You said in your remarks during the service that you hope your consecration is an encouragement to "people at the margins of society." What message do you hope this sends them?
Well, I think Jesus was always spending his time with people at the margins. Not with the powers that be, not with religious authorities, but those who, for whatever reasons, found themselves on the edges of society and also the church -- not the church at that time, of course, the synagogue. But I think the message that we're hoping this will send is that, to people who have not felt all right about coming to church, people who have felt that for some reason God has not been for them -- that this will be a real message of welcome and hospitality.You know, our Episcopal Church signs out front, or when you come into a town, say "The Episcopal Church welcomes you," and we're trying to make that actually be true. I think sometimes in the past people have felt like there may be some fine print there. You know, "The Episcopal Church welcomes you, except for..." And we're trying to take all the exceptions out and say, "This church is for you."
Bishop Douglas Theuner [the outgoing bishop of New Hampshire] referred to you and your presence as a bishop as "a symbol of unity." But we know there's also disunity as well. Several fellow bishops here in the United States have said they're not going to recognize you or this consecration, and some bishops overseas have done the same. How do you hope to minister in the midst of that?
Well, it's actually not much of a change. I've not been welcome in their dioceses for many years, as an openly gay priest never mind as an openly gay bishop. So that's not much of a change. And as for the worldwide Anglican Communion, my not being recognized in some provinces is exactly what our women bishops experience all the time. In the vast majority of the Anglican Communion, their ministries -- women's ministries -- as priests and bishops are not recognized. And we haven't fallen apart over that. We've stayed in communion with each other.
I have plenty to do in New Hampshire. I have plenty to do in those dioceses that will welcome me. And in time, just as has been true with women, I will be welcomed in other places as well. It really won't hinder my ministry at all.
During the consecration service, you pledged to reach out to people who do feel alienated by this. How do you hope to do that? How do you hope to reach out to them, and how are you encouraging some of your other church members to do that?
Well, first of all, our clergy are doing a wonderful job with people in our congregations who are finding this difficult. But since my election, I've been in over half of our congregations already. And every time I go I have a forum time when I encourage people to ask any questions, say anything that they want to say. And we make it an extra-special effort to invite those who are having problems. We don't want to just preach to the choir, so to speak. But we really invite people who are having a tough time with this to come and engage. And what I'm finding is that that's just a really powerful moment for us, as the church. And those people who are having such a difficult time, most often, wind up then coming to the service that follows the forum and being a part of the communion, even though we disagree about this.
I think that's what the church is all about, is finding our unity not in unanimity, but in our intercommunion -- coming to the altar rail, receiving the body and blood of Christ at communion, and then fighting about lots of things. I mean we fight about, what, capital punishment and whether or not we should be in Iraq -- all kinds of things. And yet we find our unity there, at the communion rail.
You've talked a lot about seeking God on this, especially given all of the controversy. How did you seek God? How did you discern that it truly was God's voice, God's call that you were hearing?
Discerning God's voice is a very tricky business. I've often said, you know, I'm trying to make sure that the voice in my head is not my own ego doing a great imitation of God's voice. I use a spiritual director to help me with that, to work on my prayer life. I spent a lot of time in prayer about this. But, also, you can't discern God's voice by yourself. It's too risky. You can trick yourself too easily in doing just what you want to do. So I think always the discernment of God's voice has to be in community. And that's why it's so important that this was at an election in New Hampshire. All of the people of New Hampshire have been in a discernment process. And it was at the end of a year and a half of that kind of discernment that they called me to be their bishop. So it's not just my call, but the sense of call that comes to the people of the church, clergy and laity -- and then all those sorts of things that really aren't coincidences. You know, just at the moment you begin to hear God's call to the episcopate, all of a sudden people start saying to you, "Gee, have you ever thought about being a bishop?" or "You know, you'd make a good bishop", whereas they hadn't said that ever before. So, God has all kinds of ways of getting through and making God's self known.
I know there was a lot of pressure, and you heard from a lot of people saying maybe you shouldn't go through with this. Even some people who supported you but were concerned about the worldwide church wondered if it was a good idea. Were there particular prayers or disciplines that you employed these last few weeks to help you?
Well, two things. One is Psalm 27 -- [it] has been a real big part of my prayer life, and I'll just paraphrase it. You'll see why. It starts out focusing on God and says, "The Lord is my light, my life, of whom, then shall I be afraid?" And it says, "When people gather around to eat up my flesh, you O Lord will set me high on a rock." And it's that kind of language that's so prevalent in the Psalms -- sort of like, "They're really out to get me Lord, but you're going to take care of me." And there's this wonderful phrase in there about singing the Lord's song. So I've been trying to sing the Lord's song in the midst of this kind of whirling dervish that I find myself in the middle of.
Mostly, it's a burden of the people who wish me so well. It's not so much a burden with all the negative things coming my way. But the people across the country and around the world who have written to say how much my election means for them and their ministries -- many of them living in places where it's not safe to come out, in churches where they are not welcome to be who they are and who see in my election this glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. And that's a burden that I carry in my heart all the time because, you know, I can't save those people. We only have one Savior, and he walked the earth two thousand years ago. But they are placing on me a lot of their hopes and, of course, you want to do what you can. So that is -- it's a burden, but it's also just an astounding honor. 
