And lo he came among us.  The bearded one that is Rowan Williams, our Archbishop.  There were two sessions with Rowan today, a keynote address this morning, and a sermon during worship later in the afternoon.  This was the first time I’d heard Rowan speak ‘live’, and was interested in what my reaction would be.  First impressions?  Highly favourable.  Rowan is clearly a man with a brain the size of a major planet, someone who will never appear lightweight and flimsy.  However, he also has a clear integrity, a delightful, self-deprecating dry sense of humour and a complete lack of pomposity.

A lot has been written, analysing his theology in inordinate detail and claiming to find deficiencies in this or that theological pronouncement.  That may be the case, and I doubt that I would see eye-to-eye with him on every issue.  But I finished today glad that he’s my Archbishop.  Perhaps he has learned from the ‘unclarity’ of his remarks about Sharia law, but I found his use of language skillful, not just in his prepared address, but in the questions that he then answered, ranging from youth work to the future of the Anglican Communion.

It would be grossly unfair to try to summarise his contribution, but just one line will suffice for now: the task of theology is making sense of lives that make sense of the world – describing inadequately the wholeness and integration that flow from a relationship with the loving, creator God.