The
honour I never almost had:
Purple
Fever is an awful disease, it was candidate’s night, and the next day was the
election of a Bishop. I who was never
nominated, and did not desire to be nominated, am somewhat chagrined that not
only will I not be elected, but I will not even have bragging rights of saying;
“Back in two thousand and something I was nominated for Bishop.” Even the possibility of a small self-glorifying
exaggeration is clean cut off, I fortunately can’t even say, “I was almost
elected.”
I
looked over the slate of candidates.
There were two obviously good men who were willing to let themselves be
lured into a greater suffering on behalf of the church. Of the others, two had been afflicted with
awful forms of purple fever. One of them
eventually would end up in legal problems of the financial type, the other was
just a sad individual. At least they had
bragging rights. Come to think about it, at an earlier election
one devout and holy candidate, or so we were told, was eventually defrocked for
child abuse. Purple fever can, and does,
infect the most unsuitable candidates.
This
purple fever is an insidious disease that has led some to leave The Episcopal
Church in their lust to become bishops.
I know one “bishop” duly consecrated by somebody, somewhere, who has no
diocese, no churches, no priests, and works as a gardener, and another who admitted
to having only 12 people in his congregation, and six similar sized
congregations under his shepherding care; but he’s a bishop and he holds
wonderful ordinations for his poorly trained disciples. I know another who left The Episcopal Church
with great fanfare and great expectancy hoping to become a bishop in one of the
African dioceses, only to discover too late that they don’t consecrate divorced
men as bishops.
It’s
a terrible thing, this irony of not being nominated for a job I wouldn’t want
and wasn’t even nominated for. It’s somewhat akin to being a guardian cherub
desiring ultimate enthronement and then being summarily forced out of heaven by
those insufferable angels. “I, the
Morning Star, I have fashioned for myself a coat of many colours, I do not have
to dress in white. I do not want to be
dressed in white kowtowing to His royal goodness YHWH. I almost seized the heavenly throne; a throne
I could have had if only, so at least I have bragging rights.”
The
great mistake in all this is the attempt to affirm one’s value by becoming a human
doing instead of accepting the humiliation of being a human being. In this unrestrained ambition the greater the
doing, the greater the power, the emptier the soul! The truth is that it is a fatal error to say,
“I do, therefor I am,” and perhaps René Descartes missed the truth, “Je pense donc
je suis,” “I think, therefore I am.” It
is closer to the mark to say, “I love, therefore I am.” Ultimately our human identity is defined by
our relationships.
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