Thank you, dear Companions, for the opportunity to share with you the experiences that I have had over the last 8 years as the wife of the Presiding Bishop. I can think of no community that I would rather address than you, my prayerful and wise sisters, and share what I have observed these 8 years. And  Bonnie, thank you,  for believing that my experience of traveling through the Episcopal Church and the wider Anglican Communion might help us as Companions both individually and together find a way forward while appropriating and responding to the current concepts of Globalization that we have learned over the last several days.

My thesis is this: that we as members of the Episcopal Church are part of a global community because we are a member of the worldwide Anglican Communion and that our Episcopal Church Offices at 815 Second Avenue offer us many bridges to the wider world for the work of transformation and reconciliation that we are called to as Companions. This work of transformation and reconciliation is the missio Dei, God’s mission, in which we are privileged to participate. What I want to do in this talk is to share with you some of what I have learned through experience about how the national programs of the Episcopal Church, facilitated by its staff and budget, opens a door to the world through already existing and emerging structures and demonstrates that these connections are ways that we might respond to the present challenges that face humanity today.

Our church is already part of a global world view. This identity requires us to envision authentic Christian values and practices wherever we are or are called to be in our world. “Where globalization builds community and promotes sharing of resources, the church may cooperate. Where globalization dehumanizes persons and erodes vital community, the church is called to resist and to insist on Christ’s promise of a more abundant live.” (Companions in Transformation; The Episcopal Church’s World Mission in a New Century p.13)  The Church values the human person as a precious child of God and is the central focus for building communities as systems of justice for the nurturing of and full flourishing of human potential.

Therefore, I will try to draw you, dear women friends, into a world view where our Society’s vocational statement, for the purpose of this thesis only, would say, “We are a community of women, Christ’s disciples called by God to a life of prayer, transformation, and reconciliation, within ourselves, within our companionship, within the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, within our faith communities and within the whole creation.”  I think that these two additions, the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion open the door to some of the ways that we might live out our vocation in the 21st century.

A story from Honduras

I would like to start with a story to illustrate my thesis. In the fall of 1998, Frank and I were in the Diocese of Northern Indiana making one of our first diocesan convention visits when the news of the devastation of hurricane Mitch in the Caribbean was announced. (Over the last eight years, he has visited 80 dioceses and I have accompanied him to most.) The diocese of Honduras is part of the Episcopal Church even though it is not part of the US. There was tremendous concern as people listened to the tales through the internet from Bishop Frade of the total destruction of villages, farm land, livestock, roads, bridges, and airports.  The Diocese of Indiana had built a church in Honduras that had just been washed away and the members of the Diocese of Northern Indiana were gathering clothing, food and life’s necessities and were taking them by truck, all the way to Honduras. Different peoples in different parts of the world had forged relationships that fostered care and responsibility to each other. I thought – I have to be there! The whole Episcopal Church has to be there! How can we help? When we returned to New York, I together with the then interim head of Episcopal Relief and Development (then called the Presiding Bishop’s Fund) and Companion, Nan Cobbey, flew immediately to the Diocese of Honduras. This was about 5 days after the hurricane had subsided.

This was my first time to see a country and a people hit by one of the worst natural disasters in their history. The poor were impacted the most as they lived next to streams that had turned to roiling monsters and taken away all they had, including their livestock and the very land they lived on. You learn to assess a flood by looking for the mud line, on children’s legs, on the sides of houses, and there, you learned to look up into the tree tops and telephone lines to see how far the waters has risen. The trees tops were filled with plastic bags and the lines draped with scraps of clothing and other debris. The second day there we went with the Cathedral congregation of San Pedro Sula in the back of a pick up truck accompanying a huge van that was filled with bags of donated food. We went down washed out roads, crossed huge gullies that were once trickling streams to a village where no one had yet brought help. There we stood in the back of the van and gave out bags of food to the families. Each bag was named for a family because the Cathedral ministered to these villagers and knew their names. As the name was called out, I had the intense privilege of handing the bag over to the family. As I did this I whispered to myself, “The Body of Christ”.

I returned several months later and because of your generosity, the generosity of the Episcopal Church to Episcopal Relief and Development and our hard working Honduran partners, land was bought, a new community named “Faith, Hope and Joy” was built with over 100 homes complete with running water for the victims of this hurricane. You will be proud to know that the young woman who is responsible for leading this work, Abagail Nelson, is the daughter of companion Lynn Nelson. She accompanied her Mom to a Companion’s meeting and I sat next to her and we talked. She was looking to change jobs from her high powered work in banking and wanted something that would connect her expertise in global development with the church. She has been immensely successful. There is now a school and a church and a local committee directing the flourishing of this new village. Many people from our Church here in the US made this happen both with financial support and thousands of volunteer hours. Making connections in order to be companions in transformation is all about God’s mission.

What I learned from this experience was that is was easy to access our Church family in a different part of the world. It was a matter of a telephone call. Honduras is still a part of ECUSA and this made it even easier to connect. The access existed through the Episcopal Church Center at 815 Second Avenue (several floors below where Frank and I live!) Church structures, though in different countries, are often very similar – lay people, bishops, priests, deacons with synods and conventions -and are one of the great gifts and challenges of who we are in this Anglican family today. Therefore we can figure out how to access the local institution. There are of course some profound differences in these connections based on context and history but we found similarities in that:

• Parish life has similar programs with women, education, and outreach with which to form alliances and to collaborate to meet challenges together.
• Dioceses in other countries have parallel institutions such as diocesan schools and hospitals through which you can make connections in order to make common cause.
• If you learn through the media, perhaps Episcopal Life or Episcopal News Service on line or from friends of a tragedy or political upheaval somewhere in the world, and you feel called to that place, you can pick up the phone and dial 1-800-334-7626 and find that most often, we, the Episcopal Church, have family there with enough similarities to our experiences where you can build relationships. We can be with those who are suffering as an antidote to those forces that tear at human life and start to be a companion with others of healing and wholeness.

The Anglican Communion works as people form relationships, friendships, companionships and accompany each other in the work of God’s mission. It is the family ties through membership in Christ’s body that bring us unity, not the structures. The structures are there to foster relationships but most of all they are there to serve the relationships, not visa versa.

Did you know that The Anglican Communion spans 165 countries and embraces approximately 75 million people who are organized into 38 regional or national Provinces? The history, the structures and the identity of the Anglican Communion create accessible networks, roads if you will, over which we can travel in order to live out the mission of the Church which is to “restore all people to unity with God and each other.” Were you aware that the Offices of the Episcopal Church residing at 815 Second Avenue are the gateways to the global Anglican Communion through the Programs established by General Convention every three years through policy and budget? that the programs of our National Church and the staff are a servant ministry, serving the will of General Convention and its resolutions? that these programs address the healing of our world and that they are very accessible to anyone hearing a call to be engaged globally with the mission of transformation and reconciliation?

I have seen by traveling throughout our Episcopal Church in the US that we, as the church, have been given gifts, particular gifts which I call “charisms”. Someday I would like to write a book about the particular charims that are at the heart of our identity now. I see these gifts as given by God to be shared for the reconciling of his world. I think that the greatest charism that we possess today in the Episcopal Church is the charism of the Anglican Communion. Charisms are freely given by God and therefore they are to be freely given away. They are consistent with ones history and they are the next steps in deepening of ones identity or vocation in Christ. As Gail Goodwin says, “vocation makes more of you!” I believe that our vocation at this point in history as the Episcopal Church is to take seriously our membership in the global family of the Anglican Communion. At this point in time, we are connected like no other faith community through webs of relationships with people all over the world. As we learn to share these global connections with our local communities and engage ourselves in the wider Anglican family we will meet the diversity of God’s Kingdom which we value so highly. As we come face to face with the differences in our very own Anglican family we change and grow and we become deeper and participate in the transformation to which we have dedicated ourselves. I believe that it is to our own peril and that of the Communion itself not to understand our global family and not to live in the deepest of familial relationships with them. The Anglican Communion is the arena into which we have been invited at this seminal moment in history.

In response to Elaine Hartwick’s earlier presentation on globalization at this conference, I would like to name briefly some of the ways that I see our National Church programs responding to the realities of both productive and destructive effects of globalization. I will give you quotations from the staff themselves whom I interviewed for this talk – asking them how their department’s work addresses issues of globalization. I have included a brochure for each department that I will mention along with a map of the Anglican Communion.

Episcopal Relief and Development

“Through ERD, we cross boundaries and cultures and in partnership with local peoples we create programs that address their needs. Development is very different today. We can’t just support the coffee grower. We have to connect her to the global market in order to sell her product. In South Africa we have a program that worked with an indigenous waterfront community to claim their own land for an eco-tourist site which stood up to multi-nationals taking the entire beach front. By joining with other faith based organizations we can magnify our impact. As Christians, we advocate for the marginalized.”
Abagail Nelson and Janette O’Neill, Program Directors  

Episcopal Migration Ministries

“National and international political and economic agendas too often fail to account for the forces that place millions of persons in jeopardy in their attempt to lead full and productive lives. The work of Episcopal Migration Ministries is to address the crises of forcibly uprooted persons through resettlement, advocacy and outreach. Parishes welcome the stranger and develop intimate relationships with refugees through a program of sponsorship carried out in 27 dioceses of the Episcopal Church.”
Richard Parkins, Director

Episcopal Public Policy Network

“The Episcopal Church’s Washington Office was the point location for mounting the crusade for Debt Relief as we are seen as the most globally savvy and unencumbered by a denominational agenda. Joining the Episcopal Public Policy Network can make an instant lobbyist out of you!”
Maureen Shea, Director for Government Relations and Brian
Grieves, Director of Peace and Justice Ministries

Women’s Ministries

“The positive side of our communication technology is that it equalizes us in ways we have not known. More important, for us as women of privilege, we begin to know that our money and our education and whatever else we have do not give us anything special. In fact it makes us realize how much we need to learn and if we pay attention to it, we understand and participate in the lives of others in a more empathic way. I believe that we begin to think of the church as a truly global entity and not in terms of outreach or how we can help those less fortunate than we.”
Margaret Rose, Director

Mission Personnel

“Missionaries are sacraments of Christ in relationship and they live as companions in solidarity with the suffering. We have 103 missionaries in 32 countries They establish hospitals, start schools, work in churches. Showing up means volumes! Their vision statement booklet is called “Companions in Transformation.” One missionary in Uganda sees herself as the embodiment of American Anglicanism as she assists AIDS victims with resources. We can export our values or we can export our valueless ness. Over the last 185 years, the majority of our missionaries have been women.”  Jane Butterfield, Mission Personnel Officer

Anglican and Global Relations

“Our department is called Anglican and global RELATIONS. We companion those in our larger church in work, prayer and hope. Notice how many of the staff heading departments started their careers in the field. Many of us have spent much time in other parts of the world as missionaries.” Margaret Larom, Director

United Thank Offering

“The United Thank Offering stays connected to the overseas dioceses and provinces of the Anglican Communion through our granting process.  We can help churches all over the world to expand programs and to build churches, schools and hospitals.  It has been most gratifying to me to visit countries like Panama and the Dominican Republic and to see schools built by the UTO 40-50 years ago which are still an important part of the local church’s work in the community.  We respond to needs identified by dioceses and provinces so that they can strengthen their infrastructure to serve their local communities.”  JoAnne Chapman, UTO Coordinator

The Representation of Women in decision making bodies

If we are to address the many problems that confront humanity, particularly within the framework of what we are learning about globalization, we are going to have to use all our human resources and potential in imagining and bringing effective solutions to these pressing challenges of both destructive and constructive globalization. We are going to have to think strategically about where is the best place to put our individual and collective energies to affect the kinds of changes we hope for. All humanity must participate in God’s mission of transformation and reconciliation.  What I have observed is that women, their voices and gifts, are not adequately represented at the decision making tables of our National and International church. Therefore their gifts, insights and agendas are not shaping the policies formed at those tables and their voices are not heard in the public church arenas. I suggest that this omission once corrected will open up unimagined riches of ideas and solutions for the flourishing of humanity in our world. What women are about matters profoundly and is fundamentally important to the nature of Communion because women’s primary agenda is about relationships to suffering people which must be what occupies the largest part of our energy and resources. Women’s presence will shift the current agenda dominated by power struggles and theological dispute.

A Global Women’s Movement

I came into this chapter of my life when Frank was elected the Presiding Bishop convinced that women have particular gifts unique to them, charisms that need to be named, nurtured and shared with the world. I had read a lot about women’s spirituality and observed that what the scholars and theologians in women’s studies said was true. Women build their spiritual lives from their experience and their experiences are forged in relationships with others. The basis for how we name and know God is built from the truths we experience in our lives. After all, isn’t the foundation of faith a relationship with God rather than a set of theological assertions? Through these relationships gathered in communities, we find vocation, insight, energy and courage. It is in relationships and community that energy and courage are nurtured to define our ministries and claim our vocations. That is just how our Companion vocation statement begins, “We are a community of women…”  Since one of the salient marks of destructive globalization is the dehumanizing of people and treating them as commodities rather than people, our dearly held value of human relationships is sorely needed not only to rehumanize the world but to build unbreakable bonds among women in the Anglican Communion. The structures to bring women together face to face from around the Communion do not exist. I have been profoundly disturbed by this and am participating in a new women’s movement for our global church.

Again, I would like to illustrate this movement with several short stories.
One of the first visits Frank and I made outside of the USA was to Israel and Palestine. Before these visits, we are briefed to be prepared for what we will be seeing and doing. I realized in the briefing that there was no mention of visiting women. So I asked if I might meet some of the Palestinian women. That was easily arranged and I met with a group of women at St. George’s Cathedral in Jerusalem. As our press officer said, he learned more about the condition of families, women and children at that session then he learned at any other high level talk. I made dear friends at that time with women whom I have prayed for and tried to support here in our Church. I yearned to see these friends again and to see how they were doing. It was a joy to see them two months ago and yet I was deeply saddened to see how their lives were even more difficult because of the regulations of the present occupation. I continue to support our family in the Diocese of Jerusalem because my heart is engaged with the women there. My experience has been that this is a ministry of standing with others who suffer. The political solutions seem to escape us, but being in relationship with those who suffer is something we can do.

Knowing that I had to ask to meet with women, I have done so on many occasions. When Frank and I visited Nigeria (Companion Nan Cobbey from Episcopal Life was along) and Uganda, I was taken to meet many Mother’s Union gatherings of 50 to 500 women.  The Mother’s Union is the women’s organization, first established in England,  that has a huge global reach and effectiveness. The women are the providers of the social service work for their churches. It is amazing what they have accomplished with schools, particularly for girls, health care, vocational training and marital counseling. They build huge social service centers for these projects with practically no financial resources. Sadly, these are now two provinces where Frank and I are currently not welcome. But what has struck me around the Communion is the enormous disconnect between the numbers of women in churches who carry out the work and the shockingly small numbers of women in leadership positions.

The Anglican Communion, as one historian said, “Just happened!” It is an organic system made up of a fellowship or communion of churches which is constantly evolving. The structures that hold us together and that speak for us are emerging in the same way. There is no overarching plan for how the institution of the Anglican Communion should look. Instead,  there are several threads that define the Communion and these bodies make observations and recommendations about the structures. One of these threads is known as the four Instruments of Unity. They are the Archbishop of Canterbury, the 38 Primates, the Lambeth Conference, a gathering of 700 bishops every ten years and the Anglican Consultative Council a representative body of both lay and clerical from each of the 38 Provinces. Of these 800 plus people who sit at the decision making tables of our global church, 30 are women! I think that this is a question of gender -injustice because of the lack of representation for the majority of the Communion.

Equally important is the mind boggling absence of those gifts that women bring, the greatest of which is perhaps our natural bent to connecting and building relationships from which spring the joy and energy and courage to fix things and the wisdom to name those immediate challenges to the welfare of the whole creation. If women were to intentionally focus on embracing and building relationships throughout the world wide Anglican Communion, I believe that we would experience the awe-some power known as communion. We would release this power for the benefit of the whole world. Is not relationship the very heart of the incarnation as God sent his beloved Son to be in relationship with us?

I like to imagine ourselves, women, as the unofficial fifth instrument of unity in the Anglican Communion without getting caught up in the structural battles going on. Because we are not about structures, but about relationships, our instrument is fundamentally different. Let me illustrate what I am saying by offering what I would be so bold as to suggest is one of the most significant movements in the Anglican Communion today, a world wide community of women gathered under the auspices of the Anglican Observer to the UN in partnership with the Office for Women’s Ministries and several other offices at the National Church Center called Anglican Women’s Empowerment (AWE). This group was created initially to enable women from around the Communion to attend the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (UNCSW) and has been meeting for the last two years.  The blue print for the work of these meetings is the Beijing Platform for Action. In 2005 the themes were Men and Boys in Gender Equity and Women  in the Peace Process, the basis of which  is the assumption that those who have made war are the least equipped to make peace. This coming year, 2006, the theme is women’s health and education and women in leadership. In 2004, 40 women attended, 15 from the wider Communion, and this year 81 women attended, 41 from the wider communion. We had the largest non profit delegation at the UN. You would have been proud of your Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion for their contributions both in presentations from their local regions and in their political savvy to help shape the outcome so that the re-affirmation of the Beijing Platform was not derailed by the US. Our delegates prepared statements about women’s representation and issues they cared about. The immediate result has been recommendations presented to The Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) in June, all of which were passed and in fact some were strengthened. Gender Equity as stated in the Millennium Development Goals was adopted by the ACC and all church bodies are to work towards the realization of this goal. It is a seismic statement for our Communion.

We are a community of women, Christ’s disciples called by God to a life of prayer, transformation, and reconciliation, with ourselves, within our companionship, within our Episcopal Church, within our Anglican Communion, within our faith communities and within the whole creation.  Where does our vocational statement take us as women and members of our Episcopal Church and world wide Anglican Communion? What I have experienced more than anything else over these last 8 years is that in this seemingly chaotic time in our history, not knowing the whole picture and being constantly bombarded by disturbing news, that we as a community of Christian women throughout the world can choose as Christ’s disciples to lead people to transformation and reconciliation. And where do we start? The delegate from Burundi said that in her country when a young girl is overwhelmed with her mother’s instructions to sweep the hard red clay in front of their hut, the mother says, “Just start sweeping at your feet!”

I would like to share with you the voice of The Rev. Joyce Kariuki from Kenya who preached at our final liturgy. She used the story of the Hebrew queen, Esther. Powerfully she told the story of the Hebrew woman who became Queen while she and her people were in exile. With great courage Esther entered the court of the King unbidden, an act punishable by death, in order to plea for her people. And she said, “I will go to the king although it is against the law; if I perish, I perish.” She didn’t perish. She was heard by the king and she saved her people. But what Joyce said that struck us all was the advice of Mordecai, Esther’s uncle.  She heard it as the word of God and so did we. Mordecai challenged Esther to go to the king, “Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for such a time as this.” And then Joyce turned and spoke directly to us, “Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for such a time as NOW!” And so we have.