Gifts from Strange Places

Feast of the Epiphany, 2010

Dear Friends,

In several days we will meet for our Federal Ministries conference in Washington DC, our new home. If you can't make it be assured you will be missed since the fellowship will be robust. It's the program, Healing From Trauma, A Journey Into the Holy, which is the happiest surprise as a summation and goodbye to this episcopacy. You can browse the program on our website at www.episcochap.org.

Having suffered a serious case of PTSD myself I have a keener sense, now, of how I happened into this job as bishop. That, and when we tried to sum up this decade through an awkward list of things we'd done, the story seemed to write itself. We naively began this decade worrying about Y2K and ended it sober and well laden with each other's journeys into anxiety and trauma.

But God never left us comfortless. I profoundly believe that what we leave for those still in federal service--and those who will yet be--is the knowledge that to live in such days is to enter a holy experience. Nowhere else will you press against the borders of your own sanity and experience God in such direct and uncompromising ways. All this will be contemplated at the conference, and nobly so.

Yet something else occurred to me in this Season of Epiphany and while reading Rebecca Solnit's book, A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster. Despite the brutality of Vietnam and the dizzying effects at Ground Zero, Wars in South West Asia, and Katrina, there always seemed to be something that was yearned for. I know that's odd to say.

Solnit writes that after every disaster--and she reviews many--"everything else abstract and remote (is) thrown into an intensely absorbing present." She was startled by this discovery...but weren't we all? We marvelled at the new-found community around us after 9/11, when in an operational area of Iraq/Afghanistan, and even along the Gulf Coast. Sadly that glad spirit of community and mutual aid*, eventually ebbed and we mourned it. We have no vocabulary for this occurrence though we have hunches about it, or, as Solnit says, "(Disasters) do not create these gifts, but they are one avenue through which the gifts arrive."

I find the same dynamic at work with veterans full up and still dazed after these deployments. They hated the place but retained a reverie about their relationships. Being with comrades and fellows--or losing touch with them--was a wrenching experience. William James went so far as to characterize disaster, and particularly the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, as "the moral equivalent of war", opining that a certain civic temper was quickened. People saw each other differently, perhaps for the first time. As Rebecca Solnit puts it, "Generosity was one highlight of the postquake citizenry, equanimity was another."

So, besides experiencing how the Holy rushes in to fill the vacuity of our pain and isolation are we not also the early witnesses to the kind of Kingdom God intends?

Faithfully, and thanking the Lord for you in this Season of light and gift,


Bishop George Packard




*"Mutual aid" is now a term generally used in post-disasters and was first used during the Halifax harbor explosion of 1917 to describe the phenomena of participants as givers and recipients in acts of care that bound them together.

A Holy Journey: A Decade of Cost and Redemption

(A Quiknote sent this past week)

I relented and gave in to requests for a farewell conference, 19-22, Tuesday to Friday, January 2010 before I retire. It will be shorter in keeping with this season of austerity yet it is turning out to be a special offering, never mind all the maudlin goodbyes it was supposed to contain. I think it will be a real gift to the Church.

A recent NYT, OpEd column musing on the what this decade would be called got me to thinking. Certainly not as memorable as "The Roaring Twenties" but certainly more epic than the "Me! Decade of the 1970's." The summation of this decade--in ministry, anyway--is that we have experienced and been chastened by trauma. Nothing new there but we have more to consider.

So, with experts and theologians we will reflect on "Healing From Trauma, A Journey into the Holy." Whether it was September 11th, Iraq and Afghanistan, Katrina, or even the fire at Mount Calvary Monastery we have been a people in the throes of trauma with hopes for healing. Where has this journey taken us? And, indeed, what's next?

On Wednesday we will have a colloquy with practitioners and theologians and in the afternoon and evening we will be in the National Cathedral where the entire sanctuary has been given over to us. There, we will learn of a novel program--even experience it--which matches one's individual journey in the Spirit with the mystery of that great space. This idea is co-sponsored by Dean Sam Lloyd and Chaplain Randy Haycock of Walter Reed Hospital. The day ends with a Eucharist as we gather around the high altar.

Our last day, Thursday, is reserved for a panel of experts who have been to school in trauma: Bishop Charles Jenkins of Louisiana, Dr. Dave Knowlton of September 11th, Brother Robert Savinsky, OHC, an Iraq veteran and his wife and important others. All these presenters will coordinated by friend and former lecturer at our conferences the Rev. Frank Wade, Rector Emeritus, St. Alban's, Washington, DC. There will be time that afternoon for rest and exercise followed by the bash and roast of me that night. Not to be missed!

A detailed schedule will be posted on our website on 4 January 2010.

In the meantime this an advance glimpse at what will be an important time of training and fellowship. I look forward to seeing you in January.+gep

Eavesdropping in Advent

Advent has a quickening feeling like things will get brighter and better. After this recent trip to Texas where I toured Brook Army Medical Center (BAMC) and the crime scene at Fort Hood you yearn for such a time. Each of the trips was in the company of one of our astute chaplains: Beth Echols at BAMC and Ira Houck at Fort Hood.

Earlier at the stop in Killeen Dave Scheider had thoughtfully put together a lunch with Ted Valcourt, David Waweru, George Holston, Erika Budez (Jorge is in Iraq), Dave, Reese Hutcheson, and Fr. Paul Moore from St. Christopher's. They shared a helpful estimation of how the community was fairing.

Ira couldn't make the lunch so I met him at the Killeen Mosque attending prayers and a social hour afterwards with mosque president Dr. Farougi and Imam Syed Ali. It was a generous and gentle time sponsored by a community uncertain what had happened and what was yet to be. From there Ike took me to the Processing Center where he recounted what he did on November 5th. On the ride back to San Antonio I thought of the parallels of the burn wards Beth had shown me a few days before. Such pain but with such resolve for healing. With irony Major Hasan might have been transported on US 35 South down to BAMC at about the same time.

There was a bright spot, though, and it came when I visited Carl and Lynn Andrews at Lackland AFB. Carl took me to a graduation of 300 young Airmen from basic training. Even the most jaded would have to be moved by all those men and women brightly and confidently facing the future. I was glad to eavesdrop on their expectancy and it couldn't have come too soon. Christ is born into the disarray of our lives. May we hold fast to the hope that He will always yet be there and give others a reason to eavesdrop on us. +gep

For Veterans it's still "Thank you!"

I'm wondering what the soldiers who survived the Fort Hood Soldier Readiness Center after Major Hasan ended his rampage will say on a Veterans' Day in 20 years. I don't mean that as as stray thought. Had they not committed to a life of sacrifice they could have been safely home and doing inconsequential things. But they weren't.

There will always be part of our population who will hear this call to serve and some who don't. The ones who don't will always have legitimate reasons for doing so. Veterans' and Memorial Days are not occasions for offhand references to them but it is a judgement on anything distracted, cynical or self satisfied which prevents us from genuine gratitude to men and women in the military.

In that regard my colleague and Director of Federal Ministries, Fr. Gerry Blackburn, himself a Veteran and former Navy Chaplain for over twenty years, commends this U-Tube video, particularly, he says, "after the kick in the stomach at Fort Hood."

Please see it at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSfFYxSdKdo

The "us" is also any part of ourselves which has become suspicious or jaded about any latest addition to the story. You know who you are--after your own time in the ranks--nothing could have been as real, you think. The integrity of time in uniform will always come from the fluidity from one era to another.

At a recent dinner General David Petraeus spoke of these latest encounters for the Armed Forces in Iraq and now Afghanistan as one of deepening--if harrowing-- experiences. Think of it: you enter as enlisted or company grade and mature well into middle and senior ranks--all in the same war. If it weren't so awful it would be an epic military education in the ranks and it brings a whole new meaning to sacrifice by the military member and his/her family.

Saying thanks always seems to be updated especially after last Thursday. +gep

Prayers for Fort Hood

The tragedy brought on by Major Hasan's rampage brings on the head shaking impact we're all absorbing but more so for our family at Fort Hood. Yes, our family. We have seven chaplains serving at that post, an abiding congregation and another right outside the gate. They will be straining to grieve and think clearly as this toxic news descends like an unwanted fog.

Thirteen dead and thirty one wounded, what did they do other than want to serve their country? Yes, the perpetrator was a Muslim, no, this is not a time for stereotypical conclusions. Yes, Hood prides itself in the recently opened Resiliency Center, but any place is vulnerable when the times are fraught with anxiety and deployment.

Entering that post is different than other installations. Size is the factor. No other post/base (save for the Marine base at Camp Pendleton, California) gives you the impression of entering a mini-state when you drive through the front gate. III Corps is there along with two fully outfitted divisions. Still, how large it might be is no register of the sense of community within its perimeter or adjacent to it in the town of Killeen.

I spoke to Chaplain Dave Scheider on his way to work early this morning; he was composing what might be waiting at the Family Life Center where the Army wisely placed him (postponing his retirement) because of his gifts and the special need for soldier support. He said everyone was in lock down yesterday--isolated from the news--and headed for the one of the four gates and home when the alert was lifted. The shudder of trauma will be arriving as they face this weekend.

I ask your prayers for the victims and their families, primarily. May God receive them and wrap them in gracious care. Please pray for our chaplains: Jorge Budez (now deployed), George Holston, Ira Houck, Dave Scheider, Ted Valcourt, Christine Waweru and David Waweru and their families.

As well please pray for our ongoing faith community at Fort Hood. It is an indomitable congregation, always faithful in serving the troops. Fr. Paul Moore at St. Christopher's Church in Killeen, Texas is our abiding friend and supporter as is his parish family; please pray for them. +gep

The Portable 9/11

110 Maryland Avenue
Washington, DC

It's getting harder to focus with the same emotion I once had for that awful day. There are middle schoolers on my street who need to be told what happened like it was a historical event akin to the Revolutionary War. Still for those who wear the direct scars of a loved one dying on that day--and for those of us who identify with their suffering and loss--even the innocent ceremony of returning a girder back to the site for installation at a permanent memorial brings us once again to a brief, vivid focus. I understand there's a hangar full of this priceless wreckage waiting for municipalities around the country to install their own memory locations. They're lining up to do so.

Now, eight years later, and on a train to Washington, DC I'm commuting to our new office. This is a merciful trip because I'm beginning to avoid New York City on September 11th. I get fidgety; I feel like I should be somewhere but I don't know where. Here in this capitol city we will have a concluding conference in January. As friends and staff encourage this recap program we have been tallying up all that we have put our arms around during this decade of work and September 11th looms among the largest. It's a conceit to think one could ever embrace such an event; after all it's you whose being hugged and to avoid that deathlike grip you change the subject. Like living with cancer you wrangle for control. It even got us into disaster response for awhile until the Episcopal Church finally grew into the role. We set up helpful chaplaincies and founded essential infrastructures and then we moved on to the next crisis.

At an event honoring Katrina and Charles Jenkins I said our office had become visitors to other people's misery. It was sort of vagrant-compassionate ministry yet always the pale version of those warm fall nights while we waited for the 3 AM coffee at the Salvation Army tent. Before our eyes the pile was slowly converted to a more manageable pit but still no bodies were found.

Our guru and beacon of upbeat firefighter wisdom for 9/11, psychologist Dave Knowlton will be with us at the January conference. When Dave and I were visiting communities with unclaimed cars still in their railroad station parking lots--a sign of the residency of victims from the Twin Towers--Dave said this remarkable thing, "the trauma of September 11th can be located anywhere not just lower Manhattan."

It's portable in the ultimate sense. Unforgettable, and as with any insistent darkness, we strive by God's grace to avoid such a final definition of our time. +gep

On the Train to DC

Getting into the stride for the Washington, DC commute and our new office on Maryland Avenue (across from the Supreme Court) is having its own ups and downs. There's plenty of time on the four hour train ride from New York to read semi-annual reports and even compose nifty responses. We're actually more ahead of the game now with that direct email to me. If you haven't sent yours in I'm eager to read it.

And there's even time to slowly mull over notes and letters. One is from CAP Chaplain Cecil Wagstaff, who at 87 years old is grateful for his birthday card and wants to be remembered to everyone. Another is from Jeff McKay a civilian in the Green Zone who unexpectedly finds his tour ending. Jeff has been our reliable senior lay person in Baghdad. And there are many more thank you notes from those who helped us at General Convention.

I read those shaking my head since we are the ones in their debt. Because of budget constraints we had to cut back royally on what we did: no gala banquet, a leaner booth, and not as many chaplains flown in to wave the flag. Instead those who manned the booth put in yeoman effort to represent our work to the Church. We have wonderful people in this episcopacy.

Of course the bombshell at Convention was the austerity budget which was passed and the termination of over 40 employees at the Church Center. The staff cutback didn't affect our office though a goodly portion of our travel budget was axed. I'm hoping the move to DC will shield us from the impact of that but I'll bet the new bishop will have to subsidize program travel from the discretionary fund during the next Triennium. It's just hard for everyone these days.

I got an earful from senior chaplains about having a goodbye party for me. The planning of which I have been avoiding. Wasn't the extraordinary time we had at Kanuga last spring enough? It seemed so to me. No, they want a proper hail and farewell so buckle in; we've scheduled a three day conference in January, 2010 at the Alexandria Virgina Mark Center Hotel. It won't be as maudlin as you might think since we are inviting luminaries who have made these ten years so odd, special, and classy. More on that later I have to catch my train. +gep