From where we sit (Québec, Canada – we’ll explain that in a moment) reading our internets like good Anglicans, we see the possibility of a model of Anglicanism being demonstrated by a ‘First Track’ comprised of those who sign on to the Covenant in full knowledge of disagreement with each other, and yet fully imagining and cherishing coexistence in the company of each other – sharing the world, in other words.

Where we sit? Two Anglican priests on the shores of the St Lawrence River in the greater Québec region (near the capital), whose ministry was exercised until late last year in Québec City: Mia as incumbent of St Michael’s parish and Tom as Archdeacon of Québec (again, that means the greater region of the Ville de Québec). The Quebec diocese, the Anglican one, is about the second largest geographically in Canada, yet about the second smallest in respect of clergy and congregations. Mia’s ministry was, over eight years, daily more and more in French.

We find ourselves here on several sorts of bridges – linguistic, denominational, ecclesial, provincial, international, the list goes on. Arthur Miller’s title was just there for the plucking, but ‘bridge’ does give us all a timely metaphor for and in our worldwide Communion, as others have noted.

It has, as far as we have read, always been assumed that those who tended towards the liberal or progressive or LGBT (or any of its various labels) positions would be Track Twoers. The recent comment by Giles Goddard (in Episcopal Café, Monday August 10 and cited on Thinking Anglicans the same day) perhaps comes closest to intimating something of what we have been sensing for some time, but works still with the Old Divide model.

But if we take the word ‘orientation’ out of its monopoly by the LGBT quarrel, and use it to refer to the ‘orientation’ of Anglicans who are ‘attracted to’ participation in each other in community before God, might we not find that there is a substantial membership in that track? Many of us have dear friends on the other side of the Old Divide, who would be shoulder to shoulder with each other if – even supposing any divide is necessary – the divide went along this other fault-line of orientation.

Orientation is not a bad word for it at all. It is a disposition towards the other, a recognizing that without the other I am not who I should be before God. People can always walk away, but for the large clusters here, there, and everywhere who do not like having to make this choice – the both/ands rather than the either/ors – it would be a great relief to say: I make my cause with you, you my friend with whom I disagree, over this issue (The Issue) or over another, or another; my life belongs with you not by my changing my mind nor by my hammering yours into torque, but simply by accepting that we haven’t yet seen eye to eye, even if we can and have lived and will live shoulder to shoulder disagreeing.

What a Second Track would be, by this reckoning, is a community for anyone who didn’t share this ‘orientation’, though obviously they would always be welcome to the first one.

A word about ‘chosen lifestyles’. It seems to us that the Archbishop of Canterbury has been savaged over this phrase, used in his recent Reflections (now known as CCAF), for a sheer misunderstanding. We do not read him as meaning ‘He who chooses to be gay’; that would belong to Old-Divide-speak which is not a language he is guilty of. The life-style choice referred to is a choice of committed coupling.

The bind is, of course, still there: for the progressives, that such commitments, if same-sex, cannot at this point have that divine blessing which a marriage sacrament or other holy ritual within the Church would give them; for the orthodox, that such a coloration to commitment could pass the threshold of thought that’s schooled in prayer and scripture. And the Archbishop speaks of what he believes to be the ‘consensus’ of the Communion for the moment: that if the Church will not recognize the coupling, then the issue of living in an ‘unblessed’ relationship presents the same problem to the Church that unblessed heterosexual ones do – more salient for the ordained, based on their (what he calls) ‘representative’ role.

But that is not at all what concerns us in this modest proposal. That is The Issue, and it will continue, and we do not intend to put words in the Archbishop’s mouth. We would, though, like to share our sense that there is something uncannily like John 6:15 about this ecclesial moment: many in the Communion on both sides of the Grand Old Divide clamour for a kind of ‘Leadership’ with a capital L that they complain they are not getting. Where’s the hero? Where’s the king? And the Archbishop keeps escaping up a mountain to be quiet, as he thinks he should.

We are sensing a way around The Issue, which may not resolve Communion-splitting, but which draws the split in a different direction. Let sharing the world be our ‘chosen lifestyle’. We are not speaking any longer of coupling; we are speaking of membering, now. We are not talking simply of live and let live, though that is a good first step anywhere. We are not talking of ceasing from strenuous debate through which we might actually try to have our friend with whom we disagree see how we see his argument and test how he sees ours.

The reader cannot assume that this married couple, these two who write, are on the same side of the Old Divide. We may not agree on this. You do not know, and cannot know, to look at us. What you can know is that it does not threaten our marriage, that we live shoulder to shoulder (a lot of other positions, too, but you see what we mean), and we do talk a lot – a LOT. I didn’t say we do disagree, either. Our ecclesial position is not the issue. The issue is whether we see the beloved Anglican Communion as a spark for the world, a burning coal, if it can continue to offer this model of living together which is so often referred to as diversity.

I think what we see is that the Two Track system is a test: do we mean what we say when we vaunt our diversity? Do I really want to communicate – in both senses – with that woman with whom I disagree? Well, my Church teaches me that Yes, I do. It’s hard; I’ve got used to my dislikes, my smörgåsbord of friends, a few here, a little there, and now I have to eat the cole slaw, I have to eat the okra – my God, some people like this stuff?! Well, that’s the test. Like when Shirley MacLaine was faced with the privileged cup when visiting the Maasai: fresh warm blood-tainted urine. The honoured guest was to be the first to drink. She had one second in which to decide whether to risk TB or not.

We think that signing on to the Covenant in mixed company – with Giles Goddard, with Ephraim Radner, with Josiah Fearon, with, good heavens, Ruth Gledhill – is an Anglican Way forward, whatever the logistical and canonical headaches. Let Track One be the place.