Elegy for the light spectrum
Equality isn’t the main issue, at least for me. I’m not yearning this morning to be considered equal in status or law with my brother Christians, I’m not yearning for a place at the high table in the ecclesial banqueting hall, I’m not even yearning to wear episcopal claret with legitimacy, even though it is my very best colour. I know I am created in God’s image, fallen from grace, and a recipient of mercy – like the rest of you.
I’m aching for the fullness of light in church life. For the whole of the light spectrum to be displayed.
It’s the homogeneity that gets me down. At any Diocesan gathering, the voices from the front are bass and baritone and tenor, the voice modulation is minimal. The colours are Marks and Spencers conservative: grey, sombre blue, black (with a nod to bishop’s pink…). The composition of the speech is linear, formal, measured, controlled. Body language is restrained, facial expression graven. Attitudes are reasoned, earth-bound, cerebral. It makes me want to scream.
God created a spectrum of light: the light spectrum is surely a reflection of the infinitely variegated, inseparably combined, mind-melting glory of the Trinity.
I want the church to dance. I want it to move and sway, to cry and laugh, to gurn and grin and be mischievous. I want it to be colourful. I want it to be creative and whimsical, imaginative and expressive – I want it to be like a trembling hot-air balloon that breaks free from its moorings and runs wild on the wind.
I’m aware I’m generalising and I know some men in leadership model and promote and give permission for all the above. I am deeply grateful to you, my beloved. And I guess when people were making up their minds whether to vote ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to women in the episcopate they may not have had runaway hot-air balloons in mind.
I value what men bring and have brought to the leadership of the church for the past 2000 years. But they are only half the spectrum of light. Which half, I’ll let you decide!
I want to go to Diocesan gatherings and watch the Bishop pick up her skirts and polka. I want her to wipe away tears as she speaks about national grief, I want her to wear a brilliant silk scarf as she addresses TV cameras. I want her to giggle with school children, to preach with the whole of her body, and talk about the life of faith in terms of pregnancy and birth and breast-feeding.
I know I’m generalising, and some women in leadership wouldn’t do any of the above. To be honest, I may just be talking about myself! But I’m sticking my neck out to say I think without more women in high profile roles the church will never be seen in full technicolour, and never represent in its body the immeasurable beauty of God.
So maybe this is it: maybe the coming years of waiting are for the next generation of potential women leaders to find the freedom to be bishops in a different way. A way that resurrects the greyed-out half of the rainbow.
