General Convention Bishop’s Blog

General Convention July 11, 2022, Bishop Cathleen Bascom

As Bishop, there are two elements I want to highlight from this General Convention: an experience of holy time, and the spirit of unity, mutuality, and respect that marked the House of Bishops’ deliberations.

As a graduate student of English Literature, in prayerful discernment about priesthood, I focused my studies on “holy time” or “the sacred present” — that experience we as humans have when moments open up and lengthen and we have a taste of eternity. We take it as a sign of communion with God. Writers like C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, T.S. Eliot and so many others try to capture the experience in words and images.

Having been a General Convention deputy four times before, and aware of the radically shortened calendar this year, the idea that I would experience the sacred present at GC80 was the last thing I would have imagined. The quantity of business, the intricate web of working in two houses…and yet, like a holy mystery the House of Bishops attended to a number of very weighty topics with spacious care: the nature of common prayer into the 21st-century and a process for how the “Book” [of Common Prayer] may be revised; the creation of a society to continue and fund work on racial justice in perpetuity; women’s rights; political tensions in our nation; and a mind of the house statement on climate and creation care. I was privileged to be intimately involved in that last effort.

What was remarkable to all, and commented upon by the more seasoned bishops especially, was a dynamic that arose on every one of these issues. Debate began to occur, and then pause for bishops of differing opinions to work outside of session to craft a renewed proposal supported by all. In every case the end result strengthened the resolve and our unity. In our case, the Bishop of California presented a beautiful statement about how issues of extreme weather and climate change underlie and exacerbate so many other issues: migration, poverty, violence. The Bishop of South Carolina felt it lacked the scriptural and theological depth his people would desire. So a team of about eight of us worked hard on an adapted statement that made explicit the assumed theological ideas. It was an experience of holy compromise and unity.

I am so very proud to be the Bishop of Kansas. Our Deputation is so prayerful, bright, and engaged, offering the Episcopal Church bold and wise leadership!

Every blessing,

+Cathleen