The Rt. Rev. Marc Handley Andrus presided over his first convention since becoming Bishop of California on October 21, 2006, at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral. The 157th Annual Convention was packed from beginning to end with the business of electing officers, approving budgets, and the consideration of six resolutions that call the diocese to consider reconciliation and justice as a foundation for its work — all in the context of prayer and of dance.

Would you like to dance?

After prayer and bible study, and some convention housekeeping, Andrus gave his address. In his opening, Andrus invited the diocese to dance. Dance, as a theme, ordered his talk by inviting the diocese to dance its prayer, its relationship with God, its work for justice, its honoring of one another, and its invitation to the other.

Andrus (who is a fiddle player with Cajun roots) called the tune of the dance: The Baptismal Covenant of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, which is the Apostle’s Creed followed by a set of affirmations.The Baptismal Covenant -- Creed and affirmations in spiritual engagement and calls for action -- is the telling of our dance with God, and how the persons of the Trinity dance with one another. Andrus illustrated this by defining the Greek word perichoresis.

“Perichoresis, the round dance of the Trinity,” he said, “suggests not only that our ministry is one of joyful dance, but that it is the work of the Church as community. We, the Christian community known as the Episcopal Diocese of California are called to live not the fragmented lives of the post-modern world, but the intimate dancing life of the Trinity, the dance of joyful possession and dispossession. By “possession and dispossession” I mean first a recognition, a self-awareness of one’s own inner state, and then an opening of that honest realization to others."

For Andrus, the dance is an authentic expression of who we are as Christians, engaging both God and the world in both contemplative and active ways. This is not something that he feels is new for the diocese, in fact, he has discovered that the dance is ongoing in this diocese to the steps of Wisdom Christianity. “As I have looked at the Diocese of California,” Andrus told convention, “I have seen a welter of sustained efforts in the spiritual life, and its twin, the life of God’s justice. I think of Sophia, Wisdom, dancing with God in the creation of all that is.”

Then Andrus named some places where he has observed the interplay of spirituality and justice: in ministries with children, youth, and young adults; and in a diocesan commitment to the Millennium Development Goals.

Then the bishop called the diocese to go even further in this work. Ways to do this would include the commencement of a “diocesan-wide planning process that would be broad-based, rhyzomatic in character, leading to a shared vision, and derived goals, policies and objectives”; entering into companion diocese relationships with a diocese in Asia and one of the Spanish or Portuguese-speaking dioceses of the Global South; planting new churches and strengthening existing ones; and working toward becoming a “truly inclusive Christian community."

He then told convention that he plans to go deeper in two areas of particular interest to him “as a person, a Christian, and as your bishop."

The first of these deeper commitments is environmental stewardship. Andrus pointed out that there was very little mention about the care of creation in the diocesan profile. He told convention that the only comments regarding the environment included in the profile were made by the Rev. Sally Bingham, Executive Director of The Regeneration Project and founder of Interfaith Power and Light. “But perhaps we rely on her too much,” Andrus said. “Perhaps we need to organize better, across the diocese for earth stewardship.” Andrus expressed that care of the environment in the manner of Wisdom Christianity -- with appropriate theological grounding and spiritual reflection -- would appeal to a great number of people in the Bay Area.

His second area of deeper commitment was peacemaking, and more specifically non-violent opposition to the war in Iraq. It is interesting that he did not call on others to act when mentioning this, but he spoke from a very personal perspective. “I want you to know that I will be looking for ways, as the bishop of this diocese, and as an individual Christian, to oppose this war in more effective non-violent ways. It is only fair that you know this.” His remarks about opposition to the war drew a loud and prolonged ovation from the gathering.

He completed his remarks by calling convention to contemplate Rublev’s icon of the Trinity: “The famous image of the three angels seated around the hospitable table of Sarah and Abraham.” He told the gathering that a member of the diocese, Lucia Dugliss, wrote an icon based on Rublev’s Trinity as a gift for Andrus upon the occasion of his investiture, and that the icon would become a central image for the diocesan staff’s new worship space. As the gathering gazed at a projection of Rublev’s icon, he told them that when he looks at the icon he sees “the figures as still, but pregnant with an inner dance of love, the sign of an endless inner conversation of possession and dispossession between the three Persons. May this icon impart the truth and grace of the perichoresis of God to us in the Diocese of California, that the world may be drawn through us into the eternal divine dance.”