At General Convention: Mission Anyway

General Convention has taken the bull by the horns when it comes to mission planning. We heard it in the Presiding Bishop's opening sermon as she closed an engaging sermon with, "Can you hear the heartbeat of the Church? 'Mission, mission, mission!'"

The problem is that you to have a diocesan membership card for it to take place, apparently. At least the agenda here in Anaheim thinks so. That kind of thinking will sentence the Church to irrelevancy. When we arrived everyone was given a number to sit at a specified table for conversation. But not me and hundreds of others. This wouldn't be any ordinary chat since the motive was for everyone to learn the art of "public narrative." There would be four fascinating sessions on this.

To be clear, it's not this technique which should be criticized but the muddled idea of what constitutes a continuing group that could feel an urge for such conversation. If you're not in a diocese you're a spectator...so sit down and be quiet.

There are two risky assumptions at work here: First, that the only institution that can muster the energy for such an exercise is a diocese. After organizing the "We Will Stand With You" effort after Katrina I learned that was a dangerous assumption. Often a diocese is eclipsed by a group of motivated parishes or institutions from within its boundaries. And that's the way the Holy Spirit speaks in that terrain. I know this flies in the face of the old adage about the diocese being the basic organizational unit of the Episcopal Church but on the ground sometimes this just isn't so. To leave other groupings outside of the ring of enthusiasm is misguided.

Wouldn't it make sense to allow for those attending from this federal episcopacy to discuss the impact of deployments, domestic violence, family separations, and the alarming suicide rate? I want to cry when I think of the squandered time here considering the passion many have applied to Home Support Team (HOST) Programs.

Second, Conventions usually use bible study as a means of becoming personable with others in the greater church...often it's through the bible study before the Eucharist. Not this time. Some druidic group decided to uncouple the link between scriptural study and new-found fellowship in favor of getting down to business by talking in this "real" way about mission. Sort of a take home goody for important chats back home. Again, the "public narrative" is what gets cheated here.

What's risky is that the Holy Eucharist's potential for motivation is blunted. I don't recall the names (maybe the faces) of anyone for the past three Conventions at my table groups prior to Communion but I do recall entering their lives. In one case we prayed for someone before an operation. In another, for success in a new job. We missed one person when he didn't make it to the service (and the bible study), a good thing because of the serious flu he had contracted; we sought medical attention for him. You felt like you belonged somewhere in addition to where you were from. We seem to be trading all that to equip ourselves with a nifty program.

Now we don't have to set up Convention the same old way each time, indeed, this new style could have engaging consequences if the organization for it didn't read--embarrassingly--like someone had copied it out of a book. I, and hundreds of people not assigned to dioceses sit around watching others talk about mission. Is that odd or what?

But the Holy Spirit finds away...we are meeting secretly at a table with no number and maybe that's the way it should always be. The organization blithely remains distracted and by God's grace we hope to intend important things anyway. +gep

Mike Stewart, One of the Originals

I enjoy re-reading the Pulitzer award winning novel “Lonesome Dove” by Larry McMurtry since it reminds me of those times of exceptional companionship born of intense work in uncertain times. I feel that way about Vietnam and also when a team from our episcopacy worked together after September 11th. Mike Stewart, a member of that original bunch, died last week and his funeral will be tomorrow.

In the story Woodrow Call and Gus McCrae, and others, are retired Texas Rangers and going to seed in the hot, dusty border town of Lonesome Dove. Stirred by a new adventure they set out to start the first cattle ranch on the pristine Wyoming frontier. It is a thrilling tale and the references to their prior days of fighting Comanches and other ribald exploits become the backdrop to the easy banter between two old friends who know each other’s faults and rely on each other's loyalty.

That post 9/11 team of Knowlton, Blackburn, Stewart, Henritzy, Means, the Szigethys, Zanger, Meairs, Carr, Bercovici, and the Packards assembled in those uncertain September days post 9/11 and fanned out to give crisis intervention to any community that absorbed the trauma of that fateful day. We went from New York to Washington, DC and too many places to count in between. Long afterward we relied on the shorthand of those bonding times; there wasn't much we wouldn't do for each other.

The final chapters of Lonesome Dove are filled with Call's journey to take Gus's body back to Texas for burial. It's heartbreaking and heroic as he journeys across 2000 miles of the Great Plains with the coffin of his friend.

Mike Stewart was one of the few who didn't mind telling me off so we went in and out of relationship but we always found each other once more. That said more about his stamina than mine. After his last significant move to Tennessee we re-embraced yet again and the camaraderie of the old days of "riding together" was still there. He was excited to establish an award winning disaster response program for his new diocese and pestered me about supplying chaplains' ball caps for those whom he had just trained. He lived into what a deacon was--had a heart for it—and constantly hastened us all to hurry up since there was always more to do.

Two weeks before his death he called me with the exciting news that he was engaged to be married. We talked about everything and our friendship glowed from those eternal embers lighted eight years ago. In the Lonesome Dove novel Call never says much to Gus about love, loyalty and character and I think he regrets it after his friend has died. I know I do. Before leaving on the Wyoming trek there’s a scene of Gus prying loose a sign over their old place. Fashioned in awkward Latin, he wanted it for the road ahead, it said, “We are forever changed by the lives around us.”+gep

Memorial Day in the Family

As I lined up at the top of the aisle for the Memorial Day Service I was greeted by this wonderful salutation, " Are you our Suffragan?" It came from the usher who was handing me a program. His name is John Archer--pictured here with me--and later he was to relate how he was a B-17 bomber pilot from 1944 to 1948. It was exhilarating to be with him, have that sense of history and to think he had an identification with this bishop even after all these years.

As I've written on other occasions in this Notebook, the spring and fall days, for Memorial and Veteran's, are the times my office is particularly traipsed out to do the honorable thing...preach, celebrate, or dedicate. And that's how it should be.

I think veterans are the ones who know the greater secret here: when it comes to Memorial Day it could have been them and soon will be. Invariably the majority I greet on Memorial Day are veterans and if you pay close attention most programs amble back and forth between remembering the deceased and thanking the living for their service. It's hard to separate the two though the holidays have different origins and purposes. But in reality it's all one family...and episcopacy.+gep

More than Face Time

Ascension Day

There's a six-year old budding comedian who imitates the Ascension moment and with arms extended he says, "Fffft, first floor clouds, Fffft, last stop heaven." I like that; we miss the real message with any preoccupation with elevation, similarly we do the same with a fascination about the importance of hierarchy in the Church.

It wasn't the manner of his leaving--or the amount of time committed to his appearances--but what the disciples would do next that was important. As the two white-robed men said to the disciples staring at Jesus as he disappeared into the stratosphere, "Men of Galilee why do you stand gazing into heaven?" We treat this scene as if we are in the bleachers watching a Cape Canaveral lift-off but it is the earlier Acts 1: 8 that is precious, "...you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses..."

This feast day commemorates the risen Christ's ascending as he is "restored" into heaven. With Jesus's 40 days of Easter appearances completed there was room for the Holy Spirit to enter with the thrill and wonder Jesus had promised. To have it otherwise would have reduced Christianity to endless seances in search of his latest apparition.

It was up to us since the Son had so significantly changed the equation. All these episodes--even Easter--have to be seen from the perspective of that verse in Acts through Chapter 2 and Pentecost. When Jesus gestures toward a future moment and an awakening to the Holy Spirit (the Christ in each of us) we feel his embrace and are not left defenseless. When he speaks of "the Kingdom of God is at hand" we have the opportunity to take that seriously, look around, and awaken to his call.

I had a brush with episcopal mortality the other day when someone showed me some survey questions intended as information for my successor. One said, "How often have you been with the Bishop?" I agree with that desire, indeed, we struggled to whittle down responsibilities to enable more pastoral availability by handing disaster response over to Episcopal Relief and Development, local prison ministry to social justice, Micronesia to Hawaii, and diocesan chaplaincies to the Mission Leadership Center as we prepared the office's move to Washington, DC.

Still, considering there are 18,000+ Episcopalians in federal service worldwide I wonder even with a slimmed down portfolio if it's naive to focus on maximum face time as a criteria for success. The message of Ascension-Pentecost is primarily right and hierarchy secondarily so. We may have discovered something during the past decade while this episcopacy was hobbled by important distractions: it's better to share the bishop's presence than to be in it. +gep

Seeing the Tableau

As a former Long Islander I felt right at home when the waitress set my decaf and English muffin down with the embrace of, “Here you go, honey.” I was at a diner in Islip, New York, nearly opposite the St. Mark’s Church and waiting for a funeral to start. The mother of Ruth Ann Collins, a great supporter of our work, had died.

Cam and Paulette Fish were on a simultaneous funeral trek that morning as they traveled from the Naval Academy to Delaware where Cam’s Dad would be buried. Paulette answered my call since Cam was driving. While I was on the Cross Island Parkway she and Cam were crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. We relied on speaker phones to chat freely with traffic noise from Queens and Maryland mingling in the background.

Cam spoke from the peace of someone who had travelled through a life event with a loved one: he was in the room reading Psalms to his Dad, even quietly singing hymns to him as he died. Minutes later brother Jonathan arrived and they read the words, “Depart, O Christian soul, out of this world" over their father. Paulette said the family returned to this moment again and again for comfort.

I thought of that three-man tableau as I tapped Nutrasweet into my coffee before the service in Islip. At the end of the counter my waitress engaged two regular customers about the loss of their mortgage. Refilling cups she engaged them sympathetically with a sing-song of encouragement. They brightened a little but stirred slowly.

Later, across the street Fr. Rick talked about his ICU visit to the great grandmother we had assembled to honor. Apparently this brave lady had elected to take life’s exit and with a grab of her daughter’s forearm she whispered, “No more!” Like the Fish Family the O'Briens often recall that plea. Extraordinary measures were removed and she died in three days.

Grandma was fine we were told, in God’s care, and even able to eat junk food in heaven according the homilist. Yet sadness filled the sanctuary as family members choked through readings and a reflection so Fr. Rick invited us into another tableau by narrating how he leaned forward at the bedside with assurances of love. It didn't boost us into the unforgettable, however.

It became clear that the memorable moment was occurring right before our eyes as a pastor soothed the fear of an assemblage remembering a death or thinking about their own as he said, "we all receive the miracle of resurrection because of our belief in Jesus Christ." You could feel the room calm.

I ask your prayers for the repose of the souls of Floyd Hamilton Fish and Clara O'Brien. Please pray for their families: for Clara's daughters, Lenice, Ruth-Ann, Jane, for Floyd's wife, Jean Lincoln Fish and their children, Cam, Allison, Todd, Jonathan and Bradford, and their children, for Cam's portion of the flock, Paulette, daughter Meghan, grandson Dillan; for Clara's daughters and their families.

May the souls of the departed rest in the mercy of God and in peace. +gep

Homeless Episcopalians

During Holy Week, more particularly on Maundy Thursday, I was downhill from Mt. Etna (or "Edna" as my daughter calls it) at Naval Air Station, Sigonella, Italy still holding onto the frail hope that the sun and moon would align and let me proceed onto Iraq. Never mind that this was half-way to my intended destination in SW Asia and never mind that the real prize of the trip would turn out to be this under- served community outside Catania, Sicily.

As far as any Iraqi itinerary I didn’t have the eighteen thousand dollars for the round trip security detail to cover the trip from the airport to the Green Zone and back. You read that right, 18 K, as Canon Andrew White put it to me belatedly, “It’s the most expensive taxi in the world.” The full trip had seemed to be coming together with visas nearly in-hand from the Iraqi government.

Yet all stalled for want of a security detail packing heat. It was a far cry from my other trip when—like a cow town—Baghdad was wild-wooly and blinking awake to new-found freedom. In those days you could stay downtown at the Hotel Petra and the not-yet-terrorists would wave as you passed through intersections.

So, Sicily. It was time to take stock of where I was and be thankful for that. Chaplain Vic McInnis served here nobly and well amidst the abundant orange and lemon groves while nurturing a small flock of liturgical Protestants. It was that stalwart bunch I happened to be visiting post Vic McInnis. It’s always a strange and uncertain journey to venture forth when there is no Episcopal chaplain around. You feel naked but no less vulnerable than the Episcopalians who are left behind when their chaplain leaves.

The military expects you to suck it up, spiritually speaking, and blend back into variations of the corporate body. What that means is perhaps coverage will be from a Methodist, or a Lutheran, maybe even a Presbyterian chaplain, if you’re lucky. Unfortunately this roulette is especially hard on Episcopalians and Lutherans because sacramental liturgy defines and animates us.

When a well meaning but unprepared chaplain enters these expectations there is a guaranteed letdown. Picture it: Episcopalians expecting the high drama of Holy Week complete with story are greeted by a chaplain whose background is to replace liturgy in favor of a patient vigilance in the soul’s inner temple. The latter is perfectly legitimate yet ultimately maddening if you are an Episcopalian expecting a different encounter with Christ.

What we should do when an Episcopal chaplain leaves is to take stock of the situation to see if there is a viable congregation still in need of support. I used to resist this not wanting to shore up congregations needlessly after all, I reasoned, we’re not in the business of sustaining chapel congregations. But it’s not that simple because we are committed to the effort of sustaining, nurturing and developing Episcopalians.

I have learned over time that the appointment of a Pastoral Lay Leader can do much to keep the core of a faith community in place and worshipping. Doing less is to sentence them to being homeless and adrift. +gep

Holy Week Fatigue

Eve of Palm Sunday and Holy Week

Dear Friends, Brothers and Sisters;

There's a tendency to make Easter messages benign. For example, "Lent is the dark journey before us; Easter promises light, possibility and hope." I wrote that once and it's all true but what about proclaiming Jesus Christ as risen? Simply that?

We lose our way if what He experienced isn't followed and embraced. It's hard to do particularly toward the end. We can identify with the events of Holy Week--cringing at what happens to a fellow human. However, after Jesus' death we have no vocabulary to describe the circumstances of getting up and walking around after being dead. The Gospel narratives rely on women and inferences from an experience on the Emmaus Road to continue our participation. You wonder, "why that way, what do these witnesses share...and what do we share with them?"

In the 80's I studied at Union Seminary in New York where Dr. Kosuke Koyama taught a unique kind of theology and his background gave believable testimony to it. Baptized during the American bombing of Japan, later he studied in the States and became a missionary in Thailand. When Dr. Koyama spoke of Buddhism and its effects on Christianity we listened carefully. His book, "Water Buffalo Theology", emphasized discarding abstract ideas preferring instead concrete references to the world around the Thai farmers in his congregation. He had an oft-quoted line, "Buddhism and Christianity had nothing in common but Buddhists and Christians had much to say to each other." That's especially current given the dust up over the bishop-elect of the Upper Peninsula who is an ordained Buddhist layman besides being an Episcopal priest.

Dr. Koyama died in late March and one of his continuing gifts is an insistence on the Christian journey having a concrete companionship with the man, Jesus Christ. Just as his congregation in the hills of Thailand needed to hear the Gospel in words they could understand, "water buffalo, fishing, rainy season" we, too, need to take care and embrace the plain substance of Jesus' life. We must be fully human and let ourselves be wearied by these days. That was probably a given if you were to be a witness to the Resurrection.

This brings us to this holiest of weeks, the description of which takes up a good portion of gospel space. Jesus enters Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and spends the rest of the week visiting the Temple, healing and teaching. There's that moment of temper with the money changers and of course the lengths he applies to arrange a last Seder with his disciples in the Upper Room. Friday stands alone as a pinnacle display of human suffering and then we step into a terrain which has defied description for centuries: his life after death.

Professor Koyama relied on poetry rather than direct description of such things; that made sense but he didn't abandon the story. Perhaps our own salvation in following where Jesus leads is to acknowledge the truth written into the humanity Jesus shares with us. If we're honest with our devotional life and attendance at services we ought to be tired by next Saturday. I wonder if the Resurrection witnesses entered a new relationship with God in part because of their holy exhaustion from the preceding week.

The women and surprised Emmaus travelers were witnesses because of a ready fatigue which was so human and, probably, made them so receptive. May we all live into these days. A Blessed and tired Easter to you if it helps to see the Risen Christ.


Faithfully, Bishop George


Please remember our deployed sisters and brothers (Jorge Budez, Stan Fornea, Will Hood, Steve Pike, Mike Tinnon), their families, and those they serve. Also, pray for John Allen Mikol, son of VA Chaplain Bob Mikol who continues recovery from a cardiac episode. For Bob's wife Eileen as she tends him.