We have reached a point in the 75th General Convention where the legislative process needs an infusion of the spiritual values of mutual submission (Phil., 1:4) if we are to act in ways that are clear to our own Church and to the wider Anglican Communion.

Mutual submission has been operative in the legislative committees as many members of many committees have agreed to resolutions and budget provisions that do not represent all that one or more individual committee members might prefer. But in a spirit of surrendering some of what an individual wants in order to secure a resolution or budget provision that embraces as many committee members as possible, many committee members have voted for provisions that they may not consider perfect, but build up the whole.

With three days left in the legislative process, both the House of Deputies and the House of Bishops need to embody more of that spirit of mutual submission. When multiple amendments are proposed on the floor to a committee’s carefully crafted product, one house risks losing the balance of the committee’s work and losing support in the other house. This is especially problematic with amendments to a motion to concur, which will cause a resolution to bounce between the houses. Our own people and the wider Communion expect us to act clearly and wisely. Our committees are working to embody mutual submission. The two houses need to honor the work of the committees so the Convention might act with that same clarity and wisdom.

The election of the Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Bishop of Nevada, as Presiding Bishop and Primate was not a surprise to members of the Nominating Committee who visited her in her diocese last fall nor to several bishops who were taken by the breadth of her insights when she and the other nominees spoke to the House of Bishops at the house meeting in March at the Kanuga Conference Center.

The election is a surprise to those who view the position of Presiding Bishop as the pinnacle of a career track that has usually included rectorship of a cardinal parish and experience in a large urban diocese with the Primacy as a natural extension of a conventional career track.

Katharine Jefferts Schori has experience in a small diocese and small churches – which are more characteristic of the Episcopal Church than the large ecclesial institutions on both coasts. She has experience as a scientist. She is fluent in the science and technology of the 21st century and as such is in a position of potential leadership to help this church speak a word of grace to new generations.

That she is a woman is a gift to the worldwide Communion, where the typical Anglican is a faithful woman. Dr. Esther Mombo, an Anglican theologian who spoke in May to the clergy and lay professional conference in the Diocese of Virginia, was asked her opinion of the impact on the Primates’ Committee should the Episcopal Church elect a woman as our Primate. “It will be good for the brothers,” she quipped.

Bishop Jefferts Schori may be in a better position than a male primate to speak new dimensions of old truths to the wider Communion. She thinks clearly. Her faith is articulate and sound. She will not have to prove her progressive credentials back home. She can speak the truth in love and represent the Church with grace.