One Canterbury Tale

We’ve been back from England a week, and I still feel like one of those contraptions — a computer screen, mostly — that shows a spinning wheel and a message saying, “Still processing.” What a lot there was to take in, on many levels. And I sense there won’t be a moment anytime soon when I pronounce the operation fully complete. Trying to integrate what I experienced with what I already know about life in general and my life in particular will not happen quickly. What I got is a kind of crash course in the importance of being able to choose, in any particular new situation involving a whole lot of people and events, what will and what will not provide nourishment for the soul — especially when you wear the badge of “spouse.”

Taking Part, Partly

I was only at the Lambeth Conference in Canterbury for the final three days — just a fraction of the 12 days that hundreds of bishops from all over the world, and their spouses — spent there. You could say that, in terms of the length of my participation in this major event, I logged in this way:

Fortunately, nobody was keeping tabs on this kind of thing; couples were completely free to make their own decisions. The fact that there was a “Spouse Programme” for the entire 12 days didn’t necessarily dictate that all spouses were expected to attend for that length of time…but plenty of them did. I have no way of knowing how many opted out completely. However, I’m aware that at least several bishops and/or their spouses chose not to attend to acknowledge the fact that spouses of gay bishops were not invited to participate fully in the Conference. Months ago, in fact, Rob had a correspondence with the Archbishop of Canterbury noting the inconsistency of inviting me, a spouse who has never been baptized, and not gay spouses who might be very active in church life.

By choosing to arrive for the final few days, I was doing what I often try to do, especially since becoming a wife and then a mother: juggle priorities. I wanted to experience a portion of the long-awaited Conference, alongside my husband, going for some solidarity with him as well as getting to see some mutual friends and meet new people, too. I also knew that staying in a small dorm room, eating in a cafeteria and following the full schedule of plenary sessions for the full quantity of days there would feel, for me anyway, like too much Anglican Communion.

Rob and I have, shall we say, distinctly different levels of engagement with the Church: this is a salient fact and also a peculiarity of our marriage. We’ve managed it as best we can; it is our truth. And it is always love that wins the day.

Looking back, I must say that my eagerness to plunge in to the whole thing was striking. Then again, I’d come all this way and I wasn’t about to stay on the sidelines.

Trying to Find My Table

On the first morning I arrived at the sprawling University of Kent campus, having slept only a little on the flight over and nodding off during the two-hour limousine ride from Heathrow (the driver took the M-something) I was determined to find “my” Bible Study group at the Spouse Venue — one of the many large buildings generally populated by undergraduates but now used on a daily basis by the Conference. Rob, who had gallantly left whatever session he was in and hurried way across the campus to meet me, understandably thought that it would be enough for me to just get registered and then dip in where I could. In a way, mine was a ridiculous goal: these individuals at Table 6 had been meeting morning after morning for many days now, reading their way through 1 Peter (as were the bishops, in another location), building relationships with one another. And I was going to waltz in for the tail end of their discussions? Plus, never in my life before, after 30 years married to a clergyman, had I ever been in a Bible Study group. This was a first.

It took a combination of nerve and chutzpah, with some degree of a muddled sleep-deprived brain, too.

But look, I did it.

They greeted me so warmly that I felt taken right in by this group of individuals from England, Scotland, the U.S., Ghana and New Zealand. Nobody asked me why I was such a latecomer, so I didn’t explain. We proceeded to talk about a passage having to do with a shepherd tending a flock, and although it was brand new to me, I didn’t hold back. Since it was the penultimate day that the group would be together, there was even some sharing of gifts, which of course I hadn’t known anything about beforehand. Really, they couldn’t have been nicer; my instinct to find a community within the vastness of the Conference had been spot on.

Beware of Sticky Notes

My mood took a hit, though, when I wandered around the huge room afterwards. I noticed that on previous days, groups must have worked on collaborative posters, many on the topic of how we define the role of bishop’s spouse. Take a look at this one:

You don’t need to be able to read what’s on all those sticky notes to feel, as I did, overwhelmed by the sheer number of them. If it were about my life, the one that said, “dog walker” would have been way, way bigger and many others non-existent. And I don’t think I recall even one saying something like “pursuing my own career” or “finding meaningful work for myself” up there; maybe I missed it. In truth, even the heading — “Dynamics of a Spouse’s Role ” — was intimidating. Do we start with a basic agreement that there is in fact a particular “role” for someone married to a bishop that is, even in a subtle way, already determined? Or do we as individuals, along with our partners, get to work this out completely on our own?

Since I’d missed the session when this had been created, I don’t know how lively the conversation around it was, how many different perspectives were shared; but I knew that after gazing at this creation for just a few minutes, I felt dizzy. Wanting to retrieve the good feeling I’d had back at the table of new acquaintances who had extended such a hearty welcome, I made my way back there.

When there was a major address given, often by the Archbishop of Canterbury himself, generally about some aspect of the Church making its way into the future, bishops and spouses sat together in a huge athletic complex. These were substantive lectures, and sometimes I even took notes (not sure how I would use these in the future). But it was when I had a chance to get to know another spouse even a little bit, sometimes even just walking from session to session, that I felt my spirit rise the most. Here I am with two women from different cities in Mexico. When I mentioned that my son had just returned from a fabulous trip there, they were eager to send a photo to him.

These were lovely moments of serendipitous connections. We likely won’t see one another again, but you never know.

Once, not Twice, to the Cathedral

On the schedule for the final day was a concluding worship service to be held at Canterbury Cathedral, a massive structure built in the 11th century and made especially famous in literature by Chaucer’s band of pilgrims. Conference attendees had accustomed themselves to the two-mile walk between the campus and the town.

Since Rob and I had taken a tour of the historic place, everyone holding candles for a descent into the crypt, just the evening before, I found that I wasn’t especially eager to return. After he led me to a field where I could do some laps around a parched track (the brittle grass was crying out for rain, everywhere) and he continued on for a longer run, it became clear to me what I must do for the rest of the afternoon: not much.

“I think I’ll pass on going to the service,” I told him when we re-convened. His reply was so welcome that it might have well been a soaking shower: “OK, that’s fine; you don’t need to go. Do whatever you want and when I get back we’ll pack for London.” A few hours later, refreshed from my solo time, I walked down to watch for him as he returned over the dry fields.

The Lambeth Conference, writ large, was about “God’s Church for God’s World.” What I learned is that, whatever the broad goals are for people living in different parts of the globe, it’s best not to overlook the need to care for oneself and one’s partner, as individuals and as one small unit, too. A lot of magic happens in these spaces.

Do you recall a time when you instinctively understood which parts of an experience would “work” for you and which parts you’d best leave to others?