Hold on to Your Mitres!

(especially you Jen Otto, seeing as how you're still wearing yours)

Well, it's now 16:08, July 15, 2008, and I've officially been in the presence of the Most Rev. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. Anglifamous indeed! We began this morning with a general tying up loose ends meeting. It started with an actual visit by, once again, the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon. He came across to me as incredibly humble. I was amazed, really. You could tell as he stood up though, that he was used to speaking to groups, because once he got going, he was really a quite good speaker. He was only there for a couple minutes though. Then he left. On any other day that would have been the highlight of, well, life. Except, ten minutes later, as we were going through rotations and the like, I noticed out of the corner of my little eye a flash of brilliant white priestly collar, neatly framed by the fantastic and envious beard of His Grace, the Most Rev. Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. Wow. Missed a beat you say? More like stopped beating entirely for about a minute and three quarters! I was shocked, and stunned. I'm still a tad shocked! Anyways, he only stayed for a few minutes, and said some nice words and then left. It's a little bit of a blur at the moment, all I can remember is standing up and smiling, oh, and the beard of course! I haven't formally met him yet, but sometime soon... sometime.

After that, the real work started! Our group spent two hours this morning receiving bishops and carrying luggage. We then went on call and so I got to tape up signs that had already been taped up yesterday. Apparently the tape wasn't sticking very well or something. Now I'm here, and since I go back to work in 40 minutes (at 5:00) and am on duty until 11, I figured I should jot down my thoughts while they're still (smoewhat) coherent.

In other very important news. Bishop Barry has arrived safe and sound! For all those of you wondering, he pulled in this morning, just before lunch, and so I got to eat lunch with him, which was quite exciting. It's always good to see a familiar face from home, and it's even better when that familiar face is your bishop! He looked well, but tired, and he said his flight went well, so hurrah and thank God for that. Well, if there's anything else overwhelmingly exciting, I'll edit this post.

Oh, P.S. - Have I mentioned how many people there are here who are on the ordination track!? Stewards that is. Of course. I would say a great majority of the stewards are planning on being ordained, and a couple already have been! We have at Least two priests and one deacon in the group I believe. It's quite an exciting group to be a part of!

God bless you all,
Thanks again for reading the Blog!
Over and out,

Nick.