Choice

"When power leads us to arrogance, poetry reminds us of our limitations. When power narrows the area of our concern, poetry reminds us of the richness and diversity of our existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses."

When John Kennedy spoke these words, he likely thought of them in relation to the state. In our time, I hear them equally in relation to the church. Our common need for poetry in both has never been more obvious and demanding. Nor has our capacity for the ecclesial stewardship of the parables of Jesus -- our poetry -- to understand and appreciate the metaphor of life ever been more in want. In few places is this more evident over this past decade or so than in those dioceses -- including the Diocese of Tennessee -- where there has been precious little "poetry," but only denial, grandiosity, and rampant power together with all the movements and systems that will use almost any means to achieve such control.

Pretentiousness has led Tennessee beyond our limits both financially and spiritually, and those always questionable "big holy audacious goals" rather have been swamped by it. The fear of our common humanity has insulted God's imagination, thus narrowed our vision and blinded us to the richness and diversity of our Anglican heritage. Our incestuous deployment and placement practices have sapped our will to be faithful and compromised our stewardship of the Gospel.

We are faced now in the forthcoming election with the critical choice of a new bishop for the Diocese of Tennessee. Our collegial polity by which we make such choices has been severely compromised over this decade by the understandable indifference of the laity and the inexcusable and embarrassing intimidation of the clergy. The Primates, by asking us to suspend elections for a time, may have unintentionally blessed us, for using that time with common prayer and study, we may yet regain the balance necessary to make an intelligent choice.

How we choose and how we face the change that demands that we choose takes the measure of our spiritual maturity. It requires both courage -- Hemingway's "grace under pressure" -- and wisdom.

Wisdom is not only a matter of the mind but of the intuition and the heart. As the Book of Proverbs attests, there is a radical and refreshing feminine consciousness about wisdom, a consciousness we do well to embrace for our enlightenment and leavening as we move into this time of choosing.

John Hines, onetime presiding bishop, said that "A bishop's job is to keep his church family on the firing line of the world's most desperate needs and to learn to accept the exquisite penalty of such an exposed position." Indeed, how can Christians evangelize when the most visible cause they proclaim isn't Christ crucified but sexual conformity? The Gospel is not about sex. It's about conversion of life, suffering servanthood, love, freedom from fear, self-denial, giving up illusions of control, and embracing God's in-breaking kingdom.

May whomever we choose to serve and lead us not only come here to influence others, but to be open to influence, not only to acknowledge and respect the freedom of another, but seek to enhance the other's capacity to make a difference. May whomever we choose serve with us to achieve a collegial bond of caring that the world may then know that we are Christ's and know so by the way we love one another. Such poetry can only cleanse. There is no greater and no more faithful evangelism.

[COVENANT, Number 20, April 2005]