Canterbury, England
I am glad I came here for this Lambeth and worshipped one last time in the Cathedral home of Augustine and Dunstan, Anselm and Becket, Cranmer and Laud, Temple and Ramsay. I had come to speak a word of hope and perhaps to intervene on behalf of our beloved, but in the last resolve the family refused the long needed measures. So he just slipped away, our noble prince, one dreary morning in Canterbury with hardly even a death rattle.The death of the noble old prince is such a sad story - a real heart-breaker, but the good news of the birth of another prince brings a bit of heartsease. And the new prince's name? GAFCON! The name carries great weight and seems a heavy burden to lay upon a mere babe in a bassinet. Still: The prince is dead; long live the prince! And we rest a bit more secure in the knowledge of Bishop Lawrence's mighty effort to hold things together until the new prince takes the throne.
The new prince was born last month in Jerusalem. I was there—arriving late, departing early. I was never quite sure what I was witnessing. It was an awkward and messy birth. He hardly struck me as I gazed upon him there in the bassinet as quite ready to be heir to the throne. I even wondered at times if there might be some illegitimacy to his bloodlines. But that I fear was my over wedded ness to a white and European world. May he live long, and may his tribe increase—and may he remember with mercy all those who merely mildly neglected his birth.
As for me my role for now is clear, to hold together as much as I can for as long as I can that when he comes to his rightful place on St. Augustine’s throne in Canterbury Cathedral he will have a faithful and richly textured kingdom.
Bishop Mark Lawrence of South Carolina
No more words, unless I take a page from the New Yorker to say: Block that metaphor!
Thanks to a friend who found this gem hidden away in the archives at Anglican Mainstream. If you check out their website, you'll soon realize that 'Mainstream' is a misnomer.
