Three parishes
Tuesday, November 24, 2020 at 04:55PM 
The current rector of the parish, Mariclair Partee Carlsen, asked if I’d write something for the quarterly newsletter--“about your connection to St Mary’s, and how the parish was a part of your path to what you are currently doing?”
I was a seminary intern at St. Mary’s Hamilton Village and the Episcopal Office of the Christian Association at Penn, 1968-69; and was ordained a deacon at St. Mary’s in 1970. The work involved routine matters of pastoral care, some liturgical functioning, and working with an anti-racism group in the parish; and a role of maintaining a relationship with the more radical groups and individuals on campus. The last included being involved, with others on parish staff, in the anti-racism demonstration of 1969 in which students held a sit-in of College Hall pressing demands regarding the University’s relationship with the Black community.
Simple right? I needed to write two hundred words or so. The first thing that came to mind went over the 200 words. I thought, that’s fine, I’ll get there. Then the worst happened. My mind began to wander into how a number of parishes brought me to where I am now. And that expanded into how God’s forming any of us involves thousands of experiences and people. The writer's curse – too much.
Over the next couple of days, I reshaped Mother Mariclair’s statement into, “How were parish churches part of the pathway to what you ended up doing and who you have become?”
So, three parishes
What became obvious as I reflected was that 1963 to 1977, me being 19 to 33 years old, was when my path became clear. My guess is that many of you reading this have your own stories about grace, challenge, and growth in the period from your late teens into your early thirties.
Those years included being on the staff of an industrial mission, working to bring IAF to the city, joining the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and participation in demonstrations and voter registration drives; college, seminary and grad school; life in a commune; two marriages; a considerable amount of training and work in group dynamics and organization development, living in apartments in most areas of Philadelphia. And belonging to three parish churches.
Those parishes were part of my formation. In each the process was multifaceted and complex. All too much. So, I’ll focus it with stories that illustrate something at the center of what happened between me, those parishes, and Jesus Christ.
Church of the Advocate, North Philadelphia
What you ended up doing and who you have become
It was sometime in the late '90s. I was doing an organization development consultation with a diocesan Integrity group. The weekend had gone well. On the last night at dinner the spirit was excited and purposeful. I was asked to join the leaders in the front. The president of the chapter gave me a rainbow ribbon with a star on it and said that the group was declaring me an honorary lesbian. Lots of laughter! I felt accepted, loved, and trusted.
Driving home the following day I thought about all the client groups I was working with at the time—a couple of parishes, several affordable housing groups, two shelters for women, a theater company, Integrity, a Tay Sachs association—not one was led by a straight, white, man.
Part of my path
The Church of the Advocate had a basketball court on the second floor of the parish house. We played in t-shirts. It was hot and we played hard. Lots of sweating. We were all into the rhythm of the game. It was fun!
I was the only white person on the court. We were taking a time-out. Standing there breathing hard. And that’s what occurred to me. I don’t recall any judgment about it. There was no special meaning in the moment. It was just a fact. I was the only white person on the court. An observation that came and went as the game resumed.
I had come home from Quantico where we learned to work as a team in a common cause and went to the Advocate where we did the same thing. That morning was basketball. The next day it was a day camp of a couple of hundred children. By the fall it moved into civil rights demonstrations.
There’s a woman, a white woman, who served on staff and saw the experience this way: “A world that welcomed us and in which we were so naive. We met wonderful, remarkable people, were warmly received and loved, trusted and engaged.” On the basketball court that day in 1963 I was gifted that knowledge. Working as a team in a common cause can set loose God's love and joy among us.
Saint Mary’s Hamilton Village, West Philadelphia
What you ended up doing and who you have become
During the 2011 Order of the Ascension retreat, Brother Lowell said, “You need to write.” At the time I was still doing a fair amount of consulting with parishes, especially in the Diocese of Washington. 2010 had been my cancer year (Stage 4 esophageal); yes, I know, I have a lot to be thankful for. The aftereffects of that, plus just getting older, left me with less energy and a variety of other limitations.
So, when the time came for what we called mutual spiritual guidance, while others explored their work in the parishes they served, I had a vocational question. My discernment issue was what I was going to spend my time and energy doing in the years ahead. The Rule calls on Professed Members to place such vocational matters before the community. In the end, each makes their own decision about how to serve within the Promise and charism. Along the way, there would be the prayers and counsel of others.
Part of my path
“Charlie has died. Will you come over?”
I knocked on their apartment door. Jane invited me in repeating that Charlie died. I looked to the left and there was Charlie. On the floor of the hallway. He had just died. Her first call was to the church; before a funeral home, their doctor, and relatives. She was a rather disciplined Episcopalian.
I think their names were Jane and Charlie. That may be wrong. The two of them had been St. Mary’s parishioners for many years. In 1969 Fr. Scott was on sabbatical. So, the call came to me, the seminary intern. I had never dealt with a sudden death before. I was fond of them and I was very unskilled. I was scared that I’d get it all wrong. I did remember to take a Prayer Book.
I just stood there staring at Charlie in the hallway floor. I was frozen.
Jane said. “Pray!” Sounded like a drill instructor I once had.
She knelt. I knelt. We prayed the litany. “O Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world; Grant him thy peace.” There was an absolution to be said by “the priest.” I knew that wasn’t me. I returned to being frozen. Jane placed her hand on Charlie. Then she made the sign of the cross on his forehead and said a blessing.
I think of Saint Mary’s as a community in which I began to see how my participation and growth in the Divine Life was shaped by others—by their patience, forgiveness, counsel, prayers and feedback; by their holiness of life.
Saint Elisabeth’s, South Philadelphia
What you ended up doing and who you have become
I had a consulting contract with WomenRising in Jersey City that lasted for 15 years (1991-2006). The work started with a meeting with Martha Lewin and her executive team. Martha said something like this: “We are deeply committed to the empowerment of women, both our clients and our staff. But I have to admit we don’t really know how to do it.” She thought I could help.
I didn’t know how to run a group home, I didn’t know how to run a domestic abuse shelter, I didn’t know how to do affordable housing, I didn’t know how to run a daycare center. The woman of WomenRising did know all that.
I knew something about how real empowerment occurred in an organization.
We were going to do this together—with what they knew and what I knew, with who they were and who I was. We were going to shape an organizational culture that was grounded in listening, quality service, respect, institutional adaptability and integrity, and facing into the mess.
Part of my path
I wanted to have an Easter Vigil. It was my first year at St. Elisabeth’s. Things had been going well. A sense of hopelessness was lifting. Lay leaders were coming forward with more energy. There were a few new people. Some trust had been built. I wanted to do the Vigil in Easter 1976.
But the congregation was small, very small. So, doing a Vigil and an Easter morning Mass would split the community into two small fragments. That didn’t seem right. So, in my half thought through wisdom, I decided. We’d just have the Vigil and forgo Easter morning. So that’s what appeared in the newsletter.
Then…Ed, the parish musician, came to me at coffee hour. He took me aside and said, “Father, people are upset about Easter. They want the Sunday morning Mass.” There was this small knot in my stomach. I wasn’t sure but wondered if the floor was moving beneath my feet. My mind was racing. It was as though I was scanning the files in my head—triangulation, leadership requiring listening and risking, a tug between my preferred conflict styles of compete and collaborate. “Oh shit! Was the plane going to crash?”
God’s grace is wondrous and having a lot of T-group training was a useful side benefit. Words came. “Ed, I really want to hear what they have to say. Please ask them to speak with me directly.” The following Sunday at coffee hour I was surrounded by a slightly anxious crowd. “Father, we really like the Easter morning Mass.” I said, “How about this, you agree to come to the Vigil and party the night before and we’ll do both Masses?” I don’t think they liked the idea, but they didn’t want to fight with their young vicar (or listen to all the sound liturgical and pastoral reasons I could go on about). “They said, “Yes, let’s do that.” So, we did.
At the party after the Vigil they started to come to me two-by-two. “Tonight, has been wonderful. The Liturgy was beautiful. Would it be okay if we don’t come in the morning?”
Somehow, we worked it out together. And that’s what we continued to do. Strong lay leaders and a strong vicar. Just like the organization development books said about the best forms of leadership.
Reflections
Michelle Heyne, OA and I have been writing a book on parish pastoral theology with a chapter on cultural density. We explore what a healthy, dense parish culture looks like and on how you shape such a culture. One of the characteristics of such parishes is that they leave a beneficial mark upon people. I think of it as the uniqueness of the person flowing from the first marking – “you are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own for ever. Amen.”
There were more dramatic moments at each parish—the kid coming at me with a knife in the church courtyard, being thrown out of the Philadelphia Art Museum with 200 kids, and Father Washington racing out of the pulpit to chase a man who had just stolen the purse of a parishioner; being with thousands of students at the sit-in at College Hall and an antiwar rally in the church; doing an awful job of firing staff members, the anger of most of the diocesan staff when I wrote “Stay in the City," and John’s heart attack at the Easter Vigil (a different year).
Still, the events and people I recall as deeply formative, the shoulders I came to stand upon, were Father Washington in his office speaking about the value of each child in the day camp, the young men and boys on the basketball court, Jane reaching out her hand to bless Charlie, Father Scott telling me that I need to bring better bread for the Eucharist, Rose responding to my urgency about getting to know my new parishioners with, “It’s okay Father, we’ll get to know you and you’ll get to know us,” and the gentle crowd gathering around their new priest to talk about Easter.
Evy, a friend from the 1966 summer staff at the Advocate, and I write each other a few times each year. We reconnected in the '90s and have been doing it since then. Recently she wrote this,
Your experiences in so many ways parallel mine in going from an all white past into a world that welcomed us and in which we were so naive. We met wonderful, remarkable people, were warmly received and loved, trusted and engaged. We tried. I am sure we let many down. We grew and we became better people because of it. I sometimes wonder where I would be today if it were not for my summer of '66 Church of the Advocate experience. And how do we repay the world for that opportunity?How do we live up to that experience and the trust put in us? We have both tried in our own ways and succeeded and failed in our own ways. I hope I have become a better person for it all, and that I have helped to make some positive changes. (Evelyn Kennenwood)
There are two pieces from St. Paul’s letters that have come to mind as I wrote this.
for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. (Colossians 3.3-4)
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8.38-39)
rag+
The Rev'd Robert A. Gallagher, OA
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Reader Comments (2)
Thank you Brother Robert. I loved reading this post...your writing felt honest, effortless, and authentic. You were in the "flow" for sure when you wrote it...perhaps b/c you weren't being listed to 200 words!
Your invitation for us to consider how parishes have shaped us, our lives, relationships, vocations, etc was a gift. Prior to becoming a priest, I was a professional musician (drummer in a rock band). One of my first-ever gigs was in my church parish hall as a young teenager. None of the local bars would let us play b/c we were underaged. So an adult layperson at the church said, "Hey, we have a large parish hall w/ a stage. Let's rent a sound system and some lights and put on a concert!" Two of the four of us went on to be professional musicians. That adult layperson recognized a passion in us (3 of the 4 of us attended that church). He then helped make the space for that passion to be nurtured. Without us even realizing it, vocational discernment was happening then and there, and it was due to a parish church that formed an adult who listened and looked for ways that God might be at work, even in some teenage boys who simply needed a place to play. But the whole thing was all very natural and organic. It just happened because somebody listened, cared, and acted.. Thanks be to God for that church (including the space), that layperson, and that community.
Richard, I was struck by this - "a parish church that formed an adult who listened." When I was vicar of a parish in Trenton we had a relationship with the jazz community. Several times each year the Sunday mass was a jazz mass. Bob Smith was to play on Pentecost. The newspaper asked the two of us to come in for a photo shot for an article. We sat waiting for the photographer. A young guy walking pass us stoped and spoke to Bob, "I'm a rock musician. You're a jazz musician. How do you manage to improvise? How do you do that?" Bob stoped. Slowed down the agitation in the man. And responded, "Well ... you have to listen." I've posted that picture and news article under the Related Posts above.