…and peacemaker

Today is the feast day of St. Hilda, the 7th century abbess who founded the monastery at Whitby in the north of England. There’s much to be said about Hilda. At Whitby she ran a double monastery where she oversaw the spiritual and temporal lives of not only nuns but monks as well. She helped to negotiate a crucial change in the English Church when the decision was made to adopt the Roman calendar and customs over and against some of the older, much-loved Celtic traditions. But this week, I was struck by one thing in particular when I read her biography on an Episcopal website: on this page, she was called “Hilda of Whitby, Abbess and Peacemaker.”

What a thing, to be called a peacemaker. What a title, what a mark of purpose and calling. There are many saints we describe by their roles— bishop, prophet, evangelist— but calling someone “peacemaker” is a rare and wondrous thing.

I’m wondering if that is a mantle too rare these days. For it is surely something God calls all of us to. In a world where irritation, disgust, and even hatred are far too often right below the surface, one of the greatest gifts the Church can offer is a community of peacemakers. Not people who give over and let others have their way, not people who privilege “niceness” over faithful conviction and honest love, but people who seek, at all times and in all places, to be makers of peace. “Makers” may not be quite the right word; maybe we are more midwives than makers. For the peace of God which passes all understanding is already blowing through the world, and you and I are called to help that peace grow and thrive, to make that peace known to all people.

So today I invite you to add “peacemaker” to your CV. Teacher…and peacemaker. Lawyer and peacemaker. Student and peacemaker. Nurse and peacemaker. Retiree and peacemaker. Parent and peacemaker. May we all have, as the collect for today says, “the justice, prudence, and strength” to live that holy calling and to claim that title—“peacemaker”— for ourselves.

The Very Rev’d Erika L Takacs
Rector

 ----------------

I asked and received Mother Takacs’ permission to post her reflection on St. Hilda and peacemaking. See below. Recently I have been drawn back into an awareness of the relationship between peace, truth, and justice. In the Office we daily pray,  "guide us in the way of justice and truth." Erika's thoughts reminded me of how peace plays into that both in the process and as an outcome. Peacemaking, truth seeking, and justice advocacy are interdependent activities. There are two criminal justice trials underway as this is posted that illustrate that interdependence. We might pray for all involved in those cases and all our political leaders. May they seek peace, truth, and justice.   

rag+

We need to give ourselves a break

Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let anyone with ears listen!’ – Matthew 13:8-9 (Gospel lesson from Today’s Daily Office)

We clergy like to think we’re the good soil in the Parable of the Sower; that when the Sower scatters his seed (Gospel) indiscriminately, it falls on us and we produce good work/fruit for the sake of Jesus and his Gospel. And often we do. But the seed from the Sower isn’t the only thing being scattered upon us to which we’re called to respond. For parish clergy, there are myriad demands placed on our life and work. Managing these demands is necessary if we wish to survive and thrive in parish ministry. A “Demand System” is any formal or informal, spoken or unspoken, set of expectations that we receive in our lives. Naming them and responding to them with spiritual and emotional intelligence by separating out that which is important (as opposed to urgent) from that which is less important is key to our surviving and thriving. 

For example, if clergy have a family, a demand system exists. Our families have obvious expectations for our time and energy. All the other demand systems circle out from that one: our neighbors, the parish, the community where we serve, the bishop’s office, the national church, not to mention our own ordination vows. Those vows, too, are a demand system in that we promise to produce fruit when we’re ordained. All of this can become exhausting as we try to navigate (and in some ways, satisfy) the demands placed on us in the various systems in which we live. Some are bound to receive less of our attention than others.

Let’s stick with only church demand systems. The parish makes certain formal and informal demands on us. Some are unknown/unspoken and we only learn about them the hard way. Just trying to meet all the demands the system makes is overwhelming. And just when we’ve learned to manage these demands well, the bishop’s office and the national church lay more demands on us (lead the parish through racial reckoning, advocate for LGBTQ rights, combat climate change, work for affordable housing, etc.). The list could go on and on. And those are all important concerns that need addressing, but the continual onslaught of these demands (and often they’re unfunded) come at us and can beat us down to the point where we wonder whether we’re the only one exhausted by trying to meet them all. So, we ask: “How do other clergy do all that? Surely, they have their acts together more than I do? My hunch is they’re asking the same questions, but they’re keeping it to themselves, afraid to show any vulnerability.

We need to give ourselves a break. God has (it’s called Grace), so why won’t we give ourselves one? The answer probably has to do with our need to be seen by others as gifted, competent, and a producer of a great fruit. So, we all pose as such and together, we drive one another to exhaustion. What if the church changed its demand system to function by grace and not by the works/fruit we produce? What if we acknowledged Jesus is the Lord of the Harvest and we are not? I know we say that with our lips, but then why do we spend so much of our time and energy trying to satisfy the church’s demands in order to somehow justify our positions in the system?

+Scott

Brother Scott Anson Benhase, OA

Vicar, St. Cyprian’s, Oxford, NC

VP of Province IV

  ----------------------

RELATED RESOURCES

In Shaping the Parish Resources in the Core Models section are several PDFs on demand systems

A Wonderful and Sacred Mystery" A Practical Theology of the Parish Church includes several mentions about demand systems. In the paperback see pp. 105-106; as an Ebook do a search for "demand system"

In Your Holy Spirit: Shaping the Parish Through Spiritual Practice looks at the demand system issue on pages 16-18, 132 - 136

Feed my sheep - the 21st c. parish priest

The cares and occupations

Multitudinism, Institutionalism, and the Conventional 

Institutionalism vs. the Body

True Prayer: the care of the strong Christian - often neglected #2

A Wonderful & Sacred Mystery: a parish development clinic

There are a number of dynamics that are true of all parishes: small and large, rural and urban, liberal and conservative. They were present in the upper room, the catacombs, a parish church in the age of Julian of Norwich, and in your church today. Understanding those somewhat hidden rhythms may help you as you work to shape the life and ministry of your parish community.

The invitation is being extended to all parish churches and dioceses. The program may be most useful for clergy, diocesan staff, and parish development consultants, and lay leaders with an interest in ascetical theology and organization development as applied to the parish church.

Here’s the webpage on the Clinic -- http://www.orderoftheascension.org/a-wonderful-and-sacred-mystery/  Please take a look and sign up soon

Fallible saints and heroes hold the center

One of my spiritual disciplines is to read people who think differently than I do. Politically I’ve always been to the left of center. When I was young that was pretty far from the center. So for the last four years I've read a few center-right thinkers. Only those who I share a few core values with, like the rule of law, due process, free speech, a balance of powers, and so on. All “the stuff” of liberal democracy. The stuff of the suffragettes, the Revolution, the Civil War, World War Two, the civil right movement, and religious freedom. That stuff. So, most days I read Charlie Sykes, the Bulwark, and the Dispatch. I even have a wall of prints on that stuff.

It works for me because along with them I believe in fallible saints and heroes. I appreciate our imperfect institutions. A have great affection for the Episcopal Church, the Anglican tradition, and my tiny parish of St. Clements—no perfection there. I love this country that has so often failed to live up to its own ideals. I’m a fairly orthodox Christian so I assume human limitation and sin. I also assume that we are made in the Divine Image and called to be instruments of Divine Love. I love paradox and complexity (well ... often enough).

I wouldn’t have voted for Colin Powell as President, but I would have been okay with it. Lifelong Episcopalian. A person of American institutions seen in his service in the US Army and the State Department. It’s significant that he was passionate about the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership. I think he understood that he was a fallible leader and hero. He admitted mistakes and persevered.  

         An interview of General Colin Powell.

One of the conservative writers I read most days is Jonathan Last. Today he talked about the failure of our institutions. He called it “the story of our time.” He mentioned the courts, the government, the medical establishment, the police, the church, and the military. I’d add the media—on the left and right.

In my time I’ve seen our civic institutions hold up pretty well when faced with Watergate and Nixon. I never thought that the significance was about Nixon’s misdeeds. For me it was that American institutions held the center because the leadership of those institutions showed courage and did their job. More recently … well, the institutions and their leaders did hold firm enough to truth and democracy. But this time it felt less certain. Still, in the end people at Justice were ready for a mass resignation. The military was prepared to stop a coup. The Capital Police fought. But we all know it could have turned out differently.

At the center are two forces. One are the values, ideas, and practices of an institution. Values, ideas, and practices that over time form an organizational culture into which new people and leaders enter. The second, are the leaders of the institution who have an inner commitment to the values and ideas, who live the practices as a kind of muscle memory, who work at ways of adapting to new circumstances and needs while remaining true to the values and ideals, and who will sacrifice themselves in that good work.  Adaptation that maintains and advances institutional integrity, identity, and integration. There are also forces in all our institutions set on redefining those ideals and values. On removing them.

This week the members of the Order of the Ascension are in a conversation around the new book A Wonderful and Sacred Mystery: A Practical Theology of the Parish Church. The book and our discussion have a useful and somewhat narrow focus –the parish church. It’s something within our range of influence. What’s “the stuff” at the center? What shapes a healthy center? How do we exercise leadership and presence that grounds the parish in the best of our tradition values, ideals, and practices? What do we make of the fact that those who hold the center are, each and everyone of them (us), fallible saints and heroes?

That discussion will broaden in December in a program co-sponsor by the Diocese of Oklahoma and the Order of the Ascension. I hope you’ll participate. An announcement will be made in the coming days.

rag+

Yellow footprints and a clipboard

There are two images I carry in my head. They come back to me from time to time as clarifiers. Two images: yellow footprints and a clipboard.

The sisters and brothers of the Order of the Ascension read a common book each year and engage in a discussion about it. This year we’re writing emails and will gather on Zoom. This year’s book is A Wonderful and Sacred Mystery: A Practical Theology of the Parish Church. Michelle Heyne and I co-authored.  (You can get the book from Amazon on this link)

After reading the initial responses my two images were calling me. The first was the yellow footprints you stand on as you begin your training as a Marine. Brother Lowell mentioned the image in his response. The second is a clipboard that Loren Mead carried around for many years. On one side was an organizational chart with its boxes of job titles and clear lines of reporting and authority. On the other side was this incredible messy web of rubber bands, string, and paper clips. Loren use it in teaching about how parishes really worked. He’d show us the organizational chart and say, “This is what you are taught to expect and establish. Then he’d turn it over and put a finger under one of the rubber bands and yank it. The whole system would vibrate. Every paper clip, piece of string and rubber band would move. He’d say, “that’s what you’ll experience.”

The yellow footprints had to do with entry into a dense culture with a rich sense of identity, integrity, and internal integration. The web of the clipboard was about unpredictability and complexity. You rushed off the bus and onto the footprints while a drill instructor demanded immediate action and perfection; the impossible. You would become more and more anxious, unsettled, even fearful. In the very first moments of becoming a Marine you had to show courage and persistence; you had to manage your fear. Loren’s clipboard was about how parishes were complex organisms. They were systems of interrelated parts. Touch one part and it impacted everything. You had to find a way to serve when everything was moving parts.

Then my mind moved to this polarity.   

All organizations struggle with how to adapt enough in a changing world to survive and continue in their mission while also maintaining their identity, integrity, and internal integration. If you’re the Marine Corps and you fail to adapt you will lose battles and lives. And if you over-adapt, you will lose battles and lives. What happens in the Episcopal Church when we fail to adapt, or we over-adapt to the culture?  

I stood on the yellow footprints many years ago. As things turned out, or maybe as God willed, that wasn’t to be my life. A Marine had died of an asthma attack on a forced march. That wasn’t too many years after several Marines had died in a training accident in Ribbon Creek. Hundreds of us with hay fever or asthma were given Honorable Discharges and sent home. They didn’t want any more training deaths.

I think my Drill Instructor was disappointed. He had mapped out a plan for me that included serving, going to Vietnam, staying in the Reserves while attending seminary, and returning to the Corps as a Navy Chaplain. I’m still glad I stood on the yellow footprints. It stays with me.

There have been many times while serving in the church that I’ve had to grab hold of something within that allowed me to persist and have courage. Some way of getting grounded. I had to manage my anxiety and fear and stay with two things: do the mission and take care of your people. Can’t say I always got that right. But I usually knew what I was called to be and do even as I failed.

The chapters of the book we’re reading and discussing that have drawn the most attention so far are “Power from the center pervades the whole” and “Cultural density.” Two matters at the heart of understanding and improving our churches. Stuff that applies to every parish—large and small, vibrant and listless, parishes of all races and political leanings. How do we help them be strong, healthy, and faithful? How does any priest do that when many people in the congregation are tentative, immature, or static about faith and practice? When those people constitute the emotional center of the parish? When the climate of the church rises from them? When they don’t see any need for change in themselves or the parish? No need for conversion of life? Really no need for true obedience and stability either?

Martin Thornton thought that 90% of the priest’s time needed to go to the Remnant (the Apostolic). Would that adequately address the situation? Or is it more about the skills and knowledge of the priest for shaping the processes and climate of the parish? Is it about the priest knowing what the “yellow footprints” would be for that parish? The ground upon which people might engage the mission and serve their people.

There’s another Image. A Marine Corps platoon leader, a young 2^nd Lieutenant, ordering people to take off their shoes and socks. Bending down to examine each foot. Giving instructions about how to care for them. An activity that is both about the mission and the people. There must be a huge temptation to ignore that practice. Who wants to look at the dirty, puffy, stinking, blister covered feet of 40 other people?  After all, they’re adults. You’ve told them the norm. You’ve taught them. “They should just do it I shouldn’t have to nag them. Crap, I’m only 23 myself.” But the fact is most of them are 19 years old, not very mature, and in that setting to take care of your mission and your people means checking their feet.

So then … what does it mean in a parish church that is overwhelmingly made up of people who are immature in faith and practice?  Who are in the middle and outer fringes of sacramental faith? What stance and practices does the priest need to take on that will serve the mission and care for the people? That will shape a people with “an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love you (God), and the gift of joy and wonder in all your (God’s) works.” What needs to be the initial experiences of people for whom adult Christian faith and practice is entry into a new way of life? Their yellow footprints? How is the priest as a person to live in the polarity of adaptation and integrity, identity, and integration? And how is the priest to best help the parish community manage itself when everything is vibrating, and all is in motion?

 rag+

 -----------

The yellow footprints

The speech

The recruit's intial experince would be something like this.

The drill instructor screams for them to get off his bus and onto the yellow footprints. The recruits rush off the bus and line up on the yellow footprints.

The Drill Instructor: "You are now a part of Marine Corps Recruit training. Starting now you will train as a team. The word 'I' will no longer be a part of your vocabulary. Do you understand?"

The recruits respond, "Yes sir!" 

The Drill Instructor: "Tens of thousands of Marines have begun their outstanding service to our country on the very footprints where you are standing. You will carry on their proud tradition, do you understand?"

"Yes sir!"