Baby Isabel

Stephanie, Vincent, and I went to go see 10-day-old infant Isabel Wednesday night, along with parents Kate and Ian (our church's children and youth ministries coordinators, on parenting leave - see "Baby shower: and "Congratulations, Kate and Ian"), grandparent Marcia, dog Scooby, and Kate and Ian's Buechel house. (Kate's father pastors a church in Pickerington, Ohio, not too far from Stephanie's mother and Bob's house, and Ian is from England.) Stephanie didn't get a chance to visit them in the hospital. The baby was cute, and both Stephanie and I got to hold her (and give her a Brutus Buckeye pillow). Vincent was a good sport and played with the dog (who probably hasn't gotten a lot of attention in the past 10 days). Kate's mother, had missed much of the whole thing, because she was at the General Assembly. She had been staffing the committee that considered the gay ordination issues. She told some bad stories about having to physically restrain an anti-ordination witness in the committee meetings. And then she said that the parliamentarians at the plenary blocked - perhaps in error - an effort to split the proposal that the ban on gay ordination be deleted and replaced with a loyalty to Jesus clause. Late Friday - after the Stated Clerk election - commissioners called attention to the apparent error and tried to get the vote reconsidered, but it was too late. It's hard to know if rulings from the chair had been different if the outcome would have been any different, but this may contribute to opponents feeling that they didn't get their say. It was nice to visit with Kate, Ian, and Marcia and see their house, baby, and dog. Wish the news was a little better (ultimately for my job).