Of visas, anger, commitment and questions

This is just the beginning of a post and it will probably change in the morning - doubt if anyone will read it in the meantime actually.

Today, Monday, we have had an all day meeting following up on the process of a discussion paper on Christian self-understanding and religious pluralism, prepared and published shortly before the CWME Athens meeting in 2005. Several people from the previous meeting stayed on for this 24 hour brainstorming meeting - about which more tomorrow - three people flew in specially and I think that's what got me thinking about visas and anger and commitment. The three who gave of their most precious resource, time, were all Europeans - though one flew in specially from the States and it was especially useful that he was here.

Fortunately some from the previous meeting from the global south were abe to stay on which did help a litle with some kind of balance. This set me off on a train of thought which made me angry - it had to do with visas etc.

I am continually amazed at how people are willing to give freely of their time and energy to the WCC. Of course because our headquarters are in Geneva it will always be easiest for Europeans to make that commitment in terms of time - and cheaper too for the WCC to pay for them to attend things. Mention was made during our meeting of the enormous amount of time the administrator here at the Institut had to put in to getting together all the paperwork to get visas for people attending from Nepal, Myanmar, Malaysia, India etc. and that was for the most part for Roman Catholic bishops who were certain to return home afterwards.

This whole problem was impressed upon me when I met an Anglican bishop from Uganda at one of the preparatory meetings for the WCC's assembly in Brazil. He had to travel to a neighbouring country to get his visa for Brazil and that in itself took more than three days - and interestingly he didn't complain about this like some of we westerners do when we occasionally have to go to Bern to get visas. He had just taken his computer with him and worked while waiting at the embassy. It is moving to see this kind of commitment to the world wide fellowship of churches, yet I wonder whether those of us who have more freedom to travel actually recognize this effort and sacrifice in the way we then run our various meetings - what I mean by that is do we really allow enough space for voices from the South or more than that, really for the Southern agenda to actually be laid out. I'm still not sure. But I do know that being an Anglican bishop is not easy anywhere at the moment and being a bishop in Uganda most surely not. I often think of his contribution to the WCC's work when I am feeling frazzled and over-worked, it helps put thinkg in perspective.

Not really sure I've ended up where I intended when I began this post last night but i think this will have to do for now.

Except I think I shall post a photo with the blog which is the sign for a cafe here in Toulouse it says on it "La part des Anges" which literally translated means the angels' portion - I think in colloquial English we would say the lion's share. Let's be clear it's westerners who for the most part have the lion's share of representation in our meetings and often also in the setting of the agenda. Giving freely of time is the life blood of the church and of civil society throughout the world, the ecumenical movement could not exist without that. But before our meetings even begin our sisters and brothers from the South will often already have done the lion's share of the giving of time. An invitation to reflect on being angelic in a rather different way.