June 13
In the exhibit hall, 260 booths say it all: Anglican Rosaries, Church Mutual Insurance, Integrity, American Anglican Council, African Team Ministries, Far East Handicrafts, Episcopalians for Life, Episcopalians for Reproductive Choice, Union of Black Episcopalians, Colores del Pueblo, Historians and Archivists, Recovering Alcoholic Clergy, Visual Arts, Heifer International, Institute on Religion and Democracy, and Networks for Disability, Stewardship, and Animal Rights. This temporary city of 10,000 is an effusive explosion of creation and humanity.

I started this long day at 7:30am with a hearing on the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) hearing. This is a growing movement championed by the Bill Gates Foundation, the singer Bono of the rock band U2, Bill Clinton and many others. 148 countries (including the USA) have signed on to its principles. By giving 0.7% of every country’s GNP, it seeks to eliminate poverty, hunger, AIDS, illiteracy, child mortality, gender inequality, and environmental destruction.

They’re everywhere here. The Presiding Bishop will host an evening devoted to it, the Africans are pushing it, everyone has buttons and bracelets and stickers proclaiming it. Against all odds, we’ve forgiven world debt; now all we need to do is to find the will and the cooperation to give less than 1% of national, church, and personal resources, and the world will be a much less miserable place.

I ended the day at 10pm after an amazing two-hour MDG liturgy of some 700 people. It was a “U2ucharist,” with all of the music being a sing-along with videos of U2. In our church, I’ve never seen such energy and passion and hope about alleviating suffering as in this Eucharist tonight: LOTS of young clergy and laity, but a healthy mix of middle-aged and older folks, too. The bishop of North Carolina, Michael Battle, gave a VERY rousing African-American sermon filled with call and response, laughter, and deep emotion.

This may well be the surprise center of what really happens here: leaving behind our fight over sex and remembering our deepest call. If Bono can get Jesse Jackson and Jesse Helms together over this, surely we can get all our people behind the mission of the gospel to feed the hungry, heal the sick, and lift up the hopeless.

Perhaps the Spirit is twisting through our seemingly intractable and ugly deadlock over sexuality to bring this surprising thing about. For this is how it has gone and may continue to go:

1. We ordained Gene Robinson and blessed gay relationships.

2. Many in the undeveloped countries of the southern hemisphere said “You didn’t take our strong feelings about this seriously; you obviously don’t care about your relationship with us and the rest of the Anglican world.”

3. We woke up and realized that we really don’t want to lose our relationship with poor Anglicans around the globe, knowing that we need them as much as they need us. We began to recommit to them, despite our cultural differences about sexuality.

4. So now we gently put our arguments about sex on a shelf (at least for a moment), so that we can cooperate with our poor Anglican sisters and brothers on survival issues that we all care about passionately: poverty, AIDS, women, children, disease, clean drinking water, education, the environment, and partnerships for economic development.

5. And next? We will go ahead quietly blessing gay and lesbian relationships and ordaining homosexual clergy; the sex-obsessed conservatives (a small minority) will leave us in disgust; and the rest of us (the great majority world-wide) will find a dynamic new partnership between the privileged rich and the disadvantaged poor.

And before too many years, we’ll authorize public rites of blessing for same-sex couples. But in the meantime, because of our recommitment to help the global south survive, they will have ceased to care about that. Or, as the Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation put it, these are the real “Instruments of Unity” instead of those in the Windsor Report.

Love conquers all. At least that’s my faith. The Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation may save us all.

Go to www.e4gr.org and find out what this is all about.

One love, one blood, one life,
you got to do what you should.
One life with each other: sisters, brothers.
One life, but we’re not the same.
We get to carry each other, carry each other.
One, one.
U2, "One"

June 15
This morning I got word of a death in the parish, so I’m heading home. I’ll post one or two more of these journals from Albuquerque as I follow the news, giving some of my thoughts on things. You won’t be getting my “inside scoop,” but you can get up-to-the minute information by going to www.episcopalchurch.org. Click on either the General Convention page or Top Stories from Episcopal News Service.

I do have thoughts from yesterday, the second day of convention. I went to the public hearing for the Special Committee on the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. Their resolutions are in response to the Windsor Report, and are still very much in formation in terms of the exact language. This is a very nuanced, political thing and specific wording is everything in terms of “message.” Initially, they proposed resolutions that would:
- affirm our interdependence with other Anglicans around the world
- express regret for pain caused by actions of the 2003 General Convention
- exercise caution in consecrating future bishops that might be problematic for other Anglicans
- encourage bishops to not develop or use public rites of same-sex blessing
- encourage the use of Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight (alternative bishops for congregations at odds with their own)
- encourage support of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals as a way of strengthening relationships with global south Anglicans
- commit to an ongoing dialog with other Anglicans about these matters
- explore the possibility of an Anglican Covenant
- affirm the rights and dignity of homosexuals

Last night’s hearing drew about 1,500 people, and consisted of 2 ½ hours of 3-minute speeches by those who signed up to talk to the Special Committee. In one very ironic moment, they called Bishop Bob Duncan (a central and very vocal conservative) and directly afterwards, Bishop Gene Robinson, explaining that they were only reading the list in the order of sign-ups. It was a “who’s who” of Episcopal leaders, as well as many ordinary layfolk.

The interesting thing to me is that about 2/3 of them asked for resolution and clarity one way or the other. About half of these were conservatives and half were liberals. Their message was the same: “fish or cut bait.” We should either do what the Windsor Report asks of us or say that we can’t and move on. Anything else is dishonest. Neither side within this 2/3 group liked the ambiguity of some of the language.

Another 1/3, again both conservative and liberal, liked the ambiguity, feeling comfortable in the gray zone, even stressing the importance of caution, listening, waiting, engaging in much more dialog.

Finally, both groups appealed to the Windsor Report and some of its authors to support their position. “It’s clear that the WR demands obedience, which we haven’t done! N.T. Wright sent me an email and said so!” Or, “The WR invites us into a process, which we are engaged in. Archbishop Eames, its chair, is satisfied with our response to date.” People read into this document (like scripture) whatever they want to see.

I find myself impatient, leaning towards the 2/3 who want resolution. My concern is the ongoing damage to gay and lesbian people, who have been more than patient with us for centuries – and now 40 years of wrangling and debate about this in modern times. They’ve been shut out of dialog again and again within the Anglican Communion, and there is no evidence that this will turn around.

If we say that we won’t do public same-sex blessings for now because it offends others, but will do private blessings (implied in the current language), then we’ll just be affirming a “don’t-ask-don’t tell” approach to the whole thing, which serves no one and is destructive in its secrecy. And besides, why should we cave in to what I believe to be biblical literalism and cultural taboos, even if held by the majority in the world? These are real human beings we’re talking about. Let’s move on. Sometimes we are called to prophetic action, not consensus.

In this regard, many have called to mind the Letter from Birmingham Jail that Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in 1963 after one of his many arrests. You can read the text online,
at www.nobelprizes.com/nobel/peace/MLK-jail.html.
It is addressed to fellow clergy (including the then-bishop of the Episcopal Church in Alabama) who urged him to ease up and slow down his demonstrations because they believed that people weren’t yet ready for change. They were concerned about giving offense.

MLK responded by saying, in part:
Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant 'Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

However, if General Convention does choose to go slow on this issue – which will inevitably and eventually result in blessings for same-sex couples - my prayer is that our delay will serve to build constructive relationships with those who seem so afraid and so opposed.

But I have my doubts. A small, die-hard minority will probably leave the church after General Convention, and in two years at the Lambeth gathering of Anglican bishops some very English arrangement will be worked out that will allow us all to still be Anglican whether or not we are in communion with everyone else and regardless of our willingness or unwillingness to sign a binding Anglican Covenant.

To my gay and lesbian friends who just want to ask for God’s blessing on their relationships of commitment and love, I can only say that I am sorry it is taking so long, and I promise to do whatever I can in the meantime without getting myself deposed.

June 18
Well I’ll be doggoned. The House of Bishops elected Katharine Jefferts Schori as the next Presiding Bishop. I hadn’t even considered her as electable. I thought that with all the nervousness about not offending third world Anglicans, they would have felt constrained about electing a woman. Besides, she is only 51, was only a priest 7 years before being elected bishop of Nevada (Nevada: can anything good come out of Nevada?), and has only served as a bishop for 5 years.

However. Everyone who knows her says she is a true reconciler, very intelligent, committed to ministry with the poor and marginalized, an effective bishop in a very diverse and rural diocese, possessed of a compassionate heart and a steel backbone, and very clear about where she stands as a progressive, modern Episcopalian. Even Bishop Jeffrey Steenson, who stands on the opposite side of the aisle from her in some ways, said she was the most impressive of all the candidates who spoke to the bishops some months ago.

And then there is the business of her being a PhD in oceanography, a pilot, married to a theoretical mathematician, a professor of religious studies, and former priest in charge of an Hispanic congregation.

Later, we’ll learn more much about her faith and her leadership abilities in these difficult times in our church. But here is a glimpse into her character, from a letter she wrote to her diocese after she voted to approve the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson:

“I have long experience of living on the margin, from being a student who was ‘too young’, to being a woman in a traditionally male occupation, to being a ‘gringa’ trying to do Hispanic ministry. I believe that this election is an opportunity for the Episcopal Church to affirm Jesus' call to those on the margins of society, a call that says ALL are welcome at God's banquet table.
During our long afternoon in the House of Bishops, two images continued to rise in my mind: one of Jesus bending down to write in the sand when confronted with those who would have stoned the woman caught in adultery; and the other of Jesus sending the servants out to invite the passersby to the wedding feast, because others would not come.
I will continue to reach out to those who do not feel welcome at the feast, whether they are my aggrieved brothers and sisters this day, or those who have not yet heard the good news of God's love. I pray that you will do the same.”

What is encouraging to me about Schori’s election is that the Episcopal Church – even the House of Bishops, who have seemed so timid recently – elected the best candidate without regard for the fact that many in the Anglican Communion (especially those opposed to Gene Robinson) do not accept the ordination of women. It is also encouraging that we continue to move boldly in a progressive direction. Schori herself seems to understand that we can only be in communion and seek reconciliation with others who disagree with us by being very clear about who we are.

Since I was so far off on my prediction about the election of our Presiding Bishop, what follows is probably worth nothing. But my optimistic prediction of what this General Convention will end up communicating to the Anglican Communion is as follows. We’ll see how accurately I’ve been reading the signs of this convention.

“We’d like to be in communion with you, but we will not compromise who we are and where we believe God is calling us for the sake of unity. We regret the pain you have felt over Gene Robinson, and we apologize for not having anticipated the enormity of this pain ahead of time. We will be more sensitive in the future, but remember, we are an autonomous province. We are moving forward in the direction we’ve already set, and are not going backwards. We will elect any qualified candidate as bishop, including a woman as Presiding Bishop. We will not promise a church-wide moratorium on same-gender blessings. We will welcome your voice in some of our deliberative bodies, in a manner as yet to be determined. We will talk with you about the possibility of an Anglican Covenant that may develop in the years ahead, but make no promises. We expect the promised ‘dialog’ between different positions on human sexuality to actually take place now, and will participate in it. We want to be in a closer relationship with the global south, and as a sign of that, we commit ourselves to greater generosity in dealing with extreme poverty, HIV/AIDS, and other threats to your survival.”

June 21
This General Convention has writhed in agony over various resolutions that attempted to respond to the Anglican Communion’s Windsor Report. After endless debate, we ended up saying that we regret having strained the bonds of affection in the events surrounding the General Convention of 2003 and apologized for not according sufficient importance to the impact of our actions (Resolution A160). We expressed our desire to remain a part of the Anglican Communion, offering to explore ways for inter-Anglican participation (not membership, as proposed) on our Standing Commissions of the church (A159), and committed ourselves to being a part of the process of developing a possible Anglican Covenant (without promising we’d sign anything) (A166).

The “apology” of A160 is not, as its conservatives rightly point out, an apology for having done what we did in consecrating Gene Robinson or performing same-gender blessings. It is regret for not fully appreciating ahead of time how painful an impact our proposed actions would prove to be. That’s probably fair to say.

But the most violent storm was the one that built inexorably up to today, the last day of convention, at the last minute. This came from the Windsor request that we not consecrate any more gay bishops and stop doing same-sex blessings. For 10 days there were public hearings, a raft of resolutions, endless debate, and finally, a dramatic showdown at the last minute: an extraordinary joint session of the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies, called by the Presiding Bishop.

In the end they didn’t prohibit gay blessings but they did urge dioceses to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate [that is, the office of bishop] whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion (B033).

It only passed with great pain and turmoil after emotional pleas from both the Presiding Bishop and the Presiding Bishop-elect to approve it. I don’t like it; many who voted for it didn’t like it; for us, it sacrifices gay and lesbian Episcopalians on the altar of unity. But the prevailing argument put forth by our Presiding Bishop was that this was a temporary step backward in order to make a step forward later, that if it were not passed, there would be no further dialog, that the new Presiding Bishop deserved a chance to engage in reconciliation, and that this was a time for generosity, humility, remaining in relationship, and waiting on the work of the Spirit.

We shall see if this sacrifice bears fruit. Outgoing Presiding Bishop Griswold says it already has. At least it will get the new PB in the door at meetings of Anglican primates and at Lambeth in the summer of 2008. Or at least it better.

An interesting note is that the moratorium on same-gender blessings that the House of Bishops undertook some time ago has expired, and this convention did nothing to renew it. Will the bishops renew it when they meet next? The current mood seems to indicate that they will. They’re the ones who will face the other bishops at Lambeth in 2008, and they seem to be intimidated (or humbled, if you prefer).

I feel unwilling to wait forever on this. I feel that what is being said to me would be like being asked not to do private confession or anointing for black people, because “so many have a hard time with that.” At some point, one must just move ahead. Again, in the words of Martin Luther King, This "Wait" has almost always meant 'Never." We must come to see...that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

But on a more positive note, I am greatly encouraged by much from this convention: the attention paid to the Millennium Development Goals and the new PB’s strong commitment to them, the election of a woman as new PB, and the election of my friend Bonnie Anderson as the President of the House of Deputies (really the #2 position in the church). We are moving ahead in some very important ways. I am also pleased that we found ways of expressing regret and a desire to remain in communion and dialog without giving away our integrity.

I pray that we now find the strength to (as our new Presiding Bishop has said, and I paraphrase her here) be clearly and honestly ourselves in our continuing relationship with all others in the Anglican Communion, which is the only basis for real communion and any possible reconciliation. After that, I say, let the chips fall where they may.

Sunday August 3

Having arrived this afternoon at General Convention, there were no legislative meetings in session. Instead, I've been to the Cowley Publications luncheon for authors, cruised the exhibit hall, and attended the reception for my seminary, the Church Divinity School of the Pacific.

Everywhere I'm seeing old friends and wider church connections: bishops - including the first of my classmates to be made one, Gayle Harris, now an assistant bishop in Massachussetts - seminary deans, people who have read my books, monks, fellow clergy I've been in contact with over the years. I am buoyed up by the good will, diversity and wonderful strength of our church. It is immediately refreshing and inspiring - especially in contrast to life in the Diocese of the Rio Grande - knowing how many creative and inspired things are going on all around, and how much we are connected and mutually supported.

As you probably know, Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, an openly gay man, was approved by a legislative committee after open hearings the other day. Tomorrow the debate and vote regarding his confirmation takes place in the House of Deputies. If he is approved, it then goes to the House of Bishops on Monday afternoon. I plan to attend both debates.

The talk here is that the convention will approve Robinson, partly because the House of Deputies is more progressive and risk-taking, and partly because his role as bishop of NH won't be perceived as having an immediate impact on the rest of the church.

Same sex unions, on the other hand, could be felt, potentially, everywhere. Added to that is the fact that (assuming they will have approved Robinson already) the bishops could see a rejection of same-sex unions as a compromise that would "even the score." Finally, the debate and vote on it will begin in the more cautious House of Bishops (some of whom have made threats to leave, including Kelshaw, putting their peers on notice). All of this could very well mean that it will die in the House of Bishops and never make it to the House of Deputies. We'll see.

Before all this heats up, tomorrow morning is the big Sunday Eucharist with a cast of thousands. I fantasized Bishop Griswold walking out alone and doing a simple said Eucharist, no dancers or digital projections or orchestras, just the sacrament and a 5-minute homily. Fat chance.

Monday August 4

This morning began with a wonderful Eucharist, the main one of the convention. 10,000 people, with a choir that looked like at least a hundred. Gorgeous singing. Presiding Bishop Griswold very simply and naturally threw in several Spanish phrases, including the absolution, blessing, and just saying "Oremos" (Let us pray) before then praying in English. Reminds me to get back to some of that at St. Michael's.
A very funny moment happened in the Eucharist, kind of summing up how different it is for me to be here (or anywhere in the Episcopal Church outside of my diocese). A seminarian sat next to me, and after a little conversation, she asked me my name, and when I told her she gasped and said "Oh my God! You're Brian Taylor?!!! I've read your books, and just finished your second one while on retreat!!!" Kind of the same treatment I got at the Cowley Publication authors' luncheon yesterday and with the Holy Cross monks, who just invited me to be one of the speakers at their centenary celebration next May in NY with the Presiding Bishop and another author, Esther de Waal. I'm a little star. Nice for a change, but I know that when I get home you'll all bring me back down to earth where I belong.

You've probably heard that today the House of Deputies voted to confirm Gene Robinson as the bishop of New Hampshire. It has to now go to the House of Bishops, whose agreement on this is required for it to be final. That should happen tomorrow or Tuesday at the latest.

The vote was about 64 diocesan deputations for, 31 against, and 13 divided. Arguments in favor of Robinson ran like this: fear is the absence of faith; the Ecclesiastical Court already said there is no doctrinal hindrance to ordination of gays in the Bishop Righter trial; if we let the Bible tell us that homosexuality is a sin, then we must also accept slavery and the subjugation of women as still a good thing for us; we need to include everyone in ordained ministry; affirmation of gays and lesbians would strengthen morality and commitment in faith, not promote immorality; accepting the ordination of homosexuals won't tear apart the church any more than the ordination of women did - instead, like with women, it will draw people in and enrich the church with their gifts; respect New Hampshire's right to elect the person they know so much better than we do; let's confirm him and get on to feeding the hungry.
The arguments against were: this threatens the unity of the Church; how can I explain to the laity back home why we've abandoned the Bible; by this action the General Convention would separate itself from the Body of Christ; our kids need fixed, eternal truth; this is producing confusion and disorder in the church, which are not fruits of the Holy Spirit; there is a lack of consensus, so we're not ready; we'll lose money and parishioners and maybe get sued; homosexual actions have always been understood as sinful; don't be swayed by your feelings, by warm fuzzies such as "inclusion" and "justice," instead, decide with your reason and obedience to God.

I could see how it would go when 4 times as many people lined up to speak at the pro microphone as at the con one. In spite of the hundreds who wanted to speak, it was limited to 45 minutes debate, two minutes each person, going back and forth between the two microphones. They voted down two attempts to extend the debate by 15 more minutes. It's all been said.

I'm still disappointed that in this debate, the liberals just forfeit the Bible to the conservatives. Why don't more people stand up and say "you anti-homosexual folks don't own the Bible, revelation, tradition, and obedience. We care just as much as you do about these things, only differently. We're committed to the authority of the Bible, as it is understood in its historical contexts; we look for God's revelation, understanding that we have to be cautious about filtering out temporal human/cultural influences from eternal truth; we believe in a tradition that must evolve as humans evolve according to the prompting of the Spirit through history; we're obedient to God, too, according to these principles." Well, that's what I would have said, anyway. Instead, we've got warm fuzzies on one side, and hard reason on the other. Grrrr......

On to the House of Bishops, which is the place to be in the next couple of days. They take up this debate and vote tomorrow or Tuesday at the latest, then they will deal first with the resolutions on same-sex blessings

Tuesday August 5

What a day. I'm exhausted. The media is crawling all over the place here, so I assume you've heard. The scheduled debate and vote on the confirmation of Gene Robinson in the House of Bishops was delayed, after an hour of breathless waiting by those in an auxiliary auditorium with video connection. The Presiding Bishop finally came on the screen, announcing that two charges had been levelled against bishop-elect Robinson, and that an investigation would have to ensue before debate and voting could continue:

1. An organization to support health and safety for gay and lesbian youth which Robinson helped found some years ago, called Outright, now supposedly has internet links to links that link to "pornographic sites." [Look for yourself: www.outright.org]. This charge was made by one infamous David Virtue, an Episcopal attorney and "reporter" known for his muckracking journalism. His wild accusations are found on his website, www.orthodoxanglican.org/virtuosity. Look for the link to General Convention and Gene Robinson.

[Most people here already know the snake-belly-low level of Virtue's virtue, and also know that one can find a three-link distance on the internet between anyone and something awful.]

2. Someone sent an email to all the bishops (immediately after the House of Deputies approved Robinson) and claimed to have been touched by Robinson during conversations in a way that felt uncomfortable.
[This must be investigated seriously, but one must be suspicious of the 11th hour nature of this accusation, after all this: Robinson's several-month candidacy in NH, his election there (with opportunity for objection), and yesterday's debate and vote on confirming his election in the House of Deputies yesterday. All of a sudden, one email goes to all the bishops and to the media, right before their vote, grinding the entire convention to a halt.]

The bishop of Western Massachussetts, known to be a left-brain no-nonsense, non-political type, was assigned to head the investigation. They are, no doubt, combing both the internet and the deep woods of New Hampshire as I write.

The voices of both left and right are saying the right thing: we have a transparent process that deals with such accusations, and that process will be conducted thoroughly and a report made to the House of Bishops. But the word in the hallways is that this is a last-ditch, scurrilous, mudslinging attempt to derail the consent for his election, or at least to forever sully the name of Gene Robinson in the national media as a perverted GAY bishop.

Meanwhile, Gene Robinson has had two hefty bodyguards who accompany him wherever he or his partner go during this convention, and plainclothes police are everywhere else. A scuffle in the hallway today involving an intruder running in the hall brought several police and media down upon him. Protesters have included the infamous family that carry signs to such events: "God Hates Fags," and "Matthew Shepherd is burning in Hell." What is all this fear, violence, and anger really about? This is where the politics of the church gets nasty. And yet, it is a political process, and one should expect and be able to withstand this sort of thing.

The sense is here that these accusations will be cleared up in a day or two, and the vote on consent will go forward either tomorrow late afternoon or Wednesday, and certainly by Friday when Convention concludes. Perhaps the vote for his consent will be strengthened by this desperate ploy.
High drama in the hallways. Cellphones, emails, media, reports on CNN and the other networks in the bars after hours. Oh my.

Meanwhile, the House of Bishops will soon be dealing with another bombshell, the subtitute resolution for same-sex blessings offered by the Standing Committee on Liturgy and Music. It is their conclusive final edit from the various resolutions on the subject which have been brought to this convention. This resolution calls for the development of blessing rites for inclusion in Enriching our Worship, if approved next convention in three years. EOW is a resource whose use is dependent upon the local bishop's permission. This is seen as a compromise, which would allow "orthodox" bishops to keep their dioceses "pure." [I think of dry counties. But at least it might allow diversity of practice within the church.] The word is that it has a good chance of passage.

In the sources here, we are told that in response to all this, conservatives will meet this fall to align themselves into a new "network" outside the Episcopal Church, recognized - they hope - by the Archbishop of Canterbury, convening diocesan conventions for that purpose. But we are also told that bishops and dioceses will not attempt to actually leave the canonical authority of the Episcopal Church, because of money: clergy pension and church property. [The difference between dioceses deciding to align alternatively and actually leaving the Episcopal Church is fuzzy to me and to everyone here.] They will also encourage individual parishes to leave liberal dioceses and put themselves under the oversight of non-geographical conservative bishops (which has been going on for years already).

After this soap-opera day, the deputation from the diocese of the Rio Grande met in the bishop's hotel suite this evening. The conversation with some 20 of us came around to the fallout of all this. I had to speak up when the bishop repeated the accusations of "pornography," asking him if he'd visited the website in question, as I had. The bishop claimed that as soon as the allegations were raised, the website cleaned up their act and certain links disappeared.

I also pressed the issue of diocesan alignment, saying that as long as he and the diocese remains under the authority and canons of the Episcopal Church, he will be St. Michael's bishop. I added that if he or the diocese were to make a break with this authority, that would be another matter that would involve diocesan restructuring, an election of a new bishop, possible lawsuits over property, etc.

Everyone, including the bishop, seemed to acknowlege that this was not a desirable direction. But he said that if individual parishes chose to leave the Episcopal Church, he'd help them. In view of possible lawsuits by "continuing members" over their parish property, the suggestion was made that "orthodox" members of congregations should leave their property behind, an idea that Bishop Kelshaw didn't contradict.

The Bishop's assistant assured me afterwards that Bishop Kelshaw has absolutely no intention of trying to take the diocese out of the Episcopal Church; he is instead concerned with a "retirement strategy," and we should expect something along these lines this fall.

Some other much more pleasant news. A woman that attends St. Michael's with her family when staying at their home in Albuquerque, about two months a year, was elected today as Vice President of the House of Deputies. Bonnie Anderson is from Detroit, on the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church (our governing body between Conventions), has been chair of the Program, Budget and Finance Commiteee for several years, and was the Canon to the Ordinary (bishop's assistant) in Michigan. Today I had lunch with her husband Glen and daughter Devon. I hope we'll see them again soon, worshiping at St. Michael's.

Finally, there continue to be people who approach me about having read my books or having heard of St. Michael and All Angels, holding fast in the Diocese of the Rio Grande, creating interesting ministries such as the Contemplative Center. Their enthusiastic praise and encouragement for me and all of you gives me a great feeling of support that is nation-wide in the Episcopal Church. We are surrounded "by a great cloud of witnesses."

Wednesday August 6

Unless you've been on retreat in Siberia, you've heard already about the final consent given to the election of Gene Robinson as the bishop of New Hampshire.

Sorry for the length of this one, but I wanted you to get a feeling of the events of the day. Go to the General Convention website for a fuller picture of what is going on here (there is more work and ministry being done than just on homosexuality, by the way).

At 1:00 it became known around the halls that the investigation on allegations against Robinson was concluded and would be reported to the bishops this afternoon, and that a vote would then go forward. At 1:30 I joined a group of about two hundred others who waited in a holding area for two hours in order to get a seat in the House of Bishops for the debate.
At 3:30 they ushered us in, where the bishops had already spent a half hour in silent prayer, confession and anointing with oil in order to "free ourselves from the affectivity that hovers over us so that we might enter into the discussion with a greater degree of interior freedom."

The Presiding Bishop led all this, then announced that there would be a report on the investigation. Regarding the website with "pornographic links", this was an organization to support gay and lesbian youth that Robinson helped to found in 1995; his role was to establish guidelines for appropriate boundaries between gay youth and adults in various programs. In 1998 he left the organization, and they didn't put together a website until 2002. So much for that accusation.

The other allegation turned out to be a man whom the investigating bishops telephoned, who told them that Robinson had twice touched his arm and back when responding to questions of his during a public church meeting in 1999. He felt uncomfortable about it at the time but didn't tell anyone until after the House of Deputies vote Sunday, when he thought "someone should know." Once the House of Bishops (and the media) had descended upon him and explained to him the grounds for harassment charges and the process for seeing them through, he backed way off and didn't want to take it any further, apologizing for the fuss he caused, thanking the church for taking him seriously, regretting his use of the term "harassment" and declining the offer to file charges. Obviously he was in way over his head. The investigators concluded that there was no need to pursue the investigation about either allegation any further.

The Presiding Bishop then introduced an Ignatian process of discernment: prayer for interior freedom and deliverance from bias; consider the statement "confirm the election of Gene Robinson" in prayer; go around each small table of bishops for 15 minutes, each bishop giving reaons why it might not be a good idea to confirm; then do the same for reasons why it might be a good idea; everyone making notes about what was said on both sides of the issue. Then they spent time in silent prayer, asking God what the nature of the spirit was behind each list of reasons.

Then they had an hour of open debate. Their discussion was much more leisurely, reasoned, intelligent, respectful and subtle that those that took place in the House of Deputies. I remember this from Denver in 2000.

It seemed to me that the (relatively few) arguments against confirmation were grounded in fear: of schism, loss of moral moorings, fracturing the Episcopal Church and Anglicanism, chaos, what will we tell the folks back home...

I found the arguments in favor of consent much more eloquent and compelling and hopeful:
* Just as with the ordination of women as priests and then bishops (Barbara Harris pointing this out) - which also brought dire predictions of disaster - this too would result in growth, enrichment of the church, evangelism.
* when the Episcopal Church has taken a risk, the Anglican Communion has eventually followed: on Darwinian evolution theory, divorce, birth control, the ordination of women.
* Robinson's election is bringing younger people into the Episcopal Church, because they're impressed with us being the only church that is dealing with this up front, in a positive way, and they don't seem to have much of a problem with the issue, as their parents' generation does.
* Gene Robinson is a wholesome example, well known in New Hampshire.
* The biblical passages that condemn homosexual behavior are not speaking to healthy, loving relationships between people who identify themselves as homosexual, but rather, to heterosexuals (as everyone understood themselves to be then) who had violated their own human (heterosexual) nature.
* Reasons not to confirm are tinged with fear, reasons to confirm are tinged with hope.
* Baptism is the foundation of all ministry; if we're not going to excommunicate gays and lesbians, we should be willing to ordain them.
* Keeping people scared out of their wits is becoming a political fine art, which has nothing to do with faith.
* Jesus said that there was truth that his disciples could not yet bear, but that the Holy Spirit would be given to lead them into all truth: God is now leading us into further truth through continuing revelation
* Just because an action may be costly (people leaving), that is no reason not to do the right thing.

I took notes all the way through, and in spite of my own obvious bias, I don't think I've over-emphasized the high number and variety of pro-arguments or the much smaller number and simpler message of the con-arguments. That's how it went. By the difference between the arguments, I expected a pro-consent landslide, but when the votes were counted, it was 62 for, 45 against.
Tonight many of the conservatives looked crushed, very sad. But I couldn't see any triumphalism on the other side. Bishop Griswold kept it very quiet and prayerful, leading everyone at the end in a gentle singing of the Taize chant Ubi Caritas (where love is found, God himself is there). We all filed out soberly, without much to say, mindful of this moment in history and the various positive and negative consequences that may now ensue.

Tomorrow I will go to the daily lunchtime legislative briefing of the American Anglican Congress, a consortium of conservative groups. I want to hear what they have to say about their next steps, and I think I need to witness and take in their shock, fear, sadness and loss, feelings that are much more apparent now in them than anger. I saw this clearly in our bishop's eyes yesterday, and it stopped me dead in my tracks. We all need to be sensitive to those members of our church who feel this way, even as we move ahead.

Next on the bishops' agenda, tomorrow or Thursday: same sex blessings. Conversations here say that either they will:
1. pass it easily, now that they've already argued out all the issues on this subject and came out positively on it, and also now that they have a compromise resolution, offering bishops authority over whether it is to be used in their dioceses; or
2. vote it down as a peace (or guilt) offering to those who were wounded by today's vote, giving the appearance of compromise, also because it is more controversial in that it could potentially affect every congregation of the church.

This last point is why, I am told by someone in the higher circles, they put the Robinson issue first on the agenda and kept delaying the vote on rites for same-sex blessings. For if they had denied same-sex blessings, it would have been very awkward to say yes to Robinson, who lives in the very kind of relationship they would have just declined to bless.

Instead, now those who voted for Robinson and argued for him might feel it would be hypocritical to back out on the blessings, which everyone knows is really the very same issue, supported or condemned by the same arguments they used today.

This morning the day began with a wonderful Eucharist commemorating the late 19thC Minnesota Ojibwe Episcopal priest Enmegahbowh. Four Native American bishops presided (including Steven Plummer, Navajo). The service began and was interspersed with a drumming/singing circle, a loud pounding rhythm with high wailing voices that is so familiar to us in New Mexico, but which when done here in this convention center had an electrifying effect, especially as the lone dancer with eagle feathers, beadwork, leather fringe and ankle bells slowly circled down the center aisle. The liturgy moved between English, Navajo, Objibwe, and Dakota, with many beautiful new prayers offered in Native style, to the four directions, acknowledging buffalo, moose, water, wind, moon, sun, and the seasons of the earth. Beautiful.

It is trite to say it, but the overall impression of true diversity here is amazing. Rather than the PC buzz- word kind of diversity, this is simply a delightful and moving display of the wondrous variety of humankind and our passions. Stroll through the gigantic exhibit hall, or just open your eyes in the hallways and see prison ministers, Haitians, pro-life activists, Puerto Ricans, ecology stewards, Africans, artists, intellectuals, peace activists, young adult internet ministry maniacs, musicians, evangelicals, ladies' needlepoint guilds, liturgists, military chaplains, monks and nuns of every kind, South Americans, and my personal favorite, British animal welfare advocates, complete with liturgical vigils for suffering pets and burial rites.

Tonight I'm proud of our church, for our celebration of human diversity, and also for having the courage to do what absolutely no other traditional sacramental mainline church is ready or willing to do: step out in public and face, head-on, a controversial issue that deeply affects the lives of millions of our children and neighbors and friends, argue it out thoroughly in front of everyone for the last 27 years that we've been dealing with this, and then finally come out on this day saying "this may be difficult for some to hear, but as a church we don't have a moral or biblical or theological problem with homosexuality. In fact, we see it as just one more arena of human life that God blesses and makes sacred. Welcome, gay and lesbian people, finally without shame, out into the open, into every level of our common church life."

Thursday August 7

Things are beginning to wind down. Everyone is exhausted in this emotional and legislative marathon. This morning I slept in, and arrived in time for a visit to the House of Bishops, where they spent an hour voicing their thoughts and feelings about the decision that was made yesterday on consent for Gene Robinson.

I am told that before that, this morning there was an alternate Eucharist publicly offered by the American Anglican Congress (AAC), a conservative coalition that has been behind most of the resistance to Robinson and same-gender blessings. I am also told that our bishop was there, vested at the altar with the other participating bishops. This was a clear signal that they consider themselves to be out of communion. This is nothing new for Bishop Kelshaw, who hasn't received communion with Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold or the other bishops in years. Kelshaw also didn't attend today's House of Bishop meetings; other bishops sat outside the bishops' enclosure in the visitors' gallery. A few deputies were said to have left the gathering. And last night, right after the vote, a group of bishops, including our own, stood up in front of the House, repudiating the action that had just been taken. All this is a sign of what is to come: bishops disassociating themselves from the Episcopal Church, yet most of them, presumably, not repudiating the canonical authority of the church (or their pensions).

Mid-morning I was interviewed on the telephone by Paul Logan of the Albuquerque Journal, for an article by him focusing on local reactions to Robinson's consent. It should be appear on Thursday or Friday morning.

I went to lunch at the AAC gathering, and I was surprised to see not anger or even grief, but a sort of buoyant resolve to keep the fight going, by meeting next in October in Plano, Texas to determine next steps, and by asking Anglican primates (heads of national church bodies), including the Archbishop of Canterbury, to have an extraordinary meeting in response. At the lunch I sat next to Canon Jeffrey Steenson, our bishop's assistant, (who is not of the AAC mindset) and who has continually assured me that the bishop has neither the desire nor the energy to join this fight of the AAC against the Episcopal Church. My sense is that our bishop will simply allow and even encourage disaffected parishes to leave and align themselves with whatever new provincial alignment within Anglicanism that they come up with. I also believe that Bishop Kelshaw will retire before too long.

To accompany their statements of denunciation, at the end of lunch some of the AAC had ashes put on their foreheads, which they wore around the convention halls for the rest of the day. No sackcloth or tearing-out of hair, however.

After lunch, I was taped by the Episcopal Church television people who are covering this convention with news programs every day on monitors in the hallways and lobbies of the convention center, and on one of the channels in the convention hotel rooms as well. My segment was a 2-minute "pastoral moment" that they're airing with different speakers every night before they sign off, a kind of beddie-bye thought to help people sleep. I did a shortened version of my sermon a week ago Sunday, on how Jesus walks on the waters of the church's storms, calming the seas as we focus on his presence in our lives.

The church budget was presented at a joint session by Bonnie Anderson, St. Michael's occasional parishioner, newly elected as vice president of the House of Deputies. She ended it by loudly playing the Beatles' "Can't buy me Love" and "Hard Day's Night" [and I been workin' like a dog]. What was interesting was that many, including bishops, jumped up and danced and clapped joyously, with the deaf interpreter signing the whole song, including playing air guitar during the guitar lead, projected there up on the big screen. It was a spontaneous eruption through the suppression of emotion in their otherwise subdued response to the events here. Unless they're partying the nights away in their hotel rooms.

Back to business in the afternoon, in the House of Bishops. A two-hour debate and action on same-sex blessings. It had the feeling of a long tie-breaker set in a tennis match, tacked on to six long sets already played. Coming back to something they had already put to bed only last night, once more into the breach! The same arguments were offered, only this time more emphasis went towards living with our differences, offering a way forward that would not condemn those who are already doing same-gender blessings and also not add insult to injury to those who were alienated by the Robinson vote. The moderates were convincing, asking for sensitivity to the conservatives: "Let's not rub their noses in it."

So here's what they did. They re-worked a proposed resolution to include:
1. reaffirmation of homosexual persons as children of God with a claim on the love, acceptance, and pastoral care of the Church (1976 General Convention)
2. acknowledgment of differences between us about how best to offer that care and about what is or should be permitted regarding same-gender blessings
3. reaffirmation of the 2002 General Convention statement that we expect such relationships to be characterized by fidelity, monogamy, etc., and that such relationships do exist throughout the church
4. recognition that faith communities are already exploring same-gender unions
5. a commitment to continue prayer and study on this issue, including a plan to develop resources, under the direction of the Presiding Bishop, to facilitate a conversation of discernment on it
6. a commitment to one another in communion despite our differences and common discipline under the authority of our canons
[If this now passes the House of Deputies tomorrow, as is required for adoption, a copy of the text of this resolution will soon be made available in the parish hall]

The one thing that was removed from the original proposed resolution was a clause calling for the development of liturgical rites for the blessing of same-sex unions, to be considered for inclusion in Enriching our Worship (a resource dependent upon the local bishop's permission) at the next General Convention in 3 years.

Instead, they ended up saying that we're in disagreement, relationships of union already exist, blessing of unions is already happening where they are permitted by bishops (and presumably won't be punished by the church for doing so), and that we need to continue to pray and study and hang together canonically despite our differences. A tiny, cautious step forward.

So the bishops didn't feel ready for the really controversial thing, not yet. They will. It was just too much for one convention to pass both Robinson and this. My high-level source tells me that they knew they'd get one of them, not two, and that it would be easier, and a more powerful public statement, to approve the election of a real-live human being who is gay, someone who can put a face on the issue right now for the church and the world, someone who will begin to participate and be an ambassador for the cause inside the House of Bishops over the next three years and beyond, instead of giving that up and slogging through three years of crafting liturgical rites with conservative criticism undermining them all along, as they attempt to make progress. Obviously the press agreed, since they seemed to have left the convention entirely as soon as they got their story on Robinson and the reaction from the AAC guys. It was weird. Here we were debating the possibility of doing same-gender blessings and the spotlights had been turned off. It felt like an afterthought.

Tomorrow night, a wrap-up.

Friday, August 8

I returned to Albuquerque today, and probably like you, have checked my email for news from General Convention. It is winding down, and tomorrow will be finishing up its business.
Today the House of Deputies concurred with the House of Bishops on the same-sex blessing resolution - the one which left intact its acknowledgment that blessings are taking place and the need for further discernment, but which removed the authorization to begin developing rites of blessing. This was just not the convention to do it, after the Gene Robinson business. I could feel it in the air.
I returned to a pastoral letter to all congregations from Bishop Kelshaw, to be distributed on Sunday, in which he promises to assist clergy and congregations who want to leave the Episcopal Church; to provide for congregations "faithful and godly preachers and teachers" who have already left the Episcopal Church; and he also advises congregations who are embarrassed to be Episcopalians to remove the word "Episcopal" from their church name.

I'm already drained, and now this. I just can't find words to express my feelings about this, or I just don't want to put them into print.

What I can say is that in this diocese we have to get organized so that we prevent canons from being broken. I'm concerned that the bishop will take it upon himself to give away diocesan property to breakaway congregations, or that he will appoint or approve clergy who are not subject to Episcopal canons to be in charge of diocesan congregations. It's not enough to say "he can't do this;" it must be stopped, perhaps even preventively, now that he's communicated his intentions. The Standing Committee is key.

This Sunday I will preach on the subject, and I'm going to just lay out the situation as I see it, trying to inform everyone of what has taken place, how I feel about it, and what might lie ahead of us, without criticizing anyone else's point of view.

I've always felt that the real story would begin - for Anglicanism, for the Episcopal Church, for our diocese - in response to the confirmation of Robinson or the approval of same-sex blessings. Now it begins.

I entered my retreat through a graveyard. Just south of Santa Ana, about two hours south of the Nogales border, on the road to Hermosillo. Tooling along at sunrise between two mountain ranges, the sky all pink, orange, yellow, blue, and gray, I glimpsed one of those familiar Mexican wonderlands, abounding in white crosses and painted statues and plastic flowers. I thought about stopping, but instantaneously decided against it. Gotta keep driving, gotta get there. A moment later something inside asked Are you in some kind of hurry? Stepped on the brake, made a U-turn, pulled the truck into the dirt lot and got out.

Walking around, my attention was caught first by a young man’s grave; he was a teenager, I think. The monument was big, with a dicho I couldn’t translate, La Virgen (of course), two churchy spires reaching up, each topped off with a fat little trumpet-playing brass cherub. Jesus above all, eyes to heaven, arms out in the oremus position that sometimes looks like he’s shrugging his shoulders and saying Uh, I dunno...And in the middle, bigger than Jesus, even bigger than La Virgen, was a rooster, that proud and virile symbol of resurrection.

In English we call these places graveyards, depicting a mere drab yard of graves. Or slightly more human, a cemetery, from the Greek koimeterion: dormitory, or place where people are asleep. In Spanish, it is a camposanto: a campground for saints! The other name is panteón, a pantheon of all the gods or holy ones.

One doesn’t have to wait for the all-night candlelit family picnics on Dia de los Muertos; anytime, you can feel the vibrancy of the saints through the plastic flowers, the painted Virgen, the bloody face of the crucified Christ, and the rooster. It is a lively place where tears and resurrections happen. In fact, when referring to the dead, they say el está muerto, using the temporary or transitional form of the verb “to be,” instead of ser, which would infer a permanent state of being. The saints are not completely dead. It’s like the wizard in Princess Bride who said of the seemingly expired hero He’s only a little bit dead!

The camposanto is also a place of poverty and desolation. At least a third of the graves were simple mounds of dirt and rock, no markers, no cross, nothing. Just a little hill of death. In one place, a forlorn metal cross lay flat on the ground. A plaque in the center of it used to say something (maybe Isabel Dolores, beloved mother, precious child of God, and amazing cook with the voice of an angel). But the writing was long faded away and the cross was lying there as if it had been knocked over by the wind and rain and tripped over by dozens of visitors who knew nothing of Isabel Dolores. Where is her grave? Is she even remembered by anyone alive today?

Billions of us have come and gone on this earth. We’re birthed out of our mothers’ bodies, and we are swallowed up by the earth. Everything about us – our accomplishments, our sins, our friends and families – slowly retreats into time until even the words on our markers fade away. Nothing left here. We’re gone.

For a moment, I was crushed, desolate. What is the point of it all? And yet in this sunrise, with this immense sadness, surrounded by the santos, I begin to come down to earth, becoming just a simple man again, to my great relief. Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

This last 9 months or so I’ve had to tool along the highway, no time to stop for anything. The question Shall I be a bishop? hung around every single day like an attractive but menacing stranger who suggests Greatness and Influence but who also threatens to take away everything and everyone we love. My associate moved towards retirement, then gone, with double the ministry activity and human concern now landing in my lap; a needle-in-the-haystack search for a new associate; and transitioning to new office staff. Susanna had her first year of retirement, a wonderful thing but a big change nonetheless. We started a new phase of parish discernment with a consultant and an eventual capital campaign. 3-4 new vocations to ordained ministry. And more Important Things I can’t even remember now as I gaze at the blue-green water.

Stress manifested itself physically: insomnia, exhaustion, aching muscles, headaches, worry, sometimes a metallic taste in my mouth. I left town with a cold, feeling stretched way too thin, right on the edge of something bad.

So Mexico beckoned, and I came. The saints’ campground at dawn, so lively and so sad – like much of this country – halted my restless momentum. At least it began to do so. Every day another onion-skin layer of stress sloughs off and I feel a little more of my simple humanity. In the long periods of silence and solitude, my residual worrisome thoughts seem more and more absurd. My new mantra in contemplation is surprisingly profound and effective: Don’t worry; be happy.

I wake up to the sound of the surf outside my window as the sun rises. I make coffee, do a psalm in Spanish, the readings in English, the Padre Nuestro, spoken prayers, and then meditation. Breakfast, then a few chores – at Zen sesshin it’s called samu, work meditation – or a walk on the beach. Filiberto comes by, sometimes with his 18-month old son Jesus Martín, and we talk only in Spanish for an hour or so. Noonday prayers, more meditation, lunch, and a couple of hours of study and practice in my Spanish grammar book. Some writing. The pelicans comically dive-bomb for fish, small schools of dolphins arc playfully through the bay, the seagulls squawk on and on. The surf gently whooshes in and out of my consciousness with endless constancy, and the flat horizon stretches out into infinity. An Evensong walk at sunset – so often spectacular here - then dinner, then reading some Mexican history, and bed at “Kino Midnight”: 9pm. The persistent waves rock me to sleep. My dreams become memorable again. One day begins to blur into another. The mad demands of chronos fall away; the eternal now of kairos time is all.

There are quite a few retired Americans here. I want to be a little connected to the ex-pat community, but fortunately there’s lots of space to not be connected too. There’s a club with dues and officers and a funky desert golf course and a newsletter and a rescue team. Lots of them rotate from place to place every night for cocktails. They take walks together every morning, join together for book-reading groups and “movie night,” and celebrate American holidays.

Many of them are quite aware of the poverty in Old Kino. They fund projects like Familias Unidas, which gives vouchers for building materials so that those who live in tarpaper shacks can construct a cement house. They pay it back slowly, and friends and family help build. They’re required to go to meetings regularly to learn about how to save and manage money, and they’re supposed to help one another build.

We went on a tour this morning, with about 75 other gringos. In and out of six homes that are in various stages of building – always next to the old house with dirt floors, exposed electrical wiring, leaky roofs, a water tap at the edge of the property, no protection from the mosquitos or the blazing heat in the summer. It’s good for us Americans to go on this tour once a year, as they do, to see how most of the people of the world (including the folks who clean their houses) live. And to give money. Someone told me that unlike many places in Mexico, the locals here are really friendly to Americans. Perhaps it is because of projects like these where the privileged do something for the underprivileged, with whom they are actually in relationship.

But a few of them don’t even try to speak Spanish; it seems like a point of pride. Not even Gracias when the food comes: “Thanks. Got any ketchup?” Mexicans are simply a kind of vast staff all around them, filling this country merely in order to fix their car, their air conditioner, their food. They’re living in an American theme park: Mexicoland! I talked to a guy today who has lived here year-round for 16 years, married to a Mexican. He was trying to help me with a telephone problem but he couldn’t understand a simple recorded phone message that came on. He didn’t even try. I asked him You don’t speak Spanish? His response: Why bother? I was speechless.

Obviously it’s easy to start feeling very superior. But then as I described this to Fili, he laughed kindly and said el pecado es la penitencia. The sin is the punishment. Consequences. Karma. De verdad. God doesn’t have to punish us. The loneliness, stress, bitterness, chaos, or isolation that results from our sin is always penitence enough. I’m humbled by Fili’s generous, wise, and good-natured perspective on the ugly American, and by extension, the Mexican perspective on life.

La Virgen de Guadalupe watches over us all, standing above our casita across the street, partway up the hill in back of us. She is large, tiled into a shrine that is festooned with Christmas lights, paper flowers, white paint all over the ground, a prayer bench and altar, used votive candles, and scratched sayings left by lovers, graffiti punks and supplicants. She gazes serenely over the town, the sea. At night, the glowing bulbs that surround her - in the red, white, and green of the Mexican flag - seem to float suspended in mid-air. A big white cross tops the hill. Once in awhile, throughout the day, pilgrims park, walk up to visit La Virgen, kneel and say their prayers, then come down again. I go up now and then to say hello, to see things from her perspective, if I can.

Mi compradre Francis took me up to a secret shrine to La Virgen in a small cave up in the hills here. Someone painted her image long ago on the rock wall, and once in a while someone clambers up the rocks to leave their ofrendas: pesos, little statues of saints, candles, and their supplications. You never see them; you just notice the signs that they had been there praying. I went one morning before dawn, and together Mary and I watched the sun rise over the distant mountains, painting everything orange as it came up over the Sonoran desert and the Sea of Cortéz. La Virgen shone like the Transfiguration. Coyotes scampered around in the dirt below; beetles, lizards and bees came to life in the warmth of the new day.

Shrines, hilltop crosses, roadside memorials, and truckstop capillas are everywhere throughout the Mexican countryside. The one that stands out from the drive down here was a lovely thing above a godawful scene. Down below, in the middle of a lonely stretch of desert highway, a tire-repair shop of blackened tin. The proprietor’s shack with a dirt floor, tacked together with boards and tarpaper. Scrawny chickens pecking at nothing, and even scrawnier dogs, with open sores and haunted eyes. Reigning over all this mess was a beautiful rock-painting of La Guadalupana, with white rocks leading the pilgrim up the trail.

The paradox is that poor disheveled Mexico, with La Virgen, with the chapels and hilltop crosses, the dilapidated cathedrals and dusty churches with birds flying through them, is rich. And we are so poor. The last are first, and the first are last.

Earl Shorris, author of The Life and Times of Mexico, (W.W. Norton, 2004, p. 11) , says the great distinction between the United States and Mexico at the beginning of the twenty-first century is that there is no country more concerned with religion than Mexico and no country more concerned with money than the United States.

Money is so tawdry; La Virgen, reigning over all, is so soulful. Give me that old-time religion any day.

There is no paradise, at least in this life. After several illumined days, a stingray dragged me into the dark side. Everyone says they’re around in the shallow water resting in the sun, but not to worry. Just shuffle your feet as you walk; they’ll zoom away from their sandy siesta. Besides, you can see them. Right.

The first time I decided to walk into the water, I was vigilant as can be, shuffling away, moving slowly, watching very carefully, hoping to take a little dip (and also avoid the stinging jellyfish, by the way). Within a minute I felt a little nudge of something alive in the water and BOOM a sting ray nailed the top of my foot, then darted away. The pain began immediately.

Lurching out of the water, I stumbled up the beach, bleeding. The pain grew quickly until it reached a level barely below vomiting and fainting. It stayed there. For three hours I moaned, sweated, cried, cursed, and couldn’t get my mind to comprehend the unwavering intensity of this pain. Francis brought me to the clinic, the doctor made sure that nothing of the stinger was left in the wound, shot me with an anesthetic (which worked for about 5 minutes), prescribed some worthless painkillers (extra-strength Tylenol?), and sent me home to soak the foot in very hot water, the only thing that helps. After 3-4 hours, the pain became manageable. Tequila certainly helped. 5 days later, I’m still limping with a swollen foot.

Meanwhile, this little trauma had the effect of outfitting me with crap-colored glasses through which I temporarily saw everything around me. Suddenly the innocent family who came to the beach for the evening and cranked up their car stereo next door at 10pm became sinister. I wonder If I can’t even swim in the ocean, what is the point of ever being here? The desert behind me is filled with rattlesnakes. Scorpions cover the walls in my dark bedroom, silently dropping into the bed as I try to go to sleep. The waters in front of our casita are being overfished and polluted with chemicals from the shrimp farms. I’m reading Mexican history, and this country begins to look hopelessly ugly, lost, and incompetent.

There is no place that does not have a dark side. Even – or especially – the mind. Just sit in silence for a little while, and every sin, every dark impulse known to humanity will eventually manifest itself. Creation is dangerous and life can be cruel. Society does its worst again and again. This is the human condition, the reality of life, Original Sin.

The spiritual life is not about the pursuit of a permanent state of bliss. If it is, we will always be disappointed. Some stingray will come along and zap us back into reality. It’s about walking through this journey and greeting whatever bliss or pain rises up to meet us along the way. Listening to John Hiatt last night, he sang about the impermanence of circumstance and mood: Some people call it depression; I call it a song. Sometimes it’s a pretty dark song, but no song lasts forever.

Over the last nine months I’ve taken a hard look at where I’ve been and where I’m going in my life and my vocation as a priest. In looking at the office of a bishop, there was a certain appeal to jumping in over my head, working with lots of creative, busy people and going to the next level of church accomplishments.

Even though I made the decision not to stand for election, I remained in this mind-set, and just transferred it to a sense of renewed activity in the parish. Instead of doing great new things as a bishop, I’d move to the next level of parish development: a capital campaign, a start-up mission congregation, new vocations and programs, a new book, etc. I saw my continuing personal and professional growth being defined by somewhat external measurements. Was this a last-ditch attempt to stave off my fear of aging? If I just keep moving fast enough, maybe I won’t rot!

But the reality is, I’m tired of being slightly anxious, over-busy, and always in a little hurry. I’m tired of juggling too many balls in the air. I’m ready to move out of what the Hindus call the householder phase of life where one expends all one’s energy building up a home, a family, a career. I’m ready for the next phase.

Here in this earthy, human place I’m reminded – again – that my “next level” may have nothing to do with more accomplishments. It’s now about greater simplicity: simplicity of presence and clarity of heart and mind, where full attention can be given to the task or person at hand. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Rabbi Kushner says that the most important quality for a clergy person is to be a non-anxious presence in community. The image of an elder in a traditionally-religious village comes to mind, a wise old man. Someone who walks the talk, who slows down enough to enjoy God in the ordinary, someone who ponders and teaches and counsels and leads others from a lived internal reality, someone who is less concerned about what we get done than how we move together through life.

As we move forward with a young associate priest and the dozens of energetic and capable lay leaders we’ve got, I’m praying that my role can shift a bit. I’ll still take creative initiative and pay attention to detail, and I’m sure that I’ll help lead our parish to new accomplishments. But I hope to let others be the more ambitious ones. I hope to not push as hard as I’ve been pushing, to be more patient as things unfold in their own time.

The “next level?” It’s not up. It’s down into the heart. It’s becoming more fully committed to life, to God’s wondrous presence in all. This too is a kind of ambition: a clarity of purpose, a holy desire. This was my ofrenda to La Virgen up in the cave at sunrise: that this pilgrimage be a fulcrum, tipping me down into greater purity of heart. I want to see God.

Thomas Merton: Contemplation and Social Action, and Civil Rights History

April 26 — Leaving Albuquerque

After years in the monastery, during which Thomas Merton had been developing his life of silent contemplation and solitude, he began to turn again to the world around him. A sign of that was an epiphany at Fourth and Walnut in Louisville, March 18, 1958 (from Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, also in his journals).

In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness. The whole illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream. Not that I question the reality of my vocation, or of my monastic life: but the conception of “separation from the world” that we have in the monastery too easily presents itself as a complete illusion: the illusion that by making vows we become a different species of being, pseudo-angels, “spiritual men,” men of interior life, what have you.

This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. And I suppose my happiness could have taken form in the words “Thank God, thank God that I am like other men, that I am only a man among others.” To think that for sixteen or seventeen years I have been taking seriously this pure illusion that is implicit in so much of our monastic thinking.

I wouldn’t say that I have ever lived in an illusory separation from the world, but a couple of years ago something in me shifted along these lines. After many years of intense focus on spirituality, writing books and starting up the Contemplative Center, I was compelled to turn my attention away from spirituality as a thing apart - as a discipline and as a way of carrying oneself through the day - and towards life itself. I found myself much more interested in ordinary life than in the history, practices, study, language, and entire subculture of spirituality. One evening with Susanna at the Ranchers’ Club, I raised my glass and announced to the room that I hereby resigned my job as The Spiritual Guy. While this epiphany may not have had the depth of Merton’s moment on the corner of Fourth and Walnut, a remembrance of it, crafted by my friend Eileen, still hangs on my wall: a large tin milagro of a male torso, festooned with a sash across the chest that reads
I Am Not A Guru.

More elegantly put, by Merton:

My first obligation is to be myself and follow God’s grace and not allow myself to be the captive of some idiot idea, whether of hermit life or anything else. What matters is not spirituality, not religion, not perfection, not success or failure at this or that, but simply God, and freedom in His Spirit.

Out of this shift of focus came an increased interest in other things. I began to emphasize social concerns more in my preaching and ministry. Jeff Olivet’s hiring and the eventual development of the Justice Project came out of this. So here I am, heading to the Merton Center with Jeff, then to Merton’s Abbey of Gethsemene, and on by myself to various civil rights sites in Alabama.

Out of his contemplative experience, Merton found a way of moving into the world, into social concerns, and also into friendships with men and women outside the monastery. He still prayed, of course, as do I. But he was no longer interested in a contemplative life that was something different from ordinary life. This lead him to write and dialogue with others about the Vietnam War, the atom bomb, segregation, American materialism, and poverty. A contemplative life for him was at this point simply the many personal, relational, and social implications of the essential fact of our true unity with God, all people, and all of creation. A similar movement in my own life draws me to this study and pilgrimage to Merton’s time and place.

In parallel to this movement has been my involvement in the current conflict about sexuality in the Episcopal Church. When General Convention approved Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire last summer (and when I declared myself in support of this action) a reaction was unleashed whose depth and fury was overwhelming. Never have I been so exposed to such irrational bigotry, emotionalism, and fear.

For I have committed the unpardonable sin of saying that this development was, in my view, a step forward – out of biblical literalism and into a more enlightened way of doing biblical interpretation and religious morality. I have dared to suggest that we should remain Episcopal, shun talk about schism, be obedient to the canons of our church, and respectfully acknowledge one another’s differences of opinion as we continue together as a family of faith. For these sins my motives have been maligned, my faith ridiculed, and my actions condemned as “reprehensible.”

Of course this is nothing like living in fear of being hated, beaten or discriminated against every day of one’s life simply because one is gay or lesbian or a member of a minority. But standing in support of the outcast can still be a dangerous place to be, even for a privileged white male. To use a hateful racist term that came out of the South a generation ago, in this place one becomes a nigger lover, a traitor to one’s own kind.

And so I found myself some months ago in Birmingham, Alabama for a conference, drawn away from the heated arguments about sexuality, into the park that commemorates the courageous children and adults of marches and boycotts, set upon by dogs, fire-hosed and imprisoned for the crime of saying that we shouldn’t discriminate against any child of God. I was deeply inspired by the clarity of their faith as I found myself in a similar situation.

For as these Christians were surrounded by irrational bigotry and hatred, their response was to rise above ugly arguments and witness to the transcendent power of love, forgiveness, and truth. They found strength and took action without lowering themselves into the gutter of hatred that others attempted to drag them into. They did not back down from demanding justice, but they also did not become bitter as they were abused. How did they do that? This question will take me beyond Louisville to Memphis, Montgomery, and Selma.

April 26–28 — Louisville

Jeff and I have been buried in books, CD audio recordings of Merton, original handwritten journals, dissertations, articles, and videotapes. Studying for two and a half short days at the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine College is like standing in a waterfall trying to get a drink of water with a paper cup. Amazing hospitality: two full-time research librarians at our beck and call, retrieving things they thought we would be interested in. In one room, the shrine to TM – his cowl, work shirt and boots, books, and enormous, dorky reading glasses. At night I stayed with Jack Knight’s friends Tommie and Frank O’Callaghan. They were old pals of TM’s, a normal family in Louisville (if 7 kids - 6 girls and one boy - can be considered normal) with whom TM regularly hung out when he went to town.

The sense I got from this immersion was TM’s brilliance, creativity, curiosity, and breadth of mind. He must have been reading and writing all the time. The sheer volume and intense diversity of handwritten journals, typed articles, books, a mountain of correspondence with people all over the world – all of this suggesting a man driven intellectually and creatively, non-stop. Whatever contemplative silence he found was probably an hour here and there in between the offices, masses, and long hours of study and writing. Frank tells me that he was the smartest person he ever met, and in his speaking or writing whatever he was talking about just gushed out in one take, no editing, no going back. On to the next thing. Poetry, Camus, drawing, the Desert Fathers, Zen, jazz, psychology, photography, Sufism, Ginsburg, Tertullian, whatever.

Of course, Merton was a monk and an intellectual. He wrote and talked about the spiritual life and about social issues, and was criticized for not “doing” more in the way of direct action on behalf of peace and those living in poverty and oppression. But at least he inspired others to do so, and the fact is he had to live as an intellectual monk. That is who he was.

The other thing that strikes me in the reading I did was how over the years TM seemed to move gradually from an indepth immersion in the spiritual and theological classics to more secular and wide-ranging topics. His writings and talks to the novices in the early years were all about Bernard of Clairvaux and the Conferences of John Cassian. Later he’s talking about ecology, Vietnam, race riots, modern alienation, psychology, poetry, physics, Buddhism. His biographers bear this out, saying that his spirituality developed past the traditional historical and technical minutiae of monastic spirituality, out into life itself.

God inhabits all of life, and therefore life is where we should look for God, not just in religious words and actions. This shift seems to have taken place for TM to such an extent that eventually there was nothing left for him to say about God at all. What was left was silence, worship, liturgical symbolic language and actions; the beauty of land, animals, weather, sky; and all the wonders and problems and complexity of human experience, love, thought and art. Knowing God so truly, he could just then live as an authentic human being.

Tommie O’Callaghan gets this mischievous look on her face and says Oh yes, Tom was quite human, not a pious saint. She hosted parties, picnics, all sorts of gatherings for him and other monks. He appointed her and a few other friends as the guardians of his effects as the Merton Legacy Foundation, which later developed the Thomas Merton Center. Tommie relished TM’s humor and intelligence and all his interesting friends. She delighted in sneaking him goodies or doing secret favors for him under the abbot’s nose. She liked to see how TM both enjoyed and was embarrassed by his celebrity status. She also knew that ultimately Merton accepted his fame not for any personal ego reasons but because he was willing to be used. He was well aware of the wide impact his writing was having on seekers even during his lifetime, and the much wider impact that would come after his death. In his will, TM indicated that Tommie was to come to the monastery and get his papers (which she did the day after he died), since he knew she would care for them properly and the monastery might not. She obviously loved and respected him very much, and she grieved the loss of his friendship And yet as a way of continuing to shield TM from fan worship, she still makes a little show of knocking him down. About some of his drawings in her living room, she said I never liked ‘em, but Tom did, so I hung ‘em up. Right. Or about some talk she gave somewhere: It was a conference about You-Know-Who.

Frank and Tommie are very generous souls who love naturally, the kind of people who put you at ease and give you space to be yourself (because they are so much themselves). They make you feel instantly as if you’ve known them as extended family forever. I can see why Merton gravitated into their orbit. They had a dinner party for us last night, really sweet. Nova Scotia lobster, 12 people (including 3 Episcopalians), lots of intense conversation, roses, and of course, Maker’s Mark Kentucky bourbon. After all, tomorrow is the Derby.

April 29–30 —Gethsemane Abbey

Tommie really set us up. The abbey guest quarters were full, so she called one of the monks and arranged for Jeff and I to spend a night in Thomas Merton’s own famed hermitage, where he lived the last three years of his life. Only monks get to stay here, once in awhile. On rare occasions, guests are brought up in groups to take photographs.

Prior to its being built, this little house filled Merton’s imagination for years, as he longed for greater solitude, more connection with nature, and deeper silence. Finally he convinced the abbot that it should be built, that God was calling him out of the monastic dormitory and into a hermitage. Merton gushed with joy as he helped dig the foundations, and later moved in. He said that in the monastery below, he was seldom in his right mind. Watching the monks, thinking of Merton’s writing, I can imagine why. A square peg in a round hole, as he himself put it.

Here in the hermitage he had come home; he could be himself, and be at peace. It was here that Thich Nhat Hanh came to visit, Joan Baez, Dan Berrigan, and countless intellectuals, monks, poets, artists, and peace activists. It was here that Merton wrote his later books on Zen, Gandhi, Chuang Tzu, poetry, contemplation in a world of action, non-violence and peace.

The hermitage is a small cinderblock house with a large front porch, looking out over a large open meadow and the rolling hills beyond. Right now it is so green and lush that my desert eyes almost hurt. All is silent, but not really: birds chirp and wasps buzz, breezes rush through the forest, and light playfully bounces off the bright new spring foliage. The house is surrounded by big old trees (sweet gum?). Inside, there is a small kitchen, bathroom (added later, after an outhouse), tiny bedroom, and chapel for saying Mass. The fireplace was originally his only source of heat in the winter – no insulation, it must have been freezing. He would light a fire in the darkness when he arose, spending the first few hours in prayer, meditation, and reading. All these little details now come alive for me, having previously lived in my imagination for years, from Merton’s writings and photographs.

We sat on the porch all day. Late in the afternoon I celebrated Eucharist with Jeff in Merton’s private chapel in the house. We then went to Vespers and dinner, after which Fr. Matthew Kelty spoke to the guests. Back to the hermitage, fire in the fireplace, reading, conversation, then bed. Up early, Mass with the monks, then breakfast. Jeff caught a ride to the airport, and I had a morning alone at the hermitage. A gentle, steady rain. Forest birds sing to each other, squirrels squawk, deer and foxes bound through the meadow. A pretty lively place. Sitting here, I know that I want in my daily life what Merton wanted, and found here. From his 1965 journal, just after he moved in to this place:

I sit in my house, where words cease to resound, where all meanings are absorbed in the consonantia of heat, fragrant pine, quiet wind, bird song and one central tonic note that is unheard and unuttered. Not the meditation of books, or of pieties, or of systematic trifles. In the silence of the afternoon all is present and all is inscrutable. One central tonic note to which every other sound ascends or descends, to which every other meaning aspires, in order to find its true fulfillment. To ask when the note will sound is to lose the afternoon: it has sounded and all things now hum with resonance of its humming.

Now I’m on to Memphis. I listen to CD’s of Merton, who, having walked the 1/2 mile down the hill to the monastery, talked to the novices. It was 1968, the year of his death. He was my age, 53.

May 1 — Memphis

This weekend is the annual Music Fest. Mostly just a hassle, with huge crowds of drunken 20-something people glutting Beale St. at night. But there is a great blues or R&B band in the bars that sit on every corner. The most memorable thing for me, however, was a 100-member evangelical parade through the middle of this Mardi-Gras-like atmosphere at 9pm one night. Like something out of Flannery O’Connor’s South. They marched in formation right into the drunken crowd of revelers, led by a guy running around waving a big Bible, followed by a big bass drum and a trumpet. The young women wore neck-to-ankle calico dresses and looked straight ahead. The men held huge banners showing the promises of salvation through faith in Christ and warnings of hell. Above the flames were words dropping like the damned into the lake of fire: Sodomites; Drunks; Fornicators; Catholics (yes, “Catholics”); Liars; Thieves; Atheists; Abortionists…An old preacher mounted a crate and seized the bullhorn. I couldn’t hear his message, but I knew exactly what he said. They sang Are you washed, are you washed in the Blood of the Lamb? I said to a cop standing next to me I think if Jesus were here he’d be in the bar dancing to the blues band.

Speaking of music, my hosts tell me that when people come to Memphis, they tend to either go to Graceland (Elvis’ mansion, of course) or to the National Civil Rights Museum, but not to both. It would be interesting to see how those numbers break down around race. Trying to be ever-inclusive, of course, I went to both. And to Sun Studios (first recordings of Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins) and to Stax Records Museum (Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Booker T. and the MG’s, Isaac Hayes).

It’s a cliché, but Memphis really is an amazing musical crossroads, where country and gospel and blues came together in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s, and rock n’ roll and soul and R&B were born. And in all the genres, there was an edge, a raw funky quality that you just didn’t find in Motown or other places at the time. The Memphis sound was very American, very black and white together. Until MLK’s assassination, said Steve Cropper, the white guitarist for Booker T., there wasn’t any such thing as race when you walked in the door of the studio. After that event, he said with tears in his eyes, something wonderful came to an end and everything changed.

May 2 — Memphis

I went to the National Civil Rights Museum, built on as a large addition to the old Lorraine Hotel, where MLK was assassinated. It was a very good exhibit, beginning with the obligatory museum introductory film, leading one through reconstructed environments, exhibits, interactive monitors, and other museum stuff du jour that is now so pervasive.

But nothing could have prepared me for the emotional impact of the ending, even though I knew it was coming: the room where MLK stayed when he was killed, the bed, the open Bible, the door leading out on to the balcony, which we have all seen in so many photographs: Jesse Jackson and Ralph Abernathy and the others pointing up across the street to the source of the shots, with King lying on the ground at their feet. Although it was feared that things would end this way, and although there were many threats and unsuccessful attempts before, it was no doubt a horrible shock and surprise when it happened. So seemingly random, sudden, violent, and final. And yet it was so simple, really: one shot, sounding like a car backfiring, and that was that. A very lucky or skillful shot, and a very exposed target. One almost wonders why it hadn’t happened before that. You can just picture it – King stepping out of this room with his associates, on to that balcony, right there, Bang! from across the street, King crumpling down, voices, confusion, blood seeping out, a call for an ambulance, the terrible long wait, and the awful reality settling in.

This simple and very concrete moment in a small place and time then exploded outwards into the whole world, gaining speed and words and momentum and tears and rage as it flew outwards faster and faster. Eventually thousands walked slowly with the casket-bearing mule-cart, the speeches, the television coverage, the marches, then the riots, the burning cities, the alienation, the sense that nonviolence doesn’t work; the Dream becomes a nightmare; this is what they always will do to us; that “violence is as American as cherry pie” (H. Rap Brown, Black Panther).

Then as if that weren’t enough, you walk across the street to the new part of the museum, the boarding house from where James Earl Ray (or “Raoul,” or whomever it was) shot. In the room itself, you see the bed, the window, and then the bathroom where the shot was fired. A slightly-raised window, kneeling in the bathtub for stability, the gun barrel resting on the sill, a clear view through the scope to the Lorraine balcony. It was a horrible place, and yet, again, so simple, so ordinary. I began to feel very dizzy, out of breath, completely overwhelmed. Had to sit down, but felt worse. I kind of lurched through the end of the exhibit, outdoors, quickly to a park where I thought I was going to be sick, having to lie down, tears, asking forgiveness for what we do to one another, what we do to goodness and truth. Slowly I regained enough strength to make the drive out to Gerry and Janice Vanderhaar’s, the in-laws of Nancy Searle, a parishioner, who are graciously hosting my stay here.

May 3 — Memphis

The Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence is located in a basement at the Christian Brothers University in Memphis. The Vanderhaars started this institute, together with Arun Gandhi, Mohandas K. Gandhi’s grandson. It houses a library, where I studied for a day, it hosts workshops and conferences, and it organizes Arun’s nearly weekly travel schedule for speaking engagements. It seems that corporate executives, government agencies, universities, everyone wants to hear stories of what Arun learned from his grandfather. He was with him for a long visit to India in 1946 when he was 12, and otherwise grew up in South Africa. I had a long talk with Arun, and also with the current director, Michelle Naef, and spent some hours reading and taking notes.

Arun Gandhi spoke of the atmosphere of vengeance in our nation today (in response to terrorism), with little effort to look intelligently at the root causes of terrorism and our part in that history. He recommends building relationships by considering, with others, the needs of all people, and not just the narrow self-interest of the United States. His hope is that with increased communication and global economy, this may become more possible.

In talking with him about the link between spirituality and social action, he spoke of his grandfather taking spirituality above religion and ritual to a level of unity and diversity, where all religions might respect and cooperate with one another. Gandhi recommended that “a friendly study of all scriptures is the sacred duty of every individual.” In his twice-daily public prayer services, he used prayers from various traditions and held them in a neutral space, such as an outdoor area.

Arun’s advice about individual prayer and meditation is to do it in such a way (every time one prays) that brings into one’s prayer the world, those in places where war is taking place, the homeless, one’s own friends who are in pain, all who are in suffering and need. Otherwise one becomes overly-individualized, and prayer becomes all about me, my feelings, my needs, my sense of God’s presence in my life. According to Gandhi, this is really the root of violence, because it isolates one from others, leading to haves and have-nots, indifference to injustice, etc.

I hope that the Institute survives Arun’s eventual retirement. He is in his late ‘70’s, and unfortunately the main draw for those who are interested in this Institute is Gandhi’s grandson and his stories about Grandfather. He travels at least once a week to give these talks. But do they come to conferences on practical applications of nonviolence today? Do they take his grandfather’s teachings seriously? Both Arun and the director are uncertain whether anything will remain after he is gone. It seems that people want to hear the stories of the great man but are not too interested in learning about how to apply the principles of nonviolence to the world in which they live.

I’m struck by what we do to these heroes of conscience. We take away their power by turning them into sentimental figures. MLK has a dream, Gandhi is the cute little man wearing rags. We read short quotations, watch PBS specials, visit museums, and temporarily feel moved. There is a woman who has been sitting in protest outside the National Civil Rights Museum (Lorraine Hotel) here in Memphis for 16 years. Her signs say: Stop worshiping the past! Address racism today!

While the museum is a needed thing (and they also make the same point as she does), it does contribute to the media marketing and resultant oversimplification and trivialization of the message. “Let’s package this popular figure and control his message so it stays safely in the past; then we won’t have to deal with him!”

Meanwhile, we ignore poverty and racism and those who live without healthcare. We still drop bombs on innocent people and kill a disproportionate number of people of color on death row, and Muslims and Hindus are still killing each other in India and Pakistan. Are Gandhi and King rolling over in their graves as the thousands file through the museums that pay tribute to them?

May 4 — Montgomery

Went to a Montgomery Biscuits Baseball game this evening (AA team for Tampa Bay), where at the top of the 9th inning they broadcast the opening riff for Lynryd Skynryd’s Sweet Home Alabama. The crowd leapt to its feet, clapping and singing along. Innocent enough, until you watch a crowd of 95% white people in this very mixed city watching a game of black players, being served by black employees, and the white males singing along enthusiastically (belligerently?) with this anthem to the South: Well, I hope Neil Young will remember, Southern Man don't need him around anyhow…this being a reference to Neil Young’s song Southern Man, a stinging indictment of slavery, religious hypocrisy, and white-on-black violence. Apparently southern men still don’t want any “outside agitators” lecturing them about racism.

Growing up in northern California, my somewhat distorted image of the South was influenced by stereotypes: fat policemen beating demonstrators, Klansmen lynching some poor soul, and Dennis Hopper getting shot off his Harley in Easy Rider. The South seemed like a scary place for this long-haired, anti-war northerner, so I gave it a wide berth.

As I finally explore the South now, I find a complex racial situation. Unlike the North, where blacks and whites have lived at a nervous and distrustful distance, segregated by more subtle forms of racism, in the South blacks and whites have always lived very close together. I’m aware of a much easier and looser interaction here, born out of a shared history and common sense of belonging. And yet in the South there is also this deep-seated racism for a few that still jumps out occasionally, as well as an unconscious denial of the magnitude of the problem for many more (What’s the big deal about a Confederate flag flying over the state capitol? It’s a symbol of regional pride and history! Neil Young, we don’t need you down here anyhow…).

And then, on the corner of Lee and Montgomery, the very corner where Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus, was a newspaper box. The headline story was about an assistant District Attorney who had worked in that office for 16 years, who had just been caught on an answering maching tape calling an African-American lawyer a F…..g N….r. Yes, he was condemned and fired immediately. The law is on the right side now. You can’t do that anymore. But the bigotry is still in the hearts of men and women.

May 5 — Montgomery and Selma

First thing in the morning I went to the parsonage for Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King and his family, and The Rev. Vernon Johns before him, had lived. Since I was the first there, the guide showed me around herself. She grew up as a member of Dexter, and remembered MLK and Coretta well. She showed me the hole in the concrete front porch, which is where one of the two dynamite attacks on his house took place. Amazingly, no one was hurt either time.

I asked about MLK’s ever-growing duties with the civil rights movement and his increasing absences from his job, and how the congregation took that. Showing me the pastor’s log that confirmed this fact, she explained that the whole congregation was willing to share him with the world in the important work he was doing. She also called Dexter Ave. Church for me to set up a visit, since right now they are closed to the public.

They let me into the church alone, and had about a half hour there, just taking it all in. It’s a bit bigger than St. Michael’s, and I could imagine MLK preaching there, holding strategy meetings in the basement offices below, and speaking to crowds. Just a 26-year old new pastor, thrown into the national limelight in a small city, by virtue of his having been chosen as the new president of the organization that organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott, after Rosa Parks began it all with her arrest. Downtown Montgomery is a small place, too. Everybody must have known one another, and here it was, ending up on the cover of national magazines, on television, and now in the museums and history books. I’m struck by how history can be so unpredictably written from such humble beginnings.

Next I went to the Southern Poverty Law Center (and the beautiful memorial sculpture there by Maya Lin). SPLC is an organization begun by the courageous Morris Dees, which since 1971 has worked to shut down, prosecute and imprison hate groups and individuals. They essentially bankrupted what was left of the Klan, among others.

They’ve had many very credible bomb threats (and one successful one that burned the old building), so I was only able to enter their new, large fortress-like building because I called ahead of time and told them that Susanna had been supporting them since 1977. We spoke of the parallels between the attitudes of segregationists and those who are so irrationally anti-gay and lesbian, and of the SPLC’s programs that attempt to educate around this current issue of prejudice and hate crime. My guide took me to meet Dees himself, invited me to a staff lunch, and then she gave me three teaching programs on tolerance. Again, I am amazed by the simple hospitality of so many good people whom God has placed in my path on this trip, just at the right times.

I drove on to Selma, and on the way stopped in at Hayneville, where Jonathan Myrick Daniels, a seminarian from Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge MA, was killed in 1965. He had heeded the call to come help with voter registration, and was arrested along with some children at a demonstration. They were released unexpectedly in this small town, and as they made their way into a store, a deputy sheriff walked up, pulled a shotgun, pointed it at one of the black kids, and Jonathan stepped in front of her, taking the blast himself. The killer was arrested but later acquitted. As I talked with a drugstore owner near the site where it happened, he said that local whites really don’t want to talk about it too much. They’re embarrassed by this shameful period in their history, and at the same time they’re defensive too. The pharmacist said Not all the changes that have come as a result of those times have been good, let me tell you…you can think of the issues that were being addressed back then in simplistic terms, good guys and bad guys, but there’s always more to the story….Plus, the widow of the man who shot Daniels is still alive, still very involved in this small community. We wouldn’t want to embarrass anyone, now would we? So there, in a little corner of the town square, is a quiet, uncomfortable reminder: a small memorial to Daniels, erected by the Virginia Military Institute, where he went to college before seminary. In the middle of the square is a much larger monument to the Confederate heroes, erected by the town.

At the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, and all along the road between there and Montgomery, where thousands marched in support of voting rights, it was easy to imagine it all. On Bloody Sunday, white police beat black marchers with bullwhips and rubber hoses wrapped in barbed wire, as white onlookers cheered. Then hundreds of clergy – including numerous Episcopal ones – arrived with Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Harry Belafonte and others who responded to MLK’s call. Over several days, a crowd that began at 8,000 swelled to 25,000 in the 50 miles to Montgomery. And then on the evening that this triumphant march concluded, Viola Liuzzo, a housewife and mother from Detroit, was shot dead by Klansmen as she transported some of the marchers. All on this country road that connects a large town and a small city.

This land here is soaked in the blood of martyrs. I look into the woods and imagine lynchings and beatings. I look over bridges and imagine drownings and body-dumping in the rivers below. The Hayneville store, the Lorraine Hotel, the Pettus Bridge, the prisons, the 16th St. Baptist Church basement in Birmingham, and way before that, the plantations, the auction blocks, the ships from Africa. Behind the physical violence was another kind of violence: hatred, intimidation, humiliation, poverty, denial of rights, and inequal legal protection, employment, medical care and education.

But into this modern American hell was interjected the gospel of Jesus Christ. More than the political planning and execution, it was the biblical Christian faith of the African-American church that provided the movement its continual inspiration and its spiritual discipline. It wasn’t just a dream of equality that changed history. It was the unstoppable power of God’s truth, the public display of Christ’s forgiveness, and the utter freedom that comes from people who have moved beyond fear of hatred, injustice and death into the peace of the kingdom of heaven.

Notes from an independent study under the guidance of the following faculty:

Cynthia Kittredge (Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest, Austin)

Ray Pickett (Lutheran Seminary Program in the Southwest, Austin)

The World Jesus Lived In

My aim in this study was to gain a clearer understanding of the social, political, economic, and religious world that Jesus lived in. I thought that this would bring more to life the parables, teachings, and texts of the gospels, and perhaps provide new or different insights for the purposes of preaching and teaching.

What follows are brief, informal and unorganized background info and discussion notes. If you are interested in reading more on this subject (including examples of how the themes presented here are visible in the parables).

Sociological background of Israel

(Summarized from Herzog, Parables as Subversive Speech, see bibliography)
Like most agrarian societies, (3000 BCE – 1800 CE), Israel had moved from subsistence-level horticulture and animal husbandry - owned and controlled by the family and village - to farms owned by investors. A huge gulf existed between the few rich and the many poor. As money became increasingly important to the developing economy, peasants were forced into indebtedness through a vast tribute/tax system, eventually lost their traditional family land and became tenant laborers. They supported a system of cash crops controlled by an urban elite owner/patron class. Money flowed in one direction. Things gap between rich and poor widened, and the system became more corrupt and the people’s plight ever more desperate.

The elite owner class comprised about 2% of the population. They were not nice, generous, rich people; they got and stayed where they were through ruthless exploitation and violent enforcement. In ways they were more like the modern Mafia than modern wealthy business people.

Under this top economic level were those who supported and enforced the social system: a standing military, tax collectors, record-keepers, lawyers/scribes, steward/managers, a few wealthy businessmen, teachers for the families of the elite, and a priesthood that reinforced supportive beliefs and behaviors. This “retainer class” comprised approximately 8% of the population, and were literate, which gave them power: they were “white collar professionals,” if you will. A very few members of this class were among Jesus’ followers, and many of them considered him an enemy, as did the elite.

Most of the rest (80%) were very poor farmers, laborers, artisans, fishermen, and traveling merchants who eked out a subsistence living. Their resources went to pay for rent, taxes, tithes and tributes paid to landlords, rulers, and temple, a little food for their family, reserves of seed for barter or for next year’s crop, and dues to the village. They were regularly exploited by the ruling economic/political/religious elite in a variety of creative and cruel ways. They were not comfortable “working class” by today’s standards. This was the group to whom Jesus, his family, and many of his disciples belonged. He was less of a “skilled carpenter” and more of a poor laborer in wood and stone.

Below them were “the unclean, the degraded and the expendables” (diseased, disgraced, homeless: 10%?). They lived by day labor, prostitution, robbery, and begging. They, too, were Jesus’ disciples, and were often those whom he healed and ministered to.

Life in Nazareth and nearby towns

From Excavating Jesus, John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan L. Reed
Peasant life: Poly-cropping (scattering and diversifying) enabled survival and self-sufficiency, until the family lost their access to lands. Diet consisted primarily of bread, olives, olive oil, and wine, augmented occasionally by beans, stews, nuts, fruits, cheese, salted fish, and for special occasions, meat. Many were malnourished and/or protein-deficient. Life expectancy was in the ‘30’s. Those who lived to 50 or 60 were rare. Upward mobility was unknown (social movement was downward) and peasants lived very close to the edge. Life was local, and travel dangerous.

Nazareth, in Jesus’ lifetime, would have been similar to a small, traditional pueblo in New Mexico. Population was 200-400, consisting of several extended families or clans. There is no evidence of public architecture (no synagogue, fortification, basilica, bathhouse, paved street, etc.). People lived in simple hovels, made of stacked fieldstone, straw and mud insulation, dirt floors, wooden ceiling beams covered in straw and mud. Some had subterranean storage cavities, and most had cisterns for water and storage pots for grain. Two public bath pools have been found, and many typical Jewish graves (body-length shafts cut at right angles into a dirt wall, sealed with a large stone. Built in the sunny hills, the town was well-suited for production of grain, olive, and grapes. Excavations have shown a town of about 2,000 ft. by 650 ft., about ten acres.

Synagogues: Were for the most part the gathering of people, rather than a separate building, which they couldn’t afford to build. There are no ruins of 1st-C synagogue structures in Nazareth. Gatherings of the synagogue took place in a village square or courtyards or rooms of a large private house.

Herod Antipas built vast palaces, theatres, harbors, and cities in an attempt to Romanize his kingdom. These projects included new cities near Nazareth: Caesarea (on the Mediterranean coast), and Sepphoris and Tiberias (in Galilee). These projects were financed for the most part by agricultural taxes (in goods or money). As the building projects multiplied, a higher demand for money led to mono-cropping, less self-sufficiency, eventual loss of ownership, and tenant farming, with all produce being taken off. Goods and money moved from the land to the city. Luxury at one end was built by labor and poverty at the other end. Expensive architecture in the city meant intensive agriculture in the country. Galilee was becoming urbanized, commercialized, the people were being turned into low-wage workers and ancient, traditional ways of life were disappearing.

New architectural styles, wealthy home-owners, public buildings and expensive materials were introduced. The towns differed markedly from surrounding villages. Predominantly Gentile, secular, and wealthy, the inhabitants were of the retainer class (tax-collectors, managers/stewards, military, and others who facilitated money moving from the peasants to the elite. The Jewish-Roman historian Josephus described an assault on Sepphoris and Tiberias by Galileans in the revolt of 67 C.E. In it, he remarks on their “hatred” of the towns, how they “plundered...looted…detested…exterminated” the towns. The populations of Sepphoris and Tiberias were 8-12,000 each, and they were some 100-150 acres in size.

Capernaum was a small town on the shores of the Lake of Galilee where Peter and Andrew, James and John, and other early disciples lived, and a location for Jesus’ ministry. About 1,000 inhabitants lived on 25 acres. It was larger and more prosperous than Nazareth (due to fishing on the lake) but worlds away from Sepphoris, Tiberias, and Caesarea. Like Nazareth, there were no public buildings or paved streets.

Social background and the Jesus movement’s message as a response

From The Message and the Kingdom, Richard A. Horsley and Neil Asher Silberman
The background in which Jesus grew up in Galilee:

• popular uprisings and open rebellion, cruelly and successfully crushed by Rome, including the destruction of nearby Sepphoris

rebuilding project necessitating raising of taxes, resulting in a continuing increase in debt and foreclosures on family property, people becoming tenant or conscripted laborers, homelessness, desperation
development of a more industrialized economy (farming and fishing) and presence of management population

• social control was managed by high taxes and seizure of property, a hierarchical patronage system of privilege/subjugation and debts/favors, and a rigid religious purity system, which demanded tithes, exclusion and privileges, in order to support the social stratification that kept the elite and the poor in their places

This message was carried by a movement that was centered in villages throughout Galilee. The disciples were not wandering “sages” but village-based teachers who remained as long as they were welcome. They worked to instill Jesus’ message as a program of community renewal that re-affirmed the traditional way of the Torah over the modern, individualistic ways of Rome. This was its controversial nature.

In the rest of the Mediterranean, the same policies (taxes, exploitation, patronage) were creating similar social conditions: loss of land, community, tradition, and dignity. People became tenant farmers or low-wage earners. Many moved to the cities, where they found a modern, rootless and disintegrated cultural vacuum characterized by rampant individualism, exploitation, concerns with power and prestige, poverty, and extreme decadence and immorality among the few elite (is this starting to sound familiar?).
Paul was the apostle to this world, offering a vision of an alternative community, characterized by equality among classes/gender/culture and even slave/free, selfless sharing with those in need, and personal morality.

Parallels with modern life

I am struck by the parallels with modern life and the function of the parish.
The church, in particular the parish “village” community, is a place where we can unlearn the pervasive dominant cultural values, and strengthen alternative kingdom values, by practicing them with ourselves in community. We live in a world still marked by individualism, cultural disintegration, unethical businesses, exploitation of or indifference to the poor, violence, materialism, immorality, prestige, power exercised by the elite, and various forms of divisiveness (racism, class, sexism, etc) . In the parish village, we can learn how to live differently, and hopefully then spread it into the society around us, like the Jesus movement before us:

• the good of the community over individual preference and privilege


• critique of destructive values around us in society


• accountability, forgiveness, reconciliation with one another


• fair pay and benefits for employees and decent treatment of volunteers


• equality of all regardless of age, race, class, gender, economic level or position of influence in society, etc.


• sharing our money, being generous with the most vulnerable in the community and the world around us


• consensus-building instead of power exercised by an elite


• celebrating with beautiful feasts that are open to and created by all, instead of the private privilege of the few

Conversations with Ray Pickett

We spoke about the difficult task of preaching and teaching in a context quite different from that of Jesus’ own. He was from a poor laborer’s background, speaking directly to the economic and other social forces of his day in Galilee. The solution to this difficulty has often been to spiritualize everything to the point of making it all universal, and yet removed from its original meaning. Another equally unattractive alternative is to pretend to be seeing things from Jesus’ perspective, preaching his “radical message” to a privileged modern audience, shaming them for being so, and pointing to the poor of the world as those about whom Jesus really cares.

Ray said that even the gospel writers employed interpretation, so that you can’t get a “pure message” from this Galilean teacher. We all interpret, and our interpretations (or Luke’s or Matthew’s) doesn’t necessarily contradict Jesus’ original contextual meaning. Religion operates on several levels at once. But it is helpful to know what “moves” were made in the editing process. There’s no point in locking horns over the historical debate on a political or ideological basis; instead, just offer a more “robust” view that includes its 1stC setting. Then ask questions, as Jesus did, about our own oppression, our own social assumptions to see how we are impacted by the same kind of issues his people were in very different settings. The texts raise questions about how we are to live.

The economic context in which Jesus spoke was one where land was everything. Ownership and control determined wealth, not money. The poor were subject to a “triple tax,” which consisted of money paid to the Roman Empire, the temple, and the local rulers (i.e. Herod). Rent took the form of produce taken from the land. The rural poor were lucky if they had anything left for themselves.

The poor that Jesus ministered with were oppressed, and much of his teachings were aimed at trying to help his people survive their very hard life, in very practical ways. As an example, the poor didn’t have either the time or the money to keep Jewish law strictly. And so Jesus offered a more “relaxed” approach to religion, making it more do-able and practical for the poor (love neighbor and God; the rest is commentary). Or at times he tightened the Torah when it would make their lives easier (i.e. his teaching on divorce, where he criticized the law that allowed a man to dismiss a woman, calling men to a higher level of commitment).

Hanson and Oakman (Palestine in the time of Jesus) write about three determinative social realities:

1. An honor and shame culture,


2. Patron and client relationships,


3. ownership and control of property.

Jesus, like most Jewish peasants (90% of the people) was probably biased against the rich. They were not benevolent rich people, earning their money honestly and fairly, generous to their employees and their community. In this society the only way to become or remain rich was to play the patronage game, exploit the vulnerable, be ruthless, and cheat others out of their money and property. And yet Jesus engaged the rich rather than hating them, inviting them to become part of the solution. They also were drawn to him, in spite of the social gulf between them.

Jesus was part of a wider movement within Jewish life, and essentially Galilean in nature (see current books on Galilean sociology, now a cutting edge in biblical scholarship). Galilee was very Jewish and somewhat conservative (high regard for Torah, temple, and concepts of purity) and yet alienated from the temple system in Jerusalem (where the power/corruption was). It was, as part of the old Northern Kingdom of Israel, more grounded in the local leadership of prophets than in the hierarchy and authority of Jerusalem. It was concerned with covenant renewal (not rejection). Israel had always been challenged by renewing prophets to re-interpret the Torah in light of new and changing circumstances.

Those changes in Galilee in Jesus’ time included an increased gap between rich and poor brought on by centralization of farms and loss of family property, increasing tax burdens on the poor, and in general a desperate economic condition. The gospel of the Jesus movement was born in and was a response to this situation. Jesus saw himself as a prophet who eventually had to go to Jerusalem to challenge the source of the power problem, as prophets before him had done.

Without this newer contextual sociology about Jesus’ setting, much of our reflection on the gospel has been blindly applied to our own setting, as if, for instance, the “rich” are the same today as they were in Jesus’ time, or as if there was a large middle class then (which there wasn’t).

Jesus was like many other teachers and movements of his day. To posit him as a unique wonder who dropped out of the sky, an itinerant enlightened being who was nothing like anything anyone had ever seen is to make him into a modern guru of sorts. Spiritualizing him removes him from his earthly context. We’re all deeply conditioned by this view. It began early, even with the gospel authors (i.e. “blessed are the poor” became “blessed are the poor in spirit”).

But removing Jesus’ teachings from his own social context tends towards anti-Semitism, because it uses as a foil to this “unique” Jesus a Judaism that was supposedly one-dimensional, simplistic, misogynist, legalistic, dry, rigid, and absorbed by mindless purity ritual. This was not 1st C Judaism, and certainly not Galilee. To isolate Jesus from his Jewish and Galilean context is to do violence to the world out of which he emerged.

Conversations with Cynthia Kittredge

Since much of her perspective overlaps with Ray Pickett’s, she suggested I also do some reading on issues related to women in the Jesus movement to augment my focus. And as a movement, she pointed out that Jesus was one of many teachers at the time who were involved in the kind of teaching he was doing. Furthermore, even though the gospels present him as always the center of attention and the main actor, he was, in fact, surrounded by a community of disciples, who experienced these things all together. (Elizabeth Schussler-Fiorenza cr