We can take it

With all the ink. . .er, finger strength. . .that has been spilled into keyboards on the election of Marc Andrus as our new bishop in the Diocese of California, I was trying to come up with a few words of response of my own. But my good friend, classmate, and colleague, The Rev. John Kirkley of St. John the Evangelist, San Francisco, beat me to it. I have little to add to his excellent apologetic piece (in the old sense of apologia) on why he voted for the "straight white male." It's well worth a look-see.

I've been in this diocese long enough to know that we have the stomach to take the divisive rhetoric bouncing around the internet and the media over the election.

If I had to bet good money on it, my guess would be that Bishop Andrus has the stomach for it, too.

From his record, and from what I saw in him during the search process, he seems to recognize that the way forward is to walk into the tension and engage in real, face-to-face, honest relationship and conversation. That's the incarnation in a nutshell: God comes and meets us in the face of Christ -- a face we see in each other, in the stranger, and even in our enemy. It's a reconciling ministry we are all called to. And it's also the place real conversion happens. It may be tough. But it's the Christian way forward. May we learn that even more from him as he arrives as our new leader.