Grrr, this is the second time in two days I've had to rewrite a post because Typepad was down and ate my post when I hit save - no way to go back and save it some other way.
But anyway, Nedi Rivera's consecration yesterday was, to put it in the vernacular, frickin' awesome. It was a great privilege to be a chalice bearer (there were 42 of us, two each at 21 stations...) I'd never been to the consecration of a bishop before, so it was fascinating seeing the many little rituals - many more than I expected. But more than that, I sat with a whole bunch of female priests during the three hour service. It was also interesting to see the service through these female priests around me. Every new section of the service brought forth a few insightful comments or, more usually, tears of joy. Heck, I was so choked up that I ended up with a sinus headache by the end of the service.
One of them said after the actual consecration that she was finally done crying. I said I bet she wasn't, and I was right. We had a short chat during the half-time break (aka the peace) and I asked her what it was exactly that was affecting her so much. She said she'd been ordained 21 years ago and that today was a very different church than she'd been ordained into. In a good way, of course.
Nedi is the twelfth female Episcopal bishop, and according to the priest on my left, the first whose consecration didn't feature a protest. Nedi's father, also a bishop, has been a steadfast opponent of women's ordination, but he was there and was one of the twenty or so bishops to lay hands on her during the consecration, and he gave her his cope as a gift at the end of the service.
Relative to emerging church issues, I was talking to Nedi at the reception afterwards and mentioned that I knew Bob Carlton (she hired him in San Francisco) via the blogging world and that I'd be meeting him at the emergent convention. We talked about that briefly and she figured she might go if she can work it around her visitation schedule... So watch out. How'd you like a female Episcopal bishop at the emerging women's leadership breakfast/lunch whatever it is?
