2.
Some People (iii) and a dog....
Luke,
a dog
Luke was a beautiful Golden Retriever with the deepest,
loveliest brown eyes ever. He was Michael's dog before he was
Jo-Ann's dog. Michael was Jo-Ann's son and had lost both legs while
still a young man. Luke was a trained companion dog who was Mike's
legs. But he was more than that. Once, while asleep, an IV in Mike's
arm slipped out and he began to bleed. When the blood was pooling on
the floor, Luke started barking and pulling at him and woke him up. I
don't know how long it would take to bleed to death from an open IV
vein, but Mike was not healthy and I think he could have. After Mike
stopped the bleeding, he must have washed the blood off Luke's fur
and thanked God for such a brown-eyed angel of mercy.
Luke came to church with Mike and when Mike had his
final illness, someone with enough sense to break rules that need to
be broken let Luke be in Intensive Care with Mike. Mike's missing
legs made room for Luke to lay where Mike's legs should have been had
life been kinder to him. And he laid there until Mike died. The
medical personnel who initially had been horrified by a dog's
presence in ICU melted when they looked into Luke's eyes. “I'm just
laying here where I'm supposed to be,” he eyes said, “next to my
human.”Anyone would have melted. So the nurses and orderlies took
turns taking Luke out when he needed to go out. Luke could go to the
bathroom on command. Would that we could train young children to do
that....
After Mike died, the companion dog people were about to
take him back when Jo-Ann, who was most of the time in a wheel-chair
herself, convinced them to let her keep him and be a therapy dog. She
took him to the hospital where Mike died and to nursing homes around
the area. I saw him do it. It came naturally to him. He was never
assertive, always patient, always waiting for the human to make the
first move. And he was as gentle as a spring breeze, as sweet as the
smell of honeysuckle, as healing as magic chicken soup. I can't
imagine how many people Luke touched in those years with Jo-Ann. But
I know he touched me profoundly.
Jo-Ann always came to the adult forum on Sundays. When
she and Luke got to the church library, she let him come and greet
me, putting his short leash in his mouth so he could guide himself.
He'd come and give me a nuzzle and a lick (though he was also
interested in rolling on his back on the rug in the library!) That
greeting and lick was always one of the highlights of my week.
When I was in seminary, I had a course in 'creating
liturgy'. Since I came into the church via a 'house church', I wanted
to replicate that experience for my class. We met in our apartment in
Alexandria and Robert Estill, the professor, was the celebrant. My
dog Finney was standing next to Bob as we stood around the table. Bob
broke the bread I'd baked and passed it around. But before he passed
it, he broke a piece off and gave it to our Puli. Finney didn't leave
Bob's side until he left for the evening.
I asked him about giving communion to a dog and he told
me a story from his first parish church. They used home-baked bread,
like we did that night, and since the loaf was always more than the
little congregation could consume, Bob would take it to the back door
and throw it on the grass for the birds. After a while, the birds
would start gathering half way through the Eucharist and sing as they
waited to be fed. Bob told me it was a wonderful addition to the
music of the little church.
However, one day the bishop visited and was horrified
when he saw Bob feed the consecrated loaf to the birds. The bishop
forbade him from ever doing it. As someone once described me, Bob was
'reluctantly obedient' and stopped feeding the birds.
“They kept coming for weeks, months,” he told me.
“Long after the bread was withheld from them, they kept singing for
us. But finally, half-a-year later, they stopped showing up to sing
the communion hymn.”
I think that's a metaphor for how the church misses the
point of 'being the church'. We let rules and regulations and canon
law and dogma come between the sacraments and those who long for
them. I've known people that happened to—they were turned away,
rejected, shut out by the church and the church lost them, finally.
So, when Luke came to the communion rail with Jo-Ann, I
always gave him a wafer or a hunk of bread if we were using
home-baked that Sunday. Since I was seldom the only one administering
the bread, I kept an eye out if someone else was giving communion on
Luke's side of the rail. If they passed him by, I'd rush over with
several wafers or an especially big hunk of bread for him. I didn't
want him to feel left out. (I always gave him communion with my left
hand in case anyone objected to dog mouth. But I drew the line at the
cup!)
One seminarian who worked with me was horrified at
first. She even took it to her field work support group but most
everyone thought it was decent and in good order. I'm sure there were
people who found fault with it, but I never asked permission. It was
simply right.
After all, Luke was as good a Christian as any dog
could be—bringing joy and healing and comfort to so many. He
actually was a better 'Christian' in his works of charity than most
people. He'd earned his place at the Table.
The kids of the parish adored Luke. They would flock
around him at the peace in ways that most dogs would have reacted
negatively to. But not Luke—ever humble, ever hospitable, he took
whatever the kids dished out with equanimity and generosity and doggy
Love. One of the kids was moderately autistic but the parish had made
a deal with his parents to treat him like any other kid. I don't
think Luke did 'treat him like any other kid'. I think Luke, so used
to being around the frail and helpless and confused, treated Twyla
with special gentleness and love. Twyla grew better and better, more
interactive, more social. I'd give Luke a lot of the credit.
At the General Convention in 2009, a resolution was
passed authorizing the Liturgical Committee to prepare services for
the death of an animal companion. Several people at St. John's were
really excited about that. It spurred the creation of a Book of
Animal Remembrances along with a statue of St. Francis that was
placed in the collumbarium are in the back of the sanctuary. Dave,
one of the guys who helps out around the parish, installed the
statue. “Stations of the Cross and now a statue,” he said, “are
we going back to Rome?”
“Wait 'til you see the racks of votive candles I've
ordered,” I told him.
He laughed and shook his head. “Least we could make
some money on that....If people didn't steal it.”
My
Grandmother Jones, God bless her soul, used to divide the world into
“church people”
and those who weren't. She'd always say things like, “those boys I
saw you with yesterday, they aren't 'church people' are they?” And
she referred to a family down the mountain from where she lived by
saying, “they're poor and not too clean, but at least they're
'church people'.”
I
tend to divide the world into 'dog people'--those who love dogs—and
those who don't. I like to be around 'dog people'. And besides, there
is that oddity that 'Dog' is 'God' spelled backward. Luke could make
a dog person out of almost anyone. He'd look at them, lower his head
and wag his tail a bit. Those eyes, I've told you, make anyone
besides a dogmatic hater of dogs just melt.
I heard part of a local PBS radio show the other day
that was wrestling with the question: 'do dogs have souls?' The whole
concept of eternity is a little vague to me—but if there are no
dogs in the Kingdom it won't nearly be as blessed and happy as it's
been cracked up to be. I personally am holding out for a heaven where
every dog I've ever had as a companion will come frolicking across
the streets of gold to great me at the Pearly Gates. “Where've you
been?” they'll be barking.
Just before I retired, someone said in the Adult Forum,
“What's Luke going to do without Jim?”
Jo-Ann shook her head and frowned. “He'll be looking
for him everywhere....”
Good Lord, I thought, I feel bad enough about leaving
all the people, how am I supposed to cope with leaving Lukie?
But he didn't have long to look after me. Luke, who'd
had trouble standing and moving around for a month of so, was
diagnosed as having untreatable cancer. So, a week or so after I
left, Luke died in Jo-Ann's arms, as was only right.
(In
the past year or so I've known ten or so people, in and out of the
parish, who have lost dogs. Somehow, it seems to me, the initial pain
we feel when a pet dies is deeper and sharper than when a person we
love dies. But it is a cleaner cut because when a beloved animal
dies, their aren't mixed emotions on our part. There is no
'unfinished business' with a dog. There is no lingering resentment or
words that needed to be said that are left unspoken. The relationship
with a dog is so clear, so uncomplicated, so immediate and in the
moment that our pain is 'in the moment' as well. But it is so acute.
With a person, we almost always the question of how
much
they really loved us. With a dog such wondering is vain and
pointless. Dogs love us as much as they possibly can...and then a
little more.)
When Jo-Ann called about Luke, I told her—after we
cried together—that she had to ask the Senior Warden if I could
come do the service since retired priests are supposed to make
themselves scarce from their former parish.
Of course he agreed. He called me to let me know it was
alright. “Besides,” he said, “Luke wouldn't want it any other
way....” All Senior Wardens should be 'dog people'.
We interred Luke's ashes out in the Close, as near to
Mike's resting place as we could estimate. We did that first and then
went in the church for hymns, a power point slide show a talented
woman had put together about Luke. Then Jo-Ann spoke and made
everyone cry. There were about 200 people there, a good number of
them brought their dogs and the dogs didn't make a sound during the
whole thing.
At the reception people in the parish provided, a man
came up to me and introduced himself as the Intensive Care Physician
that had made it possible for Luke to be in the room with Michael. I
told him I considered him a medical saint. He told me there was no
way around it--”I looked into those sweet brown eyes and just
melted,” he said.
I told him I knew...I knew....
The
strange and wondrous Mrs. Baggs
When I arrived at St. Paul's in New Haven, the search
committee had briefed me in great detail about most things. But they
hadn't mentioned the pilgrimage I would have to make to visit Mrs.
Baggs.
Mrs. Baggs was the last 'rich person' in the parish.
Like many city churches, St. Paul's had been founded by the wealthy.
Standing on the steps of the church, it was possible to see the
property of Trinity Church on the Green, three blocks away. St.
Paul's had been founded as a 'chapel of ease' for the wealthy who
lived in the Wooster Square area. Back in the day, the Episcopal
Church was the church of the privileged and well-born. That was true
when St. John's was founded 275 years ago in Waterbury—the names on
the plaques around the building were the names of streets and
buildings as well. It was like that to a lesser degree at St. Paul's
in New Haven. Over the years and the migration out of the city by the
well-to-do, the rich folks who built grand edifices to their own
distinguished importance either moved away or died off. Mrs. Baggs
was the last of her kind.
I was never sure where the Baggs money came from, but
it was 'old money' indeed, going back to the early days of the city.
Manufacturing of some kind was involved as well as importing and
other ways of making lots of money. Gun running to the Tories
wouldn't surprise me—but what do I know. But I'm just being bitter
about what I was asked to do and that I agreed.
The deal was this—Mrs. Baggs and her two daughters,
both unmarried and living together in the house next to the old
family home—didn't pledge to the support of the parish even though
they were the richest three members ('old money' has a way of
spreading out over generations). The two daughters did come to
church on occasion, but they were quiet shy and left after receiving
communion. But the three of them had a deal with the parish. At the
end of the year the Rector would call on Mrs. Baggs and she would
write a check for the annual deficit. Not a bad deal if you weren't
the one to go, hat in hand, to ask for the money. It was all worked
out—I was to slide a piece of paper across to Mrs. Baggs at the end
of our visit and she would have her housekeeper bring her a check,
make it out for the amount, and then Mrs. Baggs would sign it. Very
civilized in some ways.
Over my 30+ years of parish ministry, I have
encountered this phenomena over and over again in different guises.
People are remarkably generous when they know exactly where their
money is going. But very few folks feel comfortable pledging to the
parish budget to the extent they are able. A few are comfortable with
that and 'do' give to the extent they are able. And those folks
usually object to fund raising projects. They are quite clear that if
everyone simply gave what they could give, there would be no need for
bake sales. And they are right—that's the frustrating thing about
dealing with people who truly tithe: they're 'walking the walk' and
have no patience with those who merely 'talk the talk'. That tiny
minority of folks are dogmatic about pledging and very generous. The
generosity of most folks, however, is tied to 'tell me what I'm
paying for and I'll pay it' thinking. Because they are generous to a
fault themselves, they have no patience with those who tithe, give
proportionately. Why is anyone surprised that Stewardship is so
difficult?
So I arranged my visit to Mrs. Baggs—much against my
better judgment—with her housekeeper and showed up at the appointed
time. She welcomed me into a rather modest home, considering the
Baggs' fortune. Usually, it seems to me in my limited understanding,
that 'old money' is seldom ostentatious. It is the newly rich who
lust after square footage and 'obviously' expensive things. I'm sure
the furniture I passed, led by Mrs. Grant, the middle-aged, very
patient, black housekeeper, was mostly antique and quite valuable,
but it didn't scream out “Money!”
Mrs. Baggs was waiting on a little room that was most
likely an office at some point in time. There were two easy chairs, a
fireplace not burning, a table between the chairs and not much else
in the room besides a large portrait of Abraham Lincoln. The painting
was in oil and I wondered if it were from Lincoln's time. She was a
tall woman for someone her age, with piercing blue eyes, thick white
hair pulled back and dressed in black slacks and a white blouse and
inexplicable Keds red tennis shoes.
Doris, Mrs. Baggs housekeeper, brought us Ritz crackers
with slices of Velveta cheese and some extremely dry, extremely cheap
sherry. I knew the sherry was cheap because the price tag hadn't been
removed but it took a sip to tell me it was really bad. I wondered if
one of the richest people in the city didn't want to waste the good
stuff on the Rector. Doris must have read my mind.
“This is Mrs. Baggs favorite snack,” she said, “she
insists on it for guests.”
Mrs. Baggs asked about my education and when she found
out I had an MTS from Harvard, she pursed her face.
“All the Baggs men were Yale men,” she said, “but
I suppose Harvard isn't bad if you can't get into Yale.” She made
no comment at all about West Virginia University or Virginia
Seminary. Which I guess actually was a comment of sorts.
Then she asked about a couple of people at the church.
One she called a gossip and the other an asshole. I almost gagged on
my bad sherry when she said 'asshole' but decided people who have
lived to great ages deserve to speak their mind. She told me of her
admiration of my predecessor, who had been elected bishop. I imagined
he was more at ease asking for money than I was and nodded in
agreement with her praise of him.
The weather, which was mild for late November came up
and she asked me if I knew her daughters. I told her I did and
commented that they didn't stay around long enough on Sundays to have
a real conversation with.
“They're not much for talking,” she said, “Beth
and Ruth are very interior people.”
I nodded some more, wondering when the slide the piece
of paper with a figure on it across the table. To pass the time I
commented on the painting of Lincoln.
“You must admire President Lincoln,” I said.
She went on a while about Lincoln's attributes and
accomplishments. Then she leaned forward and, in a whisper, said,
“They killed him you know....”
I was nodding. I did remember that President Lincoln
has been assassinated.
“It was John Wil....” I began.
She shook her head vigorously and touched my hand. “No,
no,” she said, “that Booth rumor was a cover-up. It was the Gerry's who killed him.” She sat back, smiling and looking pleased.
“The Ger...Gerry's....You mean the German's killed
him?” I asked, astonished.
She nodded. “A dozen of them,” she said, “all
came running into the box seat and filled him with holes.”
I was nodding like a madman, trying to keep up.
She motioned for me to lean toward her and whispered in
my ear, “I was there, you know....”
“When...when the Germans killed Lincoln? You were
there?”
She smiled again. She had a lovely, old-lady smile,
“Mr. Lincoln, himself, invited me to the theater that
night,” she told me. “That Mary Todd wasn't pleased. If you ask
me, she was in on it.”
I took a deep breath and a large slug of bad sherry.
“Mrs. Lincoln was part of the plot to kill her husband?”
Mrs. Baggs nodded and then said, “she was a German
herself, you know.”
About that time, Doris reappeared.
“We don't want to tire Mrs. Baggs too much,” she
said softly, “I think you should leave.”
My head still spinning from the German plot to kill
Lincoln, I started to rise. Doris cleared her throat loudly.
“I think you have something I must see,” she said.
She waited until I understood and found the piece of
paper with a figure on it in my pocket. Doris took it from me and
said, “just say your goodbyes.”
I shook hands with Mrs. Baggs and kissed her cheek. Her
skin was surprising soft for someone in their 80's. Doris came back
with a check she had filled out and a pen.
“Put your name here, darlin',” she said to Mrs.
Baggs, pointing to where to sign.
On the way out, Doris gave me the check. It was for
several thousand dollars more than my note had said. She saw my
reaction and said, “don't worry, the girls know about this and
approve.”
“Mrs. Baggs...,” I started and then didn't know
what to say.
“I was listening from the hallway,” Doris said,
“and when you got started on Lincoln, I knew it was time I came
in.”
“The Lincoln thing....” I began.
She
smiled and helped me on with my winter coat. “No one understands
it. The girls certainly don't.” She laughed softly, “once Mrs.
Baggs told me she was there when the President made
me free.
That's how she said it: 'Doris, I was there when he signed the
proclamation that made you free'. I swear I think she thinks she
was....”
“So what will...,” I started.
“Happen to her?” Doris was faster than me. “Oh,
until her body goes, I'll be here. The girls like me and I actually
love Mrs. Baggs. She's a load of laughter.”
At the door she touched my arm. “Come back and see
her please. But not like this, have someone call me with the total
each year. Just come and visit and have some bad wine with her.”
“And talk about Lincoln?” I asked.
She laughed, “most likely,” she said and shut the
door behind me.
I was astonished by the strange and wondrous Mrs.
Baggs, by Doris calling two women at least in their 50's 'the girls',
and by Doris herself. Mrs. Baggs was in good hands.
After I left St. Paul's, there was a need for a lot of
repair to the building. The Baggs family was, I was told, extremely
generous.
But
by then, I knew Doris wrote the checks.
REMITHA
Remitha may be the most remarkable parishioner I've
ever served...and one of a handful of the most remarkable people ever
in my life.
She had a story (doesn't everyone) that made her
remarkable enough. But how she chose to live out her life, post
story, was astonishing.
Physically,
she was unimposing. Five foot six or so and thin with a coffee Au
let
skin coloring. Her hair was turning the least bit gray when I came to
St. James in Charleston but I don't know how old she was. Age wasn't
something you tended to note about Remitha. She was most likely in
her sixties back then, but there would have been no way to tell. She
had more energy that any two people and moved rapidly.
It was her movement that gave her past away. She moved
with a grace and economy of motion uncommon and rare. She moved like
a dancer—which is what she was. Remitha had danced with Cab
Calloway during the last years of the Harlem Renaissance. She knew
all the notables of that remarkable artistic time and place. The
only thing she ever did to let on that she could have been famous is
refer to the figures of the Renaissance by first name. When Remitha
said “Duke”, she didn't mean 'Snider'.
But when her parents were having health problems,
Remitha left New York and came back to Institute, West Virginia to
watch out for them. She had a married sister but since Remitha was
single, it was her duty to care for parents. Both her parents were
associated some way or another with West Virginia State College. She
stayed with them until they both died and then, too old to take up
her career again, stayed in Institute as a teacher. She had just
retired when I arrived. To keep herself busy, she took on the care of
other elderly folks. There were dozens of them that she looked out
for—doing shopping, taking them to the doctors, bringing them food,
just spending time.
Remitha could be irritable from time to time, though
not nearly as much as someone who spent many hours a week with needy
and demanding elders had ever right to be. Oh, she was never anything
but patient and kind to the people she ministered to (and it was a
real 'ministry') but she would come by my office every week or so,
flop down on a chair gracefully (Remitha could actually make a 'flop'
look 'graceful'!) and give me a litany of the woes of 'her folks'.
But as soon as she got started complaining, she would begin to see
the humor of the old people's eccentricities and we'd end up almost
whooping in laughter. After a while, she sigh and smile, 'well thanks
for listening' she would say and head back out to do dear, kind
things for her folks.
“They drive me crazy,” she would say from time to
time, “but being crazy keeps me going....”
Due to some strange demographic blip, the largest
single group at St. James was teenage girls—only three teens who
were boys, but over a dozen teenage girls. This was long before the
curse of smart phones fell upon the land, but most of those girls
could find something inane to do anyway. Remitha thought them lazy
and spoiled.
“Look at them,” she said one day, “do-less,
junk-food addicts and turning fleshy. Someone should do something.”
I remained a deacon for nearly a year, doing deacon's
masses (which are like sacramental take-out blessed by a priest at
another church) and with the help of Father Dodge. But my ordination
had been scheduled—the first ordination at St. James in the
church's 90+ year history. It was a Saturday and the next day I'd
celebrate my first real Eucharist. Remitha came by one day a few
months before my ordination and caught me at the church.
“What do you think about liturgical dance?” she
asked me.
“I like it,” I said, “if it's done well.”
“Oh, it will be well done,” she told me, “you can
trust me on that....”
Before I could ask what she meant, she was headed
toward the door. “I've got Miss Bessie's two sisters in the car.
I've got to get back before they get into mischief.”
Before I knew it, all those teenage girls were showing
up after school at the church and Remitha was teaching them to dance.
Some of them were reluctant, but Remitha had gone to their parents
first. It didn't take much convincing to have the parents ordering
the girls to do whatever Remitha told them to do. And Remitha could
still dance—she'd had ballet for years before Harlem. The girl
could really dance!
So, the St. James dancers came into being. She had them
sewing their own costumes—simple, full colorful skirts to wear
below black leotard tops with a scarf matching each skirt for their
heads. They danced in bare feet. Some of them were naturals and some
tried Remitha's patience. But they all learned to dance. My first
mass as a priest was their debut. They used the whole church—all
three aisles and the front. They performed four numbers all to Duke
Ellington's “Sacred Concert”. Remitha danced with them—some
times doing things they couldn't yet do, but often just as one of the
ensemble. Her grave and graceful demeanor gave the girls more
confidence and they ended up being better than even Remitha had
imagined. It was most definitely 'done well'.
At the reception following the first Dance Eucharist at
St. James, Remitha received the praise and deflected it to the girls.
They had grown to love her though she was very strict with them and
demanding of their bodies. They worked hard and when anything went
wrong in rehearsals Remitha would first look sternly at them and then
burst into her infectious laughter. Sometimes at the end of a
rehearsal they were be exhausted, strewn around the church on their
backs laughing with joy and amazement at themselves.
After that first service, Remitha gathered the girls in
my office for a moment. I was with them. She smiled broadly at them.
“The Duke would have been proud of you,” is all she said. They
knew that was the highest of praise.
They went on for several years, dancing at St. James to
a widening repertoire of music: Benstein's “Mass”, “Jesus
Christ Superstar” and most lovely of all, old Negro Spirituals.
Their reputation spread and they would often dance at other churches
or at Diocesan Conventions or, because it was part of Remitha's
passion, nursing homes.
“When do we get to see you again?” I asked her one
day before a trip to Huntington to dance at the largest parish in the
diocese.
“Lord these girls run me ragged,” she said, shaking
her head. “I sometimes wonder if it's worth it....”
I started to tell her that of course it was worth it
when she went on, “but these girls ARE worth it....”
Remitha wasn't satisfied simply to do her 'good
work'--she drug me into it at every possible moment. I sometimes
believed she double booked trips for her folks on purpose so I'd have
to drive people places and drive them home. She also was very active
in working with the retarded and crippled. (I know neither term is
politically correct today but it was the 1970's and that's what we
called the 'mentally and physically challenged' in those days.) She
would drag me off to help her do exercises at group homes and special
schools. It was impossible for her to imagine that the 'challenged'
population couldn't do more if you only asked them to. So we would do
calisthenics and run races and do silly dances with folks all over
the county. Her network was seemingly limitless and everyone who knew
her fell under her spell. But then, it's hard not to love someone who
treats you like you are more capable and smarter than you think you
are and is constantly reminding you how proud she is of you.
It was the same for me, but with an ironic bite to it.
Once after church she told me, “You certainly are a
great preacher.” I walked around coffee hour about a foot off the
ground. Just before she went home she came over and whispered,
“...for a white man.” I could hear her laughing all the way out
the front door.
Something she taught me that every priest needs to
learn is simply how to be with people different from you or someway
impaired or old or dying. That's a lesson for us all, but especially
for a priest. It seems to me that most of my long ministry has been
spent with a large number of those folks. Since I was always in urban
settings, Remitha's teaching was acutely important. And I love her
for it.
Another teaching was that the world is, in the end, a
tad bizarre and usually inscrutable. Weird, odd and strange things
happen all the time. Remitha taught me that bemusement and pondering
were two tools of Life's trade. She'd shake her head often and say,
“God works in mischievous ways....”
A few years after leaving Charleston, I was in West
Virginia for a while, visiting relatives. My friend John had called
me when Remitha went into the nursing home. She had developed rapidly
progressing Alzheimer's Disease. It took her quickly, almost before
she knew what was happening. She went in rapid succession from not
remembering where she put her car keys (as we all do sometimes) to
finding them and wondering what on earth they were, those oddly
shaped metal things. I drove a couple of hours to visit her. It was a
homey place, not the institution I expected. The Director had known
Remitha before she got ill and treated her with the respect Remitha
deserved. I went into her room. She had fallen and was tranquilized
but awake. The first thing I noticed was the ironic, mischievous,
good humored spark that had always been in her eyes had gone out. She
seemed so frightened about something—perhaps the fear of staring
into the world and seeing nothing that made sense. When I touched
her, she jumped a little and turned her head away.
The Director was still with me. “She does that with
everyone,” she told me, softening the blow of the rejection I felt
so acutely.
I sat with Remitha for 45 minutes and helped feed her
some apple sauce which she ate reluctantly and staring at me without
recognition.
I talked to her about our times together but those
times seemed so long ago when I saw her like that. I couldn't stay
any longer because it hurt too much.
I stopped at the Director's office on the way out.
“Did she say anything?” she asked me. I told her no
and she shook her head sadly, “she's pretty much quit talking. And
Lord she was a talker in her day....”
I admitted Remitha could really talk and started to
apologize for not staying longer.
That same sad head shake. “Don't apologize,” the
Director said, “it's just too hard, I know it is....”
Remitha's sister let me know when Remitha died. She
told me how proud Remitha had been of me and what a good priest she
always said I was. I thanked her for calling and was sad. But I
realized the woman I loved had died a year or two before her
wondrous, expansive heart stopped beating.
SEMINARIANS
I've 'supervised' (so to speak) 30 people preparing for
ordination in the Episcopal Church. All of them, except the first and
last one, are now priests. Dana (who became a well-known novelist),
the first seminarian I worked with, was ordained a Deacon in the
church, but then, as a protest of sorts because of her fierce
commitment to social justice, refused to become a priest. The last
one, Frank, is still in the process and will be ordained in a year or
so, I pray. He will be a wonderful priest, though he has run into
some difficulty—a side effect of the ordination process that badly
needs fixing. But don't let me get started on that....
Twenty-eight priests, a deacon and a priest in waiting,
have worked with me over the years. I've gotten to preach at a
half-dozen ordinations and have followed the lives of many of them to
this day. Thinking about that is similar to thinking about the
hundreds of funerals, weddings and baptisms I've been a part of in my
35 years as a priest. It is something that I have only started to
ponder since retiring some nine months ago at 63. What a privilege
and honor it has been to touch so many people in some way during my
being a priest. And, in the case of the seminarians, having touched
second-hand all the people they have touched in their ordained
ministry. It takes my breath away and humbles me mightily.
I've
always sought to be a 'boss' in a counter-cultural way. I've tried to
surround myself with people smarter and more talented than I am and
then give them their head to do what they do. The only agreement I've
had, at least for the last 25 years, with people who work 'for' me,
is this: They
can have the applause for their accomplishments and I will take any
grief for when things go wrong.
The buck has always stopped with me. I am constitutionally and
genetically designed to be able to accept criticism gracefully and,
in many cases, use it to make things better. I have somehow developed
the ability to 'roll with the punches' and not take them personally.
I wish I could take credit for that stand, but the truth is, it is
just the way I am. (One caveat, this ability does not extend to my
immediate family—like most everyone, I imagine, my daughter or son
or wife can cut me to the quick with a critical word.) And, it seems
to me at any rate, that's the way it should
be. The person in charge should take the blunt of any attack and let
their employees 'shine' when things go well. And, it also appears to
me, that strategy results in lots more 'shining' than 'whining'. Just
me talkin....
The
metaphor I've used over the years with people who, technically, at
any rate, “work for me” is that of Crabbing
Buddies.
Here's
how that goes: over 35 years ago, I learned how to catch blue crab in
little inlets of North Carolina. There is simply no way to explain
how to do it in words, it is fraught with too many quirks and nooks
an crannies. The only way to learn to crab is to put your feet in the
water and learn from someone who knows how to do it. Crabbing
involves a lot of variables.
In the first place, there is the bait. I recommend
chicken backs, either ones you get from the butcher or carve out of a
chicken yourself. The first thing you do is tie some twine around the
chicken back and lay it out on a banister in the sun for a day or
two. You need to get it really rotting. You tie it with twine first
because you won't want to touch it with your fingers after the
morbidity sets in. When the chicken is ripe, you slide a sinker down
the twine and tie it off about three inches above the stinky chicken.
Do two or more backs at a time, especially if you're being someone's
crabbing buddy. Everyone needs bait.
You need a net on a pole about four feet long and a
cooler or two full of ice covering at least two six packs of beer—I'd
recommend three six packs. You can always run to the convenience
store to get more. It depends on how many people are expecting a meal
from your crabbing. Six crabs barely feed a person. Eight each is
better. And you get to drink a beer only when you catch a crab. I
recommend cans rather than bottles since you don't want to be
bothered with a bottle opener. Then put the bait on top of the ice
and either walk or drive to an inlet. You need to get there as the
tide it turning. The crabs float with the tide and you want them
moving. I've always thought that the tide turning to high is better
than the tide turning to low. But the point is, have the tide
turning.
You need to wear old sneakers since you'll never want
to wear them again. You need sun block at the maximum strength
allowed by law and a hat that shields your face from the sun. Also,
the brim of the hat lets you look into the water to seek the crabs.
Sun glasses too, the ones that cut glare so you can actually peer
into the water about a foot.
You throw the rotten chicken out as far as your line
allows...four feet of line would be enough in most cases. Then you
hold the twine and try to distinguish between the pull of the tide
and the bite of a crab. There is no way to know the difference
without doing it for an hour or so and feeling foolish pulling in the
twine when it is just water moving the bait. Eventually, through
trial and error, you begin to get the sense in your fingers of what
is tide and what is crab.
When you have that sense and feel a crab feeding, you
have to start pulling in, slowly enough to let the creature keep
eating and fast enough to get it into water shallow enough to net it.
It is more poetry than prose, more intuition than knowledge, more
'touch' than 'knowing'. It takes a while to get your finger tips to
react in a consistent and accurate way to the feel of a crab feeding.
But once you get it, you know it always. Much like the 'balance' of
riding a bicycle. Once you find it, you have it. You never forget how
to ride a bike or how to know it is a crab on your line.
Patience is then required. You have to keep the
tension, which isn't difficult since crabs are ferocious feeders. But
if you pull in too fast or lean too far over the water so the crab's
stilted eyes see your shadow, then the crab will back away. If that
happens, you wait. They are greedy creatures and might just come back
to the food if you are patient enough.
There is a whole other set of skills needed to net the
crab you've tempted in far enough to see. They move backwards,
mostly, so you have to come from far behind them because once the net
hits the water they are in 'escape mode' and coming straight down
will give you a net full of rotten chicken. Again, it is a matter of
'touch' and instinct, not knowledge and knowing. So, the only way to
learn to do this—to crab successfully, is to be calf deep in water
with someone who already knows how. And you have to be willing to be
sun-burned, in spite of all your precautions, and have your ankles
bitten by baby shrimp—yes, Virginia, shrimp can bite—and have
three things...patience, patience and patience...and three
skills...intuition, balance and 'touch'. That and only that will fill
the coolers with crab as the beer is pulled from beneath the ice
(always bring a bag for the cans, be environmentally responsible,
after all). And, when you put a new blue crab into the cooler and dig
down for a beer, remember this, people smarter and more skilled than
you have been pinched by a crab claw. Just part of the learning....
So that is how I supervised all those wondrous people.
I invited them into the water with me. I showed them, initially, how
to do certain things and then I invited them to throw the chicken
out, feel for the crab bite, learn to pull it in—not too fast, not
to slow—take the net and see if they could do it. Always, I asked
them to bring emotional sun block, intellectual sun-glasses and some
old clothes. And I also told them what was best for shrimp
bites—witchhazel and then baking powder.
Lots
of work, sunburn, sweat and too many beers. But the feast is worth
it. Nothing like boiled blue crab, poured out on the Charlotte
Observer
with corn from a road side stand, boiled shrimp from the same stand,
lots of butter and beer or really cold white wine. Nothing like that
at all.
Parish ministry can be that fulfilling, that wonderful
that tasty. It really can be, if you're willing to ruin your sneakers
and tend to the shrimp bites—metaphorical, of course. I never
imagined I was “supervising” these remarkable young people. I was
just trying to keep up. It's like the story of a man riding his horse
through a town as fast as he could. “Those are my soldiers up
ahead,” he said. “I am their leader and must catch up.”
Some of my relationships remain over time. I got a call
years ago when Bern and I owned a house on Oak Island, NC. The
gentleman introduced himself as Casper Higgenbottom, or something as
unlikely. He told me he was a Fire Marshall serving Brunswick County.
He asked if I were the owner of a house on Dolphin Lane. I told him I
was, beginning to feel a bit uneasy.
“Well,
Mr. Bradley, the damage can
be
repaired,” he said.
“Damage?” I said, my heart sinking, “what
damage?”
“A gas line exploded near your house and scorched the
who east wall,” he told me, “but there is good news....”
“What could be good about that?” I asked,
sorrowing.
“Well the burn marks look like a profile of our
blessed Lord Jesus,” he said, “and several people are interested
in buying the property from you or you could use it as a tourist
attraction. Lots of Christians in this area....”
After a long pause, I said, “who is this really?”
It was K., one of the first seminarians that worked
with me in New Haven. He was in a church in North Carolina and was
going to rent a house during July on Topsail Island and wondered if
we'd be down that month. We saw K. and his family that summer and a
couple of summers afterward until he got a job in another diocese.
B. was a young man from the upper Mid-West who worked
with me and K. It is always exciting to have more than one seminarian
around. It creates a usually friendly competition and they have
someone to complain about me with! Plus, many hands make light work
and I have found over the years that seminarians accomplish a great
deal of parish ministry in their 10-12 hours a week during the
academic year. Besides, one of the joys of having seminarians around
is that they see with 'fresh eyes' and usually have bold and
innovative theologies. It always kept me on my toes to engage
seminarians in conversation about 'what they would do' if they were
me and about the 'theological context' of practically anything. Many
priests, it seems to me, get bogged down in the 'doing' of ministry
and don't attend to staying reflective theologically. That's
impossible with seminarians around.
B. was a talented man. More serious and less skeptical
than K. They balanced each other well and did a great deal of good
work at St. Paul's. St. Paul's was known as, perhaps, 'the most
liberal parish in the diocese'. I'm not sure it was, but it was a
haven for political and theological liberals. The parish itself did
good outreach but, except for one of two activists, most of the
dedicated liberals who came there wanted rest from their labors. They
were doing the progressive work of God in their lives in many
different settings. St. Paul's was a haven for them. A place to take
a deep breath and be cared for just as they cared for those they
served as teachers, social workers, labor union leaders, medical
practitioners and workers in the vineyard of the world's pain and
injustice. I've always fretted over the “gas station” image of a
parish church—a place to get 'filled up' for the week ahead, for
real life. But it is clear to me, looking back, that people who live
in 'the real world' need refreshment and nurturing. All churches
should seek to do that. Some parishes need to make it a primary
ministry.
Anyway, back to B. I preached at his wedding down in
Pennsylvania. His bride's parish was in a tony, upper-class suburban
community. Her family's Rector did the service and I did the sermon.
He was one of what I've always called 'catalog priests'--the kind if
you saw their picture flipping through a catalog you would say, “oh,
let's get that one!” Tall and intellectual and kind and a charming
kind of shy—he was (he was, I thought, talking with him and B. in
the back yard of the Rectory because the bride's limo had been
delayed by an accident on the Interstate) destined for bigger things.
So call me a minor prophet—the priest was later Bishop of Chicago
and the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal church!
So B. was ordained—I was one of his presentors—and
he took a job in Connecticut so I would see him at clergy gatherings.
Once, a couple of years later, I called him up to get his help on
some issue or another—probably having to do with gay folks in some
way—and there was a long pause after I told him what I wanted.
“B,” I said. “Are you there?”
“Jim,” he responded, “I'm just not as liberal as
you are on these issues....”
I
came to find out over the next few years that B and I were on
opposite sides of most issues that came before the church. It was
truly a revelation to me. For one thing, I must not have listened
very well to him in our many conversations. He never hid his
opinions, so far as I could remember, but my 'blind side' is that I
always think of myself as the 'norm'...from which there is no
deviation. This had bitten me many times over the years, thinking
whoever I'm talking with must be in agreement with my obviously
correct
and passionately held opinions. Over and again I've been shown the
untruth in my belief, but I continue to make the assumption that
everyone supports what I support. Someone once told me when I gave
them my “I'm the Norm” explanation that it was curiously naïve
of me and not a little charming. Charming or not, I always feel like
an idiot. B's final lesson to me was that you don't have to agree
with someone to love them and to work with them. That's a lesson I
wish I could learn more thoroughly. It's also a lesson that Orthodox
Christians and Progressive Christians, Jews and Muslims and
Christians, even Democrats and Republicans could learn, much to the
benefit of all.
W was a seminarian for two years at St. John's. I got
in trouble with the bishop (not the same one) during her ordination
sermon. At the very beginning, instead of the usual “In the Name of
the Father, Son and Holy Spirit,” I said, “In the Name of Yahweh,
Jesus and Sophia”. I think I may have told this story earlier, but
I'm not sure I said that it was a woman, I am told, who objected and
told the bishop, who inhibited me from saying such a thing.
W
was a slightly more mature woman, not straight from college to
seminary. She was from the spiritual tradition of the Society of
Friends when she got bit by the Liturgy bug and became an
Episcopalian. I'm not sure we Anglicans understand how powerful the
liturgical practice can be to people of a certain makeup. I just read
a review the other day of a book called The
Accidental Anglican
which, apparently, chronicles the journey of a fundamentalist
Christian to the Episcopal Church. It was the Liturgy that got him,
though our theology still is problematic. The message to all us
Episcopalians is clear--”it's the Liturgy, stupid!”
Anyhow, W, who was a candidate from Connecticut, a
member of the Cathedral congregation in Hartford, was having problems
getting through the ordination process. (Don't get me started on
that...I've warned you....) She was a good preacher, a superb pastor,
an accomplished teacher and liturgist, plus she had a 'support group'
who loved her and were devoted to her. Most seminarians didn't
trouble much with their support group—which they selected and
led—but W was deeply committed to learning all she could from lay
folks (much better teachers in priest-craft than priests or seminary
professors, by the way) and made the most of her group. They even had
a name for themselves—'The W Pack'--and taught her much more than
I ever could have about how to be a priest.
The complaint of the committee blocking her ordination
was that she didn't have a full-blown “Anglican Spirituality”,
which, as far as I can remember, had something to do with her
admitting she didn't say Morning and Evening Prayer from the Prayer
Book each day. Well, that ticked me off no end. Against W's wishes, I
demanded a meeting with the bishop and the committee. It was a
painful time. They were somehow, it seems to me, suspicious of a
Quaker/Episcopalian. Hell, I'm a Pilgrim Holiness/Methodist/
Episcopalian. What could be more suspect that that. What frustrated
me was that I knew her best of all and knew what a priest she would
be and how badly the church needed priests like her and no one would
listen to me.
(I've taken an informal poll of priests I've known,
asking them if they were not an Episcopalian, what would they be.
Over half have said 'a Quaker”. The two forms of piety seem to
complete each other—the deep silence and lovely liturgy seem meant
for each other. And you couldn't find a more sane way of making
decisions. When the whole gay inclusion question came into the
forefront, the Quakers, as I understand it, adjourned their national
convention and spent the year in discernment and prayer. At the end
of the year they simply accepted GLBT folks as fully part of the
Society. Episcopalians have been fighting and splitting over the
question for well over a decade. I can't imagine why the Episcopal
Church shouldn't be more than delighted to have Friends come to join
us, bringing their spirituality with them.)
So,
in spite of my intervention (or, perhaps, because
of it}
her ordination was delayed for a year. Alas and alack. It seemed to
snap something in her. I don't know, I just may be imagining that,
but she hasn't had the success in the church I thought she would and
which she richly deserved. The Process somehow 'broke' her.
Literally, since she had no job for the year she had to wait for
ordination...and, more profoundly, emotionally and spiritually in
some way. It was one of the many cases I've seen where the church as
“Institution” overruled the church as “Community” and did
damage.
But she soldiers on to this day. I hear from her from
time to time and she is still committed to her ministry, her
priesthood, as much 'in spite of' the church as 'for it'. God bless
her. God bless them all. They deserve it. Really. Good people, trust
me on this—good people.
Little M was a gift to me. She grew up and will spend
her priesthood in churches that are suburban, mostly affluent and
traditional. And, when she was in seminary, a commuter student after
her children were almost grown, she made a defining choice to come to
St. John's, a funky, profoundly diverse, urban parish. She needed to
experience it, that's what she told me when I interviewed her. Such a
place would not be her fate or her passion, but she truly believed
she should experience it and learn from it. And she did, just as I
learned from her.
M is almost terminally 'perky', still is in her role as
a Rector of a suburban parish outside the See-city of Hartford. She
is 'feisty', I would say. A priest friend of her asked me, early on
in M's time at St. John's, “how's it going with M?”
Being inappropriate in most ways, I mistakenly said,
“we'll crack her open yet...”
Well, her friend told her what I said and so much of
the year she spend with us 'in the City', M was trying to resist
being 'cracked open'. I didn't really mean it in a negative way. I
merely meant, and should have said, “we'll give her an experience
she won't forget.”
She was another of the seminarians I presented for
ordination in a Fairfield County parish that reeked of money and
influence. The kind of place I feel a little too hill-billy and
tongue-tied to be in comfortably. For her ordination, I gave her, as
is my tradition, something that was mine. I gave her a large print of
Christ/Sophia. It depicts a beautiful, dusky skinned woman, wrapped
in a red garment with long black hair and a nose ring, holding a
wooden carving of the Earth Goddess. It is an edgy kind of icon, full
of paradox and challenges. St. Paul called Jesus “the Wisdom of
God”, or, in Greek, “the Sophia of God.” Sophia has been
associated over the centuries, with both the second and third persons
of the Trinity. So, that's what I gave her, 'little M', the proper
suburban woman, always well groomed and dressed by Talbots.
A few years later, I called her because I wanted to
borrow the print for a retreat I was leading. She told me to come
down and get it. I suspected she would have to go get it in her
attic, but when I arrived, the picture was hanging prominently on the
wall of her office in this well-heeled parish. I was surprised and
told her so.
“I put it here so people will ask about it,” she
told me. “And they do. Many find it troubling, but that's not a bad
thing. Being 'troubled' teaches us something.”
She smiled at my look of surprise.
“Then I tell them about St. John's and the life and
ministry of a place so different from this,” she told me. “That
too teaches us something.”
Just as B taught me you don't have to agree about
issues to be loving and kind and accepting of each other, 'little M'
taught me what I already knew and often forgot, which made it a
doubly special teaching.
'Folks are just folks' in the end.
We live in different cultures, different contexts, but
in the end, 'folks are just folks' and we theologically trained
people should know that, really know it, appreciate it and ponder it
and figure out how to make it work.
'Little M', I believe, has figured all that out. She
spends her life and ministry in a context and culture I've never
known, and in that space, she creates the Truth that 'folks are just
folks' for the folks she ministers to.
God bless her, like all the others.
E
was the first person I 'supervised'. She was a seminarian from West
Virginia who, at the end of her second year of study, was required to
spend the summer working somewhere in West Virginia. Since she wanted
to minister 'on the margins', coming to an African-American parish in
an overwhelmingly white diocese made sense. She also wanted to be
near Charleston both because her spiritual mentor—the Rector of St.
John's, the big church downtown—was there but also because of her
passionately felt need to do advocacy work. E is the only person I
ever worked with that made me feel 'conservative'! Her theology was
expansive, liberationist and activist. She went far further into
social action than I ever did, though many would consider me a model
of 'the activist priest' from Paul Simon's Me
and Julio, down by the School Yard.
E's particular zeal was for saving the mountains from the greed of
the coal industry.
There had always been strip mines, though the massive
scale of mountain top removal of today would have never been
imagined. E grew up, as I did, in McDowell County, a part of the
world sitting on the largest bituminous coal deposits in the U.S.
(The
Rector of St. John's, amazed by E's brilliance, devotion and passion,
once said to me, “Jim, can you believe someone like E actually
comes from McDowell County?” It was one of those 'what good can
come from Nazareth?' statements people who didn't grow up in
Appalachia often made. I wanted to shake him and say, “who do you
think we are down there, some lesser species of humankind?”
Instead, I nodded. “Amazing,” I replied. There's really no point
trying to convince people that places like McDowell County are really
like all the other rural places around the country. Coal miners are
seen as somehow constitutionally inferior—witness the way companies
like Massey Energy kill them for their sport...or rather, their
profits....)
E and I grew up quite close to each other, in fact. Our
parents knew each other. My father had worked in the mines before
WWII and E's father was a mine boss of some kind. We both had seen
with our own eyes the wanton destruction of some of the most
beautiful places on earth. People who find out I'm from West Virginia
will often tell me about driving through it on the way to someplace
else. And they always comment on the beauty—and the emptiness—of
the state. (West Virginia is the size of all of New England,
excluding Maine, and has less than 1.5 million citizens. It is a very
large, mostly empty place.) And, it is jarringly beautiful. It was a
remarkable and humbling privilege to grow up surrounded by the
mountains that reached down to the core of life of the planet and up
to the vast expanses above. There is something holy about mountains
(not a surprise to almost all Faiths since holy places are often on
mountain tops).
Strip mining, as it was called in my youth, and what is
called 'surface mining' today, abuses, ignores, desecrates all that
is subsumed it the Holiness of Mountains. Now, as an old retired guy,
I finally resonate with E's outrage and passion and anger. I finally
get what drove her, motivated her and consumed her, body and soul.
Here was E's Achilles's heal when I knew her—she was
in mortal battle with not only the 'only' real industry of West
Virginia but with many of the leaders of the Diocese. I remember
being at a Diocesan Convention Banquet and seeing E outside,
picketing the event because several coal owners would be there. Her
mentor and I talked to her and tried to convince her to come in and
eat with the sinners, but she was adamant and disappointed at us for
going inside.
“Do you think we should stay outside with her?” I
remember asking K, her mentor.
“Let's see what's on the menu,” he said, “then
we'll decide.”
E and K were both to the left of me which meant they
were on the left wing so far over they might just fall off. But E's
purity was not ours. We ate with sinners as she stood outside and
protested. “How far to go?” is always the question for those who
seek social justice. I think perhaps K and I were missing E's point.
Perhaps there is no such thing as 'going too far' in issues of
justice. I wrestle with that Angel and ponder the possibility that E
tried to teach me what I did not learn.
When there was a movement to keep her from being
ordained to the priesthood, K and I pulled in whatever chips we had
and got her approved. And E refused the ritual! It mattered not what
her two Defenders risked and bargained away in her behalf. She had a
shining, diamond hard and rainbow pure 'cause'. She would not be
ordained into a church that harbored and supported those who destroyed
mountains. After all these years, I'm not sure, but she might have
been right. Or, at least Righteous, which is what we are all called
to be.
(“Righteousness”, by the way, is not a measure of
moral purity in any sense. Abraham was 'reckoned righteous' by God,
not by virtue of his 'virtue', but because he entered into a
'relationship' with God. Being Righteous is to be in a 'right
relationship' with God. It is a term of 'relationship' not behavior.
So many Christians have that so, so wrong. When you are 'in
relationship' with someone, even God, then you know each others
quirks and faults and brokenness, yet you Love each other. Am I
making any sense here? I worship a God of 'relationship', not a God
of Law and Judgment. I pray you do as well. And I really believe,
with the perspective of decades, that E had a 'relationship' with the
God who created the mountains that I did not have and will never
have., She was “righteous' in that sense instead of the way we saw
her and judged her—a radical with an agenda. E held the hand of the
Creator and knew the Wonder of God's ways. I really believe that.
Righteousness never leads to good endings, but knowing you will be
abandoned by even your closest friends while you hold the hand of the
Almighty...well, I know why she stayed away from that banquet that
night and refused ordination to the priesthood when it was an open
offer to her. Sometimes you meet people who walk backwards and speak
gibberish and yet are, in the end, Righteous. Sometimes that happens.
It just does. Notice that and ponder it.)
E, if recently found out, now participates in the
church in and around Charleston. She's also become a author of
historic novels, a couple of which I've read. She even teaches at
West Virginia State. It's comforting to know she's there, involved
I'm sure in making life unpleasant for the coal companies—especially
after the horrifying accident of last year. The problem is, as noble
as people like E are, the ones they seek to advocate for—the miners
and their families—depend on the coal companies for their
livelihood. It's a difficult thing to speak up for those who don't
want to be spoken up for, fearing loss of their jobs. But if anyone
is up to that kind of quandry, it is E....God bless her....
That's enough for now. I may return to the seminarians
later and tell you a bit more about some of them and the gifts they
gave me. Just reflecting on them, remembering them and pondering all
that they taught me has brought me that complex and ironic emotion
that merges together pride, gratefulness and humility. Not a bad
emotion to hang around with for a while.
