She called journeying an ancient image for honing leaders. "Leadership asks us to be agents of change and to take others with us," she remarked. "The voyage is rarely calm these days. These are times for courageous and intrepid leaders, for those who will try seemingly impossible things, and, like Jesus, wrestle with internal demons and more worldly dragons."

VOL: Could you please tell us how far into the unknown we have to go before we either find ourselves or fall off the cliff face?

KJS: Good question. Just keep walking. When your feet don't touch the ground any more, the odds are you have reached the end of the road or cliff face, which means you are too late to step backwards. Good luck. Next time bring a parachute.

VOL: You say leadership is about being "agents of change"....Uh, Gene Robinson has been a real change maker and has taken others along with him. As a result, the Episcopal Church has been on a steady decline since 2003. When is the voyage going to calm down and the passengers cease vomiting over the sides of the TEC ship...when will everything be back on course again?

KJS: Sometime in the future, can't say when. Just keep swallowing your Benadryl and Dramamine everything will come out right. Remember your baptismal vows.

VOL: You say the voyage is rarely calm, but it hasn't been for the last 30 years. Can you give us a time frame when you think the waters for TEC will be calm enough to navigate the church through a post-Christian world we now live in?

KJS: Another good question. I would say that it will all calm down in the next five years. In fact, I have been telling people in various diocesan conventions lately that the crisis in TEC has already passed and happy days are here again or just around the corner. The church is a bit like the Middle East. One day is peaceful. The next day it's all blood, guts and war. Go with your gut. Think positive.

VOL: The latest figures indicate that TEC is in major decline with parishes closing all over the country. With hundreds of congregations having average Sunday attendance of less than 20...the future doesn't look too good; in fact, it looks quite bleak. Do you have a remedy for this?

KJS: We may have to go back to post NT Times when people met in the catacombs.

VOL: If that's the case, will we need bishops?

KJS: Of course, we will. I'm bringing my cope and miter just in case the ecclesiastical weather changes and we can raise money to pay off the loan on the building at 815 2nd Avenue in New York.

VOL: Do you think, once we are back in the Catacombs, that we will be able to celebrate same-sex marriages with TEC's new rites?

KJS: It will be so dark in the catacombs we won't know who is banging (into) whom, so it won't matter. It's only when we see the light again that we will know who we have been having it off with...I plan to push a resolution through the next General Convention to pass a "Don't ask, don't tell policy" resolution for that period in the life of the church.

VOL: Are you in favor of the Covenant that is currently floating around the Anglican Communion? You are on record as saying that the covenant is being used as an "instrument of control," particularly in section 4, which outlines a method for resolving disputes in the communion. Others say the "Anglican Covenant" is not fit for the purpose and won't do what its proponents intend it to do. Some say the real issue is homosexuality and the Anglican-Covenant-as-solution does not address the issue.

KJS: All of the above. I am not going to let Rowan tell me and TEC how to behave...who does he think he is anyway....?

VOL: The ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY...a man you have sworn allegiance to as the head of the Anglican Communion...

KJS: I have not he is just primus inter pares, no worse, but certainly no better than the Archbishop of Burma or myself.

VOL: In May 2010 Dr. Rowan Williams proposed ending the participation on international ecumenical dialogues of members of any province that has formally decided not to comply with communion-requested moratoria on same-gender blessings and the ordination of gay and lesbian people to the episcopate. Williams specifically referred to the consecration of Diocese of Los Angeles Bishop Suffragan Mary Douglas Glasspool, the second openly gay, partnered bishop in the Episcopal Church. A few weeks later, the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, secretary general of the Anglican Communion, rescinded the memberships of Episcopalians serving on those international ecumenical dialogues.

KJS: This is just a temporary situation. This, too, shall pass. I plan to get back in the ecumenical saddle, no one can stop me. As you know, I WAS in Dublin, while the Global South archbishops were not...

VOL: But they stayed away because of you, did they not?

KJS: Some of the Africans suffer from homophobia and they hate women so I forgave them during an Interfaith Dialogue retreat munching on Tej and Wat with the Imam of Ethiopia. Some of his wives glared at me through their Hijabs...but I had to remind myself that theirs is a different culture from mine. One day we will catch up to them.

VOL: Wasn't there an Ethiopian Muslim Imam who found Jesus Christ earlier this year?

KJS: Oh, my God. If I had known that I would have apologized to the Imam on behalf of the whole Episcopal Church family and the Archbishop of Canterbury for such a horrible uninclusive, insensitive act.

VOL: You are on record as saying "the body of Christ is like a living wine skin, or like a cellar or tomb of wine skins -- different harvests from different vineyards. Together they all contribute to the feast, and fresh wineskins are continually needed..." A lot of people feel the Episcopal Church wineskin has run out of wine and what remains is quickly drying up. The new wine is the Anglican Church in North America....and...

KJS: Where DID you hear that? Just the other day, I told the people in the Netherlands that our 16 overseas dioceses are all growing, thank you, very much. I expect to see a turn around in TEC, later this year, when the housing market recovers and my new metropolitan powers kick in on July 1. Then watch the sparks fly.

VOL: You said recently that "We don't always trust the capacity of those new ones ... The old is always passing away, and we struggle with letting go. Can we try new skin and suspend judgment until the wine is ready to drink? Are we willing to mix grapes from different fields?" May I ask how you plan to mix the pansexual wineskins of the Diocese New Hampshire with the orthodox wineskins of the Diocese of South Carolina? It looks like you might end up with a bad bottle of Gallo that had the cork removed a week ago.

KJS: If push comes to shove, New Hampshire wins. Mark Lawrence will just have to conform or else we will take his wineskin away from him and give it to Mary Glasspool who is no longer seeing through a glass darkly and has 20/20 vision every time she jumps into bed with her significant other.

VOL: One final question Presiding Bishop. It's being said the end of the world is coming May 21 do you have any thoughts on that?

KJS: Well if it does I will be seeing a Broadway show in New York and then having dinner at Sardis. If the Lord does return I want to be sure I have had my favorite dessert first and then coffee. He's welcome to come after that.

VOL: Thank you Presiding Bishop.