Bishop Duncan's Address to the 140th Convetion
4-5 November, A.D. 2005
THE BISHOP’S ADDRESS

Every one then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock; and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. (Matthew 8: 24-25)

The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew… The destructiveness of wind and flood and rain has been very much in our corporate consciousness during the last three months. After the regional devastation of last September’s Hurricane Ivan here in our area, all of us have, I think, been especially attentive and responsive to our brothers and sisters in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita along the Gulf Coast. We have grieved for them, prayed for them, sent aid to them, and even gone to them as Christian folk rightly would.

This Diocese is built on the rock of God’s Word. It is also on this rock that the tradition of the Church Catholic is built. It is within the limits of this rock that human Reason is constrained to function. This Diocese is built on the rock of God’s Word. Winds, rains and floods shake us, but we stand at storm’s end. For the heroes and heroines of the generations before us that laid this foundation – and for the good people of this generation who have dug even deeper footings into this rock, we ought always to be profoundly grateful, both to Almighty God and to these faithful witnesses who have so thoroughly undergirded us, who are the Episcopal Church in this place. (At this All Saints-tide it is so very fitting for us to remember this local part of the great cloud of witnesses.) the rest