At last! A new ABC...

It's been a long time coming, but yesterday it came, the announcement of the next Archbishop of Canterbury to succeed the much maligned Justin Welby. I hadn't expected it, but the choice of Dame Sarah Mullally, the Bishop of London, seems to me inspired - amazing though it may seem that such a cumbersome instrument as the Crown Nominations' Commission might have been led to a Spirit-led conclusion. (Maybe the Roman Conclave even if a lot speedier has also proved itself inspired.) 

As readers will know, I have in my enforced leisure hours spent more time than I probably should in following the Church of England's parliament, General Synod (which is, by the way, in my opinion a dreadful way to run a church!). And it's there I have watched Sarah Mullally in action as well as hearing a sermon of hers, and she strikes me as being calm, compassionate, firmly moderate and enormously Christian. Friends who serve or have served in London churches respect and like her, even if they don't always agree with her. And she certainly has a record of caring and bringing life into the world.

However I am sure of two things. First that even now there will be journalists desperately digging for any dirt they can unearth to throw at her. And second, sadly, there will be certain churches and sectors within the Anglican church, both here and abroad, who will disavow allegiance to the Church of England which has a woman archbishop. However I was encouraged by what one conservative commentator said, even before the announcement, "The Archbishop is not the head of the Church; God is."

Finally considering the wait we've had for the appointment, I was reminded of the old saying about the mills of God grinding slowly, but extremely fine. I think its origins are to do with retribution but the poet and hymn-writer, John Oxenham ("In Christ there is no east or west"), used it in a more positive sense in a poem I'd not met before, Flowers of the Dust.

"The Mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small--
So soft and slow the great wheels go they scarcely move at all;
But the souls of men fall into them and are powdered into dust,
And in that dust grow the Passion-Flowers--Love, Hope, Trust.

Most wondrous their upspringing, in the dust of the Grinding-Mills,
And rare beyond the telling the fragrance each distils.
Some grow up tall and stately, and some grow sweet and small,
But Life out of Death is in each one--with purpose grow they all.

For that dust is God's own garden, and the Lord Christ tends it fair,
With oh, such loving tenderness! and oh, such patient care!
In sorrow the seeds are planted, they are watered with bitter tears,
But their roots strike down to the Water-Springs and the Sources of the
Years.

These flowers of Christ's own providence, they wither not nor die,
But flourish fair, and fairer still, through all eternity.
In the Dust of the Mills and in travail the amaranth seeds are sown,
But the Flowers in their full beauty climb the Pillars of the Throne." 

One friend called this the dawn of a new day. Another friend commented on her assurance that "the c of e would be safe in her hands". Amen. May it be so.