Some Pictures from the NOERC Meeting

Here are a handful of pictures from the past couple of days. Enough to give a small flavor of what I've been doing. First, our trip to Philadelphia.

This is the front door to the Bishop White House. That's the curator telling us about the architecture and what they had to restore and rebuild when the Park Service took over the block.


And here we are listening to the curator.


And here we are in Bishop White's study. They were able to restore it pretty accurately because when the bishop died, his family commissioned a painting of the study as it was then. Some of the books are actually from his collection, and the rest are based on what an educated man of Bishop White's stature probably would have had on his shelves.

This afternoon Bishop Edward Lee, retired bishop of Western Michigan, visited with us and told us a couple of stories about Bishop White. One was about a time when Philadelphia was dealing with one of the epidemics common to cities of the period. City leaders came to Bishop White, a man of great influence in the city, and asked him declare a day of penitence and prayer. The good bishop, who counted among his friends prominent physicians of the city, told the city leaders that first they would have to clean the city streets AND institute a regular cleaning and pick up of garbage. Only then would he declare a day of prayer. They did. He did. And the city then had the first sanitation program in the States.

One of our members commented, "And bishops have been cleaning up crap ever since!"

Four of my NOERC colleagues having a discussion during one of our breaks.

These are the kinds of meetings the upper management at the Church Center don't seem to understand. Technology is great, but even if you can videoconference, it still doesn't replace in person, face-to-face interaction.

And how did I manage not to take any pictures of Christ Church while we were there???

Peace,
Jeff