End of Term

There’s an end of term feeling around today.  Tomorrow still has a full programme which ends with the Service in Canterbury Cathedral – after which we’ll be nipping through the Tunnel to worship for a short while at the shrine of ‘Culte Carla’.

Not really a moment for assessment and evaluation.  Except to say that I think that many of the participants here have rediscovered the much-vaunted ‘bonds of affection’ and therefore are feeling rather less affection for the idea of Anglican Covenant.  But, as one of the hymns this morning said, we need somehow to ‘disentangle peace from pain’.

And how do I feel about it all?  Well on many levels, it’s been one of the truly great experiences – an extraordinary meeting of the world church and a great privilege to be part of it.  The Bible Study Group will remain the pinnacle of that.  It was at times a sublime experience.  If you’ve been reading regularly, you’ll know that I have said some hard things about the process of the Conference and I still feel that.  But this has been ‘one person’s view’ of Lambeth and it doesn’t diminish in any way my gratitude to the organisers and the stewards for the extraordinary amount of devoted work they have done to make this happen.

Thank you for reading – and for the comments.  I’m a bit blog-spent now so I’m going to take a break until we regain the peace of Blogstead mid-month.