BISHOP "BUBBA" AKA MORRIS THOMPSON

From the Advocate:

NEW ORLEANS — The Diocese of Louisiana consecrates today its 11th bishop, a leader with an unexpected résumé for an Episcopalian.

The former U.S. Marine, known as “Bubba” during his Mississippi boyhood, spent years as a Presbyterian and a Southern Baptist before finding his spiritual home in the Episcopal Church.

“The church is where I connect with God, and it is where I can see clearly,” the Very Rev. Morris King Thompson Jr. explained. “I’ve struggled with how I’ve lived it out in the Baptist Church, the Episcopal Church … but I never doubted the call (to ministry).”

The Most Rev. Katherine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop and primate of the Episcopal Church, will oversee today’s elaborate consecration and ordination ceremony at 10 a.m. at Christ Church Cathedral in New Orleans.

Thompson replaces Bishop Charles E. Jenkins who, after serving 12 years, retired in January, citing Hurricane Katrina-induced post-traumatic stress disorder as a primary reason.

Bishop Morris Thompson is in the right place, don't you think?

I went to the reception for our new bishop on Friday evening and spoke with him briefly and then again after the ordination. He's down to earth and quite approachable. Bishop Morris was my first choice after the walkabout, and I'm quite pleased he was elected. He seems a man of great energy, which he will surely need as bishop of the Diocese of Louisiana. I had a few words with Bishop Katharine Jefforts Schori at the the reception, too. She said, "We're praying for you," when I talked about my mixed emotions, celebrating with our new bishop and great concern over the oil in the Gulf of Mexico. I have no pictures of the bishops and me. It did not seem the proper time or place to ask. Anyway, I'm quite shy about requesting pictures with VIPs.

The newspaper account calls the ceremony elaborate, but there was less pageantry than at the ordination of Bishop Jenkins 12 years ago, which seemed right and proper in consideration of the times. The service went only a few minutes past two hours. I'll say more about the ceremony later.

I had my picture taken with only one VIP, my blogging buddy, Archdeacon Ormonde Plater at Through the Dust. Ormonde made me laugh when he said, "Here we meet one another face to face, and then we're going home to write online about meeting each other." So it goes. I believe that Ormonde accompanied Bishop Jim Brown to St. John's when I was received into the Episcopal Church 14 or so years ago. Of course, I could be wrong.

Below is a picture of Ormonde and me.

 

Thanks to Ann for the link to the article in the Advocate.