I am sitting at Roanoke Airport in Virginia, USA, waiting for the flight to Atlanta to connect with flight to Manchester and back to home in Bradford.
It has been an excellent week here in our link diocese of Southwestern Virginia – wonderful experiences, wonderful hospitality, wonderful places, wonderful people. Highlights as I sit here?
1. The new bishop, Mark Bourlakas, whose consecration I came here to attend last Saturday, is excellent and will prove a great bishop of this diocese. Clear-sighted, well-experienced, clear about the appropriate nature of leadership, he is a great encouragement.
2. I am no longer a baseball virgin. I went with my hosts to a minor league game last night and was initiated into the mysteries. It was brilliant. And I didn't get eaten by mozzies when the sun went down.
3. Thomas Jefferson was a remarkable man. He was also complex and compromised. Sainted as a 'leader of the Enlightenment', he was also a slave-owner who appears to have had one or two children by one of his slaves. He wouldn't stand a chance in political leadership today.
Oh well, here comes the return journey.
