Verna Dozier died on Friday. She was an amazing woman. Just reading her obituary is inspiring. www.episcopalchurch.org I especially like her statement about being nominated for Bishop of the Washington Diocese. She responded by saying that at her stage in life, she was “not willing to accept a demotion from lay person to bishop." And from her book The Dream of God:

"Doubt is not the opposite of faith: fear is. Fear will not risk that even if I am wrong, I will trust that if I move today by the light that is given me, knowing it is only finite and partial, I will know more and different things tomorrow than I know today, and I can be open to the new possibility I cannot even imagine today."

She was fond of quoting one of her mentors Dean Howard Thurman on his vision of God's desire for creation: "A friendly world of friendly folk, beneath a friendly sky."

Almighty God, the God of the spirits of all flesh,
who by a voice from heaven didst proclaim,
Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord:
Multiply, we beseech thee, to those who rest in Jesus
the manifold blessings of thy love,
that the good work which thou didst begin in them
may be made perfect unto the day of Jesus Christ.
And of thy mercy, O heavenly Father,
grant that we, who now serve thee on earth,
may at last, together with them,
be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light;
for the sake of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.