Enough Already

The recent vote by the Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin to disassociate itself from the Episcopal Church and affiliate with the Province of Southern Cone has caused a lot of heated commentary on both sides of the issue. However, there is a disturbing trend I am observing in some of the liberal blogs. Several writers and commentators have made inappropriate, and in some cases nasty, remarks about Bishop Schofield's weight--sometimes using a now familiar media photo, which I refuse to show here, taken of the Bishop during the Convention.

Let me be clear here, Bishop Schofield is fat. He is not the only overweight bishop in the church. And there are plenty of overweight (okay, fat, and that goes for bishops, too) clergy and laity, as well--including me. But his weight has absolutely nothing to do with his political views, his theology, nor his ability to be a bishop. It does not make him a bad person, or a good one. It simply means that he has a health issue that he, and only he, can do something about.

By all means, take Bishop Schofield to task for his actions. Refute his statements and arguments. Disagree with his views. But knock off the jokes and insinuations about his weight. They are inappropriate and downright mean. I expected better of my colleagues.

Peace,
Jeffri

UPDATE: After a couple of conversations with others, I took this post down for a while. I went back and reread the blogs where I saw the comments I'd written about. Either some of the comments had been deleted, or I'd overreacted to what was there. Since there doesn't seem to be a rash of deletions in the comments sections, and in fact, I found comments of concern about Bishop Schofield's health, I can say I did overreact. Not that there weren't some rather derroguatory comments about Bishop Schofield's weight, they just were not as numerous as I perceived.

Two things happened yesterday that brought all of this to a head. First, as I was out getting lunch yesterday I happened to bump into someone by accident. Their response was "Watch where you're going fatso, you're taking up too much room!" Second, last evening I was talking to a friend who lives in the Midwest who'd been hospitalized last week. I'd heard from friends about it, and last night was the first chance we'd had to touch base. It turns out he was hospitalized for a mild stroke. This friend is my age, and by no stretch of the imagination is he overweight. He eats a fairly healthy diet--he has to for a number of other health reasons. And yet he had a stroke. Scary.

My overreaction brings another point I'd like us all to think about. In this day of electronic media, the web, blogs, etc., we have a tendency to react first and think later. We all need to be more mindful of our tendency to do that.

Enough said.

Peace,
Jeffri