The Lambeth Log

Listening with the heart: A reflection by Paul Feheley

When I wrote my last piece I was on my way to the Lambeth Conference at the University of Kent. The journey was quiet and inspired many thoughts. I arrived full of hope and expectation, which have been met, if not surpassed, during my first week here. It has been extraordinary in many ways as I work in the area of external communications. Each morning I conduct a press briefing to acquaint the media on the events of the day and to answer sometimes difficult questions around the conference, its procedural rules, and ways of operating. I am not a chief spokesperson but an upfront person who talks, works, and listens in the hope of getting the Lambeth story told accurately. There are many reporters here as well as a large number of bishops that are blogging. You will find no shortage of new “Canterbury Tales” coming from this university campus.

I have made friends with new colleagues in a tight and often tense small media office that fits the caricature of every press room you have seen on TV. On a typical morning there are eight phones going off, at least two to four people trying to answer them, six reporters asking questions, the photocopier jamming, and the BBC proclaiming important cricket scores on the “telly.” And all before 8:00 a.m.!

The experience of being here has left me pondering and breathless: I listened and wept as the Bishop of Zimbabwe told the story of his country divided and rent asunder by political egos and power. I perched on scaffolding with a TV cameraman at the very top of Canterbury Cathedral. I attended the Buckingham Palace garden party and was “called out” to meet and chat with the Queen. I felt the enormous amount of pride as the march in support of the Millennium Development Goals started down Whitehall towards the Parliament Buildings in London on July 24.

The Anglican Communion may well have issues and problems that we struggle with, but the march to eradicate poverty and to meet other millennium goals cuts across every divide that we might have. We were able to say that God’s care for the poor and marginalized was truly a priority.

The most important aspect of the Lambeth Conference to my mind is that it is working. No, it will not solve every issue in the communion and we will not now suddenly all “get along” but I believe people are actually listening with their hearts. A wise French author once said, “and now here is my secret, a very simple secret: it is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

What I am seeing here is people listening with their hearts. Pride is moving back a few paces. There are attempts to understand why specific Biblical texts mean a certain thing in a different cultural context and why in different countries certain concepts are such an issue when perhaps in another place this is not so. There is an overall understanding that we are brothers and sisters sharing a common faith in Jesus Christ-this is what the Lambeth Conference has accomplished so far.

Next week will be one of incredible importance to all of us who call ourselves Anglicans. The issues become more sharply defined and each person present will be tempted to crawl back into his or her shell and ignore what others are saying. It will test the hearts and minds of a gifted group of bishops who have come together because they care about proclaiming the good news of Christ in a way that respects the dignity of every human being as our baptismal covenant calls us to do.

It will require dusty knees on all our parts as we lift up our voices in prayer. The preacher at the opening service, Bishop Duleep de Chickera, closed his sermon in a very moving way using a Christian text with a Buddhist chant. Let his song be ours as we and seek the guidance of Holy Spirit for our “beloved church”:

I take refuge in God the Father
I take the refuge in the Son
I take refuge in the Holy Spirit
I take refuge in the Triune God

Lambeth |

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