It figures that my first (perhaps only) trip to the floor to speak at this assembly would be a counterproductive waste of time, broadcast worldwide. Here's what happened, hopefully you'll get some amusement out of it.
This was after a few votes on LIFT proposals, which (as I may have mentioned), I'm following pretty closely. I was upset at this point, because the first successful amendment to a LIFT Implementing Resolution had gone through. Someone had inserted some innocuous but superfluous language into one of the resolutions, and I was scared. The LIFT project as I saw it was based around breaking the notion that if something was not included in legislative language, or had a bureaucratic institution nominally protecting it, that it wasn't a priority. As my bishop put it, "a lot of people here think that if if anything is going to happen, there has to be someone behind a desk in Chicago to make it happen." This change was pretty inoffensive on its own, but I was afraid it would open the floodgates, and once one special interest had been name-checked in a resolution, that would invite charges of neglect for every interest not specifically mentioned, and we'd be back to the norm of Christmas-tree legislation, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria...you get the point.
Another proposed amendment was under consideration, reading (with proposed changes in bold) "To request congregations be invited to take up to two years to examine the changing religious environment of their communities in order that, in collaboration with synods to begin, develop, review or redefine their unique mission plans by the end of 2013 [changed from 2012], so that..." this was sold as an extension of time, as it takes a lot of time to get things going in some congregations, and LIFT itself had two years, etc. I was indifferent to the date change, but that bit about "the changing religious environment" got to me. Once you include one criterion, you're inviting every priority one might want to consider in a mission plan to be added to the recommendation! And why did he have to delete the bit about synods to screw it up further? The recommendation must be kept inviolate!
Anyhow, after a bit more debate about the extension of the mission plan deadline (the other side: the "end of 2012" is certainly a reasonable deadline for any congregation to "begin" their unique mission plan, and by the way, aren't they supposed to have a mission plan already?), one clever Voting Member decided to amend the amendment by cutting out "to examine the changing religious environment of their communities", since "we seem to be debating the time extension, and this way we can just vote on that." Everyone seemed to go along with it, and Bishop Hanson was ready to move on when I had got up from my seat to explain that no, that amendment wouldn't put it right, that bit about synods was still gone from the original recommendations! But he looked away and was setting up the vote, so I went back to my seat, but some people waved me on, trying to get the Bishop's attention and telling me to get to the microphone. I did eventually, and it's a good thing I probably made no sense to anyone at the microphone, because once I got back I saw that no, he hadn't taken out that bit about synods. It was right there in the text, as obvious for me as it is for you reading this post. So I'd gotten up to speak against an amendment to an inconsequential amendment (the full amendment was voted down) which would have helped my cause, about which I was obviously and provably wrong. As I said, at least I couldn't put together a sentence in English to let everyone know I was wrong.
It's probably a coincidence, but after that I noticed most everybody using notes/written speeches when they approached the microphones.
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