archbishop of canterbury, the scepter story

After seven years in the Rayne, La., public schools — not the most nurturing environment — I got lucky and got a full scholarship to this great private school (whose site has been down for most of the last few months). It’s a great school out in the middle of nowhere on the grounds of an abandoned sugar cane plantation, and credit for whatever I’ve been able to do since 1987 largely goes to it.
But there was one, shall we say, issue: most of the kids who went to ESA were quite rich, or at least pleasantly upper middle class. I was poor. This created a variety of complications in my life over the years and helped create the slightly silly class-warrior mentality I had for a long time (and still have every once in a while). But one of the biggest benefits is that I got to tag along on the rich-kid senior trip to the U.K. and France. There were only 43 of us in the senior class, so the trip wasn’t too crowded.
It was a wonderful trip, and one of the highlights was going to Easter services at Canterbury Cathedral. Since ESA was an Episcopal school, visiting the center of all things Anglican was a big deal (even though I, like most of south Louisiana, was raised Catholic). The ceremony was beautiful, and afterward we all gathered with the Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey for a picture.
By chance, I ended up standing next to the Archbish himself for the photo. (My friend Anthony had taken to saying “Bish better have my money” whenever we saw the local Episcopal bishop back home, in homage to and parody of this 1992 rap quasi-classic. So the Archbishop naturally became the Archbish.) After the group shots were taken, one of my classmates asked for the Archbish’s autograph. He was happy to oblige, but there was one problem: one of his hands was full. He was holding the big six-foot-tall bejeweled scepter that all Archbishi get to hold on to, the symbol of his authority within the church. So, logically, he turned to me and asked:
“Could you hold this for me for a minute?”
Um, sure I could. I took the scepter from his hands and briefly considered using my power to issue edicts, or fiats, or bulls, or whatever Anglican top-down orders were called. After all, who could question me — I had the scepter! But instead, I turned to everyone holding a camera near me and asked: “Could someone please take a picture of me with this thing?”
Earlier this week, George Carey announced his retirement as Archbish. I quickly remembered my brush with religious power. But in a moment, the thought shifted to: None of those losers ever sent me a copy of those photos.