View of "The Battery" on the Charleston waterfront, where I lived the first few months of my life.

I have been reading comments on the Episcopal News Service regarding moves by the Diocese of South Carolina to secede from the Episcopal Church. Big mistake! There is a kind of demonic frenzy that pervades those polemical postings, and it feels creepily contagious. I know it is folly to try to hide from unpleasant realities, but there are times when I share the psalmist’s lament: “Oh that I had wings like a dove!* I would fly away and be at rest. I would flee to a far-off place * and make my lodging in the wilderness.” 

I hope this controversy does not result in a legal battle over possession of those historic church buildings in Charleston (of whose spires two can be seen in the photo above). I hope arrangements can be made to provide for an on-going Episcopal presence in that part of South Carolina and let Bishop Lawrence and his followers go their own squeeky-clean evangelical way. From the bitter tone of those defenders of his who comment on the Episcopal News Service, it is hard to imagine that they will make good company for one another once they have gone.