Folks at St. Patrick’s are certainly familiar with Bishop John Howard of the Diocese of Florida. Bishop Howard led his diocese to contribute almost $500,000 in the rebuilding of St. Patrick’s following Katrina (and our youth space is named the “Florida Room” in honor of their help), and has visited us on a couple of occasions and remains in contact with us.

What you may not know is Bishop Howard was Vicar of Trinity Episcopal Church on Wall Street in New York City (very near the Twin Towers) when 9/11 took place. Below are his reflections on that time and what has transpired since. He says it far better than I can, and I believe you will see some echos of our own Katrina experience in the words of grief and hope he shares. Thank you Bishop for all you do for us and for the people of God in Florida and elsewhere!

      All of that changed on September 11, 2001.  That day began with blue skies and great promise. That day began with the belief that the Twin Towers would be a direction-giving constant in our lives.  But it ended with the discovery that our old assumptions were no longer valid and that those immutable points of reference which we had previously trusted were no longer there.

      Looking back now, ten years later, I recognize the deeply emotional and spiritual significance of that day:  We lived through a surprise attack on our homes, churches and neighborhood.  We witnessed planes being used as high explosives causing the deaths of thousands.  We saw all around us the collapse of those buildings which we had relied upon for direction and also we felt – within ourselves – a sort of emotional and spiritual collapse.

      My memories of 9-11 and of the months that followed revolve around just this spiritual collapse.  I saw it all around me.  I felt it myself:  The sense of being divided, fractured, pulled in a dozen different directions, torn to pieces, and longing ever so deeply for wholeness, serenity, a re-integration of body and soul.  As a boy growing up in eastern North Carolina, I used to hear folks talk ‘about so-and-so “going to pieces” as they disintegrated emotionally and spiritually.  The events of ten years ago gave me a new appreciation for that home-spun theological insight.

      The twin towers were gone.  Thousands had been killed.  There, in their place, lay what became, for me, the very symbol of spiritual need, of a city, a nation, and a society that had been torn to pieces.

      But that was not to be the end of the story.

      For as days and weeks went by, there, in and among the debris, the dust, and chaos of that site several recognizable forms began to take shape.  Just barely high enough to be seen from street level but clearly visible from the windows of higher buildings nearby, stark and irregular outlines of large steel crosses began to appear…crosses towering above the place of death, above the wreckage, above the events which had torn so many of us to pieces.

“In the cross of Christ I glory, towering o’er the wrecks of time;

all the light of sacred story gathers round its head sublime.”
–John Bowring, The Hymnal 1982, number 441

It’s that time again. August 29th, a day none of us around here will ever forget of course. The news has a few items on the anniversary, Facebook statuses of coast folks seem to mention it – usually in the light of thanksgiving and how far we’ve come.

There are days when that seems so true, and days (especially when EVERY street you try to drive down is blocked, torn up, or reduced to gravel due to the never ending infrastructure work) when it seems we haven’t come all that far. I rode my bike yesterday from my house in Pass Christian, over the Bay Bridge, and around in Bay St. Louis some, then on the way back through Pass Christian Isles and Timber Ridge. It is the usual mix of newly built replacement homes and empty lots, still. But the bridge is real nice and I certainly could not have ridden my bike over the old one without risking my life (much less getting stopped for a boat since it use to be a draw bridge).

New government offices are complete almost everywhere, but residential stuff on the beach is still lacking greatly. Insurance will keep many from ever rebuilding there.

Watching the flooding in the Northeast from Irene (and can they really stop calling Category 1 hurricanes “major storms”?) is painful – water is so powerful and I hated seeing the homes and bridges torn apart. It hits too close to home still. When the tsunami hit Japan, after a day or so I just couldn’t watch those images any more, I kept superimposing my friends’ and parishioners’ houses over those pictures in my mind, as well as the church, getting swept away like they were nothing and remembering how much pain so many people were in (and in some cases still are) from that.

We are taught that it is good to recognize anniversaries – it helps with the grieving process I suppose. I am not sure I agree. Of course we can’t just sit on our pain, squash it down where it doesn’t show up – because it always shows up anyway, often in unexpected ways. But this Parish seems to want to not talk about it, corporately, and I honor that from them, and I understand it. So we said a couple of special prayers on Sunday and did not linger there too long. Mostly our prayers are those of blessing and thanksgiving as people who have received so much help since that horrible day.

No doubt we have come a long way. The scars remain, and, while painful,
they serve also as reminders of God’s blessings and the hope brought to us by so many. They also remind us, if we let them, of our own resiliency and hard work. None of this has been easy, so we can absolutely celebrate at least that, and give thanks as well. The people of the Gulf Coast of Mississippi continue to rise from the devastation of the worst natural disaster in our nation’s history. I am proud of you all.

***Written last week on my silent retreat***

The retreat is almost over. It is late Thursday night and I have to check out after breakfast. My flight home is not until Friday evening, so I will stay here through lunch I think.

Tonight at Vespers and again at Compline I had an overwhelming feeling of love and gratitude towards the brothers. They have given up so much to follow this special calling. This Abbey is a Cistercian Order of Special Obligation (OSCO), they follow a very strict rule of life that includes giving up all worldly possessions, commitment to silence most of the time, of course their daily prayer, hard labor, celibacy and the like. Thomas Merton is the most famous of those monks who have lived in this Abbey, but it is a world wide order with numerous monasteries.

As previously noted we listen to taped presentations by Merton during lunch and dinner. It is a series of lectures he gave to men interested in joining the order and shines a lot of insight into the way of life, the commitment to change, silence, prayer, etc. At one time over 200 monks resided here at Gethsemani, there are about 40 now I believe. Religious orders have seen a large decline in numbers the last couple of  decades and that’s a shame. We need them. We need folks whose special calling is such a commitment to prayer, silence, work as theirs. I love them for it, for this place of respite and retreat they open up to the world, for their witness to faith and prayer. it is a charism – a gift – from God through the Holy Spirit and I am grateful they realized that gift and answered the call.

Watching them and thinking about their calling has marched in tune with my reflection on my ordination vows and the prayer of a new Rector. Coupled with Father Damien’s talks on learning to live God’s will, I have been praying over two passages from the Gospel of John that I hope will help shape the years of ministry I have left (which I hope are many!).

John 3:29-30 – John the Baptist is talking about Jesus. His disciples are arguing about Jesus’ baptizing others. John reminds them that he is but the one sent before the Messiah, he is the best man to the bridegroom Christ. “So this joy of mine has been made complete. He must increase;  I must decrease.”

John 15:1-17 Again those words “joy is complete” are used, this time spoken by Jesus who tells us that He is the vine, we are the branches. We must remain in him in order to bear fruit, because “without me you can do nothing”….” I have told you this so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete”.

John and Jesus, both saying that we have to GET OUT OF THE WAY and let Jesus be Jesus, let God be God, and if we can do so, if we, our ego, our pride, can decrease and let Jesus increase, then our joy will be complete! That’s a pretty big deal I think. Don’t you want your joy to be complete? Father Damien’s talks were similar, living in God’s will starts with removing our own will – he even says “doing” the will of God is wrong, it’s another thing to check off the list, another thing I can do myself, vs. living in God’s will where we have a very different way of seeing things and allow God to be in charge. Merton described how important and difficult the process was in becoming a true monk because you have to have a strong ego to even attempt it, and it is that strong ego that must be defeated to have the “conversion of manners” he speaks about as the goal for all monastics.

All these things have come to a head for me this week. I must decrease so He can increase. It means spending much more time in prayer and study vs. administrative tasks, it means adopting a much more humble nature, it means being so attuned to the Holy Spirit as to recognize Christ in everyone and everything. And it means beginning each day in prayer that asks Christ to be in charge, for without Jesus I can do nothing. I know I want my joy to be complete.

***Written last week during my silent retreat ***

One of the aspects of writing about events in one’s life is the dredging up of difficult memories. I do not know the way the Rev. Bill Livingston addressed journaling and ambiguous loss with the St. Patrick’s flock at his workshop, although I am sure it was brilliant! In fact the one negative to this whole sabbatical time was being unable MYSELF to attend the workshops we offered by three incredible people.

As I have done some writing on our shared experiences (as well as writing about a LOT of other things in my life), I began reliving some of the mistakes I have made as the Rector of St. Patrick’s. The Katrina experience certainly taught us a lot, in the early days and since, on failure – trying things and if they don’t work, trying other things. I am not talking about that. Instead I am talking about the ways I may have let people down, not been present for them (or not present in the right way) due to the many challenging commitments I was trying to satisfy, spending perhaps too much time in the eyes of some at Camp Coast Care, or not enough in the eyes of others. I am sure in those days I was short with people, failed to listen attentively, failed to follow up pastorally, or just plain failed as their Priest. This grieves me. So….if you are one of those folks, I do hope and pray you have long since found it in your heart to forgive me. If not, I hope and pray you will commit to doing so.

Forgiveness is a two way street, of course. At each prayer office we say the Lord’s Prayer. The very heart of this prayer which Jesus taught the disciples in response to them asking Him to teach them to pray, is forgiveness. It’s a conditional prayer, I hope we all see that. “Forgive us our trespasses (sins) AS WE FORGVE those who trespass (sin) against us.” We are asking for forgiveness, and Jesus says it is ours to have, as long as we practice forgiveness ourselves. Our Lord is teaching us a very important thing about our own spiritual, and often, physical well being. When we harbor grudges, when we are unable to forgive, it impacts US, not necessarily the person who trespasses against us. They may not even know they did something, or they may not even care – this is not the point. Jesus doesn’t teach us to forgive others as long as they accept our forgiveness – the onus is on us, pun intended, to forgive so that God will also forgive us.

Priests are human too. Undoubtedly I have hurt feelings, disappointed folks, angered some, puzzled others. In all those things, I ask your forgiveness.

And I offer my forgiveness also up to God. In revisiting some of the post-Katrina madness, it brought to the surface some of my own old wounds, where I was treated poorly or even meanly. In my heart of hearts, I truly forgive those who “trespassed against me”. I release any grudges or ill will, I harbor no resentment nor will I keep bad feelings in my heart towards anyone, even if sometimes it feels better to do so. For the book of Hebrews warns us against such, saying allowing a bitter root to grow within us will do us much harm. Will do US much harm.

Forgive me. I forgive also. Let us be about the practice of forgiveness. This practice does not, at all, imply we allow ourselves to be abused or mistreated. It does say we must work towards a place where we can forgive while at the same time not allowing such behavior, not supporting it in any way. Forgiveness doesn’t do that, but it does free us to be God’s children, knowing we too are forgiven.

Thanks to M. Basil Pennington who got me thinking about all this while reading one of his books.

*** Written last week on my Silent Retreat ***

As previously noted they do a real good job here enforcing the silence aspect of retreats. Signs are posted EVERYWHERE silence is to be maintained – hallways, rooms, walkways, every table in the dining room has a small “Silence is Spoken Here” reminder. As I am now in my 2nd full day of silence, it has become more profound and meaningful. One of the Thomas Merton tapes we heard at lunch Merton addressed the silence, saying being in silence helps remind us of the poor ways we often use words – to wound, to gossip, to talk about people behind their back. Being in silence can help us remember to control that most lethal of all weapons, our tongues, and to use our voices to lift others up, to serve others, to worship and praise God.

They have a beautiful new Visitors Center here. They evidently get a lot of folks who just drop in to see the place. At lunch, as we eat in silence, we gaze out the window into the gardens and often see these tourists walking along. Despite signs warning them otherwise, some just cannot help but to speak – we can’t hear them but we can see them, and it is disturbing for some reason. Today at lunch two retreat goers were actually talking in the garden, sitting RIGHT NEXT TO a “No Talking in the garden” sign. It was almost comical. What we fell to realize is how far voices carry when no one else is talking. Other guests were strolling up a hill nearby and the conversation of these two obviously disturbed their thoughts or prayers and they shushed them as they walked by.

After lunch I spent some time in the garden. They have several bird feeders and a hummingbird feeder and all are frequented. Sitting in the garden you really can hear the various calls, tweets, caws, hoots, buzzes, flapping, and fretting of winged creatures, both bird and insect. I actually saw a chipmonk, climbing the wall 10 feet away from em. I don’t think I have ever seen one up close, other than on a Disney cartoon! He/she was very cute. It’s quite lovely in the garden.

As I sat there, I heard voices and saw a group of tourists walking through the gravestones near the entrance, just yapping away like they were at a tea party. They didn’t stop until they got closer to the garden and I suppose noticed the signs. It was jarring in a way that was really disturbing. It also made me remember we need to figure out a way for some pre-worship and during-worship silence at St. Patrick’s. People need silence, we all do, and we all need to learn to be comfortable with it.

It was actually cool in the garden (it’s been very hot here), overcast skies helped a lot. But then we heard thunder and the rain came, a brief shower that sent me inside until after the None service.

It has been interesting to hear how some folks react to the concept of a silent retreat. High extroverts, like my wife, think it a torture similar to water boarding. Other, more introverted folks like my friend Dick in Florida, get a look on their face of longing and need. I believe even the extroverts can learn to love a time apart, in silence, just your own thoughts and prayers, nature, books, God. The noise of the world blocks our intimacy with God at times and it is good to come away and reconnect. And it’s not like you never hear a human voice, or use yours, with 8 services a day there is plenty of opportunity to listen and to join in.

I like the silent language we use to each other when opening doors or holding elevators, helping with a dinner tray or a worship booklet. For some reason it seems more kind, more caring, more intentional. Or maybe I’ve been here too long already! Anyway, I am enjoying the silence.