Many years ago (more than I care to remember), I had the privilege of working as a staffer on Capitol Hill.  Though I was perhaps the lowest on the seniority totem pole at the time, I, along with all the other staffers had a television in my office, allowing me to keep up with the Senate proceedings as they were happening in the chamber. 

Whenever our Senator "had" the chamber floor, our office would become hushed.  For us nerdy policy "wonks", our guy, along with a few other U.S. Senators had rock star status.   If I had had a Bic lighter - yup I would have been swaying with it.

So imagine my amazement when during one such speech, I heard my words come from this rock star's mouth.  Hundreds of non-descript talking points I had written, and here was one of them being spoken on that hallowed Senate chamber floor.  Talk about feeling connected to something bigger than yourself. From my non-descript cubicle deep within the belly of the Hart Senate Office building, I was connected to one of the most influential legislative bodies in the world.

Here I am in the church, twenty-five years later and just this past week felt the same giddiness of being connected to something significant beyond myself.  I'm talking about our Churchwide Assembly held in Pittsburgh last week.  While none of my words were spoken on the floor of that hallowed gathering, there was still a connection as I witnessed the larger expression of our church doing ministry in "real" time.

If you walked by my office at all last week, you heard the Churchwide Assembly playing on my computer.  You might have even heard me cheering and occasionally grumbling at my poor little computer: Hearkening back to the days on Capitol Hill when I could be heard uttering occasional cheers and jeers at what was happening on that screen.

Though there were many things to cheer about at this year's Assembly, let me tell you about just a couple of them.

I cheered when the Churchwide Assembly overwhelmingly passed the proposed social statement on Criminal Justice acknowledging that a system of justice cannot be "just" when it is overwhelmed on all levels and calling this church to hear the cries of those who find themselves trapped in that system:  From victim to offender and everyone in between.  Among other things, this statement forces us to ask the questions of why our incarceration levels are one of the highest in the world and why one race of people is overwhelmingly represented in those levels.  Not easy questions to ask, but faithful ones.

I cheered when the Churchwide Assembly elected our first female presiding bishop.  Don't get me wrong, Bishop Mark Hanson is one of the most faithful pastors and bishops I have ever known and I am deeply grateful for where he has shepherded this denomination over the past twelve years and I am profoundly proud to call myself an ordained pastor in this denomination because of him.

But the time is right for someone new to lead us with pastoral and prophetic vision.  The time may also be right for that sheperd to be a woman.  I'm not big into making gender distinctions, but let's face it:  The church is one of the last bastions of the "good ol' boy" system.  Though more than half of seminary graduates are women, and have been for almost two decades now, there are still fewer women than men serving our congregations.  What's up with that?  Sadly echoing the larger society, women still tend to serve smaller churches and are paid less than men for the same job.

Though women have broken through other good ol' boy systems such as the legal and medical professions, as Nadia Bolz-Weber points out there are no hospitals where women are not allowed to practice medicine and there are no courts of law where women are not allowed to practice law.  There are still churches however where women are not only denied the opportunity to serve as pastor, but many where women are forbidden from holding any position of leadership or from talking in the gathered assembly at all.

So will the election of the Rev. Elizabeth Eaton further drive a wedge between our denomination and other church bodies who place severe limits on women? Probably.  Will the election of Bishop Eaton alienate some within our own denomination unmasking our own tendencies toward gender discrimination?  Perhaps.  But was it the right thing to do?  The Holy Spirit gathered with, in, through and under the voting members of last week's Assembly seemed to think so.  And if it's good enough for God.....

"As many of you as were baptized in Christ have clothed yourself with Christ, there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus"  ~ Galatians 3:27-8).