A way of thinking

Dunedin gets a new Anglican bishop today. Tom McKinlay talks about God and C. S. Lewis with Dr Kelvin Wright.

The new Anglican bishop of Dunedin fills the doorway.

He's a big man, must be pushing 6'4" in the old money, he'll be quite something in a mitre.

He's solid too - though a vegetarian these days.

He also looks a bit like country singer Kenny Rogers, with slightly less quiff.

His grey hair (same colour as Kenny) is cut quite short, and continues at a similar length down around his chin in an orderly fashion.

That's as it should be, Dr Kelvin Wright is, after all, to be a bishop in the Anglican church, that most buttoned-down and establishment of denominations - the religion of the Queen of England.

Completing the neat vicarly grooming is the sports coat, collar and tie.

So far so stereotypical.

Dr Wright leads the way through to the Highgate vicarage lounge - not moving exclusively in diagonals just yet - which turns out to be as cosily and conservatively decorated as it should be.

But appearances can be deceiving when it comes to Dr Wright.

There's the vegetarianism for a start.

That must catch out the odd parishioner when he pops around for lunch.

Then there's his history with the Pentecostal church, the several Buddhist siblings and the blog.

The blog - which has been running for a couple of years under the "Available Light" banner - contains musings on everything from quantum physics to Buddhism to late-medieval mysticism.

It also contains some quite forthright criticism of the Church's performance.

The bishop's job is not one Dr Wright sought - though he had been up for a bishopric before, in Christchurch.

And, but for the grace of God, as it were, it is an office he might not have been in a position to take up.

When the mitres were being thrown into the ring, Dr Wright was busy backing another candidate.

"The synod became deadlocked.

"It couldn't decide between them, but late on the Saturday somebody asked me if I would allow my name to go forward.

"I went home and did not have one wink of sleep all night," he recalls.

The next day his name duly went forward and today he becomes a bishop.

"It staggered me," he says of the events of the October synod.

He has gathered himself since.

Now he's excited.

The other reason he might never have become bishop is a battle he had with a fairly vigorous attack of prostate cancer.

"The cancer now, well you can never say it's gone.

"Blood tests show there are traces of it still there.

"But it's not doing anything," he says.

The original diagnosis came a couple of years ago and much of the battle is detailed on his blog - the radiotherapy, the discomfort, the comfort of friends and family.

It's not quite blow-by-blow, the squeamish need not look away, but there's a certain amount of detail.

There is, perhaps, a lack of Anglican reserve.

There is no shortage of stiff upper lip.

It was, he says, "a most amazing journey".

In fact, it appears Dr Wright took the prospect of an imminent accounting before St Peter comfortably in his stride.

"The interesting thing for a minister, you are always telling people about life after death.

"Suddenly I had to face my own.

"The surgeon was pretty frank and sometimes the prognosis he gave me was not very encouraging.

"Well it's one thing to talk about it and another to be there, and I have learned that I am not afraid of death, which interested me," he says.

"I have no doubt at all that the consciousness will survive the death of the body.

"I do not have any doubts about that.

"It put everything into perspective - stuff that you chase around after, plans that you want to make.

You realise that it is all temporary, all illusory, and that is quite liberating."

Most of his treatment took place at Dunedin's Mercy Hospital - for which Dr Wright is full of praise - but he also shot across the Tasman for a less Anglican 10 days at the Gawler Institute.

As he records in the blog: "The programme is non-religious but is founded squarely on the practice of mindfulness meditation.

The first activity of the day following the wake-up bell and the daily tot of lemon juice and water, was 45 minutes in the sanctuary being gently led into silence".

"The meditation was not new to me," he says.

"It is something I have been doing for a long time anyway.

"But the diet is.

"I have been keeping a vegetarian diet.

"It seems to work. I am very well."