This strikes me as sage advice. A document rarely conveys the sense of a gathering. Frankly, I don’t often publish sermon texts. A text loses so much from the moment of delivery.
Chris+
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
The Fourteenth Lambeth Conference has come to an end. The "Reflections Paper" I described to you yesterday has been released (all 44 pages of it!), and the Archbishop of Canterbury has just concluded his Third and Final Presidential Address, stating unambiguously that Jesus Christ is, indeed, "the Way, the Truth, and the Life," and that we find our unity in him.
Shortly the "Reflections Paper" will be available online (Anglican Communion web site, also the Episcopal News Service web site).
In our Indaba group this morning we discussed our discomfort at the thought that this Paper might be read as if it had the character and (moral) authority of the Reports and Resolutions of previous Lambeth Conferences. We drafted a brief Introductory Statement that we wish to be attached to the Paper. (Note: this is the Statement of OUR group of 40 Bishops, not that of the Conference as a whole.)
Nevertheless, if you download (or otherwise receive) the "Reflections Paper" it would be my hope, personally, that you read it in the light of the following Introduction:
"The statement which follows cannot hope to capture the mood and experience of the Lambeth Conference 2008.
"Cold words are inadequate to express the quality and passion of the journey we have shared. We have listened intently to one another, we have laughed together and wept together. We have discovered in our Bible Study and Indaba Groups the kind of friendship and fellowship which is life-changing.
"This statement represents a distillation of insights and opinions, not from a single group but from 16 Indaba Groups and it therefore takes the form of a patchwork which no editorial process can make seamless without creating a garment that never existed.
"In order to read this document with appreciation you must allow yourself to imagine that you are in a safe space with others whom you have come to love and whose opinions you have grown to respect at the deepest level. Only the reader can breathe love, humor, tears, admiration, urgency and imagination into this document so that it can truly live, and so that the experiences that gave it birth can be seen to have animated our renewed relationships."
Again, my profound thanks to all of you for your prayerful support of the Bishops gathered here in Canterbury for the past three weeks.
Warmest regards in our Lord,
The Right Rev. John W. Howe
Episcopal Bishop of Central Florida
Chris+
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
The Fourteenth Lambeth Conference has come to an end. The "Reflections Paper" I described to you yesterday has been released (all 44 pages of it!), and the Archbishop of Canterbury has just concluded his Third and Final Presidential Address, stating unambiguously that Jesus Christ is, indeed, "the Way, the Truth, and the Life," and that we find our unity in him.
Shortly the "Reflections Paper" will be available online (Anglican Communion web site, also the Episcopal News Service web site).
In our Indaba group this morning we discussed our discomfort at the thought that this Paper might be read as if it had the character and (moral) authority of the Reports and Resolutions of previous Lambeth Conferences. We drafted a brief Introductory Statement that we wish to be attached to the Paper. (Note: this is the Statement of OUR group of 40 Bishops, not that of the Conference as a whole.)
Nevertheless, if you download (or otherwise receive) the "Reflections Paper" it would be my hope, personally, that you read it in the light of the following Introduction:
"The statement which follows cannot hope to capture the mood and experience of the Lambeth Conference 2008.
"Cold words are inadequate to express the quality and passion of the journey we have shared. We have listened intently to one another, we have laughed together and wept together. We have discovered in our Bible Study and Indaba Groups the kind of friendship and fellowship which is life-changing.
"This statement represents a distillation of insights and opinions, not from a single group but from 16 Indaba Groups and it therefore takes the form of a patchwork which no editorial process can make seamless without creating a garment that never existed.
"In order to read this document with appreciation you must allow yourself to imagine that you are in a safe space with others whom you have come to love and whose opinions you have grown to respect at the deepest level. Only the reader can breathe love, humor, tears, admiration, urgency and imagination into this document so that it can truly live, and so that the experiences that gave it birth can be seen to have animated our renewed relationships."
Again, my profound thanks to all of you for your prayerful support of the Bishops gathered here in Canterbury for the past three weeks.
Warmest regards in our Lord,
The Right Rev. John W. Howe
Episcopal Bishop of Central Florida
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