| Clergy Renewal Update Friday, April 15 Well it’s tax day and one of the benefits of the sabbatical is that our taxes are done, the refund returned and in the bank. At the end of the first full week of the program part of the sabbatical, I can say it’s been an enjoyable and whirlwind week. I don’t want to dwell on it, however I’m constantly aware of how fast this time will go. I arrived at St. Paul’s on Sunday and virtually haven’t stopped yet. The days have been filled with meeting various people; heads of departments, director of multi-cultural affairs, the Rector, Dean of Chapel, the head of the Humanities department, etc. I’ve also been attending two classes; the Spirit of Islam and Humanities III. This has been the best part of the week because it gives me an opportunity to get to know the kids and to hear their thinking and to see them at work. I can say they are very bright. It is clear that the admissions office looks for and recruits the “best and the brightest” of young people. The faculty and the administration have been most welcoming and curious about my being here. To that extent, they have been open and candid with me and even invited me to sit in on a faculty meeting yesterday. There are two meetings that stand out for me. I truly had my thinking changed or affirmed in ways that will make a difference to me in the long run. I spent Tuesday afternoon in Boston at Trinity Church. I met with a young woman who is doing work in the area of “radical welcoming.” Stephanie Spellers is in the process of finishing a book, A Welcome Change, which will be published in 2006. She is teaching a six-week course at Trinity. It’s title is a welcome change: Facing Fear, Embracing Transformation and Becoming God’s Radically Welcoming People. She and I enjoyed our time together and continued it in the bar at the Ritz-Carlton ( to the Nixon family: it’s not as nice as Chicago’s). My discussion with Stephanie convinces me that our focus on diversity in general and Diversity Weekend in particular is far too limited. I asked her if she’d come to be our guest and she said, “only if you change the name of the weekend.” Her argument being that it sounds as though we do diversity only one weekend a year and that it’s back to normal on Monday. As a sidebar: I came away from our time together convinced that whatever we call this time in 2006, it should be the kick-off of a desire to become a congregation who (in Spellers’ words): - is open “to the presence, gifts, voices, and power of people on the margins of the church and society.” - receives “the other as freely and fully as God does, even when our tradition, our culture, and our hearts may cry, “No!” - becomes “the image of God’s grace-filled embrace of all creation,” and surrenders “to the transforming love and revolutionary will of this same God of welcome. Whatever our race, class, gender, sexuality or age, Jesus has invited us, as his disciples, to love as he loves and welcome as he welcomes.” I was left with the questions, “So, do we want to become a radically welcoming congregation and how do we go about doing so?” And, “how do we confront the inevitable fears raised in wanting to be such a congregation?” I’ll have more to say about this in the weeks ahead, but suffice it to say that my time with Stephanie raised many and powerful questions for me. She may well be the person I would want to approach to keynote our effort in January. The only difficulty may be that she is being ordained to the diaconate in the Diocese of Massachusetts in January. The rest of my time in Boston on Tuesday was spent having a nice seafood dinner and then missing the 8:15 bus back to Concord. I finally made it back to my living quarters sometime after midnight. The second meeting of some importance to this diversity conversation was my meeting with Bishop Gene Robinson on Wednesday afternoon. He is a wonderfully charming and welcoming person. He had done his homework. He knew about me and he knew about St. Catherine’s. Without mentioning it, he brought up the issue of the Emmaus Project and how interesting it looked. He was eager to know about me and about my time away. He was open as well as we began to talk about his spiritual journey. In the midst of our conversation about his journey in the arms of a loving, “inclusive” God, he told a story of a recent visit to Colby College in Maine for a speaking engagement. He asked a question in the midst of the speech dealing with the issue of can we who have not experienced prejudice fully understand and appreciate the power of a loving and radically inclusive (there’s that radical welcome, again) God. It seems to me it’s the question of how we embrace the experience of the “other” in our lives. The meat of the conversation we had is in the answer proposed by a student who stayed long after the lecture to speak with him. The student’s answer was this: “Bishop Robinson, I can understand because “I listened to you and I believe you.” These are powerful words. If our community of faith were always characterized by relationships based on listening and believing, imagine the transformative power of such community. Rather, we often don’t listen and when we do we don’t want to believe the experiences of our brothers and sisters. We would much rather tell them what they should feel or experience. If in every conversation with one another and especially our conversations dealing with God or with our experience of God we could truly answer “I listened to you and I believe you” how that might transform the community and transform each of us individually. I apologize for carrying on for so long, but this is also a good discipline of reflection. The week has been challenging both in its schedule and in my conversations. I’ve hardly had time to slow down and that is my priority now. I have been able to get some significant reading done and have been able to continue working on the remaining details of the sabbatical planning. But this weekend, I want to spend some time exploring New Hampshire perhaps getting down to Portsmouth and enjoying a day by the sea. What I know about myself has been reaffirmed this week – I’m really not a loner, but it takes a lot for me to “go by myself” to do the many things that are available to me. This is my growing edge over the next weeks as I’m away from home in different places. I have enjoyed Chapel a great deal. The “scripture” we have heard is from Anne Frank, Confucius, The Letter of Paul to the Corinthians, and this morning from a Buddhist writing. This is a profound community in terms of the gifts that exist here. In four days of Chapel, I have heard two musical presentations that were excellent. I’ve heard a chapel talk by a young, gay man who challenged the community to “move past [our] sweeping generalizations, and ignorant stereotypes, and actually get to know all those other small, yet tremendously important parts of [the other’s] character” in order to “fully appreciate [people] for who they are.” I look forward to having lunch with him tomorrow and listening to how this community has influenced such a view of the world and relationships. Tonight I’m off to dinner at the Vice-Rector’s home, a meeting of the Gay-straight alliance, and the Spring Concert of the SPS Orchestra and Madrigal Singers. The orchestra previewed a Mozart piece in Chapel the other morning and the Singers will do the Agnus Dei to the Barber Adagio – Joan and I heard it live the other week when Jeremy Wirths choir did it at Spivey Hall. It should be an enjoyable evening. Sunday night is a concert featuring the Prairie Woodwinds a quartet from Chicago. I’m going to try to slip away sometime this weekend to the coast either of New Hampshire or Maine – I haven’t decided yet. Well, I’ve gone on enough for now. I wish each of you a most blessed weekend and I hope the weather is as beautiful as it is here – even if a bit cold. Jim+ |
| April 27, 2005 To one and all, Hello from rainy New Hampshire. The weather has taken a decidedly cold and rainy turn for the worse. It’s Wednesday afternoon and things are really quiet – no athletics, no kids, no sun. . . No class on Wednesday afternoons or Saturday afternoons and all day Sunday -- but otherwise class. I had a great week both last week and this week separated by a trip to Sparta, NJ. Our friends Orion and Pam Davis are now in Sparta. Orion is rector of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church. As usual, I had a wonderful time with them. Orion is one who always demands that I think and talk about my ministry both what is current and what I think about the future. (This is why Joan and I often lovingly refer to Orion as the "Boss"). It is always a challenging conversation and the weekend was no different. The rainy pattern in the NE had already begun to set in so Saturday and Sunday were both rainy giving us plenty of time to talk and enjoy one another’s company. It was a delight to worship with Orion and be reminded how in many ways I have been shaped by him, but also to see the individual marks I have made on my own worship style. He told me later that he was nervous about me in the congregation and wanted it to go very well (it did). But for those of us who know and love Orion his comment was an unusual expression of vulnerability for him. The weekend before was marked by a great trip to Portsmouth, NH and then a slow and beautiful drive up the coast as far as Kennebunkport, ME where I scouted out our president's house and took a few pictures. The coast is so beautiful and relaxing. It was cold but the sky could not have been a brighter blue -- cobolt blue. I enjoyed a wonderful meal at the Hurricane Restaurant in Kennebunkport ending with a chocolate hurricane -- sans the carbs, of course. And then a late night trip back to Concord. I attended church on Sunday at St. Paul's Chapel (very small and here on campus) and heard a great sermon on the good shepherd that challenged us to live life abundantly using the abundance of gifts God has so richly blessed us with. Worship was followed by a magnificent brunch at the "upper" dining hall. A great omelet made to order and my companions had eggs benedict. School food takes on a whole new meaning at a boarding school like St. Paul's. This week began with Chapel on Monday morning and because Joan had sent me several cards the word got out and my birthday was remembered on Monday. I was really surprised and touched by the number of students who stopped me or simply wished me a happy birthday throughout the day. This is a community that takes seriously its commitment to hospitality. The Rector and his wife gave a dinner party Monday evening in my honor and it was a delightful time. I think St. Catherine’s should consider a rectory with a commercial kitchen, fully stocked bar, dining table for 25, a chef, a hostess who makes the drinks and serves the snacks (I can never type that Hor's word), lavish reception rooms, etc. I promise that Joan and I would be more than responsible with such extravagance and we would even invite ya’ll over a few times a year – although I’d probably have to drop "ya’ll" from my vocabulary so I’d fit in the entire lavish scene. But, really, we had a delightful time and I’ve really enjoyed getting to know the many people who have opened their arms to me. Before I left, Palmer Temple asked me to keep track of the things I enjoy and that I don’t enjoy. I thought you might be interested in what’s on the list so far (it also disciplines me to keep the list going): I enjoy * doing yard work – this is from my first week. Clearly there is a sense of accomplishment inherent in such work * academic rigor – just the demand of thinking is stimulating * young people – they think so differently and that is challenging * regular morning prayer – even though only 30 minutes it frames the day * learning and making connections from the past to today – can I have a sabbatical to return to High School here at St. Paul’s? (a reflection: I wish I had enjoyed learning in HS as much as I do now) * conversations that allow the unthinkable to be explored with little political agenda or someone saying “you can’t think like that” * travel (my time in Maine and New Hampshire; time in New Jersey) * reading and writing I don’t enjoy * BEING AWAY FROM JOAN (yes, I am shouting) I certainly can’t compare these last three weeks with my Dad’s situation. But I can have some empathy for his loneliness * being the new kid and the loneliness that often results * eating meals on this 8, noon, and 6 schedule * living on someone else’s schedule or in a small community like this – I would need to find regular escape to Boston or some big city. I guess I’m just not a country boy Well, these are some of things that have struck me. I don’t want to spend time analyzing them, but as you might see there is a theme to both lists. I have begun a reflection paper and have kidded a number of people here that it may take months of work before I’m willing to let them take a look at it after seeing them teach writing in class. I have lots of work to do with it, but the next three weeks in North Georgia will give me that opportunity. I thought you might like to see the list of key observations that anchor the paper. Key Observations and Conclusions - All of us are in need of transformation and God does so by bringing the “other” into our lives. - Diversity as an end unto itself (rather than a means to end) makes objects out of people. - The incorporation of Diversity Weekend into our congregational life takes too narrow a focus and runs the risk of marginalizing our commitment to “welcome, accept, nurture, and serve all people.” - People need to learn and practice respectful dialogue in order to engage differing ideas in healthy and constructive ways. - Leadership must proclaim a vision of a diverse community and proceed to act consistently with that vision. - The community (student body) embraces the leadership vision by incorporating it into both the norms and rules and expectations of one another and newcomers. - There must be a critical mass of diversity (cultural, ethnic, sexual orientation, etc) in order to have a real impact on the community. - The student body does not want to talk about “diversity” as an object. It seems that these conversations usually come down to the adults telling them what they are to think or do about diversity. However, this should not be seen as an unwillingness to deal with the issues that emerge in a diverse community. - In order to be fully open to transformation by the other, there is both a “listening” and a “believing” component that must be fully engaged. - Embracing diversity is to gather into one’s arms the “other” and to allow ourselves to be transfigured by their experience. It is to “welcome” into our minds and hearts the very contradiction of our own experience. No doubt these will change some as I work the paper over. Well, I’ve gone on again. I am going to spend some time getting travel stuff resolved, work on the budget and then go see a movie tonight – probably Million Dollar Baby which I have not seen and then treat myself to dinner at Lone Star on my schedule. You’ll hear from me next week as I get settled in North Georgia. Hope all is well with each of you. Jim+ |