Conviction at Convention

So imagine if you will a whole convention hall filled with the stuff that you feel dorkiest about. I don't know what your 'thing' is, but you know it, so I'm sure you can take part in this imagination exercise. Maybe it's musicals or Star Trek or yoga or boy bands... whatever it is, imagine a whole exhibit area where every table has something that's totally interesting to you - and half of those tables are selling something that you definitely want.

That was what North Carolina's Diocesan Convention felt like to me this past weekend in Winston-Salem. I know it's totally dorky, but walking into that convention hall with all those wonderful booths just full all kinds of great churchy stuff - why, it was the hardest the Stuff Stand-off has been so far.

You see some of these booths had amazing things for sale: book after book that I'm certain I could benefit from, beautiful scarves from Jerusalem, hand-made wooden sculpted crosses, and the very hardest thing to resist - fleece jackets with the seal of the Diocese on them. And we ALL know I need a fleece jacket!!

It was hard. It was really hard. I watched all those people around me wrap their necks in beautiful scarves and slip on their fleece jackets as the walked outside into the cold afternoon and I looked down at my old black jacket that is stained and dirty and has pricker marks on it from walking through wooded paths in Spain, and I wanted something new. I wanted the smell of a coat that had never been worn and the feel of a never-read book resting in my palm. Oh yeah... I felt it.

Instead, I drank lots of water out of a water bottle that was given to me at the Camp Kanuga booth, that I promise I'll be giving away now that I'm back home. And I sat at my little table in the convention hall and shuffled my papers in front of me and tried hard to pay attention to everything that was happening in front of me. And with a sigh, I avoided the table where the jackets were being sold, and averted my eyes as I walked by.

There's something else that I left Convention without though: buyer's remorse. At events like that it has been so easy for me to get caught up in the experience and buy all kinds of things that I really like but don't necessarily need (I do have lots of scarves already). By the time it's over I leave with my arms full of stuff, thinking that I could have gotten by with just a little less and my bank account would feel better for it. But this year at Convention, I purchased only one glass of wine that I slowly enjoyed with a good friend and colleague that I hadn't seen in far too long at our hotel bar. And while it was a little overpriced, a $7.00 Convention is a whole lot less than I've paid in the past. And now that I'm not looking at it any more, I'm not that sad that I don't have that jacket.

Though maybe they'll sell it again next year...