Sarah Hey writes movingly, comparing the Episcopalian cause to a "little stone bridge":
For some very strange reason, a number of us -- a small unit -- are being told to fight for or over this bridge. It is a pitched battle, full of hurled insults and cyber bloodshed, tactical actions, retreats by some [or perhaps calls back to their camp to await further orders], logistics and communications challenges, going awol, unexpected heroism, despair, and much more. We keep waiting for further orders, but so far the same command keeps reaching us -- to hold the bridge...
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There's a reason why I love the excerpt from Teddy Roosevelt's Speech at the Sorbonne which I posted so many days ago. I struggle with practical action and love more the world of ideas and creativity. And as a person who has tended to avoid conflict at all costs, I am certainly similar to that young lord in my favorite line of that speech's excerpt, who "but for the vile guns would have been a valiant soldier.".
So we ask the question. Why on earth are we out here fighting over this little stone bridge?
I will leave the theologizing and the philosophizing and the issues of Truth and the gospel to other minds, for now, although I have some arguments along those lines. Instead I'll address the question with some very practical responses.
First, we must take note that our Worthy Opponents are in the thick of the battle too. They seem to want this little stone bridge with a great deal of fervor, and all of us must ponder that fact and speculate as to why. I won't speculate, other than to say that we are fighting over this little stone bridge because it is greatly desired by others. That in itself is noteworthy.
I suspect that this particular little bridge is of interest for a number of reasons -- it is little, for one, and thus easily captured. It is crumbling, so that is attractively weak, yet still carries the troops from one bank of the river to the other and so is a useful vehicle. And for a number of decades its bridgekeepers and watchers were somewhat . . . slumberous, shall we say.
Second, once ground is taken, and territory conquered, battle-hardened units don't generally set up fine, plush camps, smoke pipes, and cook gourmet food. They don't establish themselves there . . . they rest a little, tend their wounds, and move on.
In other words, they advance their flag, and seek other territory to conquer. The little stone bridge over which they had fought so vigorously the day before, they now use as a launching pad, as a base of operations, from which to field more forces. The leader may establish a base camp, a field operation camp, but he only does so in order to send more troops into battle farther out into the woods, and the fields beyond.
There is a reason, for instance, why the national secular media presents two sides to the Episcopal church issue, rather than *one side* and that is because full rulership of the Episcopal church has not at all been fully established. The church is not able to "speak its prophetic voice" to the culture, without another voice piping up from within saying "that's not true and here's why" -- or, to say it another way, "we're not dead yet". If you think this is not a source of endless frustration to the powers-that-be -- that they are unable to make pronouncements without having that very annoying voice *from within* clogging up their news articles -- then I urge you to ponder just how vexed *you* would be if in your organization, your corporation, the same thing were happening. Most such "annoying voices" are your outside competitors, not your internal employees! ; > )
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What about those who have left this particular little stone bridge or are thinking about leaving?
First, I say go with God, brother or sister in Christ, if you receive other orders. You are a worthy ally, and no doubt we shall meet again on some other field or plain. And second, I hope that you learned whatever it was you were supposed to learn while fighting this battle -- that is, as long as you were fighting it. Because if you were sitting under a shady oak tree and sipping dry martinis when you suddenly heard the sound of warfare a few yards downstream, and having just recently noted the battle, have now suddenly discovered new orders to other more comfortable climes . . . I somehow suspect that those orders have been forged and that you have not at all learned what you were meant to learn.
I am reminded of an early blog comment some time back in 2004, I believe, when a man posted on some site the happy news that he was "outta here" and on to a much better place. He could finally cease all of this silly, and useless fighting over an unworthy trivial corrupt Episcopal church, because he had crossed the Tiber and joined the Roman Catholic church.
He had not learned a crucial lesson, one that I suspect that God wants us all to learn.
I considered a response -- it would have been somewhat cruel, I am sorry to say -- but before I could do so, someone else had piped up with a comment along these lines:
"Welcome, brother. We hope you find rest and refreshment here on the shores of the Tiber. It is a beautiful place. Cast yourself down on its grassy banks and rest a while. . . . . But after you've rested -- and please don't do so for very long -- get up, strap back on your armor, and get back into the battle. We have a whole lot of fighting to do in this church and it is under assault as well."
Sweet! ; > )
But that leads me to what I think is a lesson I've been learning and that is . . . you're not going to leave the battle for long. Wherever you go -- there you are. And there'll be something fierce, something hideous, something demoralizing, something that seems doomed all over again, to fight your heart out for.
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A commenter named Ramon follows up:
I watched this battle from across the Tiber as I am an orthodox Roman Catholic but let me tell you, as you so aptly pointed out in your analogy above, this is a battle and indeed whether one is a orthodox Anglican or an orthodox Roman Catholic, we indeed are fighting much the same battle. From my perspective, you and many other folks are truly fighting a valiant rear-guard action and I am cheering you on.
At West Point we studied many battles in which “a little stone bridge” was at stake. The 300 Spartans at Thermopyle died to a man, including their King Leonidas, not because they thought they could defeat 20,000 Persians, but because they had committed themselves to slow the Persian advance, their own little stone bridge. They did die but what they showed the world was that an “irresistable” force was not so irresistable in the face of resolute courage and determination and that lesson was well learned by the rest of the Greeks. Darius, the Persian King, didn’t last very long in the Greek peninsula and while the battle was “lost” (I would argue that strategically it won the war by breaking the Persian myth of invincibility).
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