Welcome, friends and comradely types.
Here is the list of organizations sending delegations.
As you listen to the names,
as your hearts swell with pride
in the difference we have made,
please imagine the faces of the people
who make these groups synonymous
with justice and sustainability peacefully earned.
Welcome to the delegations from
DC’s GazaBera Shirt Conspiracy,
and from Dayton,
the Obituary for Capitalism Writers’ Workshop;
from Chicago, the Sweet Voices of Reason
and Radical Change;
from just outside of Pittsburgh,
the Beating Heart of Committees
In and Out of Correspondence.
Welcome to the representatives
from North Carolina’s
Action Today, Action Tomorrow, Action Forever,
and welcome to our sisters and brothers from California,
the Rudder and Compass
of the Roundtable of Growers and Smokers.
Welcome to the delegation
from the Bi-coastal Dreamers of Salmon
and Clams and Eating Them, Too.
From damn near everywhere,
Catholics for Real Life
and Joyful Love Along the Way.
We welcome the representatives
from the Moveable Seder
of Jews Who Remember When We Were Slaves in Egypt
and, without irony, Palestinians in Solidarity
with the People of New Jerusalem.
Welcome, also, to the delegation from Michigan,
constantly morphing and growing like Topsy,
the Association of Women and Girls and Men and Boys
and All the Genders Between and Around
and the Workers Against Itty-Bitty Wages
and the Prisoners Solidarity Committee.
Give yourselves a hand.
Thank you.
Please take a moment now
to remember comrades who have passed,
the spiritual delegation of Presente!
aka, All the Friends We’ve Ever Known Who,
with Grace and Courage, Spoke the Truth
and Set Our Hearts and Minds on Fire.
Moving on, now,
we note a proposal
from Laity Naturally Concerned with Everything,
advocating outreach to the Granfalloon
of Drudgery, Cynicism and Bitter Despair,
an organization whose members include
immigrant bashers and homophobes
and a good number of redeemable haters.
This has been moved to the front of our agenda
by the acting convention chair
from We Want Less, We Got This.
To begin, we await only
the delegations from
This Millennium We Are Going To Get It Right
and from the Moral Arc of the Universe Bending.
While we wait, let’s turn to the person beside us
and give them a big, sloppy kiss,
or a whispered message about good times ahead.
Remember our lives together
depend on solidarity and action and, also and inevitably,
shameless exchanges of bodily fluids.
And now, I turn the gavel over to our chair
who will lead us in our efforts during the week ahead.
Thank you, friend.
I’m going to declare a brief recess
while we wait for straggling comrades.
We do have some hard work ahead,
so please take advantage of the moment
for a caffeine refueling or, perhaps, to share a doobie.
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