Holy Buckets

I came to General Convention expecting it to be one where there were few surprises. We would gather to endorse much if not all of the Windsor recommendations, we would elect a Presiding Bishop and get back to being the Episcopal Church and that would be that.

Then today happened, and I could not be more excited about the future of the Episcopal Church. We elected a fantastically gifted woman to become Presiding Bishop, who accepted this great honor by speaking to the assemble masses in both English and Spanish. As someone who I was talking to said, it was an amazing way to celebrate the diversity of our church and still listen to what God was calling us to be. One of the Bishops who was not elected spoke of today as one of the best of his life. That is an incredible statement.

I looked across the aisle to my mother who is a priest deputy from Southern Ohio and we both mouthed "Wow!!" to each other because it was not the outcome we expected. Given the way the Deputies voted to consent to the PB election, all but 14 in the lay and 13 in the clergy voted with a majority in support of the election, this was what God was calling us to do as a church. I know some will not like the choice, and we need to be pastoral and understanding to them. Other celebrate this as the "end of the question on women's ordination."

Whatever it is I cannot wait to see our new PB take her seat among the leaders of Christianity as the first female leader of a major denomination. Both conservatives and liberals speak of her gifts as being the ones we need for our church right now. That says something about how gifted she must be to win over people who would normally not vote in that way.

Grant