true confessions

I confess that when it was announced that Rowan Williams would be the next Archbishop of Canterbury, I was over the moon. I hadn't noticed yet that when it came to matters like whom I'd like to see in a particularly important position, I tend to lapse into the kind of thinking that in dating relationships I call "the most attractive person in the room is the person closest to the opposite of my ex."

I was pleased when it was announced that George Carey would be the next ABC because he favored the ordination of women, and the then-current ABC did not. Then I had years to start getting annoyed with +Carey's anti-intellectual tendencies, conservatism, and distrust of contemporary culture.

When Rowan Williams' name was announced as that of the next ABC, I was thrilled: He's progressive! He *gets* The Simpsons! He's a brilliant academic!

And then I realized that "brilliant" doesn't always translate to "brilliant communicator" -- let alone "brilliant at negotiating church politics."

I just read an article in the Times entitled "Beware the folly of clever men in power." It's harsh. And as someone known as a thinker, it made me shudder a bit.

I'm in the midst of some serious vocation discernment. Just about everyone who's known me for any length of time has thought I'm called to the priesthood, but being in seminary again should give me a chance to think and pray and listen about what kind of priestly ministry might be my vocation -- in the next leg of my journey at least. It's probably key information in that discernment that something I do well -- maybe the thing I do best -- is think. But I'm really not interested in being recognized by some small group of people as being a god or even a great thinker.

What I want to do more than anything else is make a difference in the world. I care about things like global poverty and church unity. I also care about people in my congregation -- where I work when I work in a congregation, where I worship, where I preach and teach, where I live and drink coffee, and in the various cybercommunities in which I participate.

My nightmare is to be really good at seeing Good News for our world and to be about as effective at helping communities to give it flesh as I would be if I scribbled it on cocktail napkins that I buried in the garden. I don't know if I'll ever be a good administrator (I'm at least good enough to hire people who are good at it and give them what they need to do a good job), but I hope at least I'm a good enough communicator to be able to make a difference.

Here's what the Times said in its "tale of two great thinkers/lousy leaders":

They are decent, scholarly and well intentioned. One quickly established himself as The Guardian’s favourite policeman. The other is that same newspaper’s preferred clergyman. Yet the brutal and harsh truth is that both have failed in office. Why? It seems to me that they share two traits.

The first is an inability to communicate in a fashion that others find comprehensible.

This, for example, is Dr Williams discussing God in a recent address. “We need, not human words that will decisively capture what the Word of God has done and is doing, but words that will show us how much time we have to take in fathoming this reality, helping us turn and move and see, from what may be infinitesimally different perspectives, the patterns of light and shadow in a world where the Word’s light has been made manifest.” Er, yes, I suppose. ...

The second trait is an inability to distinguish between having admirers and winning allies. There are plenty of politicians, journalists and other commentators who esteem Sir Ian greatly. They are not, nevertheless, a substitute for the support of police officers. It is fair to say that his predecessor, Sir John Stevens, was never the darling of the chattering classes. His personal standing was somewhat higher, though, where it counted — in the police canteen.

Dr Williams is similarly fêted by those who have read his numerous books about the Almighty. This matters less than the unfortunate reality that he is viewed as weak and inconsistent by factions that threaten to tear the Church asunder.