Later: I am sitting at a table outside the National Cathedral. The bells are now tolling (who knows for whom the bell tolls, well, you know the rest). The service is now coming to a conclusion and people who look like social studies teachers are leaving the cathedral. There is one grey haired bishop talking with people next to the satellite truck. Only a few individuals are leaving yet, though there are few more now coming out the back way. These guys over here look like they are fleeing, but that just could be that they need to go find some lunch.Now more are finding their way out of the cathedral, most are not talking and not talking to each other. Others are on their cell phone. Which reminds me.
The bells are still tolling. More silent people leave, not speaking – except for this one lone bishop who seems to have escaped early.
These folks are probably like certain members of my family who like to leave just as the service is ending because the parking situation is probably a nightmare. It’s amazing how people aren’t talking to each other, except for those on their cell phones. Are they as stunned as I was?
Oh, here comes a few more bishops out of the cathedral. Oh, there’s the former bishop of New Hampshire. I recognize him – we use to call him “Shorts” because he always wore shorts to the House of Bishops at General Convention.
I have a great view and an excellent place to blog – though not online. I know there are some cities in the US that actually have the entire city or town wired – but Washington isn’t one of them.
A lot of people are dressed in black – like me – or very dark suits. Didn’t they hear that symbolic pastels were the dress of the day?
Okay, now we have a couple of boys in ties running from the Cathedral.
LATER: Ran into Jim Rosenthal, Director of Communications for the Anglican Communion and Jim Naughton, Director of Communications for the Diocese of Washington while walking back to Wisconsin Avenue. We chatted a while and I was asked what I thought of the service. "It was unusual," I said.
It was a cordial exchange. Don't suppose anyone would have guessed that all is not well. But all is not well. And it still makes me sad.
5 comments:
Did you actually attend the service? I ask because I hope you didn't take a seat from someone who who might have entered into it in a spirit of worship and celebration or, at the very least, provided something more trenchant in the way of critical remarks. Please, I believe there's an archbishop in Nigeria calling your name. Go, go in peace, but go.
Dear Anonymous:
What a presumptuous, mean remark!
Dear BB:
Had I known you were outside, I would have stopped by to say hello when I left at 11:55 am.
Dear Anonymous,
Tonight I am grieving for a church I once loved that now exists no longer. It is a good and proper thing to me that some of those seats in the pews were filled with people who share my feelings of loss.
BabyBlue, thank you for your blog. The "rainbow" vestments--Cripes! OK, PB, we get it.
Dear Anonymous,
Yes, may from around the world have offered harbor. I'm with "Father King's Daughter said," for once Jesus the Christ was proclaimed as King, even in my starchy high church, Anglo-Cath way that I grew up. Now it seems MDG are the priority.
Anon: Jesus say come, come all who are heavy laded. I shall come and find my rest. Please come, come in pease, but come to the Jesus, who was & is & is to come.
Your fear must be overwhelming for you and for the folks who blog here for there to be such an amazing amount of unkind and un-Christian sentiments.
If this is an example of Christian anything, I wonder anyone would claim the Way. Thanks be to God, this is not in fact the real tone and tenor of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
I doubt Jesus would pass muster with any of you.
Wouldn't be the first time.
Shalom
Post a Comment