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| On being herded |
The stewards are very important (and welcome) members of the Conference Community. They are young people from different Churches across the Communion, maninly in their twenties and early thirties - theological (and other) students, who have given their time to be with us, acting as guides and "gophers" and generally lighting up our days with their smiles and good cheer. Crucially, they have the resposnibility of getting us off and on buses at the necessary times, guiding us round the campus when we get lost, preventing us from going where we oughtn't and encouraging us to go where we ought. It's not always an easy task and it certainly requires both tact and patience!
A couple of days ago the stewards had a chance to speak for themselves (and they're going to again, when the last plenary session of the Conference is to take the form of a reflection by them on the whole event, which will be interesting and salutary, I suspect). But their chance the other day took a different form: a number of them were interviewed on camera for the daily "Lambeth Journal" which is a short video diary of the Conference shown to us after Evening Worship each day and capturing something of the essence of what we are day by day in the Conference community.
Describing her duties as a steward, one of the young people said - to much appreciative laughter - that there was much "herding of bishops" to be done. And that set me thinking on the experience of being herded. There's a Latin tag which runs quis custodiet ipsos custodes, or "Who guards the guardians?" which has some application here. Bishops are shepherds - caring for the flock and (yes) herding them is a key part of our ministry - and here we are receiving the herding ministry of the young shepherds at Lambeth. It's a good experience.
But there's more to being herded that being chivvied on to buses and having your ID inspected as you enter the Big Top - there's the "herding" which is about being shaped into a community that can be seen to have some kind of shared life and some kind of shared take on the mind of Christ. As shepherds (and as fallen human beings), bishops are in many ways as easy to herd as a bunch of cats. We wander off ("we have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep") and we have an aversion to being gathered together and held together, especially when our opinions on all sorts of questions are so varied and so divided.
That is what is so challenging in this Conference. It's an exercise in bishop-herding (and I would choose cats any day!) And there are many people who felt it couldn't be done - and some who felt it shouldn't be attempted, either. There were those who at the outset feared (or - sadly - longed for) a major bust up, a parting of the ways as we wandered or stormed away from each other in anger, puzzlement and misery. The herding task looked just too big and complicated to have any chance of success.
Now - with just a little more than 24 hours to go - it all seems rather differemt. No one has stormed off and there have been few outbursts and rages. We have disagreed ands still we disagree - but that's the word I would use, rather than that we are "divided". An unnamed bishop has apparently told the Guardian newspaper that unless there is resolution to the big questions before us then the whole event will have been an expensive failure. I could not disagree more: we are together and we have addressed our differences. We have found ways of talking and listening to one another that we did not know even existed. I am firmly of the belief that the conversations that we have been able to have will continue in other forms across the Communion. They will be tough and difficult (as they have been here) but they will be occasions for healing and forgiveness, means for learning and appreciating the positions of those we disagree with. A while ago I wrote somewhere that I feared that we as a Church were in danger of losing the art of conversation - tentatively and with reserrvation I am beginning to think, as a result of Lambeth 08, that that danger has receded a bit.
We have been herded - but more importantly we have been heard. And that is one of the greatest blessings any of us can bestow upon our brothers and sisters.
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