Ordination of a Bishop

Big day for the Episcopal Diocese of New York - a new Bishop Coadjutor was ordained in the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. The great brass door on the western facade is opened, I believe, only for this occasion, and let in a phalanx of bishops who made their way down the endless nave of the cathedral, following a half hours' worth of other vested processors, ordained and lay. Arrived at the altar they bishops looked, from where we sat, like colorful miniature dolls...

The service was more horizontal and inclusive than the building, beginning with Copland's "Fanfare for the common man" and closing with a contemporary South African hymn, which we sang in English, Swahili and Spanish. Readings were in Korean, French and Spanish, the language also of a wonderful sung litany, and the refrain of the psalm was sung (gorgeously) in Hebrew by a cantor from Central Synagogue. But our bishop, however open, is still another straight white guy.