Wisdom from the Bishop of Buckingham

The reaction to Rowan Williams' address is rippling across the bishops' blogs today. I again commend to you the blog by Alan Wilson, bishop of Buckingham, England. There is much worth reading on his blog; he also has a great summary of a talk by England's chief rabbi, among other items you should read. And you will be rewarded by Bishop Wilson's choice for artwork on his blog today. Here is his main point this morning (the bold-face highlights are his):

Our group this morning felt we needed to begin with reality. We can all fixate on “if only’s” — if only the US bishops hadn’t proceeded, if only Lambeth 1998 hadn’t been so mismanaged and poorly led, if only the Nigerians had come. All this is fantasy. The Chief Rabbi’s holy pragmatism was a better starting point. Rowan is inviting us to be more humble, to listen, to repent, to enlarge our hearts. This means dying to our fantasy rallying points and hostile preconceptions, so that we attain a state of reality, responding to the call to life of the Lord who called Lazarus to life. If, on the other hand, we just cant let go of that stuff, then we stay in the tomb. The life of Anglicanism does not depend on the institutional wellbeing of Anglican structures, which will plainly have to morph, bend and perhaps even break. It’s a simple spiritual choice, really.