Last week, I bought a book at Church House Publishing in Westminster that I’m enjoying a good bit. The title is, appropriately enough, If You Meet George Herbert on the Road, Kill Him: Radically Re-thinking Priestly Ministry. It’s a well-written examination of the haunting influence of the “Country Parson” model of priesthood that has priests on both sides of the pond running themselves completely ragged and never quite knowing if their work is done. The author, Justin Lewis-Anthony, first reviews the effects of laboring under unrealistic expectations on clergy in the Church of England and some of the roots of these expectations in the high-flying myth of George Herbert’s priestly ministry (though he was only in a parish for three years–and assisted by curates for two of those years!). After a thorough critique of the “Country Parson,” he goes on to use some of the writings of Michael Ramsey and especially Rowan Williams on priesthood to lay out a more sustainable and authentic practice of priestly ministry under three defining roles: Witness, Watchman (sic), and Weaver. I haven’t finished the book yet, but will likely post on my understanding and application of his insights to my understanding of my vocation in a future post.
The part of Lewis-Anthony’s analysis that I’ve appreciated the most is his skewering of what he calls the “Cult of Nice,” or the expectation that what clergy are striving for is to become paragons of a certain people-pleasing, milquetoast, yet ultimately duplicitous agreeableness. As I’ve been reminded by one of my mentors this summer in the inimitable words of Stephen Sondheim, “Nice is different than good.” If there’s only one thing I’ll take home from my experience in England this summer, it’s the importance of finding a parish and rector that will offer me a place to be myself, to grow and make mistakes and take risks without undue anxiety.
General Convention 2009 leaves me sighing with relief, though I suspect our truthful stand in D025 and C056 will have consequences. Still, my heart is filled with gratitude at the gift of being profoundly seen and loved by my community of faith. I have been asked on several occasions about what the reaction has been in England. The only thing I can say for sure is that there are likely to be at least a half-dozen different reactions from the various points of view represented in the Church of England. Some folks are pleased as punch and wish the CofE would get on with it. Some think we’ve definitively broken communion. Many others are somewhere in between. The shoe that we’re all waiting to drop is whether Canterbury will in fact recognize and come into formal communion with ACNA. Will that mean a ‘disfellowshipping’ of TEC (to borrow Baptist language for an event unheard of in Anglican history–I think new Anglican bodies have come into being that have not been recognized by Canterbury but never a historic Anglican church that has been declared to be out of communion)? Or, in another unprecedented move, will +Cantuar somehow mantain communion with two separate communions that are geographically overlapping? Either way, we live in interesting times, for better or worse.
The swine flu is sweeping its way through the UK as we speak with about 55,000 cases (compared to the USA’s 40,000 or so). The Diocese of Southwark has issued guidelines for the administration of the chalice during communion, including using anti-bacterial gel at the lavabo and assuring those who are concerned about contagion that it is perfectly acceptable to receive only under one species. Also, intinction is out for the duration. We are all connected, for better or worse, aren’t we? I beg your prayers for healing for those who suffer from the flu or the fear of infection, that God’s healing presence may be very near.

