Thursday: HOB has adjourned

We're done.

Most of the House meetings since my first one in March 2002 have left me with a sense of uneasiness and looming trouble, or at least incompleteness. Not this one. For whatever reason--and pray God, may it be the work of the Spirit--we seem to be moving toward one another. Whatever disagreement arose this time came largely without intimations of dire consequences or threats. Conflict will be a necessary part of the life in any community, but the good news is that it does not always have to become toxic-- not always an obvious axiom in my experience of the House.

Our pastoral letter this time, you will notice, is much more focused than the letters in the past few years. It addresses the economy, directly, and suggests some spiritual meanings and responses to the difficulties we face.

The election of a bishop for Ecuador Central, Luis Fernando Ruiz, was a matter taken seriously and prayerfully by the whole House, and a clear outcome came in the balloting. 

I will spare you the endless details of the meeting over the course of these concluding days, when the attention was given over mostly to business meetings presentations from Church agencies and committees. But one impression seems important. We had heard back-to-back presentations, first, about Latino ministries in the Episcopal Church , and next, about the ongoing process toward an Anglican Covenant. One bishop spoke with words resonating for me, when he remarked that he felt within him a burgeoning of energy, when considering the Church's mission among a growing population in this country, and a corresponding diminution of energy, when we turned to internal Church matters.

I depart this afternoon for Lubbock, Texas, where Saturday my home diocese, Northwest Texas, will ordain Scott Mayer to the episcopate. Sunday I will preach and preside at the Church of the Good Shepherd, Brownfield, a little community whom I served (and loved) my first two years out of seminary.

For the clergy of Missouri: we will be together for retreat next Tuesday, and my plan that first evening is to reflect with you on this meeting of the HOB, (a little reflection of my own, a little q & a) as well as whatever else might need attention, for our common life.

HOB: Sunday and Monday

A day of worship and welcome rest on Sunday gave me space for prayer, reading, exercise, and a restorative nap. The evening was devoted to a "fireside chat" with Katharine, our Presiding Bishop, who briefed us on such diverse matters as the primates' meeting, the renewing dioceses of San Joaquin, Pittsburgh, Fort Worth, and Quincy, budget development for the next triennium, the episcopal election in Northern Michigan, and other odds and ends. The energies of the House, as we responded in conversation, drew toward the current economic challenges and what they mean for the Episcopal Church and its dioceses. There is hardly the sense that going forward means business as usual, with only minor course corrections along the way.

Come Monday morning, we followed the usual routine of Morning Prayer and Bible study. But then came something entirely unusual (but canonical), in that we began considering the election of a bishop for Ecuador Central. I do not mean that we had the matter of consents to an election already held; we, the House of Bishops had been asked to elect a bishop, on behalf of the Diocese. The convention of any diocese in fact may ask the House of Bishops to elect a bishop on their behalf. (Canon III.11.1.b). They seldom do. Ecuador Central's Provisional Bishop, Wilfrido Ramos-Orench, addressed the House, explaining the depth of conflict and distrust in the diocese, making the appeal to the House of Bishops a reasonable one, even necessary.

The three nominees are:

Thomas G. Mansella, Diocese of Virginia
Servio Rhadames Moscoso, Diocese of New Jersey
Luis Fernando Ruiz, Diocese of Colombia

Each nominee made a brief introductory statement, in Spanish (with immediate translation), and then the House broke into three groups for questions and answers with each candidate in sequence. Balloting comes during the business session Tuesday evening. I am feeling both the weight of responsibility in voting and the hope for Ecuador Central, represented in the election before us.

And I will spare you, and myself, the tedium of details of Monday afternoon's business session. You would have recognized it as a Church meeting--full of seriousness, punctuations of laughter, with the occasional parliamentary knot to puzzle over. Yes, you would have recognized it.

HOB Day 2

After morning prayer and table conversations, the House turned our attention to completing the conversation with Bishop and Brueggemann. We devoted the morning to this work.

Following Eucharist and lunch, we heard a sobering presentation about the economy from Warren McFarlan, a devoted Episcopalian from the Diocese of Massachusetts who serves on the faculty of the Harvard Business School. We have all heard the hard news about an economy gone very bad. But Professor McFarlan, in about an hour, sketched out the details leading up to the current situation, the depth of the problem, and how we might emerge from it. Honest talk without a tone of doom and gloom.

Then Rep. David Price, from the 4th Congressional District of North Carolina, addressed the House to give some perspective on the current political situation.

Then at six p.m. began twenty-four hours of Sabbath, the only commitment being the celebration of the Eucharist at ten a.m. on Sunday.

This respite comes at a welcome moment for me, because the last thirty-six hours have given me a lot to process. The paucity of detail in my writing suggests that I have not yet made sense of all that I have taken in. Grateful for the pause button.

I am a little stir crazy from all the sitting around, and would be glad to get outdoors for some exercise. The setting in the mountains of Western North Carolina is, theoretically, well-suited for the likes of this. I say theoretically, because it is pouring rain at present (Sunday morning) and about 38 degrees. This is my third visit to Kanuga in March, and this is the sort of weather I have found here every time.

HOB Day 1: Friday

We did in fact convene with the celebration of the Eucharist at noon, after which I was surprised (and delighted!) to see a friend from my Lambeth Bible Study group. Trevor Williams is the Bishop of Limerick, in the Church of Ireland, and he happens to be here as a guest of our House. At every meeting of the HOB in my time a bishop, and that would be since 2002, there have always been bishops from the other provinces of the Anglican Communion in attendance. Trevor is the first such guest with whom I have had a previous relationship, and I am very glad that he is here.

After the Eucharist, and lunch, the House convened in our usual and customary configuration--that is, in groups of five to eight, around tables. At my table this time is a guest, Bishop Blair Couch of the Northern Province of the Moravian Church. She with us as prelude to General Convention's ongoing consideration of full communion with the Moravians. What a wonder to hear about historic Christianity from another perspective.

When finished with preliminaries, housekeeping, and introductory conversations around the tables, we moved to hear complementary presentations from Bill Bishop and Walter Brueggeman. Bishop is a journalist and cultural critic; Brueggeman, a scriptural theologian and emeritus professor of Old Testament from Columbia Seminary. For the St. Louis connection, let me note that he is a graduate of Eden Theological Seminary and once served on the faculty there.

The title of Bishop's book, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart, suggests the thrust of his arguments.

The the title of their presentations, as well as a theme for this meeting of the House: "A New Era of Engagement: Gospel Alternatives to Polarization." It is, let us say, a topic with currency, both in Church and in culture.

I tried very hard to summarize what they had to say, as well as the ensuing conversation with the bishops. Both presentations were rich, nuanced, and complex--and more than a little technical in language. I am not up to a summary, although I tried, but I do hope that their presentations will be made available online.

House of Bishops: Before the meeting begins

Here on the eve of the regular spring meeting of the House of Bishops, about three-quarters of the bishops have already arrived at Kanuga, the conference center near Hendersonville, North Carolina. For some years now, the planners have arranged various meetings for bishops before the House convenes. The arrangement makes for good stewardship, since it allows us to gather for other necessary meetings without extra costs for travel.

I arrived yesterday, for the ongoing training of those of us involved in the peer coaching process for new bishops. The College for Bishops, the teaching and learning arm of the House, has arranged a comprehensive program of formation for new bishops. No one teaches you about engaging in this ministry beforehand, and the current program, begun about six years ago, takes that fact into accout. There is a set three-year curriculum, including several week-long residentiary sessions in community with faculty and other new bishops. The College also appoints a coach for each new bishop, with the expectation that a relationship of learning and compassion will develop. And to this end, the coaches agree to engage in a continuing process of learning how best to engage such a relationship. So about thirty of us coaches met last evening and this morning for that work, led by David Rynick, a professional trainer in this field. The training is excellent, as is the process, and I am blessed as a coach to work with Greg Rickel, the Bishop of Olympia--who is, by the way, the preacher for Flower Festival this year.

This this afternoon I took a short course in blogging, offered again by the College for Bishops and led in this instance by Nicholas Knisely, dean of the cathedral in Phoenix and one of the pioneers in staking out a presence for the Episcopal Church on the web. It was very good, compressing a lot of information into a short period of time. So here I am, blogging again, as I am journeying once more on behalf of the Diocese of Missouri. Keeping in touch during these occasional pilgrimages is the purpose of blog, and I am trying to remain faithful.

Not least of all was the pleasurable time I spent on one of the enormous Kanuga porches this evening, in the company of eight or ten friends and colleagues. Rocking chairs, something tasty to drink, and a chill in the air, all shared among friends who see one another not nearly often enough: this is something I value greatly, and one of the reasons making me look forward to these meetings. Collegiality matters, and times for serious talk and laughter--both--are crucial for the life of community and sustaining relationships. I am glad to be here.

Tomorrow the House convenes at noon, and I will do my best to blog my experiences during this time together.

Mission Trip to New Orleans, Second Full Day

O God, your unfailing providence sustains the world we live
in and the life we live: Watch over those, both night and day,
who work while others sleep, and grant that we may never
forget that our common life depends upon each other’s toil;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BPC, 133)

I had intended to post an entry last night, after the missioners' first full day of work in New Orleans, but I confess to exhaustion. I could not even stay awake to type. Today paced my work a little better, and the group had no after-work meeting, as we did yesterday. So I am able to write before physical collapse sets in.

Seventeen of us from the Diocese of Missouri arrived late Sunday night for our lodging at St. Paul's Homecoming Center in New Orleans, where we are staying for the week's work rehabbing a house. The Diocese of Louisiana is well organized to welcome missioners willing to devote time and energy toward this city's recovery, and we are all grateful recipients of their hospitality. St. Paul's Episcopal Church, next door, is in the Lakeview section of New Orleans and was itself flooded during Katrina. The Homecoming Center is an extension of St. Paul's ministry, as well as the ministry of the Diocese.

The scope of the work left to be done in the residential areas of New Orleans is so enormous that the mind can hardly take in the magnitude. Years remain before recovery could be called complete, even if private, governmental, not-for-profit, and faith-based sectors were engaged optimally. Such engagement is hardly the case. Our brothers and sisters in the Diocese of Louisiana, however, have devoted themselves to aiding those who otherwise would have no help, those whose resources from other sectors have run out. It is the sort of post-disaster ministry that seems right to me.

The missioners from Missouri will, for the most part, spend our eight-hour days doing our small piece in restoring a house in the 7th Ward, a house left with a severely damaged interior within a mostly structurally sound exterior. The damaged interior has been ripped out--gutted, as they say. All the damaged walls, flooring, ceiling, fixtures, and everything else down to the framework had been removed previously. Plumbing and provision for utilities have been roughed-in. Sheetrock has gone up. We have come in at just the next stage, finishing the sheetrock. Mostly we have worked sanding surfaces and joining the sheetrock at corners. For those who know the lingo, mudding is the bulk of our work.

The work is hardly backbreaking, but it is physically arduous nonetheless. The August heat in New Orleans is exquisite, although I must admit that it is a bit cooler than normal, and cooler than any of us expected. But still, the physical labor is no small thing for folks who, like me, are mostly not accustomed to such things. The collect at the head of this entry has come to mind often during the hours of physical work, as I have been acutely aware these past two days of the gracious exchange that makes possible the life we live, an incarnational sense that indeed "our common life depends upon each other's toil." Especially as physical toil has been my willingly accepted lot for the week.

Twenty-five years ago, or longer, I read in a biography of Charles Simeon some of the usual counsel he would give to his students at Cambridge. He told them that every day he would walk to the two-mile stone (a mile marker from the University) to make certain that it was still there, and he would commend such practice to anyone engaged in the "reading life." A four-mile daily walk is not a bad discipline for anyone engaged in what is otherwise a sedentary livelihood and manner of life, and I have managed to approximate that discipline for the past several decades (not, I will admit, a daily practice). But I am also clear that I can choose not to engage in that discretionary exercise, on any given day or for stretches of time, whether for reasons of ill health, travel, a bum knee, or good old-fashioned laziness. Such a choice is not available to billions of people in this world, whose very life will depend on hard physical work.

Such labor does not deserve any condescending glance or foolish romanticism. But we do well that Benedict, in his Rule for Monks, described a spiritual life existing in a three-fold balance: (physical) work, study, and prayer--all of which is to be undertaken for the sake of the community, which is the matrix of the monk's spiritual life, and for which there is no substitute. That is hardly an unreasonable balance--work, study, and prayer. Physicality is all the more necessary for anyone desiring a deeper spiritual life, especially since spirituality, misguided, can seduce a person into forgetting the body. Anyone who has ever engaged in a demanding course of study, or a mentally or emotionally challenging vocation, to cite but two examples, will have faced that challenge. Sometimes the option of Charles Simeon is the likely one available, and if so, then let us choose it.

But let us not forget those for whom such a choice is not an option; hard physical work is their life. if that renewed insight is the only one that comes to me this week, then it will have been worth the pilgrimage.

Saturday, August 2. The Conference winds down.

As I glance back over my early posts during this peculiar pilgrimage, I am aware of a weariness having set in, during these most recent days. There is a Groundhog-Day quality, I suppose, to any conference marking an intentional rhythm to the day. But that everyday sameness, coupled with the spiritual and emotional intensity of the work set before us, has left me ready for the Conference's end. As one colleague put it, "When we first arrived in Canterbury about six months ago . . . . " And then today I awoke with a cold. I want to go home.

The awareness of a few millions praying for us around the Anglican world has been very close throughout the Conference, and no more so than during Bible study this morning, when we considered the text John 18:1-18 and pondered the question: What makes it possible for a leader to lead the way Jesus led? Whatever else, we all agreed, the prayers of many are crucial. Whatever provisional successes this Conference has arrived at--the palpable deepening of relationships, the near absence of poisonous statements, the tendency away from grandstanding, a desire for solidarity in mission, the fact that no one stormed out in protest--has happened in no small part because you have prayed, and that your prayers joined the prayers of millions. That we have arrived at these most modest achievements is no small matter, given the gloomy prognostications of many beforehand. I say "provisional successes," partly because not all the bishops were here, as you well know. They are provisional also because of the fragility of many relationships, despite their having grown during our time together. They are provisional, because they have yet to be field-tested among the whole of the baptized. Even so, the bishops are mostly trying to find ways to walk toward one another, and that gives hope for sustaining the unity in baptism that is already ours, through Christ Jesus.

Another reason for the provisional successes lies in Archbishop Rowan's spiritual leadership. Framing the Conference in prayerful listening by beginning with a retreat set the tone, and he was responsible for the content of the retreat, its shape, and the tone thereby set. It modeled the discipline of careful listening at the heart of all we have tried to accomplish. Archbishop Rowan has taken, and continues to take, many hits for his manner of leading in the Anglican Communion over these past years. Well, leaders have feet of clay, and hammers for smashing those feet are readily available. He has absolutely been in his element at Lambeth, and he shaped the Conference according to his own deeply held spiritual sensibilities.

Indaba today discussed the recommendations of the Windsor Continuation Group, a report of which can be found in the Episcopal News Service daily report from Lambeth. There is nothing more that I want to say about a work still in progress, but I do know that there will be more.

And tonight under the Big Top, we heard from a panel of four stewards, representatives of the fifty assertive young adults from fifteen nations who have made the logistics of this large conference possible. It simply would not have come off, without someone to tell us all which bus to board, and when, and without someone to block, ever so politely, the occasional uncredentialed member of the press from entering a venue. It was very good feedback to hear from them, and even better to hear their expression of faith.