why don't they? I don't know...

Well, I screwed up again, hit the 'enter' button and posted the name of the post only. sorry.

Someone asked me today what I would like as a going away gift. And I said, without thinking, really, "I wish people would come to church...."

I've been wishing that most of my professional life and I know all the reasons people 'don't' come to church--I will be dealing with that soon enough...will I go to church if not paid to do so? But it is still my wish.

If the members of St. John's CAME TO CHURCH there would be 6 or 7 hundred people there every Sunday. That would be a challenge, surely, for those of us who do liturgy. We have nearly 400 on Easter and that's something to deal with. But I think I would be able to master having the church full to overflowing each week.

I know why people don't 'come to church'--they work hard all week and need a break, it is snowing/raining/doesn't look good, there is something else to do, it's just a pain...on and on, I could come up with dozens of reasons about 'not coming to church' and all of them would be valid and correct.

The problem is coming up with reasons TO COME TO CHURCH. Well, I can do that too, but the suggestions aren't nearly as compelling as the obvious reasons not to.

It is a way to be close to God....You can be close to God without ever darkening the door of a church. I know that. Since God is everywhere all the time, God is in your kitchen, your bedroom, the soccer field, the woods, the shore, with the coffee and New York Times. So, if you are consciously 'being close to God' anywhere else--may God bless you. But 'church' is a place where chances are you will 'be close to God', as boring as it is and all that.

(An aside about 'boring', which I'm told Church is, though I don't think so: there is no such thing as 'boring' in the universe. Bring me a cup of 'boring', or a handful, or a teaspoon full. You can't. Boring doesn't exist like a thing. I used to tell people "hockey is boring", but I've been glued to hockey games from the Vancouver Olympics. "Boring" isn't 'out there', waiting to bore you. "Boring" is inside you, ready to jump out. So, if church is 'boring', who you going to blame? God? I hope not. Maybe yourself because you don't bring excitement and anticipation and hopefulness with you to loan to 'church'? I don't know. Something to ponder.

Church is a place to find 'community'.
I would contend that what is most missing in the lives of most people is a 'community'.
We are so individualistic and so self-absorbed that we don't even imagine that the way to live is to live in 'community'. A community, unlike a family, is something you can choose. And there you will find yourself in a way you can't outside of community. Community makes us whole...I do believe that...and that is the primary reason I am so distressed about leaving St. John's. I have found 'wholeness' there and must find some new definition of 'being whole' once I leave.

You just ought to....
There are some things you simply 'ought to do'. Brush your teeth, get a good night's sleep, be kind and compassionate to your family, never abuse an animal--stuff like that are simply 'oughts'. One of those is 'go to church'. You don't have to like it, but like brushing your teeth and being kind to animals, some 'oughts' make you a better person over time, without you even realizing it. Church is one of those.

So, what I want is a full church the last 8 sundays of my time at St. John's. That's what I wish for and what would be the best going away present ever....

countdown

Ok, I never really thought about that it would come down to this--2 months, 61 days, 8 Sundays--before I retire.

This is too close, to near, to real now.

Why did I decide to do this?

I know it is finally the right thing to do. I know ultimately that all will be well and all will be well and all that.....

And, here it is--2 months, 61 days, 8 Sundays. And I'm scared shitless....Well, that's not quite true, when I get frightened I don't retain.....NO ONE WANTS TO KNOW THAT...OK?

I am much more worried about the parish than about myself. I'll be fine. I actually love being alone and working alone and doing things you do alone. I plan to get a carrel at the Cheshire Library or an office at St. Peter's church where I can do all the stuff I've longed to do for decades but couldn't because I was the priest of a remarkable and very active parish. I will be ok, promise--probably better than OK, but not because I've left St. John's...just because the things I want to do require more alone time than I've had for 20 years.

But I do worry about the parish. I've simply been around so long that the institutional memory doesn't register too well on 1988 and before.

I'm going to add up the funerals and baptisms and marriages some time soon and let you know. Just that kind of 'heavy' involvement weighs me down and ties me to this place. Hundreds and hundreds (stay tuned for the #'s)....

I know and know fair well that the folks there are fine and more than fine and will discover a future they create that will be so wondrous they'll someday say, "Jim who?" Like that. But in the short run, St. John's needs a gentle and wise hand to guide things and that's always been my job.

I am gentle, I believe. I don't make a fuss and never pick a fight and have 'the long view' about things. And I am, if I might be so bold to say, 'wise' about things--most of that wisdom is not making a fuss and never picking a fight and keeping the 'long view', so it's a lot like gentleness. Surprise, surprise--I could have told you...gentleness and wisdom are pretty much the same thing. Who knew?

What I have to do is 'let go' over the next 2 months, 61 days, 8 Sundays. I have to let go and let the folks there do what they WILL do--the right thing.

Right now, staring out my window at such a short time in the midst of things--2 months isn't long after over 20 years, after all....I am terrified.

All WILL be well, but that doesn't undo my terror at this point in time.....

seeing michael

Michael is this black guy I've know for most of the 20 years I've been Rector of St. John's. He is an intelligent, witty, interesting man. I've never figured out quite how he is only a step or two from the streets. For years I went to the Y to walk the treadmill and take a steam bath and he was often there--lifting more weight than my car could push. He became very upper-body developed and looked like some kind of athlete. He always wears a black silk do-rag and is a good looking man.

He's never volunteered anything about his past, and I've never inquired. Just an agreement we met on early in our relationship. But he knows the Bible well--probably better than me with all my education--and, unlike most self-taught Bible scholars, he had a liberal vent to his interpretation.

I saw him on the street today, walking somewhere, dressed totally in black--do-rag and all, carrying a gym bag. I noticed his upper body has shrunk and wondered why but did not ask.

"Did you bring me a stone from Ireland?" is what he said to me.

Though I don't remember, I must have told him I was going to Ireland and he must have asked me for a stone, for whatever reason.

We have lots of stones in the church because the 'symbols' of Lent have started to pile up. I almost went in and got him one--how would he know, wouldn't it be 'from Ireland' if I said so?

But then I was reminded that our talks had deserved better than a 'false stone'.

I told him I'd remember this time--when I go in June. He said he'd come by the office to pick it us. God knows why he wants it, but it oddly makes sense to me--something about holy ground and stuff like that, which I imagine he is concerned with.

So, I hope I remember and don't disappoint him again. I realized I'd be retired by the time I go to Ireland--or at least not coming to St. John's but living on them during my final sabbatical.

But I'll find him a stone and bring it across the Atlantic and mail it to the church for him, if he remembers.

It's more likely that he'll remember than that I will. I hope we both do.

A piece of the Emerald Isle is something Michael should have and something I'd be honored to bring him.

How wondrous this place has been to me--to have God grant me the privilege to know Wanderers on the Earth like Michael.....

seminarians--iv

D. was the only person I ever supervised (such as I do) who was more progressive and liberal than I am.

She was doing a summer internship between her second and last year of seminary and the Bishop of WV decided there were only two priests who could work with her, given her left-wing leanings. The other was another Jim who was the Rector of the big down-town Church in Charleston and I was the vicar of St. James, the black church. Since other-Jim was her sponsor, I got the privilege.

She liberated me, inspired me, taught me and drove me crazy!

She was an English major so we shared lots of things--she has gone on to be a novelist of note, writing historical fiction. Some of you might know her name if I wrote it out because she wrote a novel about Dietrich Bonhoeffer that was widely acclaimed. I liked that one less than her two earlier historic novel--one about Prince Hal and the other about the coal wars in West Virginia. I just have a problem with 'novels' about people who are still alive and some of the characters in the Bonhoeffer book were still alive and the others weren't dead long enough for my taste. But anyway, she was a wondrously smart and talented woman when I worked with her.

Her passion was to challenge the coal companies who were ravaging West Virginia. The tipping point was long after she worked with me when, as a deacon, she staged a protest of the banquet at the WV diocesan convention because some coal mine owners were delegates. The other Jim and I and a couple of other legitimate liberals tried to convince her to come in and eat. And she wouldn't. She carried a sign outside the hotel and fasted for that meal. We went in and, I'm sorry to say, supped with people who were destroying the beauty and integrity of the mountains of our state. She was right all along. I wonder why the food didn't turn to sand in my mouth....

God bless her and people like her. She is a better person than me--even a better 'man' than me.

She left the church for a while and taught in college. But she is back now, God bless her, still pushing the church to be 'what it should be'.

Jesus wouldn't have gone to that banquet, I don't think....And I did....

Something to ponder about myself....

Seminarians--iii

When I was at St. Paul's in New Haven, a place where there were usually 2 or 3 seminarians around for me to pretend to supervise, there was a young man who I admired and liked greatly.

He was a model of a good Seminarian--willing to try most anything, open and interested in the members of the parish, a reasonable preacher, a good colleague.

I was the preacher at his marriage, down in the Mainline of Philadelphia where the celebrant was the Rector at the time, Frank Griswold, who went on to become Presiding Bishop. But here's the thing, I called him once when the bishop had made a decision about gay/lesbian issues that I felt was reactionary and did not represent the general will of the diocese. I had a long talk with him about what was going on--he was a CT priest at the time--(or, more correctly, I ranted on about how awful the bishop's decision...whatever it was...was). When I asked him to help by approaching the bishop about the decision I listened to a lot of dead air on the phone.

Finally, I realized, intuitively, that he didn't agree with me.

Now, I've never made any secret of what I think about social or theological issues and this young priest had worked with me for two years and was exemplary. But in all that time and since his ordination--I was one of his presenters as I remember--he'd never once let me know that he was a whole, honkin' lot more conservative than I was.

He finally explained that he didn't agree and couldn't help me. I was stunned. I simply couldn't understand how I hadn't known his positions and thoughts. He was, for the time before he left CT for another diocese, one of the most eloquent of the right-wing of the diocese. And I had worked with him for two years and known him well after that and never realized.

Looking back I have to ponder some things. *Am I too intimidating to disagree with? Do I come on so strong about what I believe and support that it would be hard to 'cross' me? *Did he hide his opinions from me or develop them later? *What was the breakdown in our relationship that I merely assumed we agreed on most things when in fact we didn't at all? *Did I never ask him what he thought or never invite him to share his beliefs? *Was I just so self-absorbed I never realized how we differed in the years we worked so closely?

I'm still not sure--but it was jarring to me, that day I called him....

Now it is merely something I have to sit with and ponder. And wonder, whatever the reason was, were their others...?

seminarians--ii

One of the great thing about all--most all--the seminarians I've so-called 'supervised' over the years is how many of them were funny.

(This is, if you've been reading this blog along, a continuing of my need to catalog things--like my blue clothes, my shoes, etc. I just need to look back and remember right now....)

And maybe, just maybe, they weren't all that funny. Maybe I just find most everything amusing. But I'm sticking with my original belief--I've worked with lots of funny people.

Once Michael, who was a seminarian or intern or someone I was supposedly 'supervising' was going to open the 8 a.m. service. Malinda, the associate Rector and Bob our all-star, indispensable head acolyte, sacristan, jack-of-all-trades who makes most everything liturgical 'work' were in the vesting room with Michael. (By the way, you would never call him "Mike" or "Mickey" or any of that--he was and is, Michael.) But Michael and Malinda and I had on lapel microphones but only Michael needed his turned on. "Wait a minute," he said as we were about to go out to the chancel, "I have to turn myself on...."

And Malinda, a very attractive 40 something woman, said, "I always find that's easier than having someone else do it."

Well, Michael lost it and was laughing so hard that we all went out without him and someone else opened the service.

Then there was John, from years and years ago, who knew we owned a house at some point in North Carolina. He had just been called to a church near Long Beach, where our house was and called me up, introducing himself as Delbert Dimwit or something, the fire marshall of Oak Island.

"Fr. Bradley," he said (me buying he was Delbert) "you own a home on Long Beach."

"Yes," I told him.

"Well," he said, "the gas company was doing some work on the lines down there" (all this in an exaggerated but convincing North Carolina accent--and John was from New Jersey) "and a fire broke out next to your house...."

I became hysterical and not understandable.

"Not to worry, Fr. Bradley," Delbert/John continued, "it is actually good news. The fire left an outline of the Last Supper and a profile of Ronald Reagan on the side of your house. The property value has gone way up...."

Even then I wasn't sure I was being sucked into something so he finally dropped into his Newark voice and told me who he was.

Another Michael and Malinda story. The first Sunday Michael was a deacon he was going to read the gospel. I bet Malinda he would kiss the book after he read it. Since Malinda and I are so broad/low church we found it astonishing that he would kiss the gospel. I always say, 'when you kiss the gospel you are kissing everyone who ever kissed it' and find it just too, too precious for my taste, though not a bad thing, I assure you.

We got the gospel book and realized it required turning the page to complete the reading. So Malinda got one of those yellow sticky pads, put on lipstick and made a big, honking lipstick mouth on the sticky and we put it on the second page of the gospel Michael would read and wrote, beneath it, KISS THIS!

As Bob--our all-star, in on the prank, carried the gospel book down, Malinda panicked and whispered to me "we have to tell him...."

Of course, I said, "No, no, we don't...."

Michael turned the page, didn't miss a word though Bob was chuckling visably, finished the gospel, turned back from the center aisle to catch our eyes and kissed that sticky note....

God bless them all.

I have more for Seminarians iii, ok?

seminarians

One of the privileges and honors and humbling experiences I've had as a priest in this branch of God's holy, catholic and apostolic church (whatever that means) is to 'supervise' seminarians.

I spent a while trying to remember who all I had 'supervised' and lost count several times. I think it is around 30 or so--a few less or a few more. And I loved and still love them all....

I have used punctuation (' and ') to set off the word and concept 'supervised' because I think there is nothing I have done that was, by definition, supervisory for those folks. Mostly what I've done is give them their head, let them loose and covered their asses when necessary.

Ironically, the one thing seminary education does not teach you is 'how to be a priest in a parish in the real world'.

One can learn a great deal worth learning in seminary, truly. You can learn scholarship about the Bible and learn theology and church history (though no one, including me, learned nearly enough about that in seminary) and you learn about the liturgy and pastoral care and all sorts of really important and necessary things. But you never, ever learn how to be a priest in a parish in the real world.

So, I took that on as my job, my purpose, my calling--to set them free and give them their head and cover their asses in the real world of being a priest. And one of the great things about having them around was that they kept me thinking theologically--because that was their job at the time--and kept me hoping for the future of the church with such wondrous creatures in it.

I'm pressed for time but I'll do "seminarians--cont." soon....God love them all, we are better people and a better church because of them....