Dear Friends,

In our Episcopal Church, we are blessed to have wonderfully articulate spokesmen and women of the faith. And such has been our tradition for as long as we have been a church.

Listening to presentations by our Presiding Bishop, The Most Rev. Frank Griswold, and engaging in conversations with him have provided me a significant source of spiritual enrichment and nourishment since I became a bishop. I value those opportunities a great deal indeed, as I do encounters with other ordained and lay men and women of faith. Indeed, I often discover chances to grow spiritually hidden away in some unlikely spots.

Another very helpful person of faith in our church is the Archbishop of Canterbury, The Most Rev. and Rt. Hon. George Carey. While Archbishop Carey has graced us with significant examples of erudite and faithful scholarship and homiletics, I have found myself meditating recently on a much more mundane analogy that he offered - one especially appropriate for this time of year. He is reported to have said, “The Church is like a swimming pool, where all the noise comes from the shallow end.”

I look forward to sitting with the Archbishop one day and to sharing examples of his point and experiences that confirm his conclusion.

However, I suspect that Rectors and Vicars could likewise contribute to such a conversation. Indeed, whether at national, diocesan, or local levels, it is the shallow end that offers most of the noise in the Church.

The conversation could be expanded, though, even beyond the institutional church. Probably schoolteachers would have some things to say about the noise and commotion that come from the shallow end of the classrooms. And how about in families! I can think of a few members that could stand some dunking!

Perhaps Jesus might join in our talk. He could share some observations about the amount of time and energy he spent with the shallow end of humanity - the Pharisees and the hypocrites and the legalists, for instance.

But speaking of Jesus raises a new set of responses to the shallow end of the pool of life - a set of responses that challenges my own. He managed to uphold mercy and forgiveness and generosity, rather than the more natural impatience and hostility.

The message, therefore, seems to be that Archbishops and teachers and priests and parents and bishops still have a great deal to learn from the one we call Lord. May we be open to that One. And may we dare to wade into the shallow end of life, knowing that Christ got his own feet wet there, too.

Pray for me, my brothers and sisters, and know that I pray for you daily as well.

Faithfully yours, in Christ,
Charles G. vonRosenberg