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VOTE on May 8th!
Duke's Ramblings
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May 7, 2012
VOTE ON MAY 8th!

 

May 8th is an important day in North Carolina. Do your part...VOTE!

 

United Methodist Bishops Urge
Vote AGAINST Amendment One:

 

NC Clergy Against Amendment OneBoth Bishop Larry Goodpaster, our own Western North Carolina Conference Bishop, and Bishop Al Gwinn of the North Carolina Conference, have signed on with other bishops and clergy across North Carolina urging a vote AGAINST Amendment One. Here is the statement from the Pastors Against Amendment One website:

 

Amendment One is a wolf in sheep's clothing. As Christians, we have a responsibility to speak out and stop this Amendment before it can cause irreparable harm to the least of these-children, battered women, and widows--in North Carolina.

 

Amendment One claims to protect marriage and family, but the rush to get it on the ballot resulted in sloppy language that will have devastating consequences. Rather than protecting families, the poor wording of Amendment One will cut kids off from their parents' health care, put widows at risk of losing survivor benefits and battered women at risk of losing legal protections and access to shelters.

 

Regardless of one's position on marriage, we cannot allow children, battered women, and widows to pay the price for a sloppily written and rushed amendment. Any Amendment asking us to sacrifice the most vulnerable among us to supposedly protect religion and family doesn't understand the point of either faith or family.

 

Spread the Word, and on May 8, VOTE AGAINST Amendment One.

Duke's Ramblings

Adapting 

Duke Ison, Greensboro District Superintendent
Rev. Dr. Duke Ison, District Superintendent

 

Dear Workers in the Vineyard,
Written April 30, 2012

 

It was quite a trip last week! I arrived at our place in the mountains to snow on the deck on Monday night. Needless to say I was glad I took my winter coat. (By Saturday it was in the 70's.) Tuesday, I met the guys at Curtis Wright Outfitters at 11 AM. We went up to our place, unloaded and hit the stream. It was a great day. Everyone caught fish. That night it rained hard which meant the streams in Madison County were high and unfishable. John Powell (aka Snakebit) could access a weather channel on his iPhone. We could see where the storm system was coming through and where it didn't hit as hard. We decided to fish the West Fork of the Pigeon in Haywood County. Again, it was a great day. Lee Dukes and my friend Stuart Todd both lost big fish. Lee caught one that had to be 20 inches. He stood on his tail and spit the nymph back at him. Stuart had the same experience. Where does a fish learn to do that?

 

Madison County Trout InvitationalWe woke Thursday morning to severe weather. We had hail, lost all power, and had to go a different way to the restaurant for breakfast because of a downed tree. John's weather channel didn't help us a bit, so we drove in to Curtis Wright Outfitters. Again, Jeff Curtis went online to a weather map and suggested we hit North Mills River. They hadn't gotten as much rain. We got there and had about 1 hour of fishing before the bottom dropped out. I hooked an 18 incher that did the same thing to me that happened to Lee the day before. We had 1 � hours of rain. Lee and I got in his vehicle and went to sleep. The rest of the guys were under a bridge, smoking cigars that Stuart had brought.

 

Friday we awoke to beautiful weather. We went back to the North Mills River because that was on the way home for everyone. I was snake bit that day. But Kevin Siers hooked a big one which he lost in the same way Lee, Stuart, and I lost a big one. When I talked to a guide about it he said, "You have to make sure the hook is set but after that it is all luck." Well, our luck wasn't with the big ones but we did catch over 80 fish total between the six of us. (All of them were returned safely to the stream.)

 

The weather was the big factor this trip. There was nothing we could do about it. But we could adapt and adapt we did. The result was we had good days of fishing in very questionable circumstances. It struck me how true this is of life. There is a whole bunch that we can't control. We think we can but in truth what we can do is adapt and in our adapting we make life the best we can.

 

I think about that as General Conference has been going on. Last time we met in 2008, the Great Recession had started but none of us knew it. So we made decisions based on what we knew at the time. This time we are very much dealing with the effects of the Great Recession. We can't change it but we can adapt. Pray for some good adapting and pray for all those folks having to make tough decisions in a limited time frame that we will all have to adapt too.

 

Adapting doesn't mean you can't have good results. We certainly did last week.

 

Peace,

Duke

 

 

NOTES & DATES

  • Preachers - remember it is time to lift up the District Event on May 24th with Ed Kilbourne. We will honor pastors moving this evening at Muir's Chapel. We need a count of people coming by May 18th so we have enough BBQ. So please be getting that and let the district office know.
  • May 11 - United Methodist Men Golf Tournament (Are you signed up yet?)
  • May 20 - District Hispanic Committee
  • May 24 - District Clergy Farewell at Muir's Chapel
  • May 30 - District Building & Location
  • June 3 - Pre-Conference Briefing, Christ UMC, 4:00pm
  • June 4-6 - Cabinet Meeting in Gastonia
  • June 7 - Moving Pastor's Seminar - 1st UMC Gastonia
  • June 20-24 - Annual Conference
  • July 3 - Moving Day
  • July 8 - Transition Sunday
  • July 15 - 1st Sunday for new pastors in the pulpit
 
 
Greensboro District, The United Methodist Church
The Rev. Dr. Duke Ison, District Superintendent
Lynne Gilbert, Administrative Assistant
Tonja Thorpe, Leadership / Educational Consultant
Location: 815 W. Market Street, Main Building, Room 218, Greensboro, NC 27401 
Mailing Address: PO Box 4523, Greensboro, NC 27404-4523
Phone: 336-274-2154    Fax: 336-274-2155
www.greensborodistrictumc.org