Occupied Bishop

OWS Gets Calculated Disruption and Violence

2012-01-20T07:18:00.005-05:00

"These past several months have witnessed something very different in the U.S. People from many different walks of life came together to occupy public space in nearly 1,000 cities in the U.S. They stood up to vicious police violence, they broke through the confines of “protest as usual,” and in the middle of all that, they built community. Even in the face of media attempts to ridicule, distort, and demonize these protests, their basic message began to get through. People throughout the U.S.—and even the world—took notice of and took heart from these brave and creative protesters.

The political terms of discourse began to shift; the iced-over thinking of people in the U.S. began to thaw. Standing up to the unjust brutality and arrests became a badge of honor. People began to listen to and read the stories of some of the victims of this economic crisis, and to share their own. And most of all, as the protests spread to city after city, the fact of people occupying public space forced open debate and raised big questions among millions as to what kind of society this is, and what it should be. Why does such poverty and need exist in the face of a relative handful of people amassing obscene amounts of wealth? Why do the political institutions of society seem only to serve that handful? Why do so many youth feel they face such a bleak future? Why does the insane destruction of the environment continue to accelerate? And what is needed to overcome all this?

Those who actually wield power in this country regarded these protests, and these questions, as dangerous, and reacted accordingly. Time and again those who wield power violated their own laws and ordered police to pepper spray, beat with clubs, and shoot tear gas canisters at the heads of people who were doing nothing more than non-violently expressing their dissent and seeking community. This reached a peak in the recent coordinated and systematic attacks of the past few weeks against all the major occupations. In fact, the mayor of Oakland admitted on BBC to being part of conference calls that coordinated national strategy against the occupiers. On top of all that, and in another blatant show of illegitimate force and power, they attempted to prevent journalists and photographers from covering these acts of repression—unless they were “embedded” with the police.

To put the matter bluntly, but truly: the state planned and unleashed naked and systematic violence and repression against people attempting to exercise rights that are supposed to be legally guaranteed. This response by those who wield power in this society is utterly shameful from a moral standpoint, and thoroughly illegitimate from a legal and political one.

Now this movement faces a true crossroads. Will it be dispersed, driven into the margins, or co-opted? Or will it come back stronger? This question now poses itself, extremely sharply.

One thing is clear already: if this illegitimate wave of repression is allowed to stand... if the powers-that-be succeed in suppressing or marginalizing this new movement... if people are once again “penned in”—both literally and symbolically—things will be much worse. THIS SUPPRESSION MUST BE MASSIVELY OPPOSED, AND DEFEATED.

On the other hand, this too is true: movements grow, and can only grow, by answering repression with even greater and more powerful mobilization.

The need to act is urgent.

As a first step in the necessary response, there must be a massive political mobilization on a day, or days, very soon to say NO! to this attempt to suppress thought and expression with brutality and violence. This mobilization should most of all be in New York, where this movement started... but it should at the same time be powerfully echoed all around the country and yes, around the world. This is a call for massive demonstrations—soon—carried out in public spaces where they can have maximum impact and exposure and where the authorities cannot pen in, suppress, and otherwise attempt to marginalize these demonstrations.

These demonstrations must be large enough to show clearly that people will not tolerate that which is intolerable... that people will not adjust to that which is so manifestly unjust. Such demonstrations, along with the efforts to reach out and build them, can draw many more people from passive sympathy into active support and can awaken and inspire even millions more who have not yet been reached. Such demonstrations can powerfully answer the attempt by “the 1%” to crush and/or derail this broad movement. Thousands and thousands in the streets, acting together, can seize new initiative and change the whole political equation. The urgent questions raised by Occupy—and other urgent questions that have yet to be raised in this movement—can once more reverberate, and more powerfully than before."

-From an OWS Working Group Flyer

Which Side Are You On?

2012-01-15T21:18:00.008-05:00

Early in Elie Wiesel's "Night", his terrifying story about The Holocaust, he describes an exchange with his rebbi mentor who tells him, "Every question possesses a power which is lost in the answer." Later the rebbi answers the question why he prays to which he says, "I pray to the God in me so that I might ask the real questions."

If you've read the book, the story becomes a progressive horror as Wiesel's family is relocated, then separated enroute to a concentration camp. All this to the background refrain "that it could be worse." And of course it does.

There are two points here.

One, is a didactic about OWS: it is a magnet for questions, a veritable black hole for them. It's so resolutely inscrutable as to lose newly converted liberal types eager for an "ask list." Some even re-frame the movement as religious, e.g, "what historic Christianity and OWS have in common." I'm guilty of that one.

Amin Husain patiently corrects all this with, "it's a economic and social movement with moral overtones." And how it loves questions! But pressed to provide answers, the questions are reduced to someone's sense of a solution based on what they know. What we know is that the current system for all its assurances of faux order is rigged. 1% get the lion's share; the 99% fight over the scraps. Even docile churches join it to keep everything in place.

The questions will remain questions until the dominant culture listens to the people, the 99%. Again, Amin,"...and this is what makes it radical to a too-ready-for-the answer prone culture." That is the calmer, well thought out definition of "radical." What could be more radical than for the 99% to change the conversation so their government and their society finally listens?

And the second point: the recent passage of the National Defense Authorization Act following the truly horrendous Supreme Court Decision on "Citizens United vs. The Federal Election Commission" of January 21, 2010 have become the dark Tweedledum and Tweedledee of our day. Not only can corporations breath; they can get pissed off and vengeful about it too. This brought Chris Hedges to say this at the end of his recent post on Truthdig:

But the NDAA passed anyway. And I suspect it passed because the corporations, seeing the unrest in the streets, knowing that things are about to get much worse, worrying that the Occupy movement will expand, do not trust the police to protect them. They want to be able to call in the Army. And now they can.

By my reference to Wiesel above, don't think this entry is seeking a comparison with the atrocities of the Nazis. That stands alone in its depravity. Survivors live to beckon us to remember and to engage the nobler parts of ourselves. (That statement deserves a pause and its own reverence.)

But there is haste here as well--in his later writings Wiesel is quickened not because he was chosen but because he was a witness. Injustice can seem perpetual and ingenious if we are absent. Said Wiesel in his 1986 Nobel Prize reception speech on the causes for human indignity, "we must choose which side we are on", and, "the answer to indifference is action." In his speech he asks us--in effect--"what have we witnessed and what are we doing about it with the life we have been given?"

I am witness to injustice and pain because of a system stolen from the people. This translates into hunger, poverty, homelessness, and fear.

For me, this means an open-ended commitment to Occupy. What about you?

Taking That Hazardous Leap

2012-01-12T08:33:00.004-05:00

I received this from Dr Anne Fraser. Dr. Fraser has her Phd from Harvard in Comparative Religion. Her observations shed needed light on why traditional faith responses are so tepid re: OWS. We can only look to the emergent churches, it seems, for substantive support. Even then with caution--if they are offshoots of mainline denominations--since only a certain amount of inventive behavior will be tolerated.

So, from Dr. Fraser:

Today I finished reading Stephen Batchelor's Buddhism Without Beliefs and thought the last three chapters, entitled Freedom, Imagination, and Culture, were beautiful and so inspiring and reminded me of all you are dealing with concerning the church and OWS.

Although he is writing about Buddhism, his message applies so strongly to Christianity, which, it seems to me, like Buddhism, is centered around suffering and its recognition and alleviation through a radical path that takes great vision and imagination and can't be constrained by institutions. I really recommend the book, particularly the last three chapters.

Here is just a little taste of what he writes, "Part of the appeal of any religious orthodoxy lies in its preserving a secure, structured, and purposeful vision of life, which stands in stark opposition to the insecurity, disorder, and aimlessness of contemporary society. In offering such a refuge, traditional forms of Buddhism provide a solid basis for the ethical, meditative, and philosophical values conducive to awakening. Yet they tend to be wary of participating in a translation of this liberating vision into a culture of awakening that addresses the specific anguish of the contemporary world. Preservation of the known and tested is preferable to the agony of imagination, where we are forced to risk that hazardous leap into the dark."

Hiding Sacramental Power

2012-01-09T13:39:00.004-05:00

Yesterday during the 8 AM service there was no water on the altar to afford a reenactment of our baptismal vows...an activity in synch with the feast commemorating Jesus's baptism of that day. I offered to fill the pitcher and even gestured to a field expedient solution of using water in the flower vase! Wisely, Pastor Richard Allen waved away all the commotion and suggested that we just "imagine" the water sprinkled on us at our baptisms.

This had the effect of setting the experience more deeply.

And it made me recall a sermon I had heard on baptism as "walking wet." I think it was by Bishop Chris Epting yet I think it's not original with him. It's an intriguing concept and we even dedicated a chaplain's conference to the idea. Why? Because beyond the momentary moisture of the act of baptism we are branded, "marked as Christ's own forever." A fine thing but living differently (and consequentially) is something else again and the idea of being perpetually wet is catchy and an image closer to the intent of the sacrament.

At the suggestion of friend Bishop Charles Jenkins I'm reading--and taking refuge in--Martin Luther King's address "Beyond Vietnam" given at Riverside Church on April 4, 1967. Charles was trying to shore me up after the arrest and I welcome the support...I urge you to read King's response to his sense of "walking wet" even when it wasn't popular. As you may recall he stepped forward from the institutional church and criticized that war.

He said, "we are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless..." This, for him, was a "vocation of agony" because we are all asked to wrestle with conscience beyond acts of charity as in "The Good Samaritan." Moreover, he said, "(One) comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring." Indeed, it is the "whole Jericho Road which needs to be transformed."

Dr. King's plea "to enter the struggle" has a direct parallel to the OWS phenomena and our appeal to mainline churches who are glued to the sidelines. "They" prefer to confine actions (and the transformative power of sacraments) to pre-cleared parameters. In most churches the eucharist is celebrated, followed by coffee hour, and then everybody goes home. The "dangerous memory of Jesus Christ", as Tracy put it, is nestled in the caress of a cultural side street so as not jostle anyone.

I post an abbreviated version of this blog on Facebook (contact me, I'll friend you) and the reaction was easy to predict. Most were well-meaning church goers who wanted to rhapsodize about sacraments. It is not what it is but the miracle of activity quickened later in doing. We seem to have lost a sense of where to look for wonder.

Which brings me to the street again. Our current understanding of "Church" either needs to reform or to get out of the way...let The Body of Christ be the celebrator and not the caretaker.

"You Should Know Better"

2012-01-06T12:21:00.002-05:00

I wanted to save opening this message with you for today, The Feast of the Epiphany. We commemorate gifts of mystery from afar to the Christ Child. This message actually doesn't qualify in either category, neither is it mysterious nor is it foreign. And therein is its pain.

I've received many contacts since the arrest but of them all this is my favorite. Maybe because I haven't gotten that many of this kind, or maybe because it makes me smile every time I read it. I'm not amused to make fun of the author--whoever it is--but as a confirmation of the distance that separates us.

You are a deacon, priest, and bishop. You have taken vows that you would obey your bishop. You are canonically resident in the Diocese of New York. The Bishop of New York and the Presiding Bishop were quite clear that they were against the actions you took on Saturday. Trinity Church can not legally allow the movement to occupy a space they have leased to another entity. It is the other entity you should pressure. Your actions Saturday, not Trinity Church's put your wife in harms way. You were treated well because you hid behind your purple cassock--a vestment which clearly identifies you as a member of the church establishment. Your actions of disobedience of your superiors are at odds with your visual identification with the hierarchy whose will you repudiate. Bottom line: you are protesting against the wrong people and just embarrassing yourself and the good reputation you have built over decades. Anonymous

Perhaps it's a factor of age and retirement that has put this space between us. For some reason he/she cannot understand the truth so summarily set aside by leadership here. For the moment I won't pile up the instances of arrogance so aptly acted out by Trinity Church. I'll let the historical narrative do that. Anon's reference to law as the reference point rises to the level of ludicrous when applied to what a church could decide to do/not. As Chris Hedges points out in his Death of the Liberal Class the Law is used as a defacto act of naivete by the liberal institutions which, in effect, abdicate any real agony of decision making by deferring reflexively to it. No matter how awful and immoral the application.

I promised not to re-visit Trinity in this blog but for Anon's benefit as to whether my protest was "against the wrong people," a corporate mindset is a corporate mindset no matter how you dress it up.

And speaking of dressing up I wore a working cassock that happened to be purple and I guess I made a point. The Church I have known lives now more vibrantly in the streets than in creaky bureaucracies. That special treatment you spoke of seemed a little distant in that holding cell and rather than a shield it was a magnet for numerous conversations with cops who sympathized with the Occupy movement.

The most offensive Anon remark is this beauty...that somehow Brook gave up her First Amendment rights as an American because she attended a protest. Candidly she calls the incident her "gift" because if this could happen to her--a middle aged white woman--think of "the least of these" who get abused and mistreated.

Which brings us back to the manger and the raw circumstances of Jesus's birth. I'm hoping that Anon and I might meet there eventually but his/her manner of Church seems to imply that the Magi sent their gifts in by Fedex to avoid the untidiness of a stable. Thankfully, it wasn't that way.

Use Of Force

2012-01-02T18:44:00.004-05:00

For the past two days the New York City Police Department has inserted itself into the character of these days. And the scene has taken some bizarre turns.

On New Years Eve about 1000 protesters were loosely assembled at Zuccotti. That was at about 10:30. Then a mischievous guy raced among us as he was chased, brutally subdued, and cuffed. This aroused all of us because he's known as an innocent guy, prone to stealing a hat or two--but this treatment? Whoa! As he was dragged to the paddy wagon the crowd shouted, "Shame! Shame!" Me too.

It was an object lesson how a group which was merrier than usual (it was New Years) could refocus on a common object of scorn. Twenty minutes later the cops, like nervous hosts, started to rearrange the metal barricades. Fidget with them was more like it in the name of "keeping the sidewalks clear." The action was transparent--they were exerting control of the area by re-staking out a perimeter.

It made you shake your head because it was simple to see what would happen next...the protesters began to collect barricades. There were some laughable tugs of war between protesters and cops over these sections of fence. In some cases not so funny as protesters were cuffed, arrested, then beaten in that order. After about 45 minutes of this street theater the protesters had tallied up a pile of 50 or so barricades in the center of the park. Mounting this ersatz sculpture they began to sing and taunt the cops.

It was then the NYPD did the smartest thing of the evening; maybe even of the past two days. They looked at the pile of barricades and the swarm of protesters protecting it...they shrugged their shoulders and left them alone. Victory: 1 for the protesters (a point made); 1 for the cops (the mob wasn't enflamed any further).

And there we stayed through the next hour, to midnight, and joyously afterward with people taking turns chanting and singing songs from atop barricade mountain.

Later, through a miscue, a large contingent of protesters left the park parading off north. About this time Brook and I left despite an inceasing assemblage of cops newly arrived from Times Square. Thinking this odd I asked a friend and senior protester about it and he replied, "It's just an intimidation tactic." Uncertain but tired we went home about 1:30. But later that parade got trapped and protesters were arrested one by one. Some so indiscriminately that passersby were swept up and cuffed too. Clearly the spell of wisdom for the cops had lifted.

Later the next day I got a call that a friend had been arrested on a trumped up charge. He was later released when two other clergy, Brook, and 12 of his friends went to court to plead for his release. I can't be specific but it had all the liability of sneezing to intentionally spread germs.

Which brings me to force and the use of it. It shouldn't be and it is incumbent on OWS and the NYPD to work out a system to "civilize" these arrests. It has gotten so bad that as one protester is being beaten in front of me I'm thinking the thing Our Lord would do would be to place oneself between the blows and the protester. Indeed, this is the hallmark of St. Augustine's Just War Theory. Force is allowable when defending the defenseless. But even that pseudo-pacifist thought is an escalation here.

We (I) should energize ourselves before we have to lay down between the blows and our neighbor. Why? Because we must be praying for that cop too. New Years Eve and days following prove that events can spin out of control quickly and we would be better lovers of Christ to blow out the fuse beforehand.

To Be Amongst Hope on New Year's

2011-12-31T19:37:00.002-05:00

I was going to sit this one out watching the ball drop, kiss my wife and go to bed. But the urge to be with friends was too much so we'll take the train into the City and subway down to Fulton Street and eventually wind up at Zuccotti Park where, we hope, many of our friends will be.

I say "hope" because it's always chancey with OWS...sometimes it's on, sometimes not. When they want to do something big they always pull the rabbit out of the hat...like on December 5th when 30,000 walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. I think it's more about my inability to crack the code of communication. When an OWS member stayed us with over Christmas her cell phone went off all night. Later she told me that she had forgotten to turn off the "commo blitz." (?) See what I mean? Different generation, different means of connection. Which makes a person like me a perpetual student of information.

But they aren't so foreign or advanced that they aren't open to some feedback from me. One time I worried with them how they had settled an internal dispute too abruptly. Rather than ignore it they stopped business and addressed it then and there. Later, a leader expressed his concern that he might have inadvertently brought the "ways of the world" (my expression) into the avowedly gentle atmosphere of OWS. He was really distressed and we talked.

You see this is the kind of transparent group of people I'd like to be around when 2012 arrives. I'll take it that I bring your presence there too.

Five Anthropologists Studying One Native

2011-12-30T17:42:00.003-05:00

I have two Facebook acquaintances who share--quite innocently--about how "The Crossing", an experimental, emergent church sponsored by the local diocese, is the home to the Boston Occupy movement. I think that's fine and might be on a par with Judson Memorial here in NYC next to NYU on Washington Square Park.

I know Marissa and Stephanie (they're the acquaintances) would agree that this effort to house street Christianity is hard to contain or define. OWS has very warm feelings about Judson in NYC but beyond that I don't know. Certainly the OWS population are disposed to worship there but we don't want to be so naive as to think that the whole mouthful of dogma and doctrine would be swallowed with a grin.

This is a challenge for many mainline denominational leaders eager to incorporate the passion of this generation but reluctant to take a hard look at fealty to restrictive doctrine. During my recent dust up it was easy to see that the corporate church was quite willing to defer to the law (trespassing) instead of taking a hard look at the moral question looming behind it.

I'm throwing this caveat in because any tribe that tries to adopt this movement is in for a surprise. Moreover, the mainline denominations are so curious about emergent churches that they, as one honest and slightly snarky blogger put it, "resemble five anthropologists studying one native." Google, "Hopeful Episcopalian" and read the entry, "Happy Easter! Expect the Unexpected."

Such an attitude toward any upstart, street church will always place it in the realm of the quaint oddity, something of a boutique curiosity for the next General Convention. The answer is to stay out on the street, edgy and honest, where the Spirit is.

An Emerging Church

2011-12-29T13:34:00.002-05:00

I had another interview with Thom Hartmann and you can find it if you google, "Why Occupy Christianity is Important." This would be news to OWS. I didn't know of the program's title beforehand; the producer said it was to be "a panel discussion on the Christian response to OWS." One panel member never showed and I think the opening title takes liberties with OWS but it was a good show, I think. Lesson learned.

OWS bridles when anyone "adopts" it to include Christianity. Still, the Holy Spirit is in this mix as protesters are called out into the streets in exasperation. Read Chris Hedges' "Death of the Liberal Class", written before OWS and the financial collapse for a prescient description of what we are going through now.

All to say--as I mention during the interview--that when I was on top of that ladder at the Duarte property and about to take that plunge into trespassing things all got very clear. Our dear Church is being re-formed whether we like it or not. It is just exciting!

Is There a Religious Response?

2011-12-28T10:30:00.003-05:00

We held the D-17 debrief in a financial district tavern--that old style kind of place which is dark, creaky and delightful. They were just retiring the saurkraut and bratwurst that was served up for lunch when we huddled around a table for our meeting. OWS uses places like this for stategy, conversation and the beer is cheap. (Later, I was in the public atrium at 60 Wall Street where, amidst a beehive of activity 10-12 working groups were convened.)

Not only was this the first time we had seen each other since the arrests it was also a reunion for many of them. Some had gone home to see families, others had visited companion Occupy settlements. One story was of the adventure with the Portland, Maine Occupy Movement. With no small amount of envy that narrative included how those protesters had secured an allowance from Portland to occupy the land. Of course, not so in the Big Apple. It was generally agreed that New York City only offered tantalizing but very barricaded options.

And so the conversation logically went to how churches perceive the OWS movement. An old question but not for these protesters. Despite earlier frustrations they were eager to cite sanctuaries--by name in New York City--of rest and protection with various faith communities. One member offered how the churches responded would be a turning point; his references to Dr. Martin Luther King drew approving nods around the table. All seemed so well versed in the civil rights connection with the religious community as to quote whole chunks of sermons to me.

Coincidentally, the producer of the Thom Hartmann show called to ask me to be on a panel discussing this very subject: OWS and the religious community. My thoughts are still cooking...I know the current mainline denomination's sideline cheering section is not enough. I venture into this a little with the entry on this blog, "Trinity's Compassion." Plainly we are not called to sneer at the law but if it keeps an unfair system in place what is our response? What was the response in the civil rights movement?

I'd be happy to hear your comments here.

Sums Up Occupy for 2011

2011-12-27T07:27:00.005-05:00

I've been hoping someone would write that definitive piece about the Occupy movement in The Atlantic or The New Yorker, you know the kind I mean, which helps us mull things over on a deeper level. It's been written. With great thanks to poet and writer Elliot Figman, I highly recommend this post by Rebecca Solnit, "Compassion Is Our New Currency. (Notes on 2011's Preoccupied Hearts and Minds)" Find it at TomDispatch.com. Save some time to read it, or, print it out for the bus, subway, or over lunch.

About Rebecca: She is a writer who puts the heft into scholarly work before putting pen to paper. And she's done so here. I've been a fan of hers since reading her epic, "A Paradise Built in Hell." It's providential to discover this essay today, on the Feast of Saint John the Evangelist. In his icons John is often writing yet looking away for reflection and divine inspiration.

About Elliot: He opened his home to weary hunger strikers even while preparing for a wedding reception in his apartment. I first met him during that coffee hour with the hunger strikers and Fr. Jim Cooper. He was an earnest and helpful voice then, and as I say, opened his home immediately...alongside the wedding cake's arrival. You meet some wonderful people in these days. Indeed, Rebecca Solnit addresses this phenomena of connection in her earlier book as she does in this article.

Trouble at the Manger

2011-12-26T13:15:00.003-05:00

Brook and I went down to Zuccotti around 10 PM on Christmas night to support the final hours of an Occupy Christmas event. It had started on Christmas Eve and was filled with testimonials and song throughout that night and into Christmas Day. Because it was so cold participants sought refuge in a nearby McDonald's between acts. When we got there everyone was pretty tired but no less committed.

The plan was to finish with carolling as we closed on midnight and I would offer a prayer. It went well; perhaps you can catch some of it on the OWS live stream.

We soon learned that a generous soul had funded unlimited coffee and tea with the two vendors adjacent to the Park during the day and night for anyone who wanted it. A nice gesture of cheer in blustery weather. But the NYPD questioned the vendors who had received the donations so closely it intimidated them. "Why are you giving coffee to OWS people?", they asked. Keep in mind many of these vendors are newly arrived in the States and such questions are a cause for alarm. Is this interest a prelude to an immigration investigation? The result: the provision of hot beverages stopped.

The the cops were approached about this action and they said, "We're just doing our jobs." Really?

This is the kind of unprovoked harrassment which got me involved in OWS in the first place and it should worry all of us. To be clear, this gathering was as gentle as the assembly of figures at that Bethlehem manger. It brings a level of nastiness to the scene and makes one wonder who/what is behind it.

A Candle for Those Who Quicken Hearts

2011-12-25T07:10:00.004-05:00

I am most thankful for my Dad at this time of year because he (my Mom too) was the one who brought up my sisters and brother and I as Episcopalians. Easy, this is not a pitch for the Church.

The Anglican tradition's use of language in worship is well known. It was from Bishop Frank Griswold that I learned how evocative this dynamic could be. God beckons us forward--so Anglicans pray--in discernment greater than our first thought of prayer. That's how considered the Book of Common Prayer is.

Almighty God, you proclaim your truth in every age by many voices: Direct, in our time, we pray, those who speak where many listen and write what many read; that they may do their part in making the heart of this people wise, its mind sound, and its will righteous; to the honor of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. BCP, 827

In another prayer it says,

...give us new insight into your purposes for the human race, and new wisdom and determination in making provision for its future in accordance with your will... BCP, 828

And, from a prayer for John the Baptist,

(May we repent and live a holy life) and after his example constantly speak the truth, boldly rebuke vice, and patiently suffer for truth's sake... BCP, 190

And this from Anglicans in New Zealand and their still elegant, yet fresh style,

And we are glad, Creator god, when the dawn reveals the world to us, Innocent and fresh, so may we discover the infant in the manger, and in delight be ready to start anew...

Jesus, when you call us to challenge authority, help us to follow closely your example, that we may be ready to suffer the truth, and to give whatever glory there may be to God. NZPB, 557, 567

And so, I pray with you,

Dear Lord, we thank you for Occupy Wall Street and for all those who quicken hearts for justice especially on this day of Jesus's birth. May His light be born in us to be gifts to the world as we strive for fairness and equity following His example of gentleness and charity for all. Amen.

Christmas with Occupy

2011-12-24T08:09:00.003-05:00

Many of the protesters are rotating off line, going home to be with families, others are staying in New York City and will take a break later in the week. Though not all are observant Christians, they are respectful of each other's traditions. For example, one OWS member fostered the idea of a full day of carolling starting at midnight and continuing throughout the following day. Now that's "Occupy Christmas"! Others, believers or not, have clustered around this "action" in support. You make the decision which is better: doing that or having a choir sing to you, as a spectator in the pew, about your Lord's birth?

And the profile of these protesters? Generally young--in their 20's and 30's, well-groomed in hygiene, very astute politically, tech savvy, sociable and fun, and utterly dedicated to each other. Idealistic.

We're expecting some OWS members at our house on Christmas Day. One delightful person is spending nights with us now. Isaiah 58: 5-9. Their presence is a blessing to our family's hearthside; one that truly honors Jesus's birth.

Those who are staying in town are talking about going "home for the holidays." And where else would that be but Zuccotti Park?

Churches: What's Dangerous?

2011-12-23T06:30:00.006-05:00

Of the many letters, emails, and phone calls I received this one:

"...I was at Duarte Park yesterday and seeing you climb those stairs was incredibly inspiring. I can not quite put in words the feeling of hope and dignity it gave me.

I think so many of us feel that this is not just a crisis of the banking system or the healthcare system or the educational system or the political system--but a far larger crisis of faith in all systems, a spiritual questioning of whether we are willing to live by the words carved above the door.

I suppose I have been mostly an atheist in my life, but seeing you act has renewed my faith."

Invariably at the end of every interview--twice with Thom Hartman, once on TV and then on the radio--this question was always posed, "Why don't the Churches take more of a stand in these times?" I have no answer except to say that many worthy sermons and over coffee at meetings talk about Occupy Wall Street fills the air.

That is not the problem; it is doing something about it. The opposite of action in these days is complicity. There were seven clergy who jumped the Duarte Park fence on Saturday. Seven. But off camera was a whole contingent of clergy you didn't see who were our moral underpinnings. They showed up. Moreover, the prior week I attended an Occupy Faith meeting with 60 clergy who in addition to the Duarte protest devised a plan to confront Albany.

These are days when houses of worship should be quickened--and for my faith group--remembering that Jesus (this cute, docile babe) became a potent occupier of the Temple in his last days. His potency was so penetrating that--as Robert Tracy writes, "the dangerous memory of Jesus Christ" was invoked to convene the faithful.

"Well what should church goers do?" I'm asked. They should ask their pastors to talk fearlessly about injustice from the pulpit and they should commit to some local action where the vulnerable are being pushed aside by the powerful. Considering that there are 99% of the former and 1% of the latter that should be a simple exercise. The hard part is that faith communities must face it: they have often forfeited living opposed to the culture and they are complicit with it. There's a need for a reality check on priorities. How does the faith community spend its time and money? Where is its attention? This message could be a salvific blessing.

During this time of faith crisis nothing is more important. To do less is to consign our current versions of religion to irrelevancy.

In Search of Occupy's Core Message

2011-12-22T10:54:00.006-05:00

I was nervous about a recent TV appearance so a kindly rep from a not-for-profit coached me on the OWS core message because Americans have short attention spans, it seems. One unsettling thing he told me was that you don't have to answer the interviewer's question. Any presidential debate will confirm that. Still, his counsel was genuine and was given so that I would do well in the 12 minutes we had on the air. I asked my original, and now longtime OWS friend, Zak Solomon, what he thought,

Just keep it broadly about values and morality - this is a great strength of OWS, our messages resonate with everyone (at least 99%...): economic and social justice, human rights, community, imagination. Locate the faith community within this - as purported moral and spiritual leaders, with a philosophy clearly rooted in human rights and justice, why have the institutions of churches been so complicit in the systems of oppression that have been gaining more and more power -it's a call for faith to wake up to committing to real justice. JUSTICE vs CHARITY

You can bring the actual Trinity story into this - if you're asked about it -
how it clearly illustrates the above. WHAT IF trinity did more to enact
its purported mission; how they've gotten lots of PR buy-in with their
line of helping OWS, but how that has actually involved handing out hot
chocolate, and "allowing" OWS to use a space that was already open to the
public. "band-aid on a broken arm."

One role of this movement is to point out glaring injustices that exist
in our system. Like the attempt on N17 to shut down the NYSE, like the D6
action to put a homeless family into a vacant, foreclosed home, the D17
action served to point out the issues around the concentration of power
and the control of spaces by the 1%.

I don't mind the general character of Yotmam Maron's article (see yesterday's post on this blog). I think it's good to frame things as being both actively progressing, and also taking sometime to reflect and deepen - so there's not an expectation of continued density of actions as we've seen recently.

BUT to be sure to emphasize that this is coming from a place of power- we are building and deepening,we are intentionally growing, ready to rise up much stronger in the future.

The TV interview wasn't great though Brook was sharp. I ambled around trying to express myself remembering both Yotam's and Zak's words. Oddly, I found the OWS core message when we ate with former hunger strikers later that night in a small Village restaurant.

It's this: connection with people who have put aside their lives for a moment on behalf of the 99% to speak to the powerful who would usurp it all for themselves. Justice in that form is having tea with people of noble qualities and loving them for their warmth of spirit.

Duh, this is why I remain a perpetual student of the Holy Spirit and why I feel "occupied" by this movement...we are all protesters...at least 99% of us are.

Next Steps for Occupy

2011-12-21T07:13:00.003-05:00

Occupy Wall Street Meets Winter by Yotam Maron

Winter has arrived. We do not fear the cold. On September 17th, we took Liberty Square, used it to begin to create the social norms and institutions of a society to come, and became the Occupy Movement. We hit the streets fiercely, abandoning the metal barricades they once contained us in, rejecting the marching permits they offered us, refusing their sidewalks. We were dragged, handcuffed, into the front pages of people’s minds, and brought with us a story many were trying to silence – a story about the profit of the tiny few through the exploitation of the many, a story about deep and systemic economic, political, and social injustice. We danced in the streets and parks we reclaimed, and then in the jail cells they took us to when they realized we weren’t going home. We were confident, invincible; it’s hard to be afraid when the sun is out.

But the season has changed. Autumn has ended and winter is upon us. We’ve lost Liberty Square, and each day brings news from across the country that another occupation has been evicted. Winter is here, and with it the cold; but it’s more than that. Winter brings the sober understanding that we won’t be in the headlines every day, that we need to be more than a string of events or actions or press releases, more than an endless meeting. Winter is the nagging truth that the next decade of organizing must be more sustainable than the first months we spent in the sun; that this is a struggle for the long-haul, that burn-out and martyrdom are no good for anyone and no good for the cause. Winter tells us to see our families and take a day off when we are sick, because the movement has to be healthy if it’s going to last. Winter is here to remind us that revolution is not an event but a process, and that social transformation means not only harnessing a moment, but building a movement.

Winter is here. But winter is not sad, and it’s not tragic; it’s just real. We do not fear the cold, and we will not hibernate. We will use the winter to become the movement we know is necessary.

We Will Not Hibernate: A To Do List for the Winter

Grow. We will continue to build relationships with communities who have been fighting and building for decades already, from tenants organizing eviction defense in Bed-Stuy, to AIDS activists in the Staten Island. We will grow by joining struggles that protect people from the daily assaults they experience – from austerity to police brutality – and by waging struggles to meet peoples’ needs, like reclaiming foreclosed homes. We will transcend the open calls to action and the expectation that they are enough to build a movement; we will organize the hard way, because the hard way is the only way. We will have the million one-on-one conversations it takes to build a movement, door to door if we have to, and we will do it out in the open, because we have nothing to fear and nothing to hide.

Deepen. We will finally take the time to learn how to do what we are doing better, from those who have been doing this for so long – from the land liberation movements in Brazil to the women on welfare building community power in Yonkers. We will also teach, because we are reinventing the struggle as we go, and we have learned a lot already. We will ask each other difficult questions we never had time for: How do we organize in a way that is inclusive and liberating? How do we build a movement led by those most marginalized and oppressed? How do we use decentralization to actually empower people and address the imbalances we face in society? We will think radically about what systems and historical processes led us to where we are now, dream deeply about the world we want and the institutions we will need in order to live it out, and plan thoroughly for the building and the fighting it will take us to get there.

Build. We will continue to build systems for de-centralized coordination and decision-making, because liberation means participation, and participation demands structures for communication, transparency, and accountability. We will take our cue from the neighborhood assemblies in Sunset Park, and the university assemblies at CUNY, who are pioneering a shift from general assemblies to constituent assemblies – assemblies in neighborhoods, workplaces, and schools. We will build there, because that’s where people actually live and work, where we have direct, concrete, and permanent relationships with a space, the institutions in it, and the people around us. We will create stable platforms for organizing and growth, and the foundations necessary for a concerted long-term struggle – from complex things like participatory decision-making forums and systems for internal education, to simple things like office space and phone trees. We will create mechanisms to meet people’s needs using the skills we honed at Liberty Square to provide things like food, legal aid, shelter, education, and more. We will do it all in a way that is in line with the values of the world we are fighting for.

Liberate. We will take new space, indoors and outdoors. We will do it because the movement needs bases in which it can create the values of a free society, begin to build the institutions to carry them out, meet peoples’ needs, and serve as a staging ground for the struggle against the status quo. We will take space for the movement to have a home and workplace, but we will also take space back for the communities from whom it has been stolen, and for the families who need it in order to survive. We mean not only to take space for its own sake, but to liberate it; we will transform foreclosed houses into homes, empty lots into gardens, abandoned buildings into hospitals, schools, and community centers. We will use the space we win for dreaming up the world to come.

Fight. We will continue to use direct action to intervene in the economic, political, and social processes that govern peoples’ lives. We will use our voices and our slogans, our banners and our bodies, to shine a spotlight on the classes and institutions that oppress and exploit. We will make it so that the tyrants who are ruining this planet cannot hold conferences or public events without our presence being felt. We will fight in a way that is not only symbolic, but also truly disruptive of the systems of oppression we face. We will block their doorways and their ports, interrupt their forums, and obstruct the systems of production and consumption they depend on. We will do it until they will have no choice but to disappear.

Spring Will Come: The conditions that brought us here – the brutal and systemic oppressions we face – aren’t going to disappear on their own. The window we have opened to the world being born can’t be closed. Now winter is here, but we are not afraid. We will face the cold with intention and wisdom, using it as an opportunity to grow our movement, deepen it, and build structures that can carry it forward. We will continue to build the world we want while fighting to topple the institutions that stand in its way.

It will take some time for the seeds we have planted to grow into the beautiful flowers they are meant to be. Patience. Spring will come.

Yotam Marom is a political organizer, educator, writer, and musician based in New York. He has been active in the Occupy Wall Street Movement. Yotam can be reached at Yotam.marom@gmail.com.http://www.zcommunications.org/occupy-wall-street-meets-winter-by-yotam-marom

What Stings the Most

2011-12-20T07:14:00.005-05:00

If you'll indulge me two parts of my history come to this moment.

After graduation from college I attended law school for one year; it was not for me so I joined the Army and soon I was a platoon leader in Vietnam. But I recall those legal meanderings of my 20's to say that before I left that post graduate venture the two courses I most enjoyed were Contracts and Property Law. I'm not making any statement on being knowledgeable now but that experience made me have wise and cautious eyes whenever such circumstances arose. Lease arrangements and tenancy are terms I know and respect; we spent many late hours together. "They" disposed me, at first, towards Trinity's position in this argument. But I am also aware of the discretion available to a primary lease holder.

The second part is when I returned to my hometown, New York, after having served churches in Virginia. I was in post graduate study at Union Seminary--using up my veterans benefits. I was the priest at a small parish which could only offer housing to me and my family. I needed another job and the church placement service noted openings at Trinity Church Cemetery and Mausoleums. Since I was a member of the St. Francis Burial Society--a non profit which offers guidance on death and dying--I thought this was a good fit. The position turned out to be a salesman to sell niches in the new columbarium Trinity had built on its cemetery property in upper Manhattan. We needed food money so I took the job. The Church had blundered into this industry as a novice hiring a slick character who recently had sold time shares in Florida as the head salesman. Soon things got very commercial, even cynical, under this guy's authority.

Attempts were made to market the niches to gay and lesbian couples (this was 1980) who sought the dignity--which they couldn't get in life--of being buried together. It was the rector, Robert Parks, who was outraged--not for the outreach to the gay community--but for the way it was pandered to. He fired the guy; I was never so proud to be an Episcopal priest. I remember that he said, "that's just not the way this parish is; I think spirited outreach to homosexual brothers and sisters is definitely who we are but re-characterizing them as a commodity is an indignity we will not do." The outreach to the gay community continued but now it wasn't done in a whispered, off-the-record way. That was the kind of Trinity Parish I knew. The Stonewall Riots were a decade before and rocky days were ahead for the Episcopal Church on the subject of gay ordination but I always thought this parish had led the way.

And it was that kind of leadership I had hoped for in this instance not necessarily that a wave of the hand and protesters would achieve some kind of rump tenancy but at least the dignity of a conversation. The Bishop of New York, Mark Sisk, told me that he meets regularly with groups he disagrees with "not that I expect to be converted but that I am in dialogue with them. You never know what else will happen when those conversations occur." The protesters never received this respect. This gets down to the meat and potatoes: someone did a disservice at Trinity--or it was the leadership's oversight--to appear patronizing and remote. The closest we came to countering that was Fr. Cooper's pastoral care of hunger strikers on that Saturday night (see "Trinity's Compassion" entry on this blog) but it never went further.

What would be the problem if such a meeting occurred, even standing around a table staring at the lease to the Duarte property and saying, "My friends, my hands are tied."? That such never was considered stings the most in this dreary episode. When this noble parish opted to do otherwise, to paraphrase Lawrence Lessig in his new book, Republic Lost, "there was no sin done here but a lot of harm."

This ends my comments about Trinity on this blog; OWS has more important things to confront now. As my fellow arrestees said in the holding cell, "This should be over with them; they had their chance." It was that chance I will miss because I'd seen it grabbed for meaning in the past.

Many of you are asking how Brook is. A little achy but she's fine and out in Ohio picking up Clara for Christmas break and I'm back here cleaning the house and anticipating their arrival. Rosie the rottweiler is still protecting the world from the tyranny of squirrels, to quote friend Lizzie Moses, "Dogs, keepin it real."

I Think We Have Our Answer

2011-12-18T21:03:00.008-05:00

Brook and George Packard loading water as in earlier days for Zuccotti Park.

After the arrest we were released about 9 hours later, a little before midnight. For me it was a long day of relatively perfunctory--but efficient--police procedure at One Police Plaza for which I complimented the cops. That remark wasn't popular with fellow arrestees, but, hey, my arresting Officer, Vernelly, was a regular guy and a good cop. Another cop even confided in me that they sympathized with what we were doing for conscience sake; but they had to do their job. These are the kind of guys who helped me unload water at Zuccotti Park in the early days unlike my infamous run-in with Officer Byron. Brook's day and that of hundreds of bystanders whose only preoccupation was that they were staring, was far more perilous. In Brook's case she wanted to sing to me through the fence because she worried I would be afraid during my arrest.

The big show started with uncovering a collapsible staircase carried surreptitiously in the midst of the crowd. I was just stupidly first in line; I've learned when catching transportation in the military not to dilly-dally. Shuffle to the door, exit a chopper, humvee, or troop carrier quickly. Of course I wasn't wearing a cassock then. All the while, I was fully aware of what senior bishops pleaded for--no violence and I was more than resolute that we were committed not to waste any time with disruptions: Cross the fence, sit down, get arrested. I thought then (and do now) that a trespass was a pretty benign thing to do and the ingenious, collapsible ladder (hidden in the mob of the march) seemed a bright way to avoid vandalism. All was going well inside the perimeter of the property as the number swelled to over 300 protesters inside.

Uninvolved spectators began to sit down outside the fence and then the police entered and made arrests...many inside protesters lost their nerve realizing that the police were indeed sent there to arrest and ran for cover.

I recall sitting with my group, handcuffed, and watching the NYPD deploy a maneuver outside the Trinity property, on the street, which must have a name: the rear of a group was now defined by a quickly assembled perimeter of cops, sort of rear guard. But then an odd thing happened: the contingent of police inside the property where I was, pressed the cyclone fence in the opposite direction making a spectator sandwich. Keep in mind these people--not the arrestees--were growing uneasy as the fence started to squeeze them more and more like the Edgar Allen Poe short story, "The Pit and the Pendulum," even to lower onto their noses. Little did I know my wife was in this crowd.

This became an opportunity for individual and gratuitous violence by policemen. The simple arrests were done, why were they messing with these people? Which brings me to the melodrama of the day and the forecasts by our leaders. The only "force or arms" present on Saturday was not in (or at) the hands of demonstrators. Such a statement is woefully out of touch with what Occupy Wall Street stands for. It is the corporate culture which employs these means either grossly or through manipulation of money and power. So much so in this case that the NYPD was called out as gendarmes for the latest corporate client, Trinity Church. We avoided any real tragedy in the midst of peaceful protest, but barely. Should this have really unravelled I would not have held the NYPD accountable as much as those who brought this bizarre, and needless, construct into being.

The cop who kneed my wife in the chest three times and threw her into other demonstrators was the same Officer who walked me harmlessly to the paddy wagon.

Here's a question I have for anyone so free with advice on what conduct OWS should employ at a protest--please answer it honestly. "What would you have done if it was your loved one who had gotten beaten after you had behaved so decorously, and non violently, in the course of your arrest?" Spare me your lectures on non-viloence; we're already well-versed in the discipline.

We must not be so committed to order that we have to step over innocents to keep this point in tact but we will point to its dark and ugly face. And that's why Occupy Wall Street will be around for a long time.

Occupy 2.0

2011-12-17T21:12:00.004-05:00

At George's request, I am updating this blog while he's in jail.

We set out around 10 AM for Manhattan. The salient details of the day can come from my husband. This is his blog.

He was dressed in full magenta cassock yet ready to spend the night should the NYPD wait until the cover of darkness to make their arrests. As a former Boy Scout and Ranger in the military, George is used to extended bivouacs. It is one of those life surprises that this particular bivouac involved leading the way down Spring Street towards 6th Avenue and Canal.

We joined our friends who were beginning to gather around Duarte Park around 11. Although the succession of events is clear to me, the exact time frame is not for valid reasons. We sang and spoke with friends, clergy attending spoke with inspiration and truth (videos soon to be posted and can be found by searching YouTube using OWS TWS Duarte) and then a march began north up 6th Avenue, heading east at Watts or Broome and then back down to Grand Street - the northern border of Duarte Square.

At some point I lost track of George despite the fact anyone is hard to miss in Crayola Magenta. The police presence was enormous at this point. We had experienced this on Thursday when Ysaye Barnwell of Sweet Honey in the Rock came down to teach OWS some songs of solidarity in front of Trinity Church. Forty some odd people gathered on the street and began to sing. The police presence grew from a handful to over 30. A paddy wagon pulled up, a phalanx of NYPD rimmed the singers on the east, north, and south. A command station was initiated. The imbalance of police presence for a few singers being so strong, you can imagine how the NYPD was going to respond to this well-publicized action.

Back at Duarte though, in the crush of police and chanting protesters, I looked up to see George up and over the fence into Trinity's vacant lot. OWS had built a pretty sturdy stairway (Bob Vila and other handy folk, take note). Others followed. I pushed through the crowd to take a video. "My husband is there...please." The protesters amiably made room.

Because this is my husband's blog, I post this link to those who would like to read what we know of his part of the story: http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/guest_bloggers/5507/bishop,_priest,_protestor_arrested_in_trinity_wall_street_occupy_clash/

I am heartened to know he looks pretty happy in the paddy wagon!

So many were recording this event and so many were climbing the stairs into the empty lot. Santa with the American flag! Go Santa! I was trying to record through the press of the crowd when I heard the word that the cops were coming. Not heeding the portent of this comment, I kept trying to record the event. I'm not sure what is on my video because it got ugly.

Someone started clipping the wires of the fence. I shouted "Stop!” He continued I said “Don't take his picture!" "Why?" "Vandalism. Arrest." In my group people cautioned each other. A few wire clips - like one or two poles - had been made. But it was enough for the NYPD to unleash their anger. People behind me shouted "Sit down! Everyone sit down!" We were afraid of the building crush. One could not determine from which direction the crush came from...was it the NYPD pushing on the protesters? Was it from the crowd? But unquestionably on the other side of the chain link fence, the push came from the police. And it was intended to hurt.

Some of us couldn't sit down- there was not room. We didn't want to sit on our comrades. It was mayhem. I don't remember if I stood up after I sat down. The Flip camera in my hand will tell the confusing tale.

I stood there in my orange LL Bean jacket, a post-middle aged mom from the suburbs, trying to film my husband. First a line of police started to push the fence on all of us and they were determined. We sat watching the 10-foot chain link fence fall and descend closer and closer to our noses. All coming down on our sitting bodies. At this point, I think I stood up. I was forced close to the fence and turned to face Officer Teague. His knee came up and hit me in the chest. I was grateful for the chained fence – the barrier softened the jolt. I looked him in the eye saying "Please don't knee me." He looked back at me and did again. Did he smile? Then he did it again. I fell backward into the crowd below me feeling the crush behind, in front, and from the fence which the NYPD was still single-mindedly trying to push onto those outside the fence. Then I felt someone pick me up and throw me onto a pile of people. I looked up and it was a police officer; using my own body as a weapon against other peaceful protesters. Who knew the NYPD could be so clever?

There were no commands or advice to us, no higher order of thinking. The collective snake brain was in charge. There was no indication that the crowd should be dispersed as fellow human beings. No discernible objective of justice, peace making, or serving the public. This was "Bloomberg's Army" protecting the private property rights of an Episcopal church with over 10 billion in real estate holdings. Let's maximize the profits and keep these people off this land.

Obviously, I made it out safely and home to post this, walk the dog, and ensure that our home will be ready for George's return.

Off to Duarte; Tutu's 2nd Statement

2011-12-17T07:18:00.002-05:00

Brook and I travel down to Duarte in a few minutes and what awaits us I do not know. I do know that for me and the OWS I know no violence is intended, only peaceful disobedience if it comes to that. You can follow the live stream from noon to five on WBAI radio.

And speaking of "coming to that" I am still baffled that the Episcopal Church of which I have been a member all my life could not--through Trinity--find some way to embrace these thousands of young people in our very diminishing ranks. (Every year for the last five years we have lost 14,000 members.) Just as we pioneered an awareness of the full membership for the LBGT community what's happening here? How hard would it have been for Trinity to convene legal counsel and say, "Give us some options so that a charter could be granted over the winter months?"

I had proposed that to the Rector and I still think it was a solution. Occupy Wall Street gets a home over the winter (one that would offer food for the Homeless and a clinic--truly bring alive dead space) and Trinity would have the assurance that the lease would return to them safe and sound come Spring. Everybody wins.

Which brings me to Archbishop Tutu's second statement. I see no conflict in anything he said with the first statement, really. As I've said to my Occupy friends, "Let's not delude ourselves in thinking the Archbishop would give you permission to break the law. However, he more than anyone knows what creative tension is brought to a cause for justice when you do." His first statement includes a plea for Trinity not to arrest. But the phrase in his statement--I can only assume it was Trinity which portrayed this to him--was that "their door to negotiation was always open."

Readers, that is plainly not true. Even when Occupy tried over the past three weeks to discuss other prophetic alternatives there was no answer. And that condition continues as we board transportation for Duarte Park now.

From Archbishop Desmond Tutu

2011-12-16T08:51:00.001-05:00

"Sisters and Brothers, I greet you in the Name of Our Lord and in the bonds of common friendship and struggle from my homeland of South Africa. I know of your own challenges and of this appeal to Trinity Church for the shelter of a new home and I am with you! May God bless this appeal of yours and may the good people of that noble parish heed your plea, if not for ease of access, then at least for a stay on any violence or arrests.

Yours is a voice for the world not just the neighborhood of Duarte Park. Injustice, unfairness, and the strangle hold of greed which has beset humanity in our times must be answered with a resounding, "No!" You are that answer. I write this to you not many miles away from the houses of the poor in my country. It pains me despite all the progress we have made. You see, the heartbeat of what you are asking for--that those who have too much must wake up to the cries of their brothers and sisters who have so little--beats in me and all South Africans who believe in justice.

Trinity Church is an esteemed and valued old friend of mine; from the earliest days when I was a young Deacon. Theirs was the consistent and supportive voice I heard when no one else supported me or our beloved brother Nelson Mandela. That is why it is especially painful for me to hear of the impasse you are experiencing with the parish. I appeal to them to find a way to help you. I appeal to them to embrace the higher calling of Our Lord Jesus Christ--which they live so well in all other ways--but now to do so in this instance...can we not rearrange our affairs for justice sake? Just as history watched as South Africa was reborn in promise and fairness so it is watching you now.

In closing, be assured of my thoughts and prayers, they are with you at this very hour.

God bless you,

+Desmond Tutu

Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town”

Meeting the Darkness with Courage

2011-12-15T18:33:00.005-05:00

The starkness of this message is worth many words from me. Please see Bishop Greg Rickel's entry to his blog entitled, "A Sad Day for Our City." This is the kind of darkness we're facing and I fear it's headed this way on Saturday at Duarte Park. We must meet it with hope and courage.

I'm sorry you have to copy it again--that it's not a direct link--but you'll see why it's worth the effort:

http://bishoprickel.wordpress.com/

No Trinity Potshots--But Adept Use?

2011-12-14T06:44:00.010-05:00

This blog was to continue the conversation about OWS and Trinity. But I hope it isn't perceived as running pell mell to stick a finger in the parish's eye. Moreover, in my "Trinity's Compassion" post I was clear about the resistance to stereotyping because there's ample philosophical support for Trinity's stewardship of its 10 billion in assets and still being a Christian institution. Wealth for Trinity Church (or anybody else) is not the problem but a deft use of power--which is on loan from God--is.

I just finished reading the "The Swerve: How the World Became Modern" by Stephen Greenblatt, which documents the importance of how wealthy Benedictine monasteries remained islands of security and assurance for embattled civilization in the Middle Ages. In this true story an unemployed (note that) Vatican scribe hunts for works of antiquity and discovers "The Nature of All Things" by Lucretius. A book which changed the then world and might even be the reason we're here today. This literature--and more--would be lost to us if it weren't for the careful banking of resources by that religious institution. Trinity Church is in this long heritage of Benedictine marshaling of wealth for good. When politicians are grumbling about where to make budget cuts and the poor seem to be disposable it's reassuring to have Trinity's Benedictine stash, frankly.

Which brings me to being adept with the blessing. A bishop like me is the last person to be critiquing Trinity. I'm not, the circumstances are and particularly since it involves land. In the book, "Mayflower, A Story of Courage, Community and War" by Nathaniel Philbrick, our most cherished traditions of benign Indians gathered around a Thanksgiving table are debunked yet better examples of exchange and adaptation between two cultures occurred. Eventually, methodically, however, the Pilgrim's omnivorous need for land, piece by piece, and bought from the Wampanoags for a pittance soon resulted in war. You can guess who won and was sold into slavery after victory to pay for the war. That included tribal women and children.

The Duarte property has the same fragile pedigree. This concern was brought to a local OWS meeting from the "Occupy Toronto" branch: that any occupation of land on December 17th should have a Native American component. "Who owns land and when did they own it" is too baroque for me--but it does say something about the clutch-hold on Manhattan ownership of real estate; especially since the visiting Canarsies from Brooklyn sold another tribe's land to the Dutch. Trinity ended up with the deed further down the line because of a land grant from the English Crown.

The late theologian Richard A. Norris used to advise senior church leaders on their "adept use of authority" and that seems to fit well here. He used the illustration that because such power was lightly given from God we were to be like "Julia Child" in our use of it. Patiently tending the preparation of the meal, always checking the brewpot, not overstepping, but gingerly bringing it all to a purpose.

Trinity needs a cooking lesson for this open moment in my opinion. Everybody's watching.

Five Days Before Occupy !

2011-12-13T11:31:00.011-05:00

It looks like it's all coming down to the wire so gird your loins for this Saturday, December 17th, around noon. The Trinity-owned property, a vacant lot north of Canal Street and bounded by 6th Avenue, could be the new home for Occupy Wall Street, the movement which has transfixed the world with its pluck and demand for truth...or not. Trinity might mobilize platoons of police in riot gear and ring this sad little space with multiple barricades. No room in this Inn!

It's one thing to write about this but to come face-to-face with hundreds of expressionless cops with batons protecting a church-owned haven is to be in some mythological drama out of C.S. Lewis.

I plan to be with the marchers on Saturday not because I don't like and respect the Rector, the staff, and all the work of this historic parish. I believe they are making a profoundly wrong decision in this matter. Certainly they could record what they think is a trespass on the property with a note to the Occupiers but then have the grace to look the other way.

When I was bringing coffee and sandwiches to the Homeless to huddled nightly in church doorways that's what countless senior clergy did: they just ignored the intrusion because something more hospitable was taking place. I might add those doorway sleepers cleaned up by the next morning much as the Occupiers are pledging similar good stewardship of the premises during their stay.

Here are two helpful informational sites for December 17th:

http://d17re-occupy.tumblr.com/

http://www.facebook.com/events/306057236094749/

Occupy...Leaderless and Leaderful

2011-12-12T15:37:00.011-05:00

I gladly substituted for Brook this morning at the anti Goldman Sachs rally since she would be teaching "march songs" to the protesters later in the day. She didn't have to do much convincing because every Michael Lewis book I've read (save for Moneyball) cites Goldman as the monster-in-chief during the financial crisis. And though my entrance into all this really began with appeals to Trinity Church to allow for use of some vacant property by Occupiers that's small stuff when it comes to the sins of Goldman Sachs.

Indeed, Trinity's blindness to this need for realty by these innocents has the whiff of corporateness too. That might be due to their assets totalling 10 billion dollars (gulp). But I think it comes from being just plain big and its myopia. The same applied to Penn State or the Roman Catholic Church and child molestation by priests; the brand must be protected. That protesters need this vacant lot for a season has to compete with grander plans for Trinity to supply malaria nets in Africa, etc. Everything in this worldview is already in place so disrupting a near-at-home lease arrangement isn't even considered.

I still think Trinity is not obstinate just woefully--I hope not fatally-- shortsighted. Goldman is another matter. To quote Chris Hedges, "(The company's) commodities index is the most heavily traded in the world. Goldman Sachs hoards rice, wheat, corn, sugar, and livestock and jacks up prices around the globe so that poor families can no longer afford basic staples and literally starve." The Senate subcommittee investigation accused Goldman of defrauding clients in the now famous revelations that the firm was betting against its own instruments even as it posed the same as sound to customers.

This charade ended with the inglorious settlement of a mere $550 million and the Securities and Exchange Commission's hand slap that Goldman had shown "incomplete" marketing information to clients. What remains fishy--and contributes to this demand for justice--is the cozy relationship the leadership has with government: it's a turnstile as they serve in the Treasury and then return to their desks on Wall Street.

As the demonstration formed up around 7:30 AM in lower Manhattan the buzz was for timing since this "action" was to coincide with efforts in Oakland, California and other ports where Goldman has holdings and does business. On the personal level I saw Sandy and Jerry from other meetings of OWS but this time rather than holding magic markers and leading a meeting they were in the ranks just like the rest of us.

Cornell West was struck by this, "our movement--leaderless and leaderful--is a soulful expression of moral outrage at the ugly corporate greed that pushes our society and world to the brink of catastrophe." And so, this movement adamantly responds to the top down wielding of power by using a horizontal system of decision and response.

Nobody is leading yet everyone has a voice. Ironically this sounds as familiar to me as when we all did leadership training by the new evangelicals in our Church back in the 70's. I remember then Dean David Collins saying that often he would place himself at the disposal of someoneelse's sense of the Holy Spirit, it could even be his curate. Indeed, Rev. Terry Fulham used to be regularly critiqued on how cumbersome consensus must be at vestry meetings. "Somehow God gives us an extra portion of grace to see it through" he said.

That grace seems to be working still and the Spirit isn't particular on how tidy it may be...or the setting.

Trinity's Compassion

2011-12-11T20:46:00.008-05:00

The story of Occupy Wall Street wanting to occupy the Duarte property and Trinity Church--seemingly with arms folded--saying "no way" has all the juiciness of the film, "It's a Wonderful Life." The Rector as the mean Mr. Potter and the Occupiers as George Bailey and the good people of Bedford Falls would be the too-easy castings. Well, discard that rendition because it doesn't work and herein is the real pain of the situation we're in.

Late Saturday night by Fr. Jim Cooper's initiative an impromptu meeting was arranged with the hunger strikers--Brian, Diego, Mallory, and Shae in a quiet place, under a full moon. It was very cold and they talked for over an hour. The Rector and his wife had walked to this location on their own initiative. This is the same couple, Jim and Tay Cooper, I might add, who worked at St. Paul's Chapel--having come up from Florida to do so--in those early, raw days after 9/11.

I'm not saying anymore about this meeting out of respect and privacy for the time they had. But it was a classy thing that the Coopers did to come out a cold night, alone, to meet with these young people in their hunger strike for justice. Keep in mind the point of strikers' action was to convince Trinity to let Occupy Wall Street use land encumbered by Trinity.

Brook and I heard of this Christmas miracle--remember there had been such a chasm between Trinity and the strikers that arrests occurred as they demonstrated on the desired Duarte property. Later that night after this moving and exhausting encounter, Brook gently reflected with Diego that rather than a demonstration outside the church that things had shifted. "Wouldn't worship with Fr. Cooper be more in line with what you had discovered with him tonight?" To which Diego eagerly said, "Yes!"

It's what happened the next day that I can narrate because with my wife Brook I accompanied the strikers to the 9 AM service at Trinity the next morning. It was Advent III and the rose candle in the Advent wreath was lighted as we all arrived to hear Fr. Cooper preach and Fr. Matt Heyd celebrate. Brook was on one end of the pew and I was on the other--bookending the strikers, orienting them to the liturgy and hoping they might consider ending their fast with the Holy Eucharist. Mind you, all this wouldn't have happened if Fr. Jim and the strikers hadn't connected on such a human level the night before. Nobody was around then just the five of them talking.

By the time we all tumbled into place the service was well along toward the Gospel and I was wondering how the homily would be received by our companions. Jim delivered a good message on the importance in hard times for both the Mosaic Law and Prophecy to occurr almost like a bi-polar truth. The Law brings order to our affairs and insurance that ways of the Kingdom become a standard, e.g., "respecting the dignity of every human being" for example. But then, he said, there is prophecy when things go wrong and considering the Lesson featured John the Baptist there were lots of examples then and now. He gave specific examples of the economic inequality at hand. I could feel those in my pew leaning forward to catch every word under this heading. He said the prophets pointed not only to the coming of Christ as in John but also throughout history when there was injustice.

Later all Occupiers/Strikers received communion at the hand of the priest they had met in the cold air the night before. Fr Cooper called each by name as he handed them bread. They even joined the coffee hour later...but they didn't consider the blessed nutrition received at the Holy Table as an end to their hunger strike. Someone said presciently, "feeding your soul with the elements doesn't put your hunger strike in jeopardy." Apparently they agreed but they bonded in communion nonetheless.

It was such a rich, symbolic morning and I delayed any parsing of it until late that day. The simple connection between new acquaintances on a Saturday night found a level of honesty that each wanted to honor with successive small gestures. That's what brought them to meet again in church. The Eucharist didn't need to produce any more of a star burst than to confirm a place of deepest meeting and spiritual intimacy. The closeness they could not achieve in life--for a moment--occurred through Christ.

And then there was the sermon. I think we were hoping that when Fr. Jim described the pole of prophecy he would have taken more of a plunge. True, the Law is the correcting pull on prophecy and so it is with prophecy to re-orient the Law in the opposite. On a bar graph it is the figure eight curve which constanly moves to and fro into infinity: sometimes Law, sometimes Prophecy.

But what is testing us all now is that injustice is so severe in the land that prophecy must not cycle through normally after its turn with the Law but linger in our midst for a considerable time to right the wrong. According to Fr. Jim Cooper the Church is meant to honor this constant tension play out between poles. For Occupiers the Church must abandon that role and dwell in Prophecy with its whole being (read give in to the request to use Duarte). But what does the Church abandon when such a step is taken, what heritage, what coherence is at stake?

It seems all so insoluble but then along came this act of compassion on a cold Saturday night and for awhile the problem seemed to be set aside.

What "Occupy" is, read "Tidal"

2011-12-10T05:58:00.010-05:00

In the confusion which characterizes the OWS Movement there are lots of claims and kibitzers promoting descriptions. None, I've found, are helpful, few are accurate. Among the worst is a piece I read on the Huffington Post where the author refers to protesters as "kids in tantrums" and, "in need of a job." Junk like this deserves a deep breath and an eye roll.

OWS has provided a fascinating syllabus in a glossy twelve page manifesto of sorts called, "Tidal." It reads a little like a self conscious senior term paper at first but in time...it catches up with you. "We notice a vague spiritual nausea, hard to discuss in a world where serious, hard-working people have little time to believe in the existence of the soul." Somebody was paying attention in Philosophy 101. But do you get the point? This is not a movement which is merely drifting over our landscape.

But they save the real firepower for you know who: "What do we want from Wall Street? Nothing, because it has nothing to offer us. We wouldn't be here if Wall Street fed off itself; we are here because it is feeding off everyone." I live in a wealthy NYC suburb that has a local curiosity: a garage band composed of weekend financiers innocently known as "The Derivatives." As a lark they play at local cocktail parties and the town park. They didn't need their bonus money to buy the instruments. No one thought of this obscene reference when they organized the group. I haven't asked if they've changed the name.

But back to Tidal. Further into the piece it says of the sham of self sufficiency (read selfishness as adapted in our culture) that whole populations "are deemed disposable" when they can't afford health care. Having just returned from a city hospital with a friend on Medicaid I can attest to the cattle car treatment for the poor.

And this reference spoke to me as the former bishop for the armed forces, "those who are conscripted into the army with a promise of skills training and work, sent into zones of conflict where there is no clear mandate and where lives can be destroyed, and are sometimes destroyed (these) are also the disposable populations (too)." I think of all those young faces (and not so young if they were National Guard members) in so many deployments, on so many bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. So much post traumatic stress, too many suicides.

Is our country in need of an overhaul? Think so.

"Tidal" can be found here: www.occupytheory.org

Where's it all going to end?

2011-12-09T19:08:00.003-05:00

I've been doing reluctant shuttle diplomacy between the Occupiers and Trinity Church and in a moment of pique I posted this on Trinity's Facebook page:

I have this great worry that this venerable parish will be on the wrong side of history in a few weeks. Surely there's some consummate wisdom in the leadership that can offer Occupiers a chance to express their prophetic destiny in these days. It's a matter of record that the church is good with the provision of service and succor for the neighborhood; they are unable, it seems, to understand their dynamic needs. Plainly said, this means looking afresh at lease arrangements for a season regarding the Duarte property. Think of it as offering hospitality to travelers from our future who bring the message of "no injustice, no more." If we really saw OWS for who they are rather than putting up roadblocks in their path we'd truly delight in their coming!

I thought it was fairly innocuous but apparently they didn't think so and deleted it an hour later. I'm actually sympathetic because who wants a rabble rouser in the system? But actually, I thought, wouldn't this kind of conversation be active in the parish?

I really do believe, now, that the Occupiers will take control (or liberate as they put it) of the vacant lot adjacent to Duarte Park on December 17th. This does mean Trinity will be able to wait it out; OWS has a deep bench and a very long attention span.

Ash Wednesday Regrets

2010-02-20T13:45:00.007-05:00

I celebrated my last eucharist at the Pentagon on Wednesday; my homily was so-so. It had to do with Jesus in the midst of ordinary time. As often happens I get smitten by a new book before writing as in this case, Bailey's, "Jesus Seen Through Middle Eastern Eyes." He emphasized a Galilean who spoke and taught in the language of his people, Aramaic.

All well and good but for the sermon's sake it turned floppy at the end. I just couldn't find an ending and feared for the sermon's integrity and life. When creativity is arid it is very, very dry. This is not to overstate this time on the eve of Lent but such moments of indecision and casting around makes one bind actions to silliness...junk food and aimless magazines. It's a kind of purgatory.

If I'd gone deeper the message would have appeared: what temptations was I avoiding to present to this season? Every sermon is first preached to yourself. As Richard Allen said, "we find our way to Easter but only through the darkness of ourselves."

I should have used this poem; deserts come at many times and places even in painful exegesis. Jesus discovered that and more in his 40 days. +gep

Desert Places
Robert Frost

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it--it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less--
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars--on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.

Gifts from Strange Places

2010-01-06T22:54:00.011-05:00

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

2009-12-05T16:42:00.002-05:00

(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

2009-11-30T07:59:00.004-05:00

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!"

2009-11-10T13:47:00.010-05:00

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

2009-11-06T08:53:00.005-05:00

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

2009-09-10T10:14:00.006-04:00

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

2009-08-18T17:24:00.003-04:00

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

More General Convention

2009-07-26T12:20:00.003-04:00

Post Game Comments*

Elevator conversations summarize what's going on at General Convention. The ride between floors with impromptu friends is just a nice add on.

The chat up and down always includes how exhausted everyone is. Up at 7 AM and to bed around 11. Between those hours the Convention intends to do business by initiating, discussing and massaging a variety of resolutions. It's astounding to see the paper this process eats up. There's one set of pages for the committee, a new set conveys the action to a dispatch mechanism, another to one deliberative House, more that talks to each mechanism oiling the works, and then repeat that one more time for the other deliberative House. I have avoided thinking about where the recording gnomes are on-site. No doubt a sweat shop of over worked typists typing again and again and again.

And as you look across the elevator at your new companions entering at each floor the eye immediately goes to the Los Angeles size phone book of a ring binder all deputies receive. Everyone tries to stay as jolly as they can under the circumstances much as you would if housebound during a hurricane.

Other than the budget the buzz in the lift was about two resolutions which dominated attention. One, known as DO25, was intended to affirm local option and record what many dioceses already do, i.e., allow for support of gay and lesbian persons pastorally—maybe even liturgically--on a case by case basis. It stops short of declaring a policy for TEC. (It was a direct result of a resolution passed three years ago under duress, BO33.)

Back in 2006 a last-minute, unconventional action was taken to assure the rest of the Anglican Communion that we would resist further ordinations of homosexuals to the episcopate for the time being. In 2010 the majority felt confidence needed to be restored in TEC even though DO25 takes great pains to assure our Communion partners we’d abide by our pledge of “gracious restraint” on any more gay and lesbian bishops.

I voted against DO25. If the choice was between consoling ourselves on the one hand and not kicking sand in the face of our Anglican Communion partners on the other I choose the latter. There's an anti-war play which portrays the damage done to society when the lead character places a box of butterflies on a table. One by one he lets them go except for the last one which he burns with a lighted match. The point is that a culture is fragile and easily harmed. It's a horrific scene and the audience was so traumatized at the debut that the script was re-written so that only paper butterflies would be incinerated.

I maintain this consolation resolution is not the benign act we think it is. For my new Lambeth friends I judge it is the real thing, terribly confusing for their perceptions about us, and no paper butterfly. Why do this if we already know the way things are among us? What is gained by stating it? There's so much we could lose; I hope I'm wrong.

The other resolution (CO56) had to do with being prepared for the blessing of same sex unions. I voted for this and toiled with others well into the night and very early the next morning to find a practical way to face the inevitable. It is naive to think we can avoid what some states have already approved as civil ceremonies. Episcopalians in those places are asking if their priests and the BCP can be used at such moments.

Our Church cannot proceed into the future with a single approach and we should find a way to provision certain dioceses to respond as the bishop sees fit. My version of this--bringing it before the 2015 Convention--was defeated. Much of General Convention is about compromise.

This still puts our episcopacy outside of electing to do the blessing of same sex unions. Ours is a much bigger challenge of recognizing those who are homosexuals and nobly serving in the ranks. +gep

*Saved and posted when I got home.

New Allies

2009-07-14T10:27:00.005-04:00

All in all we are happy with the outcomes of this Convention thus far.

We had a successful meeting with the Theology Committee (George Clifford, Carl Andrews, Michael Battle, Bishop Mark McDonald, Gerry Blackburn and me) as we negotiated a better and more successful approach to the Church's guidance on Just War. They will invite us to their next meeting. "What do you want from us?" We said, "Give us an afternoon at your next meeting." We have moved beyond parsing the old Just War theory as we discovered that terrorism invests widely in fragmenting the culture. It doesn't come out of thin air.

I also said other parties needed seats in that room too. The Episcopal Peace Fellowship for example. That may sound odd coming from me but think of it wouldn't the Theology Committee be re-invoking their tunnel vision if they only consulted with us particularly if clarity about a cultural intention (both here and overseas) is one of our goals? The whole family should be at the table for any discussion about the consequences of war.

We took this further with the first of a series of working group meetings with the Episcopal Peace Fellowship yesterday and we hope for a symposium later this year on "shared outcomes." Both our episcopacy and the Fellowship have nearly identical hopes for the outcomes throughout the world. In SW Asia, for example, Marines intend mission success during the first 24 hours of an insertion if they can have a tribal meeting. Also, no one wants the quantity of PTS cases we have now from a battle area.

So, if you compare the outcomes--an assured reason for the insertion in the first place, a pacified and only mildly disrupted culture, and minimized trauma to our warriors--there is much we agree on. Some things we don't but if we start with the end results we can provide the Church with help in reasoned, prayerful assessments of many situations. +gep

At General Convention: Mission Anyway

2009-07-08T17:20:00.010-04:00

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

2009-06-17T10:31:00.007-04:00

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

2009-05-25T22:02:00.008-04:00

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

2009-05-21T14:06:00.021-04:00

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

2009-04-24T18:42:00.017-04:00

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

2009-04-15T14:56:00.010-04:00

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

2009-04-04T09:00:00.004-04:00

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.

Prayers for a Terrible Season

2009-03-09T15:28:00.006-04:00

To its credit the Army is doing a full court press on suicide prevention. I must have gotten five phone calls about what the Chief of Chaplains is designating as a day of awareness and prayer. It happens to occur on Holy Wednesday, April 8th.

Brought on by a breathtaking op tempo in Iraq and Afghanistan and a variety of other factors, suicide is increasing in the ranks at an alarming rate, by 13% alone last year. It ranks as the fourth leading cause of death in country after hostile action and assorted accidents. Worse, consider the service members who contemplate taking their own lives. That percentage is judged to be even higher.

Chaplain Bill Barbee and I talked about the despair that must be in hand by these brothers and sisters and we paraphrased a prayer (# 22 on page 44 of the new "A Prayer Book for The Armed Services, 2008") for sleeplessness. Later I realized that prayer seemed so accurate because of the phrase, "drive off the demons of fear and worry that trouble (me)." From prayer # 11 we are reminded that "we have no secrets from you", and that, "you are with me at all times." But the consummate one is this: "15. For Help in Trouble. I started out so bravely and now I'm sinking, I'm afraid...Stretch out your hand, Saviour, to me. Catch me and hold me fast!"

When you consider all these prayers (#'s 11, 15, 22, 27, 34) you realize we can never be spectators. For example, "# 27. In Anxiety for Loved Ones Out of Touch in a Time of Trouble....Stand beside them in trouble, give them firm and hopeful hearts...and help me to hold in mind that your Spirit...stirs many to help where others are in need."

We thank the Rev. Jennifer Philips for her deft foresight to write the prayers for this edition that we truly need. +gep

Note: To order "A Prayer Book for The Armed Services, 2008" consult www.episcopalbookstore.org

Binding Yourself to Christ

2009-02-25T21:47:00.015-05:00

Ash Wednesday

I used to associate Ash Wednesday's arrival with a pre-Lenten scramble to find a spiritual exercise so I could arrive at Easter appropriately exhausted. But isn't it enough of discipline to intensify knowing more of Christ for a season?

Over the past weekend we sang the St. Patrick's Breastplate hymn, # 370, "I bind unto myself today the strong name of the Trinity..." And then it trudges along. Thankfully with the 6th verse it dramatically changes tune and rhythm with the familiar words,

"Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger."

That's Lent.

There is currently a stir in the Episcopal Church because a candidate for bishop in addition to being a priest is an ordained Buddhist layman. I think that's fine. Whatever technique you can use to bind yourself to Christ is OK by me. As some of you know while duking it out with cancer and I have become a proponent of Centering Prayer which owes its origin to Zen meditation. The founder of this means Fr. Thomas Keating, OCSO, is sensitive on the subject about how you invoke God's presence. He even required a Buddhist aspirant who became a Christian to cool down before re-starting his meditations so that it was centering prayer and not a Zen practice he was using.

That strikes me as interesting. Is the interior life you are entering the equivalent of a railway switch yard and who knows what track you might find yourself on?! For sure there must be an intention when you pray that's why I repeat, "Jesus Christ," as I get quiet and for when distracting thoughts come into consciousness. Eventually you center into God's presence, or, you tarry on a thought God wants you finally to consider. But what if you forget to say his Name? Will you find yourself in the spiritual equivalent of the backside of a seedy carnival?

Which brings me back to the hymn. We really underestimate what the Almighty has done in Jesus Christ if we think God sits and watches our spiritual exercises with arms folded. Remember in Baptism that "...you are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ's own for ever." Surely that counts for something when we stumble into some spiritual realm like a lost child.

Yesterday after visiting the hospital I stopped by St. Catherine of Sienna Church but I forgot to say a prayer at the foot of Jesus on the cross. I thought of this while eating lunch nearby. I wrestled with the silliness of the superstition of being neglectful but I couldn't shake that some relationship was unfinished. So I returned to the church entering just as the Mass continued with the refrain for responsorial Psalm 37, "Commit your life to the Lord and he will help you."

I stayed for the Eucharist, glad that Christ had interrupted and nurtured me. +gep

The Rev. Dr. Bradford E. Ableson, Capt., USN

2009-02-17T16:29:00.014-05:00

This morning, Father Brad Ableson, Priest of the Church, died.

That solitary sentence would do well with him because he was a priest, Navy chaplain and gentleman who was quick to laugh, even faster on the uptake, and not a fan of fuss. To that last point I blogged about his unique and senior status in this episcopacy once before and he was not pleased. Oh, he was respectful enough, just silent on the subject. I removed the compliments but I continued to think of them as I do now. I have never known a man with as singular a sense of loyalty to friends and colleagues. And that circle seemed to be perpetually widening.

He may have been uncomfortable with too public conversations about himself but he loved to tell a good story and nobody could do it better. He was a bit of a delightful snob about that. And if ever there was a man of promise it would have to be Brad as we all anticipated his next move to the Chief's office where he would be working with his old tent mate, Admiral Blues Baker.

We all shook our heads when he was diagnosed with ocular melanoma. As Brad said, "No one wants to win that lottery." Melanoma gives cancer a bad name. He faced it, the loss of an eye, the trial injections at Sloan Kettering, an invasion to his liver, and the parade of procedures with intelligence, humor, and always with his concurrent narration of "the metrics of my cancer and where I am in that timeline." I can hear him saying that now.

"This cancer is my gift," he said to me once. It clarified certain truths he held dear and even drew him forward in his relationships with God and loved ones. It's not a new thing that someone gets clarity from their disease...one author even opined that once the blinding effects of end-stage cancer were mastered therein was a creative potential that life was finite and beautiful. That is about what Brad did--as with most things in his life--treating it with respectful fascination. He went to a Calgary rodeo, received an award from Yale, kept up with phone calls, and still read and wrote voraciously with one eye.

Invariably one would often reach the impression that, "he can't be this brave when facing death" and certainly he had his moments. But there he'd be talking and being upbeat with that lively, endearing mind. He believed steadfastly that the lasting gift you have to give God, to others, and to yourself is a noble death. And we were all brought into his practicum knowing that the end would come...just not yet.

He remained on Active Duty right to the end--which he trivialized as not really going to the office--but I, along with so many others, called him regularly for advice and conversation. He assisted me with the course of a chaplain's assignments mere days before he died. I fret now that I wasn't more respectful of his weakened state but that wasn't the Brad Ableson I grew to know, respect, and very much love.+gep

Interrupted by the Cries of Suffering

2009-01-31T02:27:00.024-05:00

Seoul, South Korea

On this mild afternoon here in the City which promotes itself as the "soul of Asia" I visited the Bongeun Temple, one of this nation's "most traditional Buddhist shrines." With that travel brochure intro I expected more history than animation but like much of the work of the Holy Spirit on this trip I was wrong.

Not only were the grounds full of visitors...they were worshippers too. Awkward and big among the crowd in the Daewoogjeon (Main Temple) it was hard for me to look inconspicuous since I wasn't doing the ritual bowing. In such situations you want to look respectful yet still gawk at the dazzling array of color and character among the deities. Actually in Buddhism that's not accurate since the "saints" are noted as respectful witnesses to your journey.

Korea is noted in this spirituality for the embrace of Jijang who had sworn to succeed to Buddha's wish to save all humankind, especially the ill, from pain and hardship. To that end there was a free medical checkup for the homeless and foreign workers going on in an adjacent building as well as a lunch program. The place was hopping; so much for Zen-like reverie.

Yesterday I visited with the new Bishop of Seoul who wasn't interested at all in my appeal for him to commit his priests to visit Episcopalians in the military. I was startled by his nonchalance. Instead he leaned forward and proposed that we join in the relief of Korean and American orphans in Vietnam. It touched both of us since these populations are ostracized--neither fully one nationality or another--and in desperate need of a relief center which is exactly what Bishop Kim was proposing we support in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).

Apparently this was to be part of a chain of surprises because the week before, on Saipan, again worried about clergy coverage, I found myself instead talking to Dr. Richard Broadstrum in a hallway in that island's hospital. He assured me that all the UNICEF vitamin A medicine our office had purchased for the Islands of Chuk had arrived. "Yeah, a big barrel of it sits under a desk at the clinic." He said.

The problem was distribution and seriously so because its absence contributes to an ugly strain of resistant TB as well as the post natal blindness in newborns which is why we supplied it in the first place. Chukese are now discriminated against as an "epidemiological moat" is created around them by the other island groups. But in less than 20 minutes we developed a plan for a $300 a month worker to distribute the little red pill (it costs less than 7 cents) in Wichap Village on Moen. Done. Two guys in a hall figuring out how to hear the cries of suffering some miles across the ocean.

We're so sure what our mission is and then God arranges for us to hear the real, insistent call. +gep

We Lost a Lion

2009-01-21T21:04:00.004-05:00

They speak of Edward Kennedy as a "lion of the Senate" acknowledging his years of singular service and that label easily fits the late Chaplain Norman P. Forde, USA, (ret.)who died this past week. Although he might be occasionally sidelined with a health challenge he always bounced back quickly; his stamina for service to the Fort Meade community was woven into the story of that place. Even after he and Shirley moved into a condo nearby the talk in the living room was always about what they could next do together on behalf of someone else.

I liked my chats with Norman and I will deeply miss him. One always felt like he was drawing up a chair--even over the phone--and you'd be gently receiving wisdom and advice. The words would always be timely about the state of the church or the mission strategy for congregations on a base or post.

I knew Norman only in his retirement and yet for a period--despite very honorable service by Reese Hutcheson, Bill Wight, Beth Echols and now Tom Bauer at Fort Meade--he was the "go to" guy which held that community together. We treated him like he was on Active Duty again! He was that consistent as a reference point.

Please join me in gathering around Shirley and the family in their grief. We thank God for sending him our way and greeting him with such enthusiasm in the Kingdom to come. +gep

Blessed Richly

2009-01-18T03:24:00.006-05:00

Tumon Bay, Guam

Back in 1994 when the Diocese of Hawai'i was in a fiscal crisis the national church turned responsibility for the Northern Marianas Islands over to Bishop Keyser who later gave it to me. Altogether we've had episcopal oversight in the western Pacific for 17 years. This latest visit to Guam has a bittersweet side to it since though I have been working toward moving Micronesia back to the care of the Diocese of Hawai'i since day one--I travelled here 12 days after being consecrated. My efforts have borne fruit but now I am bidding goodbye to many friends.

For sure there will probably be one more visit to hand the reins over to Bishop Fitzpatrick but the end is coming. It has always been a little tough to give consumate pastoral care to island groups 18 hours away by plane though I was sure in the early days we could plop a priest down at a site and all would be fine or working to be so.

Every bishop should be this lucky it is a paradise and the people are charming. Even though Saint John's School seemed to have perpetual challenges it has remained the premier private school on the Asian rim. Yet every time we tried for the best formula for clergy coverage among four congregations on Guam and Saipan there always seemed to be some exception we hadn't accounted for.

Nevertheless our newest building for St. Michael's was filled to capacity at the gala eucharistic celebration today. We now have one priest between two islands and eventually three deacons which continues to bring clerical congregational coverage to descend like musical chairs.

But this doesn't take into account the full capacity church we had today. As one astute lay leader pointed out to me as we sat outside the church after lunch in a warm breeze off the ocean, "God has placed a lot of treasure in these pews."

I leave for Saipan on Saturday and the scene there will be similar: not much clergy but a lot of ministry...the congregation meets outside in a tent because the building won't hold them all. If I'm finally learning anything as I shuffle to retirement it's that the Episcopal Church needs to look carefully at the laity where most of the blessing is. Funny, I had to come to Micronesia to see that so clearly. +gep

A Place for Despair at Christmas

2008-12-29T11:36:00.006-05:00

Feast of the Holy Innocents

On this day we read in Jeremiah of a distraught Rachel grieving for her children as we recall King Herod's slaughter of all firstborn in his frantic search for the Christ Child. If you've ever been with someone in such sorrow you know they are restless and searching. They cannot be soothed...they are inconsolable.

And it adds to an already abundant message in this season of incarnation, faithfulness, hope...and now, a focus for despair giving it place, rest and redemption.

It had always been Presiding Bishop Schori's idea to connect with us over "a" Christmas and we had big plans of traveling with her to Kuwait and possibly Iraq for 2008. There was a distinct possibility except for the pulled travel orders at the last minute. We hustled to a fall back itinerary which included a tour of our new offices at the National Cathedral, staying at Bolling AFB for four days, Walter Reed Medical Center on two days, culminating with a visit, service and lunch with the Pentagon eucharistic community.

As I said, we had been anticipating the Presiding Bishop’s visit for a long time; it was the first of a Primate in anyone’s memory to see the work we do. I figured we’d be drawing energy off this venture for years to come since she would meet many officers and enlisted persons, celebrate and preach, host meals, and eat with a chaplain's family in their quarters. So, a lot of face time. Yet one incident characterized the whole time for me.

While Washingtonians clogged the roads preparing for the holidays we drove back and forth between the various locations on the itinerary. (A special mention of gratitude should be made of the Don and Darla Bretz, Randy Haycock, John Symons and Gerry Blackburn for their exceptional support of this trip.)

It was at Walter Reed Hospital that Bishop Katharine made a singular comment. A hallmark of her Nevada episcopacy and her priesthood before had been hospice chaplaincy. So when a retiree, an Episcopalian, had been admitted for pneumonia there was a request for clergy presence at his bedside. Bishop Katharine stepped forward as naturally as if she were the chaplain on duty. I didn’t want to crowd into the room so like a worried parent I paced outside and peeked into the room.

No need for worry: Under a faint nightlight +Katharine was hunched over the bed straining to hear and calm the gasping man in his last life event. Photos were restricted of course on that floor and even this blog veers close to violating that intimacy.

Later she said to me, "I don't get a chance to do much of this anymore and I miss it.” +gep

Text of a Christmas Quiknote

2008-12-18T14:07:00.003-05:00

We had hoped to be at least in Kuwait (and maybe even Iraq) with the Presiding Bishop during this Christmas but our travel orders were not approved. As a worthy substitute we will be in Washington, DC visiting Bolling AFB, Walter Reed Hospital, and the Pentagon with Presiding Bishop Schori. So it's a different kind of Christmas than expected and that's a theme of note for this Season.

The holiday for Vic McInnis, Bob Young, Eric Thompson, and Ted Valcourt in Iraq is different than what they had expected to celebrate some years before this deployment. At such a time they are closer to the Holy Family’s experience on the road to Bethlehem than we might be. By their example we can see how the Incarnation often arrives with no familiarity. This is a distracted world to which He comes and it certainly needs Him.

It is a welcome mystery how God brings warmth and acceptance to a stable or changes any other different kind of Christmas to become the birth scene he intends it to be.+gep

Across the Miles

2008-12-12T11:32:00.006-05:00

Have you read any good books lately...to your kid while in Iraq?

That's the kind of question a group of education writers were asking over this past week as they worked under the theme "Across the Miles: Praying, Reaching, and Reading." Meant as a support to the deployed and their families a series of booklets and on-line, inter-active supports is planned. For example, "Devotions for Adults Family Members Separated by Distance." is matched in its ingenuity by another selection of prayers and exercises crafted especially for children.

All these materials will be available on-line at www.episcopalchurch.org through the Evangelism and Congregational Life Center. Once there, click “Adult Formation”, then, “Military Resources.” Check it out in a few weeks.

Pictured with me during a work break is project chair Ruth Ann Collins, Lifelong Christian Formation, ECC Staff, Janie Stevens, Diocese of Texas and Mary Lou Crifasi, Diocese of Southern Virginia and the Rev. Gerry Blackburn, Director of Federal Ministries who gave considerable and essential staff support. +gep

Electing a Successor in 2010

2008-12-09T16:25:00.011-05:00

By the time the Presiding Bishop places the mitre on the person who follows me I will be well into my 11th year in this job. From Bosnia and Kosovo, to 9/11, to two wars in SW Asia, to Katrina, and all the countless visits in between that's a lot of air miles, hotel rooms, and friendly faces. And every bit of it fascinating. These occasional entries will keep you up to date on the selection of the next bishop suffragan.

This afternoon we took the first steps in preparation for the election of my successor in this job by forming a committee of six bishops who will function like a Standing Committee in a diocese. That is, they will determine the parameters of the election, its rules, protocol, and budget.

This group met by conference phone call today and plan further face to face time at the House of Bishops meeting in March. The group was appointed by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori to reflect geographical balance, and interest in differing parts of the Federal Ministries episcopacy. They are: Bishops Laura Ahrens, Connecticut; David Alvarez, Puerto Rico; Nathan Baxter (Chair), Central Pennsylvania; John Chane, Washington; Rayford High, Texas; and Gregory Rickel, Olympia. Bishop Clay Matthews (Consultant), Pastoral Ministries.

A step by step process is contemplated which includes the writing of a profile and the selection of a nominating committee at our May conference at Kanuga. Intake of candidates will take place during the remainder of 2009 to include a process for those by petition. The nominating committee will be drawn from all parts of this episcopacy to include chaplains and laypersons.

Candidates for bishop will be flown to the spring House of Bishops meeting in 2010 for the "walkabout" when the election will take place. Consecration of the new bishop is tentatively set for September, 2010. +gep

Like Sparks Darting

2008-12-07T11:55:00.008-05:00

On these winter nights I watch the fire in the hearth as the embers fly upwards and away. At open campfires you might remember this busy, aimless journey. A little there, more there, popping and meandering, it seems, but so plentiful.

On Saturday I attended the memorial service for Ann Evans Bauer wife of the Rev. Tom Bauer who serves Fort Meade. Ann had died suddenly after an earlier heart attack which we had thought was behind her. I called Ann during the interim hospital stay and she sounded chipper, "I think I dodged the bullet," she said, and then, matching my woebegone story about the church she continued prophetically, "this has taught me to greet things with a glad heart."

Ann continued to recuperate while her energetic husband organized an all-day planning conference which our office visited over a speaker phone. It was very nifty and strategic. The gathering took note of Ann though it seemed an interruption to ask about her given the focus of the day. There was just so much you could do over the phone.

To be at the funeral I had to design an odd and complicated cab-train-cab route beginning very early in the morning in New York to make the 11 AM service in a Baltimore suburb. I say all this because I was as surprised to get there on time as, apparently, were the other mourners to see me. But as I slipped into the pew I knew I had part of a story but I wasn't sure if it meant very much.

There were any number of priest friends of the family in the congregation--me included--but Tom, indomitably, soldiered on and did the service himself and it turned out to be determinative. His homily was an amusing anecdote about his wife which he intended as an open invitation for anyone else to add a memory. I cringed at this having been in these awkward moments before. But Tom knew his crowd.

One by one, friends, old employers, past parishioners, and family each shared a snippet: Ann was a nurse, she loved nature, she was a grandmother to the neighbors' kids, she was the thoughtful friend. Gradually I began to understand where my fragment fit in and I shared it.

In this Advent season--and on this weekend which includes Pearl Harbor's Day of Infamy--we seek Christ so intently in individual moments of character yet we may miss seeing his corporate face staring back at us in a mosaic of the people who encircle us with love and affection.

The bestselling book, "The Shack" by William P. Young includes a portion where the main character, Mack, is confronted by a visual display of celestial souls who have died. Without distraction we see through his eyes the heightened animation God intends for us one with the other. As it says in the Book of Wisdom that was read on Saturday, "(the souls of the faithful) are like sparks darting among the stubble." We are created to know Christ and love through Him...come what may.

After the service over sandwiches I greeted the young Air Force mom and her 6 month old son whom I had met during the conference call. She had come from Korea to have her baby here; her husband was back in Osan. The Fort Meade people had wrapped her in their arms and the sparks were flying. +gep

Advent Anger

2008-12-01T13:29:00.005-05:00

Chaplain Vic McInnis wrote to me recently about his Thanksgiving experience in Iraq, and like today's daily lectionary readings, it should give us the splash of cold water of reality for Advent.

In today's daily lectionary readings Isaiah conveys God's admonition that solemnity and prayerfulness aren't necessarily the same thing. And in the Epistle to the Thessalonians, we read that the gospel came by word, yes, but the Holy Spirit matched that by filling them with power and conviction.

Vic writes, “I spent Thanksgiving out with one of the forward operational bases and it was an extraordinary experience. There were Marines who missed the worship services I had offered prior to the Thanksgiving meal which had been flown in hot and ready to serve. So later in the evening they asked if I would consider offering the service for a second time.”

These young Marines weren’t eating turkey and basking in someone else’s gratitude they had their own sense of worship to claim; Advent skewers anything that would do otherwise. Simply, it’s an insistence to get on with what matters. It’s Advent anger, really, an impatience mixed with urgency. Promises are made all the time in life yet here’s one that trumps them all: Christ in whatever form will be disclosed. You know it…it’s more than a hunch. I have a friend who though economical in her churchgoing isn’t so in Advent. She says, “I’d miss the opening of a new level.”

I've had conversations recently with my college roommate about how our lives have turned out. His on the edge of religion but no less spiritual and mine, well, you know mine. Despite our differences we’ve noticed a common impatience with fluff, distraction, and disingenuous behavior. I don't recite these because I don't have them; at my age it’s just harder and harder to hide. And possibly that’s the source of the new found wisdom of my roomie and me: now in our sixties we can sense we’re running out of time.

O God, birth Christ in me and around me yet anew, and hasten to do it! +gep

Empty Chairs at Thanksgiving

2008-11-27T07:05:00.004-05:00

Thanksgiving Day, 2008

During a phone conversation last night with Chaplain Babs Meairs I realized that this would be the first Thanksgiving without her recently deceased mother Beverly. A few days ago Anne Bauer wife of the Rev. Tom Bauer died suddenly after a brief illness. Tom is the priest at the St. George's community at Fort Meade. Our hearts are with your families, Babs and Tom. Adjusting to the empty chairs at the table today won't be easy.

For that matter I should have mentioned in my recent Thanksgiving message the empty chairs of those serving in Iraq right now. Eric, Bob, Ted, Vic, and David, you and your loved ones will certainly be on our minds today. Your service ultimately characterizes what we are about.

The story goes full circle, though, with recently returned Dale and Sean and we rejoice with their families that they have taken their seats again. May we be confidant that our futures--here and heavenly--we will always be at tables where God brings all to fill the seats. +gep

Thanksgiving Understood

2008-11-24T13:18:00.004-05:00

With another Thanksgiving we tally up moments of gratitude...and we ought to. At countless tables across the country prayers will be composed by the more earnest members of the family or there will be a dear moment of befuddlement as the host fidgets for the right prayer of thanks before everyone dives in. Gratitude is that and other things too.

I have just returned from chaperoning my daughter and her friends on a complicated overnight trip to a town some 5 hours away. When asked later by my wife if she was grateful for this weekend commitment and sacrifice she innocently replied, "I thanked Dad all the time!"

In truth we talked about a lot of things on that trip but her gratitude wasn't one of them. But then I got to thinking about being grateful, counting on someone, and having trust in the care of a relationship. If we squeeze thank you’s out of every gracious life moment we lose something. We assemble at all the other "Thanksgiving" feasts in our lives with exactly that in our hearts if not on our lips. And that is something which should make the list. +gep

Mount Calvary Monastery Destroyed

2008-11-14T17:40:00.011-05:00

Like the sudden bad news nobody wants to hear I received word today that the Montecito wildfire dubbed "The Tea Fire" because it started in the tea gardens in mountains north of the monastery yesterday swept over the hilltop where Mount Calvary once stood. Reports are that the Brothers are all safe after having bundled off some belongings, computer records, and priceless possessions of that unique and beautiful place.

For our often rootless population we have claimed it as a refuge and spiritual home. We, and a lot of other pilgrims do so. This is a very sad moment. Please join me in prayers for the all those who are now homeless. Pray as well for the firefighters, those who have been injured, and those who have died.

Of course we stand with the members of the Order of the Holy Cross in any intention they have for the future. Checks payable to the Treasurer of the Diocese of Los Angeles and earmarked, "Montecito Fire Recovery" may be sent to Bishop Jon Bruno, 840Echo Park Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90028.

The inferno can't burn away the sweet memories of that place in our hearts and we each have them. Let's hope those recollections can be the intention to join in re-building for tomorrow. +gep

News from the Diocese of Torit, Sudan

2008-10-22T14:06:00.007-04:00

Dear Bishop, Christian greetings.
I hope you are fine.

I read somewhere in the Internet where you have remembered me. This is encouraging. Torit is fine and the Christians are truly returning from exile. His Grace the Archbishop visited parts of our diocese and during His pastoral visit inaugurated seven new churches which proves that we in Torit are becoming a fast growing church.

In the Internet you mentioned that perhaps the Diocese of Torit is small and can be covered at a walking distance. This is not so. Instead it is a very big diocese whose area can cover and is equivalent to the following dioceses combined: Cuebet, Ibba, Maridi, Lui, Mundri, Yei, Lainya, Kajokeji, Rokon, Rejaf and Juba Dioceses.

The walking on foot is conditional just because we do not have the diocesan car to facilitate the movements. I hope this will put a clear picture that Torit diocese unlike others dioceses which have only one language group, has 23 different tribes. Some tribes have not yet been discovered. We shall discover them as we move by.

Greetings to all. Regards, +Bernard Oringa, Episcopal Diocese of Torit.

Dear Bishop, Christian greetings. Thank you for your quick response. I am writing from Juba.

I arrived in Juba yesterday for a workshop organized by the province to the commission chairmen in the province. Thank you too for offering to visit us in the diocese. Let me know when you plan to visit us.

His Grace the Archbishop visited parts of our diocese from 30th September to 8th October this year. Because of the long distances we could not cover the bulk of the diocese. Attached is one of the pictures for your information.

Greetings to all. Regards, Bishop Bernard

The Name Says It all

2008-10-12T17:26:00.008-04:00

Leesville, Louisiana

This is the second stop in a three city trip to Houston, Leesville (Ft. Polk), and Des Moines and each time I visit with Episcopalians very busy in ministry (there are nearly 19,000 on Active Duty) I realize we may have inadvertently described ministry as chaplaincy. In the enthusiasm to catch a needed emphasis after September 11th we referred to our Office solely as, "Chaplaincies." At the time it was helpful but it would be inaccurate to continue that reference as recently evidenced by this visit to Fort Polk. Here, some of Episcopalians in uniform have never met an Episcopal chaplain! That's a sad fact but true yet it has always been our charge to make sure everyone is cared for and invited into vital ministry.

Chaplains remain our significant component but like a diocese we don't describe the full measure of what we do by the actions of the priestly population among us.

That's where faith communities like Polk Memorial Mission come in. This sturdy congregation like so many others throughout the world take in the pilgrim military individual and families giving them support and in like measure they give a robust return. I filled a sabbatical with the study of such wonderful stories. Often a congregation is maintained on the installation by stalwart lay people. That's true at Forts Hood, Leavenworth, Sill, and too many more to mention.

In the future we will refer to our episcopal work as, "Federal Ministries (Chaplaincies)." It's a better embrace of the work God has given us to do. +gep

Just a Stroll in the Park

2008-09-25T14:39:00.006-04:00

Today is one of the occasions we observed the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It all started earnestly enough with directions for massing in the lobby of the Church Center and a walk to Dag Hammarskjold Park across from the United Nations. I got there late which was my first mistake because whenever I do I observe more than I participate. This was aggravated because I found out I wasn't on the official list of participants. It happens. Undaunted, I lingered trying look deeply serious...I'd worn a purple shirt for the occasion after all.

Everyone, even illegitimate latecomers like me, got an info sheet with instructions to snap your fingers every three seconds. This, we were told, represented the death of a child in that interval from hunger. I couldn't get beyond who came up with this creepy mathematical action plan to make such a point. Wouldn't being silent for a half hour be a more respectful note of their passing? We could ratchet up the total to a ripe 300 kids thereby...you see I'm doing it too. Oh how we need to do something and quantify this misery...any way you slice it we are vicarious and feeble in counting the loss. The question is should we be silly?

Later we-they passed a speaker gourd around in kind of "I've got the conch!" fashion a la Lord of the Flies. It was effective since everyone got a chance to speak but the downside is anyone could speak even if it wasn't particularly illuminating.

It is one of the problems I have with radio call in shows and man on the street interviews. I don't think I'm a snob but I'd rather hear persons who really have something to say. I'm a man on the street myself and I rarely have wisdom rushing out of my mouth on every occasion. Passing the gourd rose to institutionalizing that vacuity.

I did notice that most of the gourd grabbers were well fed which is at the heart of what I'm trying to say. (The two really interesting speakers from the Third World were drowned out by the chanting of a nearby Falun Gong demo in a neighboring stall.) We were all drenched in the hypocrisy of the gathering: it was not more than a few hours since our last meal, we stood in Nike shoes, and in the shadow of the latest Trump apartment building.

In the end it all thinly disguised how nervously guilty we were as members of this population and maybe how gutless we are to change the way we live. The bottom line won't go away in order for our sisters and brothers to survive we have lessen our consumption...of everything. +gep

I Voted "No"

2008-09-20T10:47:00.007-04:00

It wasn't the House of Bishops' greatest moment. The vote on Thursday whether to depose Bishop Bob Duncan was determined by a hitch in procedure rather than substance and dominated by property prize anxiety at the end of the day.

Think about it: diocesan bishops charged with chattel and realty protection at home puzzling about what to do when one of their number wants to bankrupt the legacy to those left behind after a nasty court fight. Any empathy for the faith and nature of the departing former members? Not much. It's no mystery how they would conceive of a continuing church community, thereby choosing a course even if it means compromising canonical procedure.

A postponed vote would have been wise, prudent, and plainly the right thing to do. To quote senior Bishop Peter Lee advising the House on such matters which is his duty by canon (when he is allowed to do it), "Despite numerous statements by Bob Duncan we found nothing actionable." And there isn't. True, we were provided with canvas shopping bags to hold all the incriminating paperwork of reports, newspaper and magazine articles, assessments, and scary confidential memorandum about Bob's garrulous designs to pick up his diocese and leave but there was no fatal, last gasp. The dignity of church law would have allowed for that.

From the first it seemed that something was hastening the process which canon law intended to be sober and deliberate. And that something was Pennsylvania case law which--now bear with me on this--says that if a branch of a not for profit chooses removal from a national organization it may do so. From here it reads like a bad spy novel...by decapitating Bob as the head before Pittsburgh's big vote on October 4th our forces can deploy (are you with me?) the sole objector on the Standing Committee to rise before a hostile convention and cry, "foul!" The figure of that poor soul haunts me like a Frank Capra movie with no redemption. What's the big deal, you say? The late Diocese of Pittsburgh could toot off with 30 million dollars in property. It was said, "When we don't match the efforts of the opposition we imperil the future of remaining loyal Episcopalians."

But is all this about whose is the keener plan to outfox the other guy? Surely who has the rightful claim to property can be determined by some formula of distributive justice. We claim to be Christians after all. In the end who has the deed isn't the lasting legacy to a post modern generation of newly interested Christians about to inherit this mess.

That group advises the greater wisdom of the Gospel on whether property should have so much influence in our lives. We might likely hear them say, "Let'em go, your principles are pricier." +gep

9/11, What the Day Reveals

2008-09-10T17:07:00.006-04:00

September 11th has, tiresomely so, become a "I have to go, I have to do, I have to write something observance." When plainly that's not the message at all.

How can we forget those days? I mean the early ones when after the terror of crashing towers did its darkness by dispersing everyone, screaming into the streets that by some mystery of the Holy Spirit people found each other again in snatches of anonymous Good Samaritanship. We huddled in fear but we also cleaved to each other in some certainty that a better destiny was found together.

We shared cabs, minded each other's kids...even that cat you always detested. We went to the store, got water, made calls for each other. "Your cell phone works, you got coverage?" We even posted those sad "Have you seen my loved one?" posters near hospitals. We pored over them hoping we might recognize a face but really knowing we read more for wrenching sympathy. We had lost so much, God.

Conductors and bus drivers gave you a free pass. Lines of all kinds and shapes of persons snaked their way through dust and around (sometimes over) abandoned cars to bring makeshift supplies to impromptu marshaling centers at churches and synagogues. Nobody told them to do that. Signs were scrawled on the side of mailboxes, "the people of Davenport, Iowa want you to know,'we're with you!'" You remember that.

That is the 9/11 which still walks among us and which we grieve and which we will be spontaneously reenacted on Thursday, September 11th, 2008. It is the latest version of an ache which comes annually and may eventually dissipate as the years go by but I hope never does.

In spite of all the things that isolate, estrange, and make life lonely we have it in us to seek out love, companionship and community. We know this from when it all started on a beautiful September morning that some meant to change but never did. See if this isn't true through reaching out to someone on this hallowed day; that could be true in New York, Washington, Shanksville, or anywhere you happen to be. +gep

New Look to the Website

2008-09-05T11:02:00.005-04:00

We're back in operation after Labor Day with a new look to the website, and new name, check it out, www.episcochap.org. That label seemed less tortured than trying to remember tec-chaplain.org.

Big things coming in the next six months will be trips to see chaplains in Kansas, Utah, and the Far East with a stopover in Houston as an appearance at the Diocese of Texas Clergy Conference.

I hope this new look to the website is engaging and has a cleaner look. I am especially proud that we have a new assignments map now. It answers the questions I invariably get when visiting chaplains in the field. "Where is so and so now?", They'll ask me. We like to keep track of each other in this family. Now we'll all know.

There's also a straight forward section for news and I mean news from anywhere...we depend on our readers for input. For example, I am especially pleased that a conference is being held in the IZ over this coming weekend. Special thanks and gratitude go to Dale Marta, Vic McInnis and Andrew White for making this happen. We hope to have follow-up news and pictures on that soon. That's news on a grand scale of course but just as important are the other personal stories you'd like to share.

Growing Alongside

2008-08-05T07:39:00.008-04:00

The means of departure from Lambeth were less tortured than the arrivals. Buses began departing for the airport at 3 AM and didn't stop until well after noon. We were advised to leave 6 hours before liftoff which seemed overly cautious but the Lambeth people were probably glad to get us out of their hair. They had had the stress, now it was our turn. In Episcopal Church terms that meant facing the music back home.

During my goodbyes I ran into bunches of bishops--both progressive and conservative--who were still integrating what we did. "Did" is not exactly the term since the Reflections speak as a collective voice in our ears, more as Banquo's ghost than as a final statement. Banquo is manifested as a guilty conscience in the character of Macbeth since he bumps him off earlier in the play. Everyone at Lambeth probably wanted more "umph" in the Reflections, as sort of a resolution-like quality, but we had murdered that idea long before arriving in England. There is no common mind in Anglicanism.

It was interesting to me that all groups grumbled equally: conservatives, that things weren't airtight, progressives, that they would have to explain what appeared to be a retrenchment. I regret--Banquo's whisper--that we didn't make a more published gesture to the gay community since Lambeth 1-10 was not revisited. In the Reflections the public doesn't get an adequate sense of the concern in the indabas regarding the persecution of gay persons, instead that passionate worry is tucked away under the general category of "The Five Marks of Mission" and only gains a remote reference in #27, page 10 of the document.

When I got home the work of salvation was closer to the ground as I pulled up nests of crabgrass which imperiled the balloon flowers. That work seemed at odds with a passage we had studied from the Gospel of John in which Jesus cautions that the wheat and the tares should thrive together until harvest. That, in sum, was Lambeth 2008.

As I hacked away at the weeds my meandering thoughts were also the object of Jesus' lesson in that parable of delayed judgement since my mind was gently and insistently lulled by the sweetness of the fellowships and mystery of what I had just experienced. How we could we be such a diverse family and love God together with such certainty from our individual perspectives? Since you can't be sure which is a weed and which is not all you have is time together within the miracle of God's growing abundance.

I wondered if my new friend Bishop Bernard Oringa Balmoi was back walking his paths in southern Sudan; perhaps his hand was brushing over the tops of flowers (or weeds) and he was thinking about our meeting--just as I was doing. +gep

Story Makes Things Happen

2008-08-03T08:42:00.006-04:00

On this last day of the Conference our bible study ended with the question, "How can the glory of God and the wounds of crucifixion be reflected in us as we are sent in Jesus' name?" I needed help with this...personal frailties, wounds, I can account for easily...but glory?

A brother from Brazil said he felt that there is glory in the life stories we have shared during during our days together. That appealed to me because nothing will make eyes glaze over quicker at home--or out visiting chaplains--than going on and on about the Windsor Report, the Covenant, and the general tinkering with all things Anglican for 17 days. Indeed, it's the stories.

And, as the Archbishop shared in his closing sermon tonight it's not just any story but that which rests in Jesus Christ. It's a story that when told in such a way others recognize Him. Capacities and depths are opened that they never knew. Jesus' story makes things happen where, once really heard a person says, "Yes, that story is mine!" Says Rowan Williams, "It is the story of Jesus, the stranger, most at home in the depths of your life. And it is scary, God has made me for glory! Horrors!"

Some stories start innocently enough: During some off time all the bishops with chaplain responsibilities got together. I have to say there may have been some initial wariness about how to do this...would our approaches be in conflict? So we made an appointment...the chaplains general from Canada, the U.S., the U.K., New Zealand, and Australia. We met for coffee and then again for beers. Our worry about our chaplains in Iraq, and prayer, brought a pledge to cover for each other in operational areas and we even discovered that we could add persons to a conference that was already scheduled to be held in the Green Zone, 4-5 September.

Soon an invitation was sent to the Australian chaplain in Baghdad--via Blackberry right on the spot--in hopes that he could join his American brothers at the event. Moreover, Bishop David Conner, Dean of Windsor, and Bishop to Her Majesty's Forces was going to be in country at that time. I gave him one of our chaplain's baseball hats to wear and while donning it there in the bar he declared, "I'll wear it on my trip!"

This is my last post from Lambeth. Flight home tomorrow. +gep

Over the Din

2008-08-02T14:24:00.007-04:00

Because the Kent campus is close to the coast (the cliffs of Dover are 20 minutes away) there are plenty of seagulls. The gulls muster around 5 AM and, ingeniously, sit atop the sports center where we have our hearings for the Reflections Group. Perhaps it's me but they seem to squabble with background racket only when something complicated is discussed. True, this is less about ornithological behavior and more about my challenged hearing...they may always be up there carping...I merely get more sensitive to them when the dialogue gets passionate and incoherent. Passion is important but it doesn't move us forward in this uncertainty. The Archbishop calls it, "preferring a wholeness of perspective."

The birds weren't a problem today as we shoehorned into a too-small lecture hall to hear the latest and always improving script on group think known as the compilation of the 20 indaba groups and their countless pages of sub reflections. The task of the 20 "listeners" is to get a sense of how things are going, reduce it to a concentrate, record it, and then to re-present it to us. Unfortunately it is, as one bishop humorously put it, "like commenting on the minutes of a meeting you haven't attended."

Nevertheless, the process is catching "the direction of travel" as the conservative Bishop of Winchester described it...and I don't think he was being kind. Despite the bishop's worry this document is not an enthused advocate for gay and lesbian progress. Lambeth 1-10 from 1998 remains on the books (homosexuality is at odds with Holy Scripture) and it looks like we might be extending the moratoria as a "season of gracious restraint." That cessation refers to the blessing of same sex unions, ordinations to the episcopate, and incursions by other bishops across diocesan boundaries.

There was a workshop called "The Devil is in the Details" which I missed. There is much rightful buzz about making sure about what is the difference between "authorized liturgies for same sex unions" and "suggestions" from the bishop's office. Further, since there is already a moratorium observed in the American Church when, they hasten to ask, will these roaming bishops cease and desist?

A hot button for the Africans has been equating the practice of polygamy and the current challenge to accommodate homosexuality in holy orders. "We have never allowed persons in such a state to enter positions of leadership," they say. The Archbishop of York (an African) said his grandfather set his wives apart with property when he became a Christian and said Americans were "chasing butterflies" with that argument. Perhaps it was a lull from the seagulls but even I understood that the comparison was not of substance but of process. Christianity has always acquired new ways of adapting to the time. Males aren't required to be circumcised before becoming Christians anymore. Apparently there was an accomodation for polygamy, so would the Church do that for homosexuality?

The Episcopalians always knew there was a short menu to choose from here at Lambeth: we would either walk apart or we would accommodate to a situation in hopes of change later on. But actually the "waiter" has offered us a special for the day too. That has come in the guise of the grace indaba espouses and it is producing a less fearsome Covenant, "an expression of mutual generosity," as the Archbishop calls it.

The wonder is how this will play back home and how many gulls will be winging overhead. +gep

Murder First, then the Details

2008-08-01T16:02:00.003-04:00

You might have guessed why I had P.D. James on the brain when I chatted with the Archbishop the other day. (See below.) I'm a fan. Her mystery novels have gotten me through many a long plane flight. Naturally I jumped at the chance to meet her when even the Prayer Book Society gave a social with her as the main attraction. I think I'd even tolerate stars from "Sex and the City" if they were entrees to meet Baroness James.

In her late 80's, short and sturdy, she's tough, schooled, and smart. She told me that she always went to Evensong as a girl and probably owed her writing to such experiences, having been "brought up in odor of Anglicanism." She writes the scene of the murder first and then fills in either side of the story from there.

I thought about that plot sequence as the logic for many things even the Lambeth Conference. One could say that the designers here wrote how we would discuss the Windsor Report and the Covenant in these days--or hoped how it would be--and then filled in all the other activities as filler...even tea with the Queen, and believe me that was filler.

When you sort it all out we have been hovering around an innocent looking paragraph, (3.2.5.), in the Covenant which turns out to be a switch point. Do we become a more authoritarian church or do we remain "Anglican and irrelevant to the challenges around us" as Archbishop John Patterson of New Zealand described it.

If you signed onto this blog without the faintest clue about an Anglican Covenant having instead more interest in fuel prices or the Summer Olympics...well, you're in good company. I can't persuade you to be that interested but I can say that watching two absolutely different groups of people wrangle with each other for the sake of a heritage that each claims is theirs has an operatic quality to it. We just hope it doesn't have a death scene. +gep

Beakthrough

2008-07-31T13:14:00.004-04:00

If the Anglican Communion would just turn over their troubles to my 40 member indaba group everything would be fine. We had a break through as an American female bishop likened our church to siblings arguing in the back seat of the family car. There was a murmur of final understanding since there had been a wonder if those Episcopalians were coming unglued. No, just poking each other the way kids do. "But we stay together and that's what makes unwanted boundary crossings by South American and African bishops so confusing." She said.

I was re-playing that fateful day in Minneapolis in 2003 in my mind when we confirmed Gene Robinson's consecration and how no one gave much of a passing thought to how this news would impact anyone in this room. Some have been beaten and called members of "the gay church" in cultures where sympathizers like that were stoned, others have died...not because of Gene but because dioceses have rejected the HIV-AIDS assistance from the American church's tainted money.

The conversation--for the Americans and the Canadians--had real remorse in it: we acted without care for the greater family and we were deeply sorry. I'm not saying the consecration wouldn't have happened but the hurt of disregard for them--which was plain and evident--would not have been there.

Then Bishop Michael of Sudan continued as he said that his church was only getting used to thinking about homosexuals now with that he composed a prayer right on the spot emphasizing his point. After the entreaty to "Our dear Lord" it was as sensitive a summary of their uncertain lives in his land that I had ever heard. We were silent. (I wonder if this Lambeth is about where had hoped the 1998 meeting would have been in the appreciation of basic gay lives and rights.)

The bishop went on to say that we had to give he and his people some time; elevating gay persons into leadership positions of authority was confusing to him and his congregations. "Can't a baptized person get into heaven without you making him a bishop for awhile?" He had us there. As he was speaking I wasn't sure if the nods were in sympathy or agreement. It seemed like both and it came about as there was an acceptance of North American remorse.

The atmosphere in the room had changed. Said our facilitator, "We seem to arrived at a special level of trust." And that seemed to hold true for the heretofore stilted conversations about the Covenant too, that code of conduct we have all been dreading. Now, there was a growing consensus around the things which make us an affirmed, communion of churches in search of a grace-filled process which would come to the rescue when we get out of sorts with each other. It had been the meanderings in recent years for the right venue to discuss this which has been so maddening.

If we could only come up with a process of soft intention, setting our minds and hearts in the way Christ would want us to behave when things get enflamed...sort of a compact indaba. +gep

Home Stretch

2008-07-30T17:25:00.001-04:00

My laptop crashed so these entries will be shorter. The ABC (Archbishop of Canterbury) called in his chips in an address by portraying each side's worst fears last night. In his address he hoped that conservatives could be patient and progressives could back off. "Perhaps we will have created enough community (so that) an intellectual generosity is born." A covenant, then, for him is an expression of generosity. The ABC plea is that we speak life to each other yet the Windsor hearings have the same barking script. Nasty meets nasty.

I don't know...I hope this works. In those hearings it’s like two different worlds come to the microphone and testify. But it is this Communion which brought us instant news of the bombing in India, a sermon from an Ojibwa, Native American bishop and the hand signs of the Archbishop of Polynesia who spoke of the all-encompassing "moana" (ocean) which is God's plan that no one would be isolated.

A bishop to the aborigines had us enthralled in bible study with his sense that Jesus smelled differently while he walked the earth as compared with after his resurrection. Had you ever considered that or that a culture might even think such an intriguing thought? For his people smell is memory...it is for us too but we forgot.

The ABC closed his remarks abruptly and for good reason with, "don't invest everything in like-minded souls!" Such an investment loses so much of the mind and experience of Christ.

Indaba is straining to move beyond description now so that some assent and intention can be achieved in the three days we have left. +gep

Weather Report

2008-07-29T01:14:00.005-04:00

They took the group photo, sort of a group MRI, the other day; it's the one all bishops are itching to have so they can go home and say, "See, I was there!" From a less cynical perspective it is the most dramatic display of the variety of bishops who attend the Conference, and, in truth, it's probably the only time all the Primates will sit still for a photo together.

I was in the first half who were bleachered and I fought off a panic attack while watching the remaining 300 bishops (that's a lot of beef) join the rest of us on an already jittery bandstand. We calmed ourselves by singing "Amazing Grace", badly.

You can't say there isn't a grand strategy going on because someone had the smarts to call out and place an attractive blond female bishop here, a reluctant conservative American bishop there...you get the idea...this was indeed a group photo but forward placement of strategic persons couldn't hurt. (I was later to learn that some had indicated they might boycott the photo session but they all clammered up the steps.) Who knows maybe a worried "orthodox" bishop would be less likely to bolt if he saw himself in the same row as the Archbishop.

But the grand design stops in the photo op department despite the promptings by the Press and others. I realized that during an interview with the Tablet the other day. The Tablet calls itself "a progressive Roman Catholic newspaper." The reporter said she had stayed up all night reading "the secret surprise of the Conference." She had the red book on suggested canonical guidelines under her arm referring to it as "the Fifth Instrument of Unity." A nice young woman, competent, and she sounded pretty convincing.

But I don't think so. We can all feel the Archbishop as the big poppa of unity (1); his performance at this Conference has been flawless giving him rock star favor. But at the end of the day there is the balance of the Lambeth Conference itself (2), the Primates (3), and the heretofore neglected, and lay represented, Anglican Consultative Council (4).

The Tablet reporter was correct for despite this recital of the instruments of unity (all 4 of them) there seemed to be an immobility in recent years when it came to responses to the blessing of gay and lesbian unions, the ordination of practicing homosexuals, and unwanted incursions from other other bishops. This is a bare bones critique of the Windsor Report. Moreover, we have two bunches of the Faithful, side by side, who read the bible differently. So, was another instrument needed, sort of an code of conduct which could mobilize an ecclesial swat team quickly?

That's why everyone is breathy around two undeviating compass azimuths during this last week. Will they intersect? The first is the growing feeling that we like being a worldwide family but the second, from another direction, is that there will be an agreement which tells us how to behave and when we are bad. To make it worse, there may be some we don't know or elect who tell us so and determine our future.

Do you think this sits well with Americans birthed in freedom and who had to wring out an Anglican existence via the Scottish Church?

There was a thunder storm here about midnight last night with an accompanying lightning strike somewhere in the area. The sound of it was shallower than normal, a curious flat echo like it didn't want to be a storm though the accompanying deluge was real enough. We'll see what weather we have yet ahead.+gep

Vying for the Archbishop's Chair

2008-07-28T10:12:00.005-04:00

If you have 1000+ persons in any venue and you are lucky enough to bump into the head man it's usually at points of necessity...in the elevator or as he's coming out of the restroom.

For me it was when he tried to steal my chair. Actually The Most Rev'd Rowan Douglas Williams was roaming around the dining room with his cheesecake set on meeting people and since I was up getting my own desert he sat down or rather sat down as I did too.

We looked like we had just scrambled to the final chord of musical chairs. At first I thought he was an Archbishop look-alike. What are the chances you will share laps with the head of the Anglican Communion? It certainly ranks as the most awkward introduction I've ever had. Maybe for the Archbishop too but he gets around more than I do. He quickly motioned me into an adjoining chair and scooped into his cake, smiling.

He asked how I thought it was going and I said with considerable theological insight, "Good." I worried about being drawn beyond my depth so, in addition to complimenting his retreat homilies, I launched into my favorite question for all luminaries,

"How do you keep up your energy? Do you exercise?"

"No," he said, "but I always bring a book along which has nothing to do with all this." He waved his hand around the room, not dismissively, but in a gesture that seemed to gently touch all the bobbing heads in the room.

I tried to think what a scholar with a twinkle in his eye would sneak away and read.

"A P.D. James novel, then?"

He half nodded--I got the impression he had long ago plowed through everything that famed British mystery writer had written. At this point a lady pressed him with a gift she had obviously wrapped herself...so much for hearing the scoop on what was waiting on his night table.

I share this not as more ga-ga about the man but to say he and I have a liking for cheesecake and, apparently, the same furniture...at least his generosity made that so. +gep

Indaba Surprises

2008-07-27T00:46:00.006-04:00

Indaba is the Zulu word which pervades this Lambeth Conference. In church work we have a tendency to embrace the latest chic to explain the simplest of Jesus' truths so I had wondered if this was another attempt. The word means gathering for purposeful discussion. Archbishop Thabo Makgoba of Capetown explains it as the process a village uses for ongoing communal living. In a Zula context "it could be used to address stock theft, poor service delivery, or for Anglican questions, how we handle the Bible, sexuality, post colonialism, and mission challenges."

Everyone gets a voice with an intent to find out the deeper convergences that hold people together. (In the Pacific we have a similar expression, talanoa, made from two words tala meaning telling a story and noa meaning space.)

What this means on the practical level for us here is 7-8 persons in bible study each morning...you must show up for this time...with an intention not to come with any pre-set agendas and follow-up "expanded indabas" before noon. It was hard for me to feel like this concept was activated at first. We were all good natured and committed to small group study...what's so novel about that? Well, it's the spirit of indaba which takes command or rather replaces any western, legislative momentum of, "let's move along in the agenda for the day."

The clear effect of this dynamic is to put one in the perpetual motion of listening and discovery so when you are in another interminable line waiting for food or transportation you pick up the conversation again with those around you. There's a genius to it.

We have finished a busy week and I had expected to visit one our chaplains stationed in the U.K. on this intervening weekend. I even had a complicated itinerary to make this visitation happen--nearly three hours away--but I'm learning on this trip what you plan may be different in fact. (By the way my luggage was delivered on Friday.) Of course the reason we are out here on the eastern peninsula of England is, of course, because of Canterbury which brings with it all the attendant remote assets of the University of Kent and "downtown" Canterbury.

When a conference of this size descends on modest support services, to include the only rental car agency, you can imagine the strain. Bottom line: despite a reservation, no car to visit our chaplain and only intermittent rail service. This is less a description of the paucity of travel services here and more about my overly ambitious use of time. How much did I expect to squeeze out of this experience?

Feeling depressed, I went to dinner thinking if all had worked out I would be merrily driving on the wrong side of the road right now en route to see Daniel Karanja and his family but instead I was on another food line. It was then--in the spirit of indaba--I met Bishop Bernard Oringa Balmoi of the Diocese of Torit in Sudan. His is a small diocese which he walks by foot; he has 1000 members. He and his wife have 30 children.

"Thirty children?" I asked.

"Yes," he replied, "Two my wife and I have and 28 more we adopted from the war, they were orphans...who would care for them?"

He spoke enthusiastically about his faith with nary a care that by world--or church--standards he had next to nothing.

"Have you never had a car?" I asked.

"No, the bishop before me had one but it wore out." Said Bernard.

We sat together for dinner and complained about the food (I was really beginning to like him). Finally I gave him a souvenir coin from my office and he asked me, "Do you have a companion diocese?" I told him of our work and he said there is a need for chaplains in the Army in his area and how many residents had left and only troops remained. Besides thinking his was an area which about matched the operational size of Micronesia, I realized because his diocese was so small it was being overlooked in the sorting for companion dioceses.

Right then and there we forged a bond and I promised to visit him not really sure exactly where he lived. Later I was to see on a map that it was in the farthest and most southern portion of Sudan; so distant that he receives mail in Uganda.

Bernard was to say later that the Holy Spirit had drawn us together and in the atmosphere of indaba I quite agree. +gep

Lambeth, Thursday July 24th - Thomas a Kempis

2008-07-24T15:33:00.006-04:00

This is via Brook's posting courtesy...more on indaba groups when I get back to Canterbury.

I'm on the bus now coming back from the "London Day" on the itinerary. It included a march from Whitehall to Lambeth for the Millennium Development Goals and then a rally there. I skipped the march. I've found you have to budget your energy and, frankly, the MDGs will still be the MDGs after that long walk. So I took a late bus to Lambeth and waited for the marchers.While waiting for them I reviewed the Lambeth Archives historical display and lingered over the Elizabeth I and George III entries because she was the mother of us all and he was a son of a bitch. The latter is a reference used by Thomas Jefferson when George turned his back on the first American delegation to England after the Revolutionary War.

Elizabeth's personal prayer book was colorful and dog-eared. The margins were full of biblical cartoons and she seemed to favor the morning prayer which roused her "body as well as soul." It was comforting to see such candid devotion in the founder of the Anglican Church...and a little surprising. I had always thought of Elizabeth as the strategic thinker and not as an intercessor. King George it seemed took special enjoyment in the selection of bishops from other colonies having certificates of institution engraved with a detailed portrait of himself.

After the marchers arrived we gathered in the Lambeth courtyard and heard a stirring (the only way to describe it) call to action from Prime Minister Gordon Brown. This Scot and son of a Presbyterian minister put it to us directly: we had it before us "to eliminate poverty by 2012." Whew. The target date was September 25th when the United Nations can take action. The Anglican Observer followed him on the dais and enthusiastically said of his presentation, "I didn't know whether to dance or ordain you!"

What followed were two anti-climaxes. I had expected a box lunch and instead we sat down to catered lunch under a large tent. Lambeth has a thing about tents it seems. I sat with an irreverent English bishop who kept wondering about "the tab the Archbishop had to pick up", a very amenable bishop from the Congo who only spoke French and Swahili, and three female Japanese translators. It was hot.

The final anti-climax was due to the numbing and so gracious afternoon with the Queen (of England). It was nice and the food was good but I kept looking at my watch wondering how long all this good taste would take. I need an upgrade in the royalty- awe department, I guess.

More soon, thanks and love to Brook. +gep

Lambeth, Finally

2008-07-23T13:14:00.003-04:00

Getting connected to the Internet was easier in Europe than here at Lambeth (never thought I'd say that considering the bewildering--and scary--array of sockets that seem to declare a standoff to a power source.) But here I am still without my suitcase and wondering if the mom and pop operation called the front office over here really did lose it between the front gate of the Kent University campus and my dorm. Well, yes they did! Eight days and counting. The English have much to say to for themselves but planning and process isn't part of that description. I'll probably get more optimistic once they release my underwear from some hedgerow.

Seriously, the conference wisely began with a retreat held predominantly in Canterbury Cathedral. (You can't get casual when you are taking notes next to the Tomb of the Black Prince and wondering if THIS is where they snuffed out Thomas Becket.)

Archbishop Rowan Williams approaches his theology as if it all just makes sense. His style reminds me of Henry Nouwen. Over three days his talks challenged us to think of what role we bishops have in the Anglican Identity; he began by making reference to our creatureliness and beyond any who who had absented themselves from this time. His text was 2 Corinthians 11: 28, 29, Writes St. Paul, "I face daily my concern for all the churches. Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?"

Said the Archbishop, "One can't distance oneself from the weakness and failure of others. If God's Son is to be revealed in us it will be when we--in love and freedom--let the grief and struggle come into us." The new humanity is to be in Christ and it is meant to be a vulnerable existence...if anyone loses, all lose. He continued, "the death of a child in Africa diminishes the human reality."

We had three full days of that kind of heady richness and so the stage was set for work in our Indaba Groups. More soon. +gep

Lambeth Bible Study

2008-07-03T09:36:00.003-04:00

Over the July 4th weekend Brook and I will begin a visitation in Germany as a preface to the Lambeth Conference starting on 16 July. You know the charged atmosphere in which this ten year gathering takes place; some congregations and dioceses have split from the Episcopal Church and the recent meeting in Jerusalem of conservative provinces and others suggest even more ominous days for the Anglican Communion as we know it.

During this time--more than ever--we must rely on the Holy Spirit to show us the way and I invite you to participate in that by joining in on the intended Bible study of the Gospel of John the gathered bishops will be about for those 18 days at Canterbury. You can find that study on http://www.lambethconference.org/lc2008/resources/. It's down loadable as a handy guide.

I cannot over emphasize how important a prayerful study of God's Word is at this time. Don't think for a minute that somehow the Spirit is hovering exclusively over Lambeth. Indeed, we all hope that the Holy Spirit will visit us with fresh insights and energy. That we do this study together will say so much how we are placing ourselves in the locale for a blessed encounter. So we need your help: in prayer and in study.

I’ll try to break away and blog on the Bishop’s Notebook from time to time…I’ll write to you again with a Lambeth summary in August. +gep

Nervous in Florida

2008-07-01T09:12:00.011-04:00

I made a trip this past weekend to Fort Walton Beach, Florida to preach at the ordination of Mike and Becky Tinnon. They were Church of the Nazarene chaplains, in the Air Force, and had patiently spent the last seven years first in the ordination process of one diocese before, finally, finding a home with the Diocese of the Gulf Coast. Understandably, they had the jitters.

I used a selection from the sixth chapter of Isaiah as the text for the sermon--a usual from the Old Testament for ordinations--because I was struck by the creature of God, the seraph, and its mission of bringing a burning coal from the altar to the waiting servant, in this case the ordinands. Once you have a sense of call there is an accompanying feeling of unworthiness, "I am a person of unclean lips."(Isa 6:5) The burning coal is meant as a divine mouthwash, cauterizing that unworthiness. It is this exchange of: call?-yes, go forth?-no, which is such a good indication that we are in the presence of a genuine gesture by the holy.

Sacred writing is filled with examples of persons shrinking back from the opportunity of a call. They're not being coy. This lack of confidence is a signal that in order for the call to be viable there must be a dependence on God. Ordination or deep commitment to any important holy work, even when tentatively begun, has an aura about it. Through a series of initiating, stumbling acts divine relationship is on display. For the person(s)involved it's unnerving; for any witnesses, quite stirring. +gep

Walter Reed Normal

2008-06-20T09:47:00.006-04:00

Last week at this time I had the fresh and unsettling memory of another visit to Walter Reed Hospital. It is now considerably spruced up...hardly any nook and cranny is missing a snazzy, new sign proclaiming the pride and importance of the persons who pass through the facility. That number has slowed although there are still enough to warrant three busloads of patients a week on in-bound flights from Landstuhl Hospital, the layover site in Germany for those coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The whole system is inured to sacrifice. We have settled into the normality of young families staying at Malogne House, Mom smiling brightly, standing watching the kids play on a state-of-the-art jungle gym, Dad, a double amputee, staring, trying to look engaged, as he sits in his wheelchair. His twin stumps indicate that he is waiting for new prosthetic legs.

All of this brave, glad spirit is their gift to us. But is it also assigned to them? To be sure, Americans have a genius for accommodation. Give us an upsetting circumstance and we respond to it, but there is soulless quality to turning everything over to a Walt Disney treatment to make things OK. The dreadful things that have happened are tidied up so it appears, and we feel, it is rectified. The brainless quality of this war which we will rue for generations is the interior damage it has caused so many.

Chaplain Randy Haycock, our chaplain at WR, has a sensitivity to that. He winces when a young soldier receives his/her automatic $100,000 TSGLI “reimbursement” from the government for the loss of a limb and promptly goes out and buys a Humvee with this new found fortune. "I feel awful when that happens, like I'm colluding in some nightmarish skit to reclaim wholeness," he said.

The day after my visit Chaplain Haycock was chaperoning a fishing trip for wounded warriors--they don't get off the compound unless he can invent something--and he has plans to bring wounded veterans to the National Cathedral for sessions of healing in the Memorial Chapel. "It's a place where there is a history of stories of sacrifice and a safe place to complete some more." This man will never get a job at Disneyland. +gep

Not Preciously Episcopalian

2008-06-17T11:53:00.005-04:00

This past weekend culminated an interesting trip to Walter Reed Hospital (which deserves its own blog later) and then out to the Midwest to visit friends followed by a longish stay at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. (Photo, three Episcopalians, other saints. Front row: l to r, Kathy Miller, Rosemary Mallan, Vanessa McMillan, Elizabeth Smith. Back row: Ken Miller, me, David McMillan, Scott Smith. )

Somehow in all my travels I had never made it to "Wood", as they call it, so I was eager to go. Isolated as it is on Route 44 midway between Springfield and St. Louis the Army has plunked down a significant investment on this real estate. In case you weren't looking besides Basic Training, the engineer, chemical, and military police schools have been moved here. It's called "maneuver support" and it makes for a busy place.

My guide, Chaplain David McMillan, was generous with his time showing me not only state-of-the art classrooms but also the combined museums and "memorial groves" where newly trained officers and NCOs swear a kind of allegiance to their branch. I thought that part was little overdone and curiously Masonic but as David observed, "it is another time they ask for a chaplain." The real interest for me was the continuing congregation there. Four lay persons valiantly continue on with or without a ready supply of Episcopal chaplains. In this instance they received a significant boost from Chaplain McMillan who deserves his own story.

David is a Reformed Episcopal Church chaplain. Not one of mine. His church split from the Episcopal Church in 1878 over a doctrinal issue and have been faithful to their own evolution ever since. In truth, the service I visited last Sunday was a Reformed Episcopal rite though you'd never know the difference since they use the BCP with a preference for Rite I.

What to make of this? I am grateful for Chaplain McMillan's leadership and his pastoral presence. Somehow David had brought together the combination we had been striving for in this episcopacy: a continuing faith community in support of many trainees. One could make the argument--indeed I did to Bill Humphreys about a supply priest "from a less than Episcopal background" for Ramstein a few years ago--that this is an adulteration of an Episcopal congregation. But what, I ask you, is the definition of that? I am nearing a decade in this job and the boundary between our sister denominations and us seems very indistinct to me in an operational area.

Oh sure, when I go to House of Bishops meetings I receive a fresh view of how a good tightening up of things will add definition and clarity but when I'm in the field with committed persons trying to reserve a building and time slot for Sunday worship things get down to basics. You abide with friends and do the best you can. It's not the time to be unilaterally Episcopalian.

So, such a realization came to me on Sunday at Specter Chapel, Fort Leonard Wood in a celebration with four lay Episcopalians, about 60 basic trainees from a multitude of faith groups, and the Reformed Episcopal chaplain David McMillan and his wife, Vanessa. It was billed as his service, i.e., Reformed Episcopal, but he graciously had invited me to celebrate and preach. At least his generosity was not lost on the shoals of being preciously correct.+gep

Glad for the Embarrassment

2008-06-04T09:35:00.005-04:00

I'm happy to report a new enthusiasm to meet the needs of military families by congregations and dioceses...though it takes some getting used to.

Recently at Province III the agenda of the annual meeting of a cluster of six dioceses was energized for news about the impact of deployments and what everyone could do about it. My office was not ready for this excitement. The picture here is of Charlotte Gresson, Navy spouse and mother of two, who brought an unanticipated--and welcome--exuberance to that time. Our presentations to this provincial audience were OK but they didn’t match the readiness for mission in the room.

On a recent occasion an estimation of a diocesan periodical went completely off the rails when--to our surprise--the Diocese of Atlanta's "Pathways" quarterly journal not only dedicated an entire issue on the subject, "The Church at War", it packed in all manner of on-line goodies for soldier support. Much to our chagrin a too-quick appraisal of that magazine’s pages had to be corrected when a careful reading revealed, after all, a bounty of information! Please see, http://www.militaryministrydioatl.org/. This embarrassment brought us like Gilda Radnor's character Emily Litella, to exclaim, "Oh, never mind!."

Someone asked me if our office sanctioned a new and novel program for soldiers. Thankfully that morning I'd had an important dose of centering prayer and responded quickly with, "There's no permission necessary for any means to make a soldier and his/her family whole." These ideas will come from anywhere and this is the hallmark of the Home Support Team Program (HOST). There’s even a version of it at All Saints, Waterloo, Belgium. The Holy Spirit is leading us and it’s important to be ready and not to get in the way.

A faux pas is more than an embarrassment it's a confirmation God acts despite our expectations. +gep

But then it is Memorial Day

2008-05-25T20:13:00.005-04:00

Thanks to a moving homily today by the Rev. Richard Allen I can pull myself away from being jaded about the treatment of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

The day was conceived of as Decoration Day after the Civil War since nearly every community (and family) had absorbed a loss, or, as Pastor Allen put it, "620,000 dead from that war begged for remembrance." (I am trying to contain myself about the comparison of how the nation is connected with current losses...but that's the subject of my earlier blog.)

Allen continued with this daunting necrology: "25,ooo died in the Revolutionary War; 20,000 in the War of 1812; 116,000 in World War I; 105,000 in World War II; 36,000 in Korean War; 58,000 in Vietnam War; 300 in First Gulf War; 506 in Afghanistan War; 4081 in Iraq War."

Memorial Day is, after all, a day we are immensely grateful for what we have received: unhappy gifts of service in lives given up so that we might live freely but not irresponsibly. Go numb and silent in the face of such sacrifice. +gep

Memorial Day Fatigue

2008-05-23T10:09:00.005-04:00

I have just returned from the Province III meeting in Martinsburg, West Virginia--a regional caucus for the Episcopal Church. Partly out of respect for the theme, "Ministering on the Home front" (that's why I was there), we made note of those who had died in Iraq and Afghanistan during the prior week. Province III should be admired for emphasizing such an important aspect of national life.

Yet that special prayer effort conveyed something worrisome and it looms over Memorial Day. Don't get me wrong the good people in charge of the liturgy were earnest enough but we all participate in a cultural absentmindedness about this conflict. It causes us to clutch and make such death acknowledgements into an exceptional occasion.

Is there an unsaid inner reckoning when comparing the great wars with these lesser conflicts? Weren't the ideals the same now as for World War II? Were these near-time deaths less nobly sacrificed? You'd think so given the casual way we treat the current tally. One wonders--in the midst of such societal uncertainty-- why we have any business sending anyone to war.

In his book, "The Assassin's Gate, America in Iraq," George Packer writes of an America that thinks of itself as the model for the world and emblematic of this is the decisive victory over the former Soviet Union through such values as "freedom, democracy, and free enterprise." Packer continues, "America was right by virtue of being America."

Crassly and basically, then, it is this insistence on our ideals--projected by military might--which yields this weekly crop of death. Believe it or not that's not the real outrage because however fascinated our leaders are with technological firepower we still enlist innocent blood to stand in the ranks, man the barricades, and, if need be pull the triggers. No, the tragedy is that despite truly heroic service the newest names read on Memorial Day are ones who have lost contact with the country they served. Their nation has abandoned them; there will be more thought of going to the mall than of the sacrifices in Iraq this weekend.

Memorial Days, now, are not only testimonies to their brave service they have become statements that we were not vigilant and resourceful enough in the export of our values and thus avoid putting them in harm's way in the first place. +gep

Make the "Pain" Go Away

2008-05-14T15:59:00.011-04:00

I've been imposing my own lyrics on the radio reprises for recently deceased country singer Eddy Arnold's hit, "Make the World Go Away."

I'm such a weanie that I have been laid up with, of all things, swimmer's ear. Most of you have had a bout of this when you were younger but I try to save really painful stuff for my 60+ years. I've been swimming every day except of course during the course of this experience. (This aqua-man scene became such a point of glee for our Kanuga conference that some miscreants even staked out a hidden camera across lake to record my laps. I get no respect.)

My doctor said to me innocently, "this is a simple infection but it can be quite painful." Quite painful? Swimmer's ear for us in weaniedom (read no pain medication) is like a nail driven down your ear canal. An unrelated condition keeps me from using most painkillers so it's just a few tylenol, me, and the pain. The problem is when you reach the end of your quotient of tablets for a 24 hour period things get pretty bleak...in an painfully ordinary sort of way. I mean I'm not dying...nevertheless the impotent aspects of this pain make you think.

When you are in pain it's difficult, if not impossible, to get to a place of prayer. You try to focus, you really do, but the throbbing is like an insistent partner turning your attention back to him/her. I feel like this entity is turning my chin and saying, "that may be all well and good but we're doing THIS now!" During a moment last night I just had to laugh it was all too perfectly distracting, and, well, human. And in that ultimate sense it is a grace and instructive.

The Book of Common Prayer (page 461) writes of it as a thanksgiving; it was Jesus who "hallowed earthly pain", he is the model, for what happens to us here is of "little account if (we are) held in eternal life." The prayer asks for nearness, obedience, strength, courage, healing and relativity. All that from pain.

I have to admit pain is the strangest place to be assured of God's abiding presence and certainty in life but then I'm not in charge which brings me to a bewildered wonder before God that the world and its pain won't go away. +gep

The Heart of Things

2008-04-22T15:54:00.004-04:00

Earth Day

When I get behind in saying the Daily Office I usually pay for it. I don't mean for guilt's sake like the old days but in the spirit of lectio divina there's something waiting in the text for me. Like last Tuesday in Colossians, "Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer everyone." (Col. 4:6)

It seems to me that an effective presence is steeped in gentleness of spirit but has enough firepower to make a difference. I intended to mix the awkward metaphors...because I don't know how to live this Christianity minute by minute and that's why when I meet chaplains who are grabbing life with both hands that I take note. What was St. Paul getting at other than avoid being perceived as "good" for "good's" sake? Isn't it that we are to live life fully and abundantly trying to do the very best for those we meet and hear of?

I have been eager to post my reflections on two visits--back to back--to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis and Chaplain Cam Fish as well as to the Federal Prison Camp for Women at Alderson, West Virginia and Chaplain Betsy Walker. Now there's a comparison, don't you think? I should say the West Virginia visit also included speaking at a conference for the clergy of that diocese on my usual pitch on "Aspects of Chaplaincy." Such an appearance always makes me wonder if I'm making something up out of thin air...is chaplaincy really that special? Visits with Cam and Betsy respond with, "yes."

Perhaps it was that both places have just received new leaders, and, that I had visited them in this close sequence. There is that and all the attendant adjustments that kicks up but the comparison is in the ingenuity and energy they both apply to their jobs.

During my visit Cam got up extra early to watch a member of his battalion row crew. The door to his office is always open and any of the 4200 middies easily recognize him in town. Betsy is the only chaplain for 700 inmates and though there is no chapel designated on the grounds the lower level of one building she has appropriated bustles with activity. My visit was accented by the singing of two extraordinary Gospel choirs. She is so highly thought of that a special song is sung whenever an inmate leaves the facility.

I suppose one sees this kind of commitment elsewhere in the ministry...surely one can have this kind of love affair with a parish but here there is a genius for finding the heart of an institution. +gep

Ted and Galilee

2008-03-24T10:35:00.004-04:00

Easter Monday

I was so glad to read Ted Edwards' response to my invitation to holy conversation.

(You read it too under "comments" to an earlier entry to this Notebook.)

I address "you" because I think this blogging stuff is like talk radio...everybody listens and few call in. Or, in blogging terms, many read but few comment. My wife gave me a T-shirt recently which reads, "More People Read This T-shirt Than Read My Blog." And there's probably some truth to that but I prefer to think that most read, muse, and then get on with busier things in their lives. And there was certainly a lot to keep busy about over this past Easter weekend.

Ted makes such a valuable point with his entry. Our lives as chaplains remain open-ended in service and always ready for that meeting with Christ. In the Passion Narratives after the eleven received the news of the empty tomb from the women, the beloved disciple, and Peter their expectations were no doubt high but uncertain. The Matthean text describes the return of the women from the tomb as being in a state of fear mixed with joy. One commentator portrays the women's return as "lost in the joy of self-forgetfulness." It is also Matthew's recollection which tells them to look for Christ in Galilee...twice. Galilee is where the action will be, where suffering and healing will be, and where joy and gladness will again be found.

When our service as chaplains has that quality of self forgetfulness Christ is beckoning us to a meeting and I am stirred when I hear of it. I didn't emphasize enough yesterday and the day before that this meeting is with a victorious Christ. Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen Indeed! He gives sin and death a dynamic vanquishing answer.

Easter Sunday was the glorious but dreadful day when the 4000th fatality was reported from Iraq. How awful to hear of it. Truly awful.

How assuring to know that our chaplains are going to that Galilee. But then, as Ted reminds us, aren't we all headed for a Galilee too? +gep

Easter's Hope in a Meeting Yet to Be

2008-03-22T13:00:00.006-04:00

Why wait for Good Friday's passing before posting any Easter message? It was the right thing to do particularly if we are doing this in synch. How was your Good Friday?

In the homily at our service yesterday the priest said, "this is a day of noise...the heavens thunder and we are each called in our prayers to thunder back."

So we prayed ever more earnestly for David Waweru, Vic McInnis, Dale Marta, Rich Crozier, Sean Wead (and in thanksgiving for his promotion!), Eric Thompson, and Manny Querido in Iraq.

For Ted Valcourt, Pat Finn, and Bob Young who will be heading downrange soon. For Vic Sheldon and Marcel Algernon who are OCONUS.

And we prayed for their families.

We are glad for Keith Adams' return home and successful surgery and for Brad Ableson's good reports, we pray for Melody Hayes' pregnancy, for Barb DesRosiers' healing, for David Sivret's surgeries, a thanksgiving for Jere Hinson's promotion, we pray for Irene Bebber's tests, for Robyn Hoffman's Dad, for Kate Neuberger's healing, in thanksgiving for David McElwain's ordination, for Will and Martha Hood's marriage, for Cory Houck's healing, for Bob Mikol's healing, for my own healing.

The repose of the souls of Mark Winward's Grandmother, for Mike Pumphrey's Dad, Sarah Shirley's Dad, and for Bishop Clarence Hobgood.

And all the intercessions and thanksgivings my frail brain couldn't remember...

We last left this holy conversation with my invitation to finish my sentence of hope realized in a "found Christ." Why is it that given the grief on Holy Wednesday (and the anniversary of the Iraq War) for the nearly 4000 who have died one could have any hope when watching elements of the Fourth Infantry Division deploy on the prior weekend?

I think it is not so much "finding Christ" as it is "meeting Christ." As I watched that unit prepare for deployment at Fort Hood last weekend there was a great sense all would be well...that Christ's meeting could be, indeed, in store for them anew.

Belden C. Lane writes of God hiding in out of the way places, surprising us with a wooing to the very abandonment that makes love possible. Thomas Keating calls it naming the false self-happiness when we try to satisfy needs for security, affection/esteem and power/control. We get a chance to ask where our false selves might be seeking superficial happiness but only when we are disarmed and uncertain.

Lane continues, “the irony of the gospel is that it becomes truly ‘good news’ only for those immersed in the bad news of their normal experience.” That, “grace comes sometimes like a kick in the teeth, (and) leaves us broken, wholly unable any longer to deny our need.”

It is not that I get dark glee from a survey of those who are headed for hardship but rather that nestled in the very fabric of that time is the possibility of Christ being met. That picture is framed in the victory an empty tomb. +gep

“The Solace of Fierce Landscapes,” by Belden C. Lane, 1998, Oxford University Press, New York, NY.

A Message of Hope...Found Together

2008-03-20T16:27:00.006-04:00

Maundy Thursday

(This message was sent today in hopes of bringing our federal service family into a special moment over this coming weekend. Please log onto this blog on Easter Even, or, at any time during Easter Week so we can begin this holy conversation.)

Dear Friends, I give you greetings on this night which begins a priceless run of days and I ask that we make an appointment to meet at my Notebook over this holiest of weekends. We’ve constructed the Bishop’s Notebook so that not only can you read what I have to say, but more importantly, you can respond. If you have trouble with that posting merely respond to this message after reading the Notebook entry in a few days.

Holy Week has the ironic coincidence of being the setting for the anniversary of the Iraq War five years ago and I was startled at the level of grief I had at a local memorial service yesterday for those who had died in this conflict. Yet I have Easter hope — I can’t exactly explain why ― having seen this past weekend how elements of the Fourth Infantry Division bravely deployed from Fort Hood, Texas for their third rotation.

Hope, a wise priest said to me recently, is located in a “found Christ.” I’d like to comment on that — and read your thoughts ― but first we have Good Friday yet to do together.

In anticipation of the Resurrection, Bishop George

David and Linda Join Us!

2008-02-14T13:24:00.005-05:00

From the sermon given at David McElwain's Ordination...

At right, Linda and David McElwain with me after the service on Saturday, 9 February 2008 at St. Anne's Church, Jacksonville, North Carolina

David, you take on an additional mantle this afternoon and it may seem unnecessarily complicated given that you were already a minister of the Gospel, thank you very much. Now, you become a priest after the order of Melchizedek. You become a man of mysteries for some of what you do will always be hidden from you. The Eucharists you celebrate will always have a deeper resonance than you will know; the blessings you give will always be sweeter and have more touches of the cosmos than you know; the anointing of the sick will always reside in the places of most healing more than you know. In fact you will only see the full sweep of your priesthood when you finish this course of life. And that’s as it should be, I suppose.

The entire sermon is here: http://www.tec-chaplain.org/GEP_Sermon_McElwain_Ordination_2008.html

Back in the Saddle With Friends

2008-02-11T13:29:00.001-05:00

Prayers, please, for Keith Adams who is being operated on today.

I spent Ash Wednesday with the Pentagon eucharisitic community and it felt like home. If you haven't been back to the building in awhile you might be startled...some of the rings have been collapsed, the main cafeteria is closed, and the courtyard now has a snazzy gazebo-like food court.

As I said to my guide as we went through security the pre-9/11 building let you get behind the doors in the hallway and meet people. As it is now you need an escort to go to the rest room.

My greatest enjoyment during my time there was working on briefings with the personnel from other departments and branches. What might appear to some as an impersonal pentagon-shaped building from the view out an airplane window was not an experience in fact. By the very nature of how commanders receive information--the briefing--the intra-communication to create such an event was intense and insistent.

On one occasion we even travelled together to West Point on a fact gathering mission. It made for quite a diverse bunch...chemical, engineer, legal, logistics, and chaplaincy. And the profile of members of that particular briefing team was something the church should aspire to: African American, Male and Female, Asian American, Young and Old.

After the service last Wednesday some of us went for steak sandwiches with hot peppers. Just like old times. +gep

Done

2008-01-22T16:21:00.000-05:00

Hunter College Library

After 40 radiation treatments, or more specifically, 7200 doses of CGY, I've completed my time under the lights with Sloan Kettering's Radiation Oncology Department. This has not been a sacrifice to sabbatical study but a testimony to the creativity of the Holy Spirit. From Sisters Jenny and Rita, Jacqueline, and Father Dick of the Desert House of Prayer, to Harry and Monique of the Hunter College Library staff, to David, Nelson, Stephen, Monica, Kathleen, Sally, and Dr. Marissa K. of radiation suite # 425, to the Faithful at St. Catherine of Sienna Church, and to Julio of the 45th Street gym I have felt God's sometimes subtle and always abiding care and presence.

All the while, Gerry, Babs, Terry, and Meghan continued to nobly sort, cull, and value each item in the perpetual flow of business into our office. Bless them.

My intended work was to be assessing the character and life of congregations adjacent to federal facilities and it still will be. But what we often intend outright God answers with something much simpler and profound. The friends I have made along the way underwrote these days..the ones with cancer, especially, their journeys remain in my prayers.

But all of them are in my prayers, as are you, really. I agree with what Susan Sontag wrote about the disease, "it's a metaphor." There will always be something which presses on the edges of our finitude reminding us of life's fragility and sweetness. Perhaps we can peek around the corner of uncertainty, value the bond we have with each other, marvel at the mystery of coincidences God compiles in our days, and venture forth bravely from there in Christ's Name.

At the end of each cold day I went home to a fire, a glass of wine, to my wife Brook and to my children. I toast my wife's patience, especially. How could anyone sum up these days as anything but a blessing? +gep

His star at its rising

2008-01-07T15:39:00.000-05:00

St. Catherine of Sienna Church

It's really all right there...the whisper in your ear and maybe the still, small voice of your nightmare poking not with assurance but in judgement. That's one way to read the familiar Daily Office Old Testament reading last week of Elijah in the cave. It got me thinking of that lone figure waiting as the whirlwind passed by and how he perceived God. Left to our own devices--often rightfully--God is saying, "the jig is up." God's voice, as St. Augustine puts it, is "deeply hidden yet most intimately present" and He may have reason to be critical. Augustine continues, "you are wrathful, yet tranquil." There is an eerie reality to that statement for as Jacob Marley admits to Scrooge, "I forged this chain in life, link by link." God's anger is not so much summoned as he watches, in pain, our wiggling and silly demise. After all, we have all this "freedom." Sooner of later, though, there has to be a bottom line to our behavior. Praise God, but wait.

Our God is a god of mercy and He sends Jesus Christ to plead for us, standing between that divine accusation when our backs are up against the consequences. At the Desert House of Prayer the Taize service ends with kneeling alongside a life size cross on the ground. I remember the service leader saying, "you may now join your afflictions with that of Christ." He made this cosmic and eternal announcement as perfunctorily as a track change in a train station. For an Episcopalian expecting the soothing Taize chants and nothing more this was a jolt for me. Did I (or those I knew) have some afflictions that were too big for me (us) to handle? Sure, I could think of plenty. It may have been the only worthwhile thing I could do that week.

Every weekday at noon I attend the Mass at St. Catherine of Sienna Church. Catherine is the patron of those who care for the sick and the white coated employees of the neighboring hospitals make good use of her petitions. Telltale stethoscopes dangle from pockets and necks as the congregation cues up for the sacrament. Father Gorman moves the liturgy along smartly so lunch hours and shift changes aren't disrupted but it is the non-liturgical sequel in the narthex which is of special interest.

It is as if the Faithful having partaken of Christ's presence in the Eucharist now seek to touch the true priest. As Augustine addresses God, "For us before you he (Christ) is a priest and sacrifice, and priest because he is sacrifice. Before you he makes us sons instead of servants by being born of you and being servant to us. With good reason my firm hope is in him. For you will cure all my diseases (Ps. 102:3) through him who sits at your right hand and intercedes with you for us (Rom. 8: 34)."

And so after Communion at St. Catherine's a line forms to touch the foot of giant a crucified Jesus hanging on the wall. Because he is suspended so high only the paint on his metatarsals is worn bare but that intensifies the point.

We cannot live in this world without serious help. If we are true to our confessions, like Augustine, "(we) are terrified by (our) sins and the pile of misery raked in (our) hearts." We confess our brokenness and mourn the divine estrangement.

I heard a new emphasis in Sunday's gospel lesson of the Epiphany story. The Wise Men saw the star "at its rising." I had never really thought about what these travelers did during the day...but at night they waited for this dynamic celestial body to rise. And that prefigured what the man Jesus would do. We must ask for Christ to rise in our hearts if we are to understand the fullness of what is before us. Otherwise the weight of sin never lets us raise our chins to look at the next horizon. +gep

St. Augustine's "Confessions", Books I and X.

These Few, Holy Days

2007-12-26T14:02:00.000-05:00

Feast of Saint Stephen
Hunter College Library

When I served congregations these three days after Christmas posed a unique challenge. Coming as they do one after another, the Feasts of Saints Stephen, John, and Holy Innocents on the 26th, 27th, and 28th of December might be overlooked yet they gave special depth and character to the Gospel story.

True, Jesus the Saviour, was born of Mary but who said it was going to be easy?

In quick succession servant Stephen is one of the first martyrs, in his gospel John wonders how we can comprehend the size and insistence of what believing in Jesus Christ means, and Holy Innocents with its sacrifice is an unsettling contrast to the Nativity...all continue a deeply intimate narrative. This will be a hard won salvation story.

Chaplaincy is fixed in the sacrificial servantry that Stephen reminds us of in Jesus. We need only review the list of those currently (or about to be) deployed to understand this: Linda Leibhart in Egypt, David Waweru, Sean Wead, and Eric Thompson in Iraq, Manny Querido, Ted Valcourt, Kris Coppinger, Vic McInnis, Dale Marta about to be deployed to Iraq. These brothers and sisters have left behind hearth sides of home to serve. Think of what one must do to give pastoral energy to someone in need in a far away place. Recently I've noticed this in hospital settings too. The chaplain leaves the comfort of his/her own circumstances in life and enters the uncertain world of someone else in pain or need. This is so intentionally done when certainly other things must be on the chaplain's mind.

John the Evangelist says at the end of his Gospel that the whole world could not contain the books about Jesus. This curious exclamation is both a statement for what was recorded and an exasperation that enough could ever be written. The Incarnation is that expansive and that profound. These Johannine words make our current divisions seem trivial yet they also magnify any reason one might think of leaving a body where heretofore Christ did dwell. How painful.

During this past year we have witnessed the loss of three brothers from our denomination: Jeff, Joe, and Mike. At this writing the Diocese of San Joaquin is separating from The Episcopal Church and for us that means Wes, John, Mark, Terrell, and George will be absent from our gatherings. Even as late as this current war we have chaplain testimonies from those with very different diocesan backgrounds working together and having fellowship. It is due to the deep bond in the sacrificial servantry represented by St. Stephen.

The latest version of our Armed Services Prayer Book will include a new prayer for refugees. War always witnesses how civilians are disrupted in the midst of operations...we see them as convoys pass by. However, there is an acute presence now with the advent of an evermore lethal battleground; non-combatants have become the abiding and terrible backdrop. The last of the three days, the Feast of the Holy Innocents, gives voice to the worst lament we can offer and it is our prayer that God will soothe the suffering and pity the afflicted.

In our own midst we mourn with the Hayler Family the death of 14 year old Hannah who was stricken suddenly before Christmas. We feel the devastation that such an event brings and we stand to offer consolation and support because we grieve too and terribly.

It is this last event on the 28th which keeps us all from being spectators. This is tough and important work and it is very, very personal. We could only be consoled by a God who lost a child too for our sake. +gep

Christmas Greetings

2007-12-18T20:12:00.000-05:00

My Dear Friends:

My schedule during this sabbatical includes repeated short trips on the subway and if you add them all up over a month's time they become most of a waking day. But disconnected they are merely scraps of time rendered unimportant and lost because of the pace of life.

These times--any times--are redeemed for meaning's sake with the appearance of Christ. The day is given quality, purpose, and warmth because of the man at the newstand, the security guard at the front door, the librarian at the desk, and the man handing out towels in the gym. They incarnate the blur of a day with Our Lord's presence. As Fr. Thomas Keating would say we only have to "intend" to greet Christ when He (or she) comes our way. God gives us that freedom and dignity. The worry is that we will squander it. Don't.

In this way the season of Advent becomes a lens for us to ready ourselves for the next and obvious Incarnation. It has a quickening feeling...who wouldn't be watchful?

Blessed is our God who gave us Jesus as such a constant companion and how holy is that day when that man was born.

All of us here in the office--Meghan, Shelly, Terry, Babs, Gerry and me--send our love and greetings to you at this wonderful time of year.

In Christ, Bishop George

Under the Shelter of a Buckthorn

2007-12-03T12:59:00.000-05:00

Hunter College Library

Snowing

33rd Anniversary of Ordination to the Priesthood

Prayers please for the recovery of Dave Knowlton after a stroke (he's blessed to have caught it in time); for Bob, Dad of Sarah Shirley; for Barbara D.; for Vivien T.; for Ron, Dad of Robyn Hoffman; for our deployed chaplains, Ted, Sean, Eric, Linda, and David and their families.

Before leaving Arizona a shrub on a remote trail caught my eye because so many ground birds and small animals found refuge there; it hung on in spite of the wash or dry creek bed. The Bitter Condalia is tiny leafed (as many desert plants are), yet draws many living things to its shade all the while remaining steadfast and sturdy in appearance. This member of the Buckthorn family seemed to be a sign of the integrative intention God can have for life, and, I thought at the time, even for this sabbatical. Before now how could the Desert House of Prayer, centering prayer, apophatic spirituality and congregations near military installations be mentioned in the same sentence? For me there is an undeniable and discernible path of discovery. Many ideas come to roost in the shelter of God's generosity...even my own health.

I've decided not to be coy about the fact that I'm getting radiation treatments for prostate cancer during this study time...I was afraid it would be too distracting for what I was posting about the sabbatical. But I'm meeting some wonderful people whose stories I would like to share.

And so because of these radiation treatments at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital, New York City, I'm now permanently attached to East 67th/68th Streets during part of every weekday for awhile. To make the best of it I got a library pass at this college, a part of the City University of New York. I had planned on working out of a nearby church but Hunter has WI-FI. The New York Public Library was also a possibility but getting a seat was difficult and New Yorkers aren't keen on someone nibbling surreptitiously from their briefcase. Hunter College students don't seem to care; they nibble too. I've always admired Hunter: I had a stepsister who went here and as a senior center director in the 1980's their social work graduates gave me guidance and inspiration.

I'm still committed to not having this blog turn into a journal about yet another "My Battle with Cancer." But you should know why I have stopped visiting churches in the field--during weekdays anyway until mid-January. My routine is to do centering prayer when the library opens in the morning and some writing before I walk over to Sloan. After the treatment--which takes 7 minutes but is wrapped in an hour of prep time--I bring my lunch back to the library where I always get a good seat on the science and mathematics level. I come here for the view up Lexington Avenue and because there is a mens' room. Political correctness yielded to the practicalities of plumbing at this place of higher learning.

I've spread out all the sabbatical stuff on this large table here in the library with midtown traffic moving slowly below. Assembled in this way with paper clips over each name and place--Santa Barbara, Cordero, San Clemente, Sierra Vista, Mount Holly, Louisville, Elizabethtown, others--one might get the impression that each was a discreetly separate experience. It is now that I am finally downloading all those recommendations from chaplains on their "favorite congregation" and I have the leisure time to finish and send out the questionnaire to be used in polling these worship sites.

Many and disparate tasks to do in these days. It's consoling to get shelter among the branches. +gep

Message from a Fan

2007-11-26T11:28:00.000-05:00

After my initial business at Sloan Kettering a smiling less-than-five-foot Roman Catholic nun was waiting to see me. Sister Elaine had been a chaplain there for 22 years. I asked if we could sit down...22 years is a lot of visits with a lot of cancer patients. She genuinely liked being there.

I was primed to meet someone who had an abiding association with a place after reading Mike Lupica's excoriating sports column in the Daily News. Mike had taken aim at Jim Dolan the casual owner of the New York Knicks basketball team. Mr. Dolan is casual because he seems oblivious to the sorry record of the team. Mike's column was compelling because of a lament from a friend. This fan recalled going to Madison Square Garden with his father, even missing school to do it, and being so excited one year after a championship game that he and his pals played pick-up basketball in a dimly lit school yard for most of the night. That's more than enthusiasm.

When you meet someone who has an identification with the essential character of a place you take notice. I was struck by Sister Elaine's lingering on the word healing in the prayer she said with me. There was a missionary effect to her wanting me to revere the 12-Step Serenity Prayer. "So much of this is acceptance" she said. But she didn't mean it from the vantage point of lying down and rolling over but that God would ultimately be taking care of things. That is the summary of Thomas Keating's and Jon Kabat-Zin's work too. We miss so much if we are fixated on one small part of the journey. Thomas Keating goes so far as to say that the journey to be mindfully aware of what God is doing at every minute is the Kingdom of God.

I was supposed to have met the head of the department that morning but I met a true fan instead. +gep

Lotto When You Need It

2007-11-20T10:20:00.000-05:00

Elizabethtown, Kentucky

Happy Thanksgiving to all. May this time be a gathering not only for feasting but for all the moments of gratitude which might have slipped past us in the busyness of living. Please lift praises to God with me for our lives of service together in this distinct and special ministry, for all those who are deployed--and their families--and for our Presiding Bishop, Katherine, and those who surround her as she historically visits Guam on this Thanksgiving Day. From this sabbatical, love in Christ, Bishop George

Prayers please for the repose of the soul of Estelle Booth, grandmother of Eric Thompson. Estelle was 92; may she rest in peace. Eric is in Iraq; may God bless and protect him.

Sunday at Christ Church was an experience in reality. It was sobering because this small congregation right outside Fort Knox is representative of how most faith communities cope with the trials of existence. The parish is just coming out of a fractious period after the former rector left taking half of the membership with him. Many stories were shared with me at the coffee hour of how friends snubbed each other later in the food market over this parting.

But that's not how this plucky faith group is representative. It is that the bills have to be paid and a priest employed. Most congregations in TEC are of this pastoral size and face these questions, indeed, most of the ones adjacent to military installations are in this predicament.

Everyone got very alert when I made a brief statement during the vestry meeting about my sabbatical study and how an association of congregations might result. But here's what got their attention, "And perhaps there could be some assistance with funding programs." For a vestry which had spent the first hour of their meeting perspiring over the bottom line I was embraced like a man handing out winning lotto tickets. Providing some modest incentive funding may be the only reasonable and lasting thing I can bring about with this study.

The Rev. Alice Nichols is a new priest but she has the radar which this ministry requires. I hadn't been there more than an hour and she had connected me with a young military mother who had recently joined the congregation. I was eager to hear her story of first attending the on post chapel service where, as she put it, "it was entirely for trainees and we were the only civilians in the congregation." As a former social worker the parish is counting on Mo. Nichols being able to pick up on the pastoral needs of such families.

Christ Church may spend too much time worrying about keeping the lights on but they do so while making themselves relevant. +gep

The church was full for worship and though the liturgy was modest the music was very good despite the fact the organ was being repaired. The new rector gave a solid sermon. In typical pastoral size fashion one family--the senior warden's family--

Finding Your Bearings

2007-11-16T09:21:00.000-05:00

Near Fort Knox, Kentucky

Prayers please for Barbara Desrosiers and her healing, for Eric Thompson, Linda Leibhart, David Waweru, and Sean Wead who are deployed.

On my way here I stopped by to see my 92 year old aunt. It was an inspiring visit which should be left as private. Suffice it to say toughness (maybe a little stubbornness too) and an extraordinarily open and generous heart does one well as the Psalmist says as we "measure our days." It's a way to keep your bearings as the years pass.

I have written before about railroads when I'm on the road. Noting this, Fr. David Barclay, Dick Wright and the fine folks at Fort Leavenworth gave me a handsome framed print of a Union Pacific diesel. (This is not a subtle hint for more gifts...merely how I run on about trains.)

When you are in an area--like here--you hear the drone of a freight moving at a lonely and odd hour. Trains, in addition to freight, seem to carry the questions asked by the long living and maybe all of us, "Where have I been?" And, "Where am I going?" They are the deeper thoughts of finitude and can occur as a train interrupts a journey at a crossing or when we are called from some immediate task by a far-away whistle.

The Diocese of Kentucky is unique for the full court press it has employed in a ministry to the military. They have a complete register of supply priests for service on post and the clarity (as former Canon Jay Magness puts it) to distinguish between a ministry to trainees and one to families. As examples, St. Francis in the Fields buses trainees to a barbecue and has a well developed care package ministry. On Sunday I will visit Christ Church in Elizabethtown which hopes to start a family support group.

Dinner last night with Ed and Shirley Lane underlined my worst fears about the military today. Ed is the layperson in charge of the chapel faith community at Fort Knox and he is now studying to be a deacon. Ed's day job is in community relations on-post. He worries about how strained the Army is and today's paper bears out his feeling: desertion is up 43%. Shirley added anecdotally that the husband of a family she knows is deploying for the fourth time.

Clearly additional networks of support must be found. Deputy Defense Secretary Dr. David Chu said as much when he addressed the National Conference on Ministry to the Armed Forces in 2005. He directly asked the civilian community--and churches in particular--to assist with the worrisome challenge of PTSD among returning service members.

St. Francis in the Fields is a stately and wealthy church on gentle slope of horse country along the Ohio River...a good hour away from Fort Knox. But for the urgency of their mission that doesn't seem to be any obstacle. Robert and Mary Jennings have a Marine son in Iraq and that brings the military to be pretty close at hand. Along with Fr. Rob and Mary, Peter Laventis who chairs the "Military Care Crew" attended an afternoon meeting called to tell me about the congregation's activities. Peter's enthusiasm for this project which sends support boxes to soldiers is extraordinary. But during my brief interview with them I wanted to get underneath this very laudable project. Finally I said, "what is the engine which keeps this all going?"

It seems to be organization. As Fr. Rob said to me later, and quoting Rick Warren, all churches might have some of the holy but it is nothing if it isn't organized for the Kingdom. That's a paraphrase of what he said. All the churches I have visited so far for this sabbatical study project have not had that quality. True, they have energetic clergy and lay people but their systems of support for the military are very fragile.

Still, I don't think the St. Francis family explains their mission adequately and that might be because they are living in it. Renowned author on surviving illness Dr. Rachel Remen, M.D., recently lectured that what all life needs is being steadfast and faithful. They are the qualities which give us the bearings to assess where we came from and where we are going. I hear a train in the distance now. +gep