 1995; this year, General Synod will be meeting at McGill University in Montreal from 21-29 May. Integrity's first presence at General Synod was in 1983, when John Gartshore went to Fredericton. Then in 1986, Peter Iveson went to Winnipeg. From 1989 in St John's NF, Integrity has had a table in the display area of each General Synod, staffed by a team from across the country. This year will be no exception. We're in touch with the chapters in Calgary, Vancouver and Montreal, updating our print resources and working out the best way we can be a faithful lesbian and gay witness and presence at General Synod. Please keep these efforts in your prayers, and watch for more news in *Integrator*. Those of you who have e-mail, we're hoping to have some news coming out of Montreal while Synod is in progress. If you haven't given us your email address, but would like to get on the Integrity at Synod e-mailing list, drop a line to chris.ambidge@utoronto.ca and let us know. ======== [98-2-7] A MATTER OF ORDINARY JUSTICE Archbishop Tutu on Homosexuality and the WCC This year, 1998, seems to be a year of large church gatherings. In May, General Synod will be meeting in Montreal, and in summer, Anglican bishops from all over the world meet at Lambeth (see page 4 for other articles in this issue). Then in December comes the biggie -- the World Council of Churches will meet in Harare, Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is not a friendly place for gays or lesbians. Over the past few years, President Robert Mugabe has denounced homosexuals as "perverts" and "pigs", claiming that homosexuality is a Western disease formerly unknown in Africa. Mugabe's virulently anti- homosexual remarks have made the venue for the 1998 assembly of the WCC controversial; indeed, one Dutch Protestant church has announced it will not attend because of them. President Mugabe's remarks have prompted some remarks strongly supportive of homosexuals (and critical of Mugabe) from the Most Rev Desmond Tutu, former primate of South Africa. Archbishop Tutu is well-known to most people: he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work against apartheid, and is now the chair of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He is also former president of the All Africa Conference of Churches, the principal ecumenical organisation on the continent. Archbishop Tutu believes that the WCC must take a positive stand on homosexuality if it wants to remain credible. In an interview with Ecumenical News International, he said, "Some of the churches in Zimbabwe sadly came out in support of President Mugabe in the thoroughly reprehensible homophobic statements that he has made." Tutu said that he was surprised at the choice of Harare for the WCC Assembly, because freedom of speech in Zimbabwe on the issue of homosexuality is compromised by Mugabe's attacks. Archbishop Tutu has long been a defender of homosexual rights: in August of 1990 he spoke to the United Church of Canada's General Conference (who were then considering the ordination of homosexuals), saying that Christians had no option but to defend the rights of all the oppressed, including homosexuals. This was doubtless not the first time he had spoken in support of lesbians and gays, but he reiterated and expanded on that support to ENI last month. When asked why he supported homosexual rights, when other church leaders are either reticent to speak, or brand homosexual behaviour as immoral, Tutu replied: "the answer is straightforward. It is a matter of ordinary justice. We struggled against apartheid in South Africa because we were being blamed and made to suffer for something we could do nothing about. "It is the same with homosexuality. The orientation is a given, not a matter of choice. It would be crazy for someone to choose to be gay, given the homophobia that is present." Archbishop Tutu said he could not have fought against the discrimination of apartheid and not also fight against the discrimination which homosexuals endure, even in the church, "which actually is still confused." "Our [Anglican] church says that the orientation is okay, but gay sex activity is wrong. That is crazy. We say the expression of love in a monogamous, heterosexual relationship is more than just the physical, but includes touching, embracing, kissing, maybe the genital act. The totality of this makes each of us grow to become giving, increasingly godlike and compassionate. "If it is so for the heterosexual, what earthly reason have we to say that it is not the case with the homosexual, provided the relationship is exclusive, not promiscuous?" Supposing there was actually something wrong with gays and lesbians, as some people claim, he asked how Jesus would deal with them. "Not by exclusion, in the way we have tended to deal with them. And we say we are the church of God?" "I hope that one day we will have the courage of our theology," Archbishop Tutu said. [with files from the Anglican Communion New Service, ENI, PlanetOut News, and *Integrator* archives.] ======== [98-2-8] HARRY BENNETT MEANWELL 1920 - 1988 (A) REQUIEM AETERNAM by Chris Ambidge Integrity/Toronto lost a member and a good friend when Harry Meanwell died on 5 March. A stalwart member of PFLAG, Harry was also active at his parish, St Clement's Eglinton, where he was part of the group who organised several events which looked at human sexuality. The most recent was the four-evening series *Towards a Hallowing of Permanent Sexual Commitments* in January and February of last year. I got to know Harry best, however, as we sat together at the table of the Bishop's Dialogue Group, which has been meeting over the last three years to talk about the vexing questions around homosexuality and the Anglican church. This is the group which came up with the *Emerging Common Ground* statement for Toronto diocesan Synod last fall, and which appeared in the last issue of *Integrator* [article 98-1-2]. Harry was not one to sit on laurels, however, and at our January meeting spoke long and powerfully of how he felt the Dialogue Group should be addressing questions raised by new knowledge -- such as the nature of sexual orientation and high gay teen suicide rates. The upshot of that was his being asked to make a presentation on those questions at our March meeting. Harry consulted with many people, including me, while preparing that presentation, and copies were mailed to all of us a week ahead of the meeting. Then four days before, I got the phone call that he was in hospital, and wanted to know "could you carry the ball on Thursday." Well, of course. We all did. We held Harry in prayer at the beginning of our meeting, and went from there to begin to discuss the very questions that he raised for us. I say "begin", because ninety minutes barely scratches the surface of the talks that we will have. We later found out that Harry died while we were in that room together. We will miss Harry a great deal. As Archbishop Ted Scott said in the funeral homily, "Harry believed firmly that everyone is called to be accountable to God at the level of the new knowledge that has been given us ... he was prepared to challenge people to reflect on those ways that new knowledge was leading us." Harry was not one to let us sit still. He also had a very deep respect for other individuals, whether their views were in agreement with his or not. Harry Meanwell's approach is one we would all do well to emulate. = = = = = (B) A MEMORY OF HARRY by Sherry Coman About three years ago, my partner went to the corner store to get a carton of milk. On her way home, she was almost killed by a drive-by shooter firing into a donut shop in Parkdale. At the moment in question, I was on the phone with Harry Meanwell. When Oriole entered, making gestures, I tried to sign off. I took me ten minutes. The delay was not a tribute to my own insensitivity so much as how compelling Harry was: even in this incredible scenario, he had my attention. Indeed, Harry was the reason good rhetoric was invented. He was the king, for there was never a moment when he didn't have a way to prove conclusively (there was never any grey) the necessity of a moral, spiritual and physical inclusion of lesbians and gays. No polemic defeated him, no homophobe, no matter how ardent, was a challenge to his endurance. His influence was persuasive but also subtle: he marched forward and he stepped quietly. He had a gentleness that did not prepare you for the conviction and tenacity of his thinking and commitment. Three or four years ago when I served on the Anglican Church's national Task Force on Homosexuality and Homosexual Relationships (that horrifying title is still onerous to type out), Harry assisted me in the preparation of a video segment in which lesbians and gays and their families talked openly about their experience. He was so anxious to do it -- we taped hours of footage for his ten minute segment. He kept saying, "oh wait a minute, here's something else, you'll want this," always thinking of the greater good. My log notes of that interview show my agony over what material to use: "this is great", I wrote, "don't omit this", and "an absolute must". In truth we could have built the whole episode around him. But he would have hated that. He underplayed his own accomplishments, always preferring to put the spotlight on someone else. He was perhaps the dream model of an accepting father -- even for those of us who have accepting fathers -- for he was able not only to embrace his son's homosexuality, but to take on the social justice issues implicit to his life like David with Goliath. Though the giant was different, the battle more complex, and slingshots not an option, the spirit of Harry's faith was the same as David's: God's chosen people (all of us) should never feel threatened by insurmountable odds. And his rocks were his own words and deeds. The *Battle Hymn of the Republic* was the closing hymn of his memorial service. While some of us may have trouble with that old dirge's dated militarism, or feel unable to suppress images of Judy Garland singing to a dead John Kennedy, something extraordinary surfaced for me in the actual singing of the song. I understood, perhaps for the first time, what the hymn was really meant to be about. In any battle, there is the moment at which you feel the sudden rush of the possible, a taste of how wonderful victory would be because of the depth of your faith in it. All of a sudden it seemed so fitting. For all of us, Harry's truth, indeed, is marching on, and we must follow. [Author Box: SHERRY COMAN has been a member of St Clement's church since she was a tiny wee dykeling. Her play, *Pauline & Turgenev*, opens in Ottawa in May of this year] ========= [98-2-9] A COMPELLING MODEL FOR RECONCILIATION + The Bishop's Dialogue Group, and the *Emerging Common Ground* + statement (which was published in the last issue of *Integrator*) + is getting attention in the Episcopal Church in the USA. Here are + excerpts from the March 98 editorial in *Episcopal Life* [the US + monthly publication which is parallel to *Anglican Journal* + in Canada] Dissension in any church that is allowed to escalate into angry threats, walkouts, and potential lawsuits not only makes it unattractive to outsiders, but cripples the power to do the ministry to which Christ has called it. For that reason, a recent dialogue that brought together seemingly irreconcilable forces to try to work through their impasse offers valuable lessons. Centring on an issue that has ignited passionate debate in churches, the dialogue occurred in Canada, where Toronto's Anglicans are still recovering from the painful results of an ecclesiastical trial. Seven years ago, the court upheld a diocesan bishop's action to remove from his parish a gay priest who was in a relationship with another man. The trial, with its adversarial courtroom nature, caused a grave rift from which the diocese is still recovering. In response, Bishop Terence Finlay brought together the two diametrically opposed groups -- members of the gay and lesbian caucus Integrity, with the newly formed Fidelity, whose members believe it is inappropriate to ordain non-celibate gays and lesbians, or to bless same-sex relationships. [...] The sides spent two years in monthly meetings chaired by the bishop, seeking principles to which they could agree. The result is a remarkable document from a process that can be held high as a model to help eradicate fear, tension, mistrust, alienation and isolation. [the editorial described in more detail how the group went about the dialogue, and summarised the eight points of the *Emerging Common Ground* statement in paragraphs omitted here] Their document is undoubtedly a major step forward toward reconciling two groups whose members once believed they shared little in the way of common understanding concerning sexuality. And it is a major step forward in the way we understand and can benefit from the power of such dialogue. In the midst of current differences, this process can be invaluable to strengthening the church's corporate life and witness, as well as the commitment of members to one another. The absence of such dialogue will cause the strength and quality of our communion to suffer. -- Jerry Hames, editor ======== 98-2-10 ANNOUNCEMENTS (A) ELECTIONS A glance at the masthead will show a few changes in the Integrity/Toronto executive. After the AGM in January,. Don Uttley has stepped down as Secretary, after no less than seven years of yeoman service in that position. Integrity owes Don a *huge* debt of gratitude after years and years of often invisible but absolutely vital support work. Bonnie Crawford-Bewley and Chris Ambidge continue as Co-Conveners, and John Gartshore has picked up Don's notebook to become Secretary. Brian MacIntyre continues as Treasurer, and Marj Richings continues as Programme Co-ordinator. = = = = (B) COMING UP AT THE SORRENTO CENTRE: July 19 - 25 Gay and Lesbian people and the Gospel -- a course led by Bill Countryman, an outstanding author and theologian from San Francisco, and by MR Ritley, a postgraduate student of spirituality. She is the author of *God's Gay Tribe*. Both are Episcopal priests and members of the gay and lesbian community. Bill is the author of *Dirt, Greed and Sex*. The course is open to all -- gay, lesbian and kindred spirits of all orientations. The Sorrento Centre is Anglican in tradition, ecumenical in its programming and inclusive in its welcome to all. Further information available from the Sorrento Centre, Box 99 Sorrento BC V0E 2W0 phone 250 675 2421, fax 250 675 3032. E-mail sorrento@jetstream.net, or www.sorrento-centre.bc.ca . Sorrento is in south-central British Columbia, on the Trans-Canada roughly half-way between Kamloops and Revelstoke. = = = = (C) WANTED, WANTED, WANTED... A title, a theme, and ideas for the upcoming Integrity retreat. If you have any topics, directions, burning issues, etc that you think would make a useful focus for the retreat, please communicate them as soon as possible to Sister Thelma-Anne, via Integrity (addresses and phone # below) to start her creative juices flowing. It's not too soon to begin. === end of text === End of volume 98-2 of Integrator, the newsletter of Integrity/Toronto copyright 1998 Integrity/Toronto comments please to Chris Ambidge, Editor chris.ambidge@utoronto.ca OR Integrity/Toronto Box 873 Stn F Toronto ON Canada M4Y 2N9