With a gentle, almost constant breeze, much like the Holy Spirit, blowing through the tent set up for worship, the Most Rev. Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori presided over a service of baptisms and confirmations on Saturday, May 17, at All Saints' Episcopal Conference Center near Leitchfield, Ky. The "Tent Meeting Episcopal Style," as Bishop Ted Gulick describes it, brought about 325 people to the conference center, located on Rough River about 80 miles south of Louisville in Grayson County.

Approximately 16 churches from across the diocese were represented at the service, many of them also providing the needed volunteers to organize and host the diocesan event held in honor of the presiding bishop's visit. 

The hugh, five-peaked tent was set up on the lawn in front of All Saints' new lodge and inn, a location well suited for the families who allowed their youngsters to roam and play or sit on a blanket placed in the worship area for them.

This was truly a diocesan wide event. Spearheading the festivities, the Rev. Suzanne Barrow, vicar of St. Andrew's Church in Glasgow, pulled together materials and needed items from throughout the diocese.  Hundreds of origami cranes, supplied by Grace Church, Paducah, were suspended on strings from the tent roof, and a baptismal pool was decorated with native grasses and flowers. A fountain made of ceramic urns, donated to the conference center for the service by the All Saints' board of directors, kept the baptismal waters flowing. A water pitcher, painted with hand prints, was supplied by Christ Church Cathedral to help with the baptisms, and the altar cloth, supplied by Grace Church Paducah, was composed of lace handmade by a parishioner over a quilted fabric.  

Undoubtedly the music, before, during and after, the service helped to set the tone. The service started off with the happy tunes of bagpipers, and during it musicians from St. Luke's Church, Anchorage, led by music director Lisa Lewis, sang and played a repertoire of music selected in collaboration with Robert Boozman, the diocesan musician and director of music for the cathedral. Joining the St. Luke's choir was the St. Luke's Celtic Band and its praise band Reflections. Songs such as "Shall We Gather at the River" seemed perfectly in tune with the tenor of the  outdoor service, so reminiscient of tent revivals that were so familiar in an earlier time in Kentucky. Afterwards, during the reception the sounds of Bluegrass were heard from a local band. 

Preaching during the service, the presiding bishop emphasized, as she did many times that weekend, God's unfailing love for us. The story of Jesus's baptism and the order of events around it, she said, illustrates God's relationship with us. Before he went out to be tempted, she said God told him "you are my beloved, and in you I am well pleased." That he then went out to the wilderness next, she said, is important. "God's pleased with him before he had a chance to turn away.  And that's also true for us. God is pleased with us before anything else happens, and we can't do anything to change that. Anything," she said.

"What happens when we begin to live out this awareness that God really loves us beyond our imagining?" she asked. Reconciliation, which means "coming together to take counsel. It's about conversation, and ... in the sense of  this morning it's about an opportunity to remind people that God loves then in that way that we just talked about.  Whatever we do, God still loves us and will continue to love us, even when we're not feeling so loveable... Reconciliation is in the deepest sense about healing a broken world. It's about bringing people back to that remembrance about how God really does love us. The baptism and confirming we are doing this morning are a reminder of that. When a person stands up sand says, 'Yes i will with god's help' ... we are confirming this. We are saying, 'Yes, I love the world ... I will go and do the healing work everywhere I go in the world. I won't do it perfectly. but I will keep trying."

As she began, she concluded the sermon, after inviting everyone to close their eyes, repeating God's statement: "You are my beloved. In you I am well pleased."

Besides the confirmations and baptisms, a touching moment came when the presiding bishop was asked to bless a quilted prayer blanket that had been made for longtime All Saints' supporter, Maggie Miller. Each block in the quilt, we were told, had been prayed over by its makers, members of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Louisville.

Following the service, the presiding bishop was taken by private plane to the far western part of the state to visit Grace Episcopal Church in Paducah. There she led Evensong, preached and then participated in a second "conversation," organized much like that held the night before at St. Matthew's Church in Louisville.  Some 300 to 400 attended the Grace service and forum.

Photo Album of pictures taken by Schley Cox