Father Dodge
and Hot Stuff
When I arrived at St. James, the congregation was
being served by Fr. Bill Dodge, a retired school teacher who was a Title Nine
priest. Title Nine is a strange little
piece of Canon Law also known as “the old man’s canon”—though to be politically
correct it should now be known as “the old wo/man’s canon”. (If it’s not
“ageism” to call people “old” these days….)
Episcopal Church law is more strict about ordination than most any
denomination; however, Title Nine is an “out”, a way around the rules for those
late in life who feel called to priesthood.
If the Church determines the call is legitimate, the candidate is
allowed to study privately, usually with a near-by priest or group of priests
and be tested after the term of study is met.
That’s
what Fr. Dodge had done. He’d become a
priest through the back door. When I was
newly ordained, after four years of theological study and two (count ‘em—two)
Master level degrees, I had little patience with Title Nine priests and even less
with Fr. Dodge. He was in his 70’s and,
to my exalted standards, not up to snuff.
But I was going to be a deacon for a year and needed somebody to help me
liturgically. Deacon’s Masses, which are
weird both theologically and as liturgy, would serve from time to time, but the
congregation deserved a “real “ Mass monthly or so and Fr. Dodge was the best I
could find. Plus, for reasons beyond my
comprehension, the parishioners seemed to have a deep affection for him and
were always happy to see him. It
wouldn’t have been astute of me to get rid of the old codger since I needed him
and the parish wouldn’t like it.
(It’s
embarrassing and humbling to listen to myself talk like that! I thought of myself as such “hot stuff” in
those days! I was God’s gift to St.
James Church and worldwide Anglicanism as well.
At least that’s what I thought.
The truth is, looking back, I was brash, arrogant and unkind almost all
the time. Hot Stuff, indeed!)
In
addition, I considered myself a liturgical genius---the be all and end all when
it came to ritual and celebration. In
fact, I’d spent four years at Harvard and Virginia Seminary, neither of which
has any claim to teaching liturgical practice.
Liturgy at Harvard had been mostly of the “feel-good”, lots of balloons
and readings from Kahil Gibran. Worship
at HDS began with Unitarian politeness and didn’t go much further or
deeper. In fact, any resemblance to
Christian, much less Anglican worship was totally accidental. A typical chapel service would include—in no
particular order—readings from the Koran or Hindu scripture, a little jazz
played by my friend Dan Kiger or other musical students, some silent meditation
and the singing of some of the hymns of Hildegard of Bingham. The Archbishop of Canterbury would have been
horrified! The closest thing to a
Eucharist I remember was when Rabbi Katinstein brought some Passover bread and
Harvey Cox talked about the religious
symbolism of sharing food and we all went up and took a piece for
ourselves. I loved it, felt I was in the
forefront of liturgical renewal.
Virginia
Seminary was, when I was there, a “Low Church” seminary. That meant that worship was restrained,
proper and in good order. That (“restrained, proper and in good order”)
meant that no Popish nonsense would be allowed to infect the purity of
Protestant worship. One of the lame
jokes we often told was this: “You know
what streaking
means at VTS? Running through the chapel
in full Eucharistic vestments!” There
was a lot of controversy at the seminary when I was there because altar candles
had been added to the “communion table”.
Candles made some of the faculty nervous. You shouldn’t open the door to “catholic”
practice---first come candles and then (gasp!) incense and the adoration of the
blessed sacrament!
Once,
during my senior year, some of the students from more High Church dioceses
organized a “high mass” with chanting, bowing, genuflecting, incense and much
crossing of oneself. I was fascinated. I’d never seen such a thing. My old nemesis, Reginald Fuller, was the
celebrant. He was “streaking” around the
chancel in his vestments, censing the altar, chanting in his Oxbridge accent,
genuflecting like one of those little yellow birds that keep dipping into a
bowl of water. Several of the faculty
walked out in a huff at such going’s-on.
There was serious discussion over sherry about suspending the student
planned Wednesday services.
That one
service was all I knew about Anglo-Catholic worship when I arrived at St.
James. Fr. Dodge, I have to admit,
seemed to know when to cross himself and genuflect (which I couldn’t do without
nearly falling on my face). St. James,
like most African American parishes, had been founded in a rich High Church
tradition that disappeared when the first white priest came to be their
Vicar. So, one good reason for keeping
Fr. Dodge around was so I could figure out how to celebrate in a way that was
Anglo-Catholic in a mirror dimly. So, those
times I’d let him come and celebrate I’d watch him out of the corner of my eye
to try to find a pattern to his movements.
However,
Fr. Dodge didn’t seem to follow any discernable pattern. I came to believe that if he ever knew what
he was doing, he’d forgotten how and was crossing himself at random places in
the service. Even though I didn’t know
how to celebrate a real mass, I resented him for not knowing! And that wasn’t the end of my complaints
about him. His hands shook when he
elevated the host and chalice, sometimes spilling wine on the fair linen. He’d lose his place and I’d have to prompt
him with a stage whisper several times during the service. He mispronounced words all the time. Several times, rather than “in
your infinite love” he said “in your INFANT love”! I mean really, how much could the good folks
at St. James and I stand of this sloppiness?
And the
one time I let him preach—horrors! He
read his sermon haltingly at best, mixing words up and shaking to beat the
band. Besides that, if he’d had any kind
of decent delivery at all, his theology was more Pilgrim Holiness than
Anglican. He talked about Jesus as if he
were a good guy from down the street, someone who would teach you a lot and
lead you to heaven when you die. Obviously,
he’d never studied homiletics—or much of anything else so far as I could tell. I was embarrassed for him, but more than
that, I was embarrassed that I needed him.
So the
day of my ordination finally came. I
invited Fr. Dodge to be in the service out of guilt over what I planned to
do. He was so excited about being near
the altar with the Bishop and the two dozen other priests. He told me afterwards that it was one of the
greatest days of his life and that he was so proud to work with me.
The next
week I fired him.
Well, it
wasn’t really a “firing”. I drove up to
his house high up on a hill about 20 miles from Charleston and talked to him on
his front porch. I explained how now
that I was a priest I really didn’t need for him to drive all that way twice a
month. I told him he needed to take it
easier at his age. I reminded him that
there were two churches much closer to his home that would probably be
overjoyed to have his help. I thanked
him for all he’d done and told him that I really didn’t need any coffee and
that I’d had lunch already. “No,” I
said, “I really don’t have time for a piece of pecan pie.”
He said
he understood. He told me how much he’d
enjoyed working with me and how much he’d learned from me. “You’re going to be a wonderful priest,” he
said.
I thanked
him and slinked away to my car. By the
time I got back to Charleston, what few qualms I’d had about what I’d done were
melted away. I was a priest—a wonderful
one at that—and I was finally free of Fr. Dodge. Things would really get rolling now at St.
James. It would be like releasing the
emergency brake that had held me back while I was a deacon.
A month
or so later, Remitha came to see me.
Made an appointment and everything instead of just dropping in like
usual. We even sat in my office and did
small talk—something Remitha never did and wasn’t good at. Finally, she cleared her voice and began….
“I wanted
to come and find out if anything was wrong with Fr. Dodge,” she said. “I notice he hasn’t been here since your
ordination.”
I started
explaining how since I was a priest now I didn’t need him as much. “And,” I lied, “at his age, he and his wife
felt it was a long way for him to drive….”
She held
up her hand and got up. “That’s fine,”
she said, “just as long as he isn’t sick again….”
She was
half way to the door when I caught my breath and said, “Again?”
She spoke
with her back to me. “Well, his first
stoke wasn’t too bad….”
“First stroke….” Is all I
could get out.
“But the
second one laid him up for months,” she said.
Then facing me she continued in a soft voice, “but you know, since we
didn’t have a priest, he got his wife to drive him down and he did the service
sitting on a stool. He couldn’t give us
communion, of course, but Morris and Ben did that for him….And when the service
was over two of the younger men would carry him down to his wheelchair and…..”
I didn’t
hear much more. I wished she’d stop
talking or I’d be struck deaf and dumb or the floor would open up and I could
crawl inside.
“You know
what I admire most about Fr. Dodge?” she was asking when I tuned back in.
I shook
my head and tried to speak. I think I
was struck dumb.
“How he
was willing to continue his ministry even though that wonderful reading voice
he had and the regal way he held himself at the altar was taken away from him.”
“He had a
good voice…?” I croaked.
“Sometimes
he’d sing a solo for us,” she said, killing me with her matter-or-fact
tone. “And I wish you could have heard
him read the service,” she continued, consigning me with her smile to one of
the lowest circles of hell. “Before the
strokes he was one of the best speakers I ever heard. He gave up a career in radio to be a
schoolteacher. Did he ever tell you
that?”
I found
that I was sitting back down though I didn’t remember doing it. “No,” I said, softly, “he never did.”
“Well,”
she said, backing toward the door, “just shows what a humble man he was. Humility makes a man a wonderful priest….”
Then she
was gone and I was left alone to consider humility.
(One of
the things that happened at VTS on a regular basis was “Bridge before
Lunch”. There were half-a-dozen or so
card tables and while whoever was assigned to help set up lunch was doing their
job, bridge would break out. My partner
most of the time was Rodge Wood. I was a
novice at bridge but Rodge was a master.
He’d played in tournaments before coming to seminary. As inept as I was, Rodge carried me. We were a good team, so good that none of our
classmates would play with us but the underclassmen could be duped into a game.
They’d
see us at a table and come over and ask if we’d like a game. Usually, since no one wants to be in over
their heads, they’d say, “are you any good?”
Rodge would answer for us both.
“Jim’s bad and I’m OK.” Then we’d
embarrass them for a few hands.
Once,
over lunch, I asked Rodge why he didn’t tell other people the truth about his
playing.
Rodge
quoted scripture: “He who humbles
himself will be exalted,” he said.
Somehow,
I don’t think that’s what the passage means.)
“Humility”
has the same root as “humus”, dirt, earth.
True humility isn’t about demeaning yourself or pretending to be less
than you are. True humility is
realizing, beyond any doubt, who you are and where you come from. “Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.”
Being
humble means being close to the earth from which we all come. A friend of mine often says she “doesn’t
trust anyone who hasn’t had their face of the pavement.” What she means, I believe, is that once
you’ve hit bottom you realize that whatever you accomplish or however far you
rise the earth is patiently waiting for you.
The bigger part of humility is perspective and point of view.
Things
look rather distorted when you’re a Hot Shot.
It’s like flying in a plane and thinking about how everything down on
earth looks small and toy-like. Things
may look that way from up high, but you best not forget that they aren’t really
small—it’s just your perspective and point of view.
While
Remitha talked to me about Fr. Dodge, knowing all the while what infamy I had
committed, what a rat I had been, my face had descended from “on high” to the
grit and grime of the pavement. The
ground, the earth, the humus had swallowed me up. It was a blessed gift, one I’d need to
receive countless times again.
I called
Fr. Dodge and drove out to his house. I
told him that I had been wrong. I told
him that I wanted him to come back, twice a month, to celebrate and preach once
each month. I told him I realized that I
didn’t want to do it all by myself. I
told him I was sorry and asked him to please consider coming back.
He was as
gracious as before, only this time I hadn’t had lunch and we ate tuna-fish
sandwiches on homemade bread, washed it down with sweet ice tea and each had
two pieces of Mrs. Dodge’s pecan pie.
For a
year or so after that, I sat at his figurative liturgical knee. I came to delight in his mispronunciations—“infant
love” might work better than “infinite love” when all is said and done. It became a pleasure to prompt him or merely
point to the altar book in the right place.
I finally started “lining” out the service when he celebrated by
pointing to each line as he read. (In
fact, I train the seminarians who work with me these day to do that for
me!) And, for the first time, I noticed
how he was with the parishioners of St. James.
He never pretended to remember names when he didn’t. He listened to them intently and didn’t say
much in return. He smiled almost
constantly and the slight crookedness of his smile from the strokes came to be
dear to me. I never bought his
simplistic theology, but I did learn that if we can’t talk about heaven we most
likely will never be able to imagine it…or go there….
Then he
died, suddenly and in his sleep. It was
my honor to commit his ashes to the ground.
I drove up to his house on the hill and scattered them in the garden he
loved to work in, among his flowers and bushes.
Mrs. Dodge told me how much “Billy” had enjoyed working with me and
being at St. James.
“He told
me many times that you were a wonderful priest,” she said, brushing away a
tear.
“Takes
one to know one,” I told her and she beamed.
“That
makes him happy,” she said, “I just know it does.”
We left
Fr. Dodge in the garden (and in the heaven he so clearly imagined) while we
went inside to tell stories, laugh and cry and eat some pecan pie.
