PASS. This week almost anyone who’s been a part of the leadership of the Episcopal Church in recent years – plus some latecomers like me – seemed to pass through Chicago. Every flight this direction from Washington, DC, on Wednesday had at least one Anglican collar leaning midwestward, earnestly.
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The Executive Council met early in the week, and among other things proposed an “Anglican regional convocation of the Americas” that would gather together the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church of Canada, the Anglican Council of Latin America (Concilio Anglicano Latino Americano or CALA), and the Province of the West Indies. It strikes me as a very responsive way to explore what all of us have in common, rather than letting the Episcopal Church in the Americas get defined by others.
The next thing you know General Convention will have to pass a resolution demanding that weather maps on U.S. TV fill in the blanks above and below the U.S. — “up north” in that unmarked region where all the cold weather comes from, and “down south” past where the Bush administration wants to put up all the walls and fences.
Also this week the Diocese of Chicago (actually meeting in Wheeling, IL) had its annual convention and honored the 25th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Frank Griswold, and his wife Phoebe. I spent four days with Bishop Griswold a year ago at a retreat at Cathedral College, and I know I will miss his incisive intelligence and deep classical spirituality.
I’m here as one of the members of all the national church’s Committees, Commissions, Agencies and Boards (CCABs) who are meeting in the O’Hare Marriott. In her welcoming remarks Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori reminded us to “be sure to treat each other with kindness and honesty; those aren’t mutually exclusive.” A nice laugh line. But, in all seriousness, it meant quite a lot to have her sit through a day with us and then to receive communion from Bishop Katharine later in the morning at the service installing all of us to our new appointments. Make no mistake. I’m a fan.
PUNT. Meanwhile the ABC put out a press release that said “The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams has dismissed as ‘wilfully misleading’ newspaper reports that he is doubtful over the ordination of women to the priesthood, has ever felt that the ordination of women priests had been ‘wrong’ …” I can’t imagine how anyone could have imagined he’d obfuscate, much less punt, on something this significant. Well, yes, there was that little recent episode of disavowing all his previous writings supporting same-sex unions and suggesting that gays and lesbians in the future should be ‘welcome’ but not ‘included’ in Anglican circles. I know he’s in a difficult place with the Anglican Right these days; but it all just sounded like an extended version of B033 from last summer’s General Convention. Make no mistake. This is coming from someone who used to be such a fan. Now I’m mostly sad, and deeply disappointed.
KICK. That leaves the news that the vestries of Truro Episcopal Church and Falls Church, according to the Washington Times, have decided to give the Episcopal Church the boot and join instead the Anglican District of Virginia, led by the Rt. Rev. Martyn Minns, the rector of Truro who was consecrated Aug. 20 in Abuja, Nigeria, as a bishop with the Anglican Province of Nigeria. Bishop Lee reportedly voiced the deep sadness of the diocese over this decision, while the Times said the members of Truro had to be asked not to applaud when the decision was announced.
A week in the life of the Body of Christ. As good as it’s been to see friends like Bud Holland, and John Chane, and Linda Anderson, and Porter Taylor, and Chip Stokes, and Pam Ramsden, I’m looking forward to getting back to St. Thomas, Dupont Circle, on Sunday. My oblation team is on the schedule for the 11 a.m. service; and before that Randall Balmer is joining our Adult Forum on “Discipleship for People with Bodies.” We’re working hard, in C.S. Lewis’s terms, at merely being Christian.
There are other tales to recount from the first meeting of the new Standing Commission on Lifelong Education and Formation that I was asked to join — like our picking three members for our leadership team who are all under forty two (two under thirty). Or the lunch conversation with three generations of women leaders, of three ethnicities, from three areas of the country — they left me feeling so reassured about the future of the church. And so profoundly aware of the sea-change that’s happening whether anyone thinks they can “choose” it or not. But that’s for another day. Actually its already here today. I’m just too tired to tell it until tomorrow.