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Are you a recent subscriber to this newsletter? Do you wonder what you might have missed?
We have set up an archive online of all issues of this newsletter since our innaugural issue in May 2007. There is a link on the web site at www.dokepiscopal.org or you can click here. |
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Greetings!
Thank you for subscribing to the Episcopal Community Newsletter. Our main article comes from Flo Krejci, former President of the Diocese of Los Angeles. At the special request of her Provincial President, Flo has spent countless hours working with the bylaws of the Order, researching their original form and the changes that have been adopted at triennial meetings throughout the years. Flo has written a thoughtful and thought-provoking article that we hope will enlighten and inspire you and your Chapter.
Please feel free to share the information in this newsletter with your Chapter and with any Daughter you feel might benefit from reading it.
For His Sake,
the Editorial Circle
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The Bylaws of our Order: One Daughter's Perspective
by Florence Krejci
As I have reviewed bylaws and proposed bylaws and sentiments on both of those, it has struck me that perhaps there is another way to look at the question of membership that would be less polarizing.
I believe we are all in agreement that the Order of the Daughters of the King had its beginnings in the Episcopal Church. Except for an occasional chapter member from another denomination, all Daughters were Episcopalians; no one had to think twice about what church a Daughter belonged to. (I daresay there are still women who think that way.) The Order's bylaws were written with that presumption.
The Episcopal Church was and is the United States' member of the Anglican Communion, and in the early days of the Order, it was natural that it should spread into other branches of the Communion. We were Anglicans, they were Anglicans-no problem. "The Order of the Daughters of the King may be organized in any autonomous church of the Anglican communion [sic]---" (Article IV, Section 1D, of the 2005 version). Our Episcopal bylaws could serve until they got themselves organized.
Beginning in 1986, however, that began to change. Without waiting for permission, a chapter of Roman Catholic Daughters came into being, and the Order had to scramble to modify the bylaws to take that into account. With all due respect, they weren't very thorough, and anomalies crept in to confuse the issue. However, the bylaws were still written from an Episcopal perspective (I have copies of them; I can see it), and it was presumed that the Roman Catholics would form their own order with its own, parallel, bylaws.
That didn't happen, but Roman Catholic Daughters joined in at the triennial conventions, bringing their own chaplain because their church prohibited them from receiving Communion from Episcopal clergy. Ah, the first intimation of division! Roman Catholic and Episcopal Daughters could go only so far in worshipping with each other.
Next up were the Lutherans. That wasn't much of a problem because the ELCA and the Episcopal Church were in full communion, so anything that applied to an Episcopal Daughter could safely be applied to a Lutheran Daughter as well. All that was needed was to add their name to the list of those entitled to be members, and even that might not have been necessary had the Order not wished to seem welcoming.
The real dimension of the problem began to be apparent as Daughters wished to leave the Episcopal Church but remain members of the Order. We all understood that; we loved being Daughters, and we assumed those women felt the same way.
Our foremothers had made provision for that by creating alternative membership status called International (for overseas members) or Affiliate (for domestic members). The presumption still was that there would be parallel organizations, separate but equal, and the bylaws still governed the Episcopal portion of the Order. However, those parallel organizations never came into existence.
Here, I believe, is where things began to go wrong. The National Council, elected under those bylaws, i.e., Episcopal ones, began to see their role differently. They were to govern the whole of the Order, regardless of denomination. It was and still is the prerogative of the National Council to set the amount of affiliate dues, and affiliate members had only been paying enough to the Order to support the services provided for them, including The Royal Cross. But if the Council were the governing body of all Daughters, all Daughters should pay the same amount. Of course the affiliates then wanted all the privileges of membership, including voting rights and seats on Council.
Where I believe this thinking became faulty is that the National Council was no longer the governing body of Episcopal Daughters but the governing body of all Daughters, and the Episcopal bylaws no longer fit their role. What I think should have happened is that a steering committee of some sort should have been set up, a sort of über-council with representation (maybe even equal representation, like the Senate) from each denominational segment, that could make limited decisions for all Daughters but should not force Episcopal Daughters-the original membership-to accept the governance of those with whom they could not share worship.
There wasn't a reason in the world why all Daughters could not share a convention, with workshops and teachings and worship. Each would obviously need to plan its own Eucharistic celebrations, shared or not, and of course each segment would have its own business meeting, including election of its own officers, if they wished. (If they didn't wish, those segments could go home and meet again another day for doing business.)
We would be "one river, fed by many streams" and sharing the same goals, the same Cross, the same Lord. In retrospect, maybe Episcopal Daughters should have suggested that they become just one more affiliate, so that it did not appear that Episcopalians were trying to dominate the whole of the Order when the intent was to continue as we'd always been, members of an Episcopal order.
The ensuing conflict has been anything but loving; it has sometimes been unworthy of Christian women. If, as the saying goes, one can preach a better sermon with one's life than with one's lips, few observers would have wanted to join a church to which those preachers belonged! I wonder sometimes if the harsh words that have been aimed at sisters represent a speaker who has forgotten that doing so is equivalent to doing it to Jesus our King: "Inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these my brethren, you have done it to me."
We say in our study that we are being intentional about living our baptismal covenant; well, that covenant includes seeking and serving Christ in all persons and loving our neighbors (read "sisters") as we love ourselves.
Is it too late for us to step back and take another look at what we want to result? Are we all trying to maintain and protect power and status in an arena where that makes no sense? Whatever happened to the example of servant leadership that our Lord gave us on the first Maundy Thursday?
Let's permit the Episcopal bylaws to serve the Episcopalians and others to be written to satisfy members of other denominations, rather than trying to make one set fit all needs; let's choose our governing body to serve the Episcopal order and not worry about what governance other Daughters want to have.
Let's meet together in a spirit of love and forbearance, holding no grudges about the preferences of others whose needs we cannot know. Let's concentrate on building bridges rather than walls, instead of giving lip service to unity while practicing discrimination.
In trying to be all things to about 26,000 women, many of us have wallowed in a great deal of muck and served no one well. Surely each of us can do better, no matter what our choice of denomination or church politics might be! Let us think on these things as we ponder bylaws and nominees in preparation for Triennial 2009.
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Karen Potts, President of the Diocese of Oklahoma, shares the following about "A Meeting Prayer":
I created this for our Diocesan Executive Board meeting in August, 2006. This "Meeting Prayer" is from our Chapter Manual. I divided the group into thirds and asked them to stand together in their groups. Some parts are said by the entire group. The first time through turned out to be our practice; our second attempt was just right. This beautiful prayer applies more than ever before to what we are as Daughters of our King.
For His Precious Sake,
Karen Potts
A Meeting Prayer
A Choral Reading
All Today we gather,
1 Meeting together to consider
2 Where we stand
3 And who we are.
All We come to order ourselves
1 Into a new sense of order according to our progress
2 From the last gathering to this one.
All Be with us, O God,
3 In this space and time
1 As we affirm and shape the changes
2 In our understanding of the Way.
3 We desire not to fly apart
1 In garish fantasy of vision
All But rather to move the boundaries that we have set before
2 In order to encompass and embrace
3 the living and breathing growth of each and all.
All We work in prayer and dialogue.
2 In going back to see where we have been,
All We steady ourselves
3 For the journey forward today.
All We are here
All To reconcile all that we were
1 Our trust---/ 2 our hopelessness
3 Our joy---/ 1 our despair
2 Our confirming---/ 3 our betrayal
1 To offer a farewell to those departed
2 And to welcome those who are newly come.
3 To confess, absolve, reconcile, renew.
All To be all that we can be.
All To set firm a pathway that is possible.
1 Possible for us to walk until we meet again
All To reassess the journey
2 And again set firm a pathway.
All Each step along the way we clear the stones and obstacles,
3 Healing and refreshing each other.
All We listen openly to each tale or travel and
1 Hear each one's proposal for the time ahead.
All Knowing You are here, God,
2 We are freer in our interaction,
3 More loving in our confrontation,
1 Deeply silent in consideration and accepting in the choices
2 Until broader definitions draw us on.
3 In this Your presence,
1 We meet to order ourselves anew,
2 To consider where we stand and who we are.
All Today we gather.
3 For His Sake.
1 Amen+ / 2 Amen+
All Amen+
"A Meeting Prayer."
Chapter Manual, 81-82
Undated, but between 2003-06
Arranged as a choral reading for three groups
by Karen Potts
President, Diocese of Oklahoma
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