Archbishop Rowan Williams
Rowan Williams resigned today as Archbishop of Canterbury, effective at the end of the year. He will become Master of Magdalen College, Cambridge.
I rejoice for him, for making this wise decision, and wish him every happiness in Cambridge. We should be profoundly grateful to have had ten years of his leadership. Perhaps in Cambridge his profound spirit will be able to come to the fore in a way that was blocked while he was at Lambeth, where instead he was forced to attend to the petty spitefulness and grandiose pretensions of his fellow clergy.
While he was Archbishop, he committed himself to keep the conversation going among all the factions, at considerable personal cost; few people are aware how great that cost has been. Unfortunately some clergy, including not a small number of bishops, are like petulant children and 'won't play'. Deaf to the meaning of 'ecclesia', they are interested only in their personal fiefdoms, not in making church (cf. Mt. 11:12-22).
The Church of England and the Anglican Communion did not deserve him. They have wasted a huge opportunity, one which will not come again. I shudder to think who the next Archbishop of Canterbury will be. If it's either Sentamu or Chartres, the end will come very quickly.
Perhaps it would be more merciful that way.
I rejoice for him, for making this wise decision, and wish him every happiness in Cambridge. We should be profoundly grateful to have had ten years of his leadership. Perhaps in Cambridge his profound spirit will be able to come to the fore in a way that was blocked while he was at Lambeth, where instead he was forced to attend to the petty spitefulness and grandiose pretensions of his fellow clergy.
While he was Archbishop, he committed himself to keep the conversation going among all the factions, at considerable personal cost; few people are aware how great that cost has been. Unfortunately some clergy, including not a small number of bishops, are like petulant children and 'won't play'. Deaf to the meaning of 'ecclesia', they are interested only in their personal fiefdoms, not in making church (cf. Mt. 11:12-22).
The Church of England and the Anglican Communion did not deserve him. They have wasted a huge opportunity, one which will not come again. I shudder to think who the next Archbishop of Canterbury will be. If it's either Sentamu or Chartres, the end will come very quickly.
Perhaps it would be more merciful that way.
posted by Maggie Ross at 1:57 pm
3 Comments:
Hello Maggie,
Is kenosis to be cultivated in some simple ways or is it 'simply' to be intended or does it just happen out of our sight? I know it is different from self-giving.
All Good Wishes
Theo
Any kind of self-gift is kenosis or practice of/for it. Kenosis is also an intention that (we can hope) encompasses all of our lives. And yes, it does happen out of our sight because we are self-forgetful.
There's an old story about a man who appears at the pearly gates and the only reason he is let in is that he committed one good deed for an old lady on a bus that he wasn't aware of and/or had totally forgotten.
Anything you can do to open yourself up, to give yourself is practical kenosis. When you are no longer aware of kenosis, that's when it comes to fruition!
'The right hand doesn't know what the left hand does.'
Hi Maggie,
Thanks.
Theo
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