Women of the Cloth

It is 95 degrees in San Jose in the shade. I am running on two hours’ sleep. It will be two hours before I can get into my hotel room. I feel vaguely homeless, sitting on a concrete bench in the shade outside the convention center because I have no place else to go.

General Assembly is about like I thought. Ran into one of my mentors at the airport; saw an elder from my childhood church as I waited in line to register. Nearly walked into my presbytery executive as I entered the exhibition hall. Two of my classmates from seminary are listed on the first page of delegates I skimmed.

Everyone is happy. Everyone knows everyone. The men slap each other’s backs. The ladies here generally fall into two types: wearers of capri pants and wearers of scarves. There are many big bellies. There are many white heads.

A good number of people here are wearing knitted rainbow scarves that hang like stoles around their necks. The scarves look a lot like an afghan that used to belong to my grandma, so I wasn’t sure if they meant what I thought they meant. (They do.) I can’t decide if it’s better to make a bold statement of support, or if visuals like that shut down some conversations that might happen naturally around the tables before we find out that we disagree.

I found the source of the scarves. An acquaintance offered me one and I would have taken it were I not here to be an impartial reporter. So far, that move was the only reporterly thing I have done today. My acquaintance promised he’d save one for me if there are any left over at the end of the assembly.

This was a far more professional move than I made earlier, in the hour or so I spent in the booth with my publication. A woman was waiting at the entrance of the booth, where the editor was talking with someone he knew. The woman didn’t appear to be waiting for anyone in particular. She was looking over the materials on the tables.

Way too aware that I’m here on the publication’s dime, I decided to make myself useful. “May I help you?” I asked. She introduced herself. She is their staff reporter. Very embarrassing.

Our booth appears to be on Conservative Row. We are on the opposite part of the room from the More Light people and the folks who are handing out John Calvin fans (by all accounts the coolest people here). The campus ministry and new church development people are right in the middle. About right, huh?

I keep hoping someone I know well enough to ask to borrow their bed will walk by. But that is a very short list of people, and none has materialized thus far.