Oceanographer To Presiding Bishop

From Search Magazine:

Katharine Jefferts Schori loved being an oceanographer. She thought digging in the mud for squids and octopuses and trolling the Pacific Ocean with the National Marine Fisheries Service was the most fascinating job in the world, and had spent more than a decade studying biology, chemistry, geology, and meteorology to prepare for it.

Because of Reagan era budget cuts for scientific research, she lost her job at the fisheries service and could not find another doing what she loved, working in the field - rather the shore or the water.

However, the priesthood was far from her thoughts, even after suggestions on separate occasions by three people

But being approached by three people separately about ordination was strangely moving, too, so she discussed it at length with her pastor. Meanwhile, Jefferts Schori, never one to sit idle, threw herself into volunteer work, chairing the parent-teacher organization at her daughter’s school, founding a chapter of Habitat for Humanity, and serving on the board of a women’s philanthropic group in Corvallis. She also studied religion at Oregon State University, taking courses she was later asked to teach. Slowly, her grief over a lost career in oceanography began to fade.
....

One Sunday in 1991, Jefferts Schori was asked to preach at Good Samaritan while the clergy were away at a convention. The Episcopalians gathered at Good Sam that morning liked what they heard and told her so. “The experience of preaching, of preparing to do it, and the feedback I got afterward, finally let me hear the surprising thing people in the congregation were asking of me,” Jefferts Schori says. She is no pulpit thumper, but the former scientist’s sermons are quietly effective. She moves with ease from biblical exegesis to scientific analysis to wry, self-deprecating anecdotes, goading and exhorting along the way but rarely stooping to preachiness or sentimentality. Six months after that Sunday in the pulpit, Jefferts Schori entered the seminary.

Daniel Burke does a fine job in this article, telling the story of how Bishop Katharine went from oceanographer to Presiding Bishop. Check it out.

When the videos of the candidates for the position of Presiding Bishop were posted at the website of the national office, I watched all six of them, and, judging just from the videos, I was most impressed with Bishop Katharine, but I thought she had no chance of being elected. However, I put myself on record in the comments at Terry Martin's old blog, Fr. Jake Stops the World, saying that I thought she was the best of the six. I was as surprised as anyone when she was chosen. I think that it's cool that we have a presiding bishop who is a woman and a scientist.

H/T to Three Legged Stool.