Tag Archives: Episcopal Church

Last Rites – Part I

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She was sitting in the waiting area. It wasn’t really a waiting room, just some chairs and a sofa arranged around a couple of end tables, in a corner of the hallway near the elevators. Jack sat in a chair near but not next to her. Her hair was messy, short, dyed blonde, a weary look on her face matched her rumpled clothes. There was enough disguise to maker her age hard to discern, but when she spoke to me, or rather spoke at me, her voice was low, her eyes averting direct contact, she sounded like a frightened forty-something, waiting in the not-a-real-waiting-room for God only knows how long or for what reason. “Hi Father”, she called out as I punched the elevator button to head out of this place and on to my next visit.
Jack, it turns out, is a Protestant.
She is Catholic, she tells me. And today I happen to be wearing a tab collar. I like the tabs most week days, easy to pull the tab out and be more comfortable when doing office work and to insert it back when out in public or meeting with people. This helps especially as my neck size for some reason continues to grow, straining my shirt collar button.
“Hi Father,” she says again, “do you do last rites? I am Catholic,” she reminds me, “are you?”, as I checked the status of the elevator. “No, I am Episcopal,” I offer with a shrug and a smile. “Jack is Protestant, I am Catholic”. Three times she has staked her denominational identity firmly in the ground before me, leaving poor Jack to some generic state of uncommitted, and probably unapproved, reformation bastard child of religion.
“Do you do last rites?”, she asks again. Evidently my non-Catholic state does not deter her one bit. I cuss the slowness of the elevator, recognizing this must be a very important question for her, while my mind projects my immediate to-do list – hospital visit across town, vestry meeting tonight to prepare for, a curve ball thrown at our stewardship program. I turn my back on the elevator, grimacing slightly as it pings its arrival, and walk toward this Catholic-Protestant couple, one of whom has last rites on her mind. I am of course drawn towards this question floating between us, posed by a complete stranger who, after all, is waiting. In a hospital.
It is about a dozen steps from the elevator lobby to where they have camped out. Plenty of time to think about the best way to respond. I note the scattering of books, styrofoam coffee cups, snack food, a sweater draped on the back of the chair she occupies. They’ve been here a while. Two steps in I am formulating an opening sentence, something like “well, we don’t really do ‘last rites’ and I don’t think the Catholics actually officially call it that any more. We do offer unction – prayers for the sick and anointing with oil.” Perhaps she is wondering about unction, or even “extreme” unction, for her loved one but only knows the traditional term. Last rites encompasses several things, typically, and I have done them for quite a few people who were near death or facing serious surgery. Confession and absolution, receiving communion (which can be challenging for the very ill, but we have ways around that. I have even given crumbs of bread and a bit of wine through a feeding tube for a twelve year old who had been in a non-responsive state for ten years), and unction are important rites for many and appropriate at such challenging times. All together they can make up “last rites”, important sacramental and pastoral acts, wrapped in prayer. I have done this for the comatose as well as the very conscious. So I assume this is what she is asking about, for someone she is close to, someone she will camp out in a corner of a hospital hall for, and now she sees an official of the church, a paid Christian, someone who might offer these comforting acts for her loved one. I feel a bit of shame that I had hoped to escape without interacting with her, and quickly ask God to forgive me. This takes two more steps.
As I cover the remaining ground between us, she begins to stand to greet me, hand outstretched, “thank you Father,” she offers even though I haven’t done a thing for her yet. I introduce myself, taking her hand. She nods toward her companion, “this is Jack” and I chuckle to myself as my mind says “he’s Protestant” at the same time she repeats the line. “I’m Doris.” I wait for her to tell me she’s Catholic, but perhaps she finally feels she has gotten that point across. I motion for her to sit while I think, “she doesn’t look like a Doris.”
It’s been a last rites, angel of death kind of year. Twice in the last six months I have walked into a parishioner’s room – one at home and one in hospice – to be present as they drew their last breath on this earth. In both cases I had been visiting more frequently as the time was obviously near, but still, walking into the room just as the last exhale was taking place was both startling and spirit filled. In both cases as the loved ones present grasped what had just happened and an attentive nurse confirmed with a stethoscope what they already knew in their hearts, they noticed me standing there, next to them. As we prayed for the soul just departed, they each had asked me, “who called you – how did you get here so fast?” And of course in each case no one had called, I just had a feeling I needed to go. In fact for one of these dear people I had moved up a visit by a few hours only because another appointment had been canceled.
God’s timing I suppose. Meanwhile, good ole Catholic Doris needs an answer to her question. Being the brilliant pastoral presence that I am, I quickly deduce a deep theological or sacramental explanation is not what she needs. “Yes, I do last rites. Tell me what’s going on. Who are you here with?”
I am a tad surprised by her answer. “My father is in room 312. He’s been her two weeks, congestive heart failure. But he’s doing a lot better, they think he will go home tomorrow.” “Better?” I ask, confused. “Yes, much better. They said he could go back to work in a week.”
Puzzled I ask, “so why last rites for him?” “Oh” she says with a chuckle, “they are not for him. They are for me.”

to be continued

Gnashing of Teeth

This Sunday Bishop Frade will be at St. Paul’s for Confirmations. I was so relieved to know this as I read the Scripture lessons for Sunday because he will have to struggle with the parable of the talents and the Master’s tough words for the one slave who simply buried his talent so that the harsh, cruel master wouldn’t be upset if he lost it (Matthew 25:14-30).

So there I was, giving thanks for dodging that bullet, when I was reminded I DO have to preach at our Saturday night service, DUH.

Sigh.

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I have, naturally, been thinking a lot lately about discernment and calling. Which makes sense in light of my current situation with this interim time winding down and the need to find what’s next, but also in the excitement and pride in my wife’s less-than-a-month-from-now graduation with her Pediatric Nurse Practioner masters degree.

All this has reminded me of the parable of the talents and of when I was the fearful one.

The fearful one. For so long I would not even entertain for a minute the idea of ordained ministry. It was too risky to consider. I was nowhere near good enough or smart enough and certainly not talented (pun intended) enough at important aspects of the ministry like, gasp, public speaking. After all I had a family to raise and support, three young children, I was moving up in my excellent job, no need to rock that boat. I had a litany of really good reasons to stay the course, to bury my “talent” so I wouldn’t lose it.

Then I was reminded of a real life example of listening to God and following the call God places on your heart, the calling St. Paul in Romans says is “irrevocable”.

In 1990 my beloved met me at the door when I came home from work with this simple, world changing statement: “I have decided to go to nursing school”. In other words she was saying, “I am investing my talent, not hiding it.”

Now if there was ever someone called (and gifted) by God to be a nurse, it’s my wife, Jennifer. She is a natural. And she also owned the fact she was terrified of one thing – school. Academics. She had accepted the lie that she couldn’t do well in school. Yet even with that very real, if irrational, fear, and with our two children (Joseph wasn’t around yet) only 5 and 3 years old, she took the risk, she stepped out on the high wire and didn’t look down, she answered the call she had felt for a long time.

And now, after a long journey and  good grades in some tough courses, after 20 years of being an amazing nurse, she is on the verge of her PNP degree.

I can say with no hesitation that without Jennifer’s very present and powerful example I never would have had the courage myself to take a risk and do the same – to dare to listen to God and the people God had put in my life to encourage me to step out in faith myself, to ignore my own self doubts as well as the wisdom of those who thought I had lost my mind.

Discernment is hard and holy work. Listening for a call is one of life’s real challenges. How do we determine it is God’s call, not our own ego? Am I really willing to step out into a big, challenging, scary, thrilling unknown….or do I bury what I have been given – GIVEN – and hope my master will be so pleased in me, pleased I took the safe route?

The gospel for Sunday says the master cast that one into the outer darkness, the one unwilling to risk is sent away, teeth gnashing to follow. My wife refused to bury her talent, not knowing at all where the road would take her. I am continuously amazed at how she not only faces her fears, she crushes them.

And because she has done so, the world has gained an amazing nurse and a soon to be incredible PNP and many lives are better because she answered her calling in the way she did. How many people can say that?

Jesus put these words into the master’s voice, “you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things, enter into the joy of your master.”

Enter into the joy.

Thanks Jen, for the living, breathing, walking, talking, high wire spanning reminder. I needed it so much.

 

So there it is,  the tightrope – swaying in the breeze. I can see it. It seems so high up. It makes my heart beat faster. Yet, I’ve been here before. Perhaps I don’t need this shovel after all…….

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Your prayers are welcomed.

Mrs. Barfield

It’s Breast Cancer Awareness month and the waiting room is packed. The pink ribbons the staff wear scream at us – this might be for you today. The irony is neither lost on us nor humorous. For every person in this room knows that on the other side of this wait there is joy or despair, relief or shock, release or fear.

The waiting room is decorated to calm, with faux wood floors and somebody-said-this-was-soothing paint colors. There are only a couple of other men here with their wives. People are fidgeting, tired, cranky, sick of waiting while also wishing this day would go away. There are quite a few older folk who have joined the ranks of the “I must yell into my cell phone in public” tribe, leading me to know far too much about their public lives. However, the entertainment value is pretty high.

My heart rate keeps climbing. You try to quell that inner voice of panic with “we’ve been down this road before and it was fine”, but the voice does not agree, reminding me “this is taking a lot longer than before” and “they asked for extra images” and “the doctor sent her over here IMMEDIATELY for scans”. So you wonder, because you know for almost every scary diagnosis people had sat in these chairs thinking it was nothing, it’s not ME, it’s not US.

She is still back there. They won’t let me go back. The news from the back has been delivered to me in more and more panic filled text messages. “They sent me back in for more images”. I know her so well, I can hear her voice crack and her eyes fill.

It is of course not all about me, unlike it is for the fellow in the chair next to me. Tom so far has chewed his wife out twice because “this is taking too long”. He grumbles and sighs, she is pleasant and reassuring, this appears to be a dance they both know well. Finally, in a sweet voice she tells him to just go on back to work if he needs to so bad. Tom snaps back, “what I NEED is a nap!” In my mind I promptly awarded him Mr. Compassion 2014. Maybe his sash should be pink.

They call Mrs. Barfield, loud talker supreme. Her moans just for the effort to stand are on an equal decibel level with her phone conversations. She is alone. I feel sorry for her as she finally rises and begins to shuffle her way to the back. THE BACK. Her cell rings again, evidently Joe is somewhere, parking, and can just wait in the car.

So I pray, fervently, for good news. Not just for my wife but for Mrs. Barfield and for Mrs. Married the Wrong Guy and for women everywhere who this day hear the words they never thought they would hear.

Not too long after she ambled to the back, Mrs. Barfield returns, walking a bit more spry. She announces to the few of us still in the waiting room in our chairs of impending doom, “well glad that’s over!” She shuffles slowly to the door, smiling broadly. I am happy for her. I hope Joe is nearby.

Our news, at last, is delivered in person by the radiologist. Everything is ok. Prayers are offered in thanksgiving and for all those whom the pink ribbons mean so much.

 

Taking my talents to south Beach….or near there…(and yes this is tongue-in-cheek)

One week. In one week I hit the road for beautiful Delray Beach, Florida where I begin my time as Interim Rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church.

The last few weeks have been wild. We accepted the call and then had to let some other folks know we would not continue to discern with them. That was really hard. Jen and I spent a week at the beach with Brayden, what a great time. It is very hard to know we won’t see him as often but he will always be part of our lives and we will see him as much as we can.

I will remain canonically resident in the Diocese of Mississippi, which makes me happy. My first week in Delray coincides with Clergy Conference in the Diocese of SE Florida, and it’s in Delray, so I look forward to meeting new clergy friends right off the bat. As President of the Standing Committee, I’ve been wrapping things up in that arena and especially dealing with the Bishop Search progress while preparing to hand all that off to the S.C. soon. On August 15th the clergy of the Diocese met to discuss our hopes and dreams for our next Bishop, and I was very glad to attend and say some goodbyes. I love this Diocese and feel so supported and loved by my fellow clergy. It’s a special place for sure. Missing THAT Clergy Conference is not something I want to talk about!

Last week Jen and I traveled to Delray and looked at lots of potential places to rent, but have not decided yet. It’s difficult. We thankfully have been offered a place to stay until mid-October, so we have a little time to make a decision. Pray for us!

We returned Wednesday night and then on Thursday went to our daughter, Mackenzie’s house that she and husband Wynne had bought a few months ago. Kenzie had asked me to bless the house before we left, so I dutifully printed off some house blessing handouts, and with stole in hand, we walked in her door only to find a surprise going away party with many of our long-time Jackson friends from the old neighborhood we lived in before leaving for seminary in 1999. It was a great surprise and really wonderful.

I spent yesterday at what will most likely be my final in-person Standing Committee meeting and tomorrow we go to Hattiesburg where my family (3 of my brothers and their families and my parents) will gather for another goodbye. This is HARD and exciting.

So the plan is for me to drive down on Friday so I can be at services over the weekend (the church has one on Saturday and four on Sunday). Jennifer will join me once we have a place to live and are ready to move our stuff, I will come back for the move of course.

Delray is lovely and the church is awesome. It’s a long way but we hope and expect lots of visitors! Your prayers are always welcome. And many of my St. James’ friends asked me to keep this blog up to date so expect more frequent posts over the next year or so. Speaking of St. James’ – I really miss all of you guys!

And Mississippi folks – I will be at Annual Council and have another gig (that I cannot announce yet) in January that is a real honor to participate in. More when I can say more!

Come on down to sunny South Florida! We would love to see you. Until then – Peace and God Bless.

David+

 

It’s Camp…one last time

Well another fabulous week at Camp Bratton-Green is wrapping up. It’s been very special with my daughter, Chelsea, as my co-director. We’ve had a blast! Of course my LW is my camp nurse, our special buddy Brayden is a staff brat. Really, really missed having son Joseph on staff (he is in summer school) and daughter Mackenzie (just started a new job). Camp for us is usually a family affair and they were definitely missed.
With my next job outside of the Diocese of MS (no, I don’t have one yet, just know it will be out of state), this is my last year as a camp director. It’s truly one of my most favorite things I get the honor of doing every year. Hopefully I can still come back to CBG in some capacity over the years. It’s such a special place.
What makes it special, for me, is the staff. I have 22 volunteer counselors, from 10th grade to college age. 8 adult cabin parents. And a very talented permanent staff. Every year they amaze me and challenge me and teach me and inspire me.
Camp is instant community with all that entails. 110 kids plus staff come together, many not knowing each other. Cabins figure it out, some better than others. We have the usual assortment of kids trying to figure out their place, those who are ultra comfortable here, those who miss home (at first) and then don’t want to leave. It’s a microcosm of life and it’s beautiful and fun and a struggle and a joy.
It’s camp. We get messy (I got thrown in the mud pit yesterday where the kids piled on and then dunked with ice and water twice at lunch, for starters), we play some great games, the permies run fantastic activity periods in the lake, the pool, arts and crafts, rope course, music and nature. It’s God and creation, it’s hot and tiring, it’s ghost stories and singing, it’s prayer and it’s camp.
It’s camp. And I will miss it.