What I notice is how the technological underpinnings have smoothed out since in the past few years. Read A Digital Digression for a whirlwind exposition of what GA used to be like back in the cowboy years of 1999, before the Turn of the Century. Now so much of what was first observable then: the introduction of SoftBooks, the first banks of public email computers, the digital technology beginning to permeate the Exhibit hall, the captioning of GA proceedings – all of it runs so smoothly it’s not even noticeable. Frankly, the captioning was a lot more fun back in the days of lez beans and veree mush. Now it’s so boringly normal nobody even wonders what it took to get there. I still wonder what fresh network hell the techies endure, about a day before the rest of us arrive. Somebody’s got to set it all up, so we can take it for granted. I bet to myself that the setters-up neither know nor particularly care what we regard as the hot button issues. I’m still waiting for the first commissioner to understand they ought to draft a resolution of thanksgiving for the tech guys of both genders.

The electronic voting pads get their first work-out in the election of the moderator Saturday night. Cliff Kirkpatrick, the Stated Clerk, is worried. A new technological twist involves the necessity for commissioners to input their "control id number" as they register their intent to grab a mike. I missed the explanation why – it’s a fair bet it’s something to do with protecting the Moderator from microphone blindness, technology in the service of grace, as opposed to making sure no theological terrorists hijack the mike – but in any case the intent outstretched the technology and they’ve been dealing with behind-the-scenes system snafus. When the commissioners register their presence nearly a quarter are AWOL according to the keypads. The Stated Clerk looks almost pale behind that we-come-in-peace grin. If you don’t know how many votes have actually been cast, how do you know who the Moderator is going to be? I wonder what they’d do, if they couldn’t get the system up? Would they postpone it? Unheard of. Would they rush out to print a written ballot and collect it? What did they do before keypads.? (That’s a rhetorical question. This story ends in the election of a moderator. I actually don’t care now.) Cliff gives his good-old-boy calming grin and visibly decides the tech guys will figure it out by the time the speeches and questions are over. Maybe it’s just that the Commissioners are still out for air.

The hall fills up. The only time it will be this full again is if we decide to fight about sex. It’s time for Jack Roger’s next-to-last swan song. The thing about Jack is he’s a teacher. He taught through his nomination speech a year ago. He taught through his question and answer period. During this year of turmoil, he taught. Now, as he moderates the selection of his successor, he’s still teaching. The lesson: Grace Under Pressure.

Each candidate is nominated by a nominating speech. All the nominating speeches proceed, then the candidates will speak. Since I write slow, you already know what there was to observe. All three male candidates are nominated by female nominators. When the proceedings get rather slow before the vote, I occupy myself by realizing that the psyche of the General Assembly will (or should) recognize that next year it’s time for a woman moderator again. We’ve had Rhee, Rogers, and now Abu-Akel since Freda Gardner. What women would be most electable?

By the time I finish dummying up the Short List, a couple of things are apparent. Like 2 girls who show up at the Prom in the same dress, both Tankersley and Abu-Akel have the theme "For Such a Time as This." The repetition of the theme might obscure that Tankersley’s time is no such time as Abu-Akel’s. Their presentations remind you to give thanks there are 4 gospels: they prepare us for the way authentic Christians can use the same words to intend such different images. For Tankersley the controlling picture is that of the Cross of Jesus hanging over the Assembly. He can see it. Unfortunately, what the rest of us hear is torrents of rain cascading down. What we can see is the roof caving in and us discovering where the tornado shelter is in the Columbus Convention Center. For Abu-Akel the time is a broken time, where it’s okay to be scared as we venture out to make peace. From the moment he tells of leaving his Palestinian home with his father, his five sisters, and his two brothers to make their way to a refugee camp, and looking back to see his mother waving from the flat roof of their home, the election belongs to him, just as it was Syngman’s year from the moment he cast the vision of his desperate trek from North to South Korea. Abu-Akel’s Time Such as This, the vision hovering over the Assembly is that Women of Strength, who announced "If the soldiers want to kill me, they must kill me in my own home." (I must confess the maternal cynic in me wondered if the reason she didn’t go was, what with 8 children, she just couldn’t bear to pack.)

I point these two out because I’m convinced it was the tonal difference between the two, while sharing the same refrain, that won the election for Fahed, as much as any other factor. While I’ve no doubt that Dr. Tankersley is a pastor of great grace, his presentation had an over-the-top aura to it which just didn’t play well on the projection screen. Even when he let down his guard to share the devastation of an early divorce and the grace which gave him back his ministry, it felt practiced and .... staged. Abu-Akel’s presentation had far more broken edges. It was the fraying—with the Middle East fringe–which handed him the moderator’s cross.

The third candidate, Laird Stuart, went in without a genuine chance. He also had a different themesong: "Where There is No Vision, People Perish." His vision is one of retro-fitting the foundation of the church, as one retrofits a building in an earthquake zone, so that in times of great stress the building "rocks" rather than collapsing in on itself. I grew up in Redlands, an hour east of LA. I was there in great earthquake of the early 1970s. My brother was a patient on the 7^th floor of the Loma Linda hospital, and at the age of 12 I was the one to catch his IV bottle and keep him from jarring his ailing kidneys as the floor undulated back and forth and his bed slid from wall to wall. Earthquakes cause the upper floors of buildings to sway as if the world is coming to an end. I know what it’s like to take each step subconsciously wondering if the ground will hold firm until it’s time to step again. When I was little we got lost between the fire drill bell, the "duck and cover" bell, and the earthquake bell. The earthquake drill was the only one which had the power to pale the faces of the teachers.

So I groove with what Laird has to say out of personal experience. He calls for "Essential Loyalty to each other: pivotal loyalty not to let the discord fester but to address it with good hearts and good faith, and to heal it. To do the Work of reconciliation; hard work, but it lifts our hearts and is always pleasing to Christ." To me he seemed both eloquent and sincere. By far, he demonstrated the most familiarity with the statistics and proposals we contend with. He was up on both the status of Christian Educators and the plight of small churches, when both the other candidates fudged the specifics.

It was also as clear as the folly of building a house on the San Andreas fault that this was not his year. He was not going to be elected, no matter what he said. Neither was Tankersley. It was Abu-Akel’s to lose; he won it with grace and humility. For a Time Such as This, a Palestinian Arab, native of Israel, and a Presbyterian by grace of scottish missionaries was just the ticket.

All that remained was the vote. Cliff took a deep breath and asked the commissioners to weigh in again. Nearly all present and accounting. Positively giddy, in a UnderStated Clerk kind of way, he explained the voting procedure. In times such as these it’s an awesome thing to be on the sidelines – or in this case, the back lines. You have precisely no ability to affect the outcome. The only thing to do is wait. Wait we did. Through one ballot. Then two. Then the presentation of the new moderator: Rev. Fahed Abu-Akel.

Jack Rogers was visibly moved as he removed the 3 Cross Moderator necklace he’s borne for the last year and laid it upon the new moderator. He was visibly moved again as he was gifted – or charged – with a replica cross to continue to bear as he joins the parade of distinguished moderators past.  When I moved from Southern California to the reassuring stolidity of western Pennsylvania, it took a long time for me to really believe the ground underneath my feet was trustable. I hadn't realized how tensed I was for the next Big One.  I wonder, no matter who the Moderator is, how long it would take for our wounds to heal, and for us to begin to trust. It's beyond imagining. So, for such a time as this, For the coming year, I am lost in Laird’s speech: "It is a time for standing down from the battles; stepping out from our camps, and standing up to the challenges of healing the wounds."

May it be so.
God speed to us all.