From the Rector
We are having a Sunday Afternoon with Mozart on Sunday, May 14, the third of three magnificent concerts organized by the Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County and offered by the Solstice Ensemble, the splendid chamber ensemble guided by Jim and Laurie Stubbs. The concerts are benefitting a number of projects of the Ethical Cuture Society as well as the day laborer outreach we have begun.
These concerts demonstrate the capability of our building to serve as a small concert or recital hall. They express something of our growing mission and outreach to the arts community in and around Teaneck, "the far west side of Manhattan." I am grateful for the way in which God is giving us opportunities to support and encourage the arts, which are essential to human life.
The concerts are also a sign of another dimension of life at St. Mark's: radical hospitality. What an advantage we have in becoming increasingly clear that hospitality and openness is our first priority.
The Mozart concerts were originally planned to have been at the Ethical Culture Society building but had to be moved due to a scheduling problem. We immediately welcomed the events to St. Mark's. In so doing we are advancing the arts, people in our community, our connection with a range of good work emanating from the local faith community, and we are revealing and experiencing God's openness to all of humanity, as Jesus Christ reveals God's unrestrained love to us.
There are so many ways in which God desires to and does enrich the life of the world as we respond quickly and positively to the openings that are presented to us. As the Mozart concerts strongly reflect, often the result is truly beautiful.
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Serving Day Laborers, Expanding our Diversity
From the Rector
For quite a few months we have been serving a group of day laborers who gather in Bergenfield. About 50 men of Latin American origin gather in the site each day.
We have been serving them through providing necessities and companionship in a once-a-week visit on Wednesdays. Many times they have not had basic resources for living and working. We have supplied safety items like dust masks, eye protection, and goggles as well as cold weather items like knit caps, warm gloves, sweatshirts, and jackets. Most days we take some basic portable nutrition like fruit, snack bars, string cheese, or nuts.
In June we will start to offer English as a Second Language (ESL) classes and a simple meal twice a week. Learning English has been the highest priority for the workers (after having more work).
In the months we have been building relationships in this day laborer community we have found the men to be extremely pleasant, intelligent, motivated, insightful, and faithful. Most of them are deeply pious Christians and they have responded enthusiastically to a few special prayer and sacrament times that we have offered on major days like the Epiphany and Ash Wednesday. We have benefitted enormously from the ways in which the day laborers have enriched our lives with their stories, experiences, and personalities.
As we move into a new phase, with English classes and hospitality, we can recognize that St. Mark's is being offered not only this valuable opportunity to serve, to do what Christ mandated we should do: "love one another as I have loved you," but we are being presented with a chance to grow and to expand the range of our diversity. God is very generous to us and the presence of the day laborers in our mission is another strong sign of the way in which God abundantly gives us all we need.
For quite a few months we have been serving a group of day laborers who gather in Bergenfield. About 50 men of Latin American origin gather in the site each day.
We have been serving them through providing necessities and companionship in a once-a-week visit on Wednesdays. Many times they have not had basic resources for living and working. We have supplied safety items like dust masks, eye protection, and goggles as well as cold weather items like knit caps, warm gloves, sweatshirts, and jackets. Most days we take some basic portable nutrition like fruit, snack bars, string cheese, or nuts.
In June we will start to offer English as a Second Language (ESL) classes and a simple meal twice a week. Learning English has been the highest priority for the workers (after having more work).
In the months we have been building relationships in this day laborer community we have found the men to be extremely pleasant, intelligent, motivated, insightful, and faithful. Most of them are deeply pious Christians and they have responded enthusiastically to a few special prayer and sacrament times that we have offered on major days like the Epiphany and Ash Wednesday. We have benefitted enormously from the ways in which the day laborers have enriched our lives with their stories, experiences, and personalities.
As we move into a new phase, with English classes and hospitality, we can recognize that St. Mark's is being offered not only this valuable opportunity to serve, to do what Christ mandated we should do: "love one another as I have loved you," but we are being presented with a chance to grow and to expand the range of our diversity. God is very generous to us and the presence of the day laborers in our mission is another strong sign of the way in which God abundantly gives us all we need.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
St. Mark's and the Township Council
From the Rector
Since January I have been serving on the Teaneck Town Council, appointed to fill a seat of a Councilmember who made controversial statements about our Fire Department in an ongoing season of conflict in our municipal life. My term ends June 30.
I have found work as a Councilmember to be very similar to work I do at St. Mark's and in the Diocese. The skills are much the same. It has been an intense experience: jumping in and having to be immediately effective in a demanding and fraught time. I commented to a friend that serving at this time is a bit like a graduate-level practicum in handling conflict.
I agreed to serve on the Council for a number of reasons. The first was to serve the community. I see it as similar to serving the homeless, the hungry, the day laborers, the refugees, the young people who come for tutoring, and so many others who seek response and hospitality from our faith community. It isn't exactly this, but it is something like an extended pastoral call on the Township government. In any case, it is definitely ministry.
I also felt it a way to grow in leadership in order to serve St. Mark's and the wider church more effectively. It has been a way of putting my leadership insights and practices into the fire, to test and temper them. This has been a very trying time - the sort of thing that creates new strengths and pulls all of one's gifts and inner resources to the front.
During the time of my service we have settled a complex of law suits for 2.3 million dollars, had an investigative task force that issued a public report to try to improve employee relationships, faced employees and township residents who are struggling with an array of real issues and concerns, worked on the problem of an $80+M school budget defeat that now becomes a Council decision, and worked with the whole array of matters related to facilities, development, and planning. I was glad to be on the Council when we finalized the purchase of and setting up an Advisory Board for an historic burial ground threatened with development, a place where people of Native American, African, and European ancestry were all buried. I've met a tremendous number of fascinating and gifted people who live in our community and who serve this very diverse town.
I am clearer than ever on the central role of leadership in the health of an organization. I have found myself tested. I have had to be strong, clear, to think deeply (and quickly! and a lot!). There's also been a need for perseverance: the time demands have been extreme - especially considering so much else is also demanding (expanding ministry at St. Mark's, Bishop Nominating, Commission on Ministry, new programs with Holy Name Hospital, my doctoral work, to name a few).
I hope I have represented St. Mark's well and that people will understand St. Mark's as a faith community that connects to, ventures into, and serves the real world. I have made controversial decisions that I hope will in no way hurt this faith community, but that were necessary in order to not represent us as weak, vascillating, or of no real practical value (namby pamby Christians). I'm sure there are some things to regret - they will be more plain as time goes along, no doubt.
Overall, this ministry has been highly rewarding and one that I pray will continue to bring forth gifts for the future of St. Mark's and will help shape the overall direction of ordained ministry in my life in the church. I am grateful for the opportunity to serve and for being given the grace to respond to it.
Since January I have been serving on the Teaneck Town Council, appointed to fill a seat of a Councilmember who made controversial statements about our Fire Department in an ongoing season of conflict in our municipal life. My term ends June 30.
I have found work as a Councilmember to be very similar to work I do at St. Mark's and in the Diocese. The skills are much the same. It has been an intense experience: jumping in and having to be immediately effective in a demanding and fraught time. I commented to a friend that serving at this time is a bit like a graduate-level practicum in handling conflict.
I agreed to serve on the Council for a number of reasons. The first was to serve the community. I see it as similar to serving the homeless, the hungry, the day laborers, the refugees, the young people who come for tutoring, and so many others who seek response and hospitality from our faith community. It isn't exactly this, but it is something like an extended pastoral call on the Township government. In any case, it is definitely ministry.
I also felt it a way to grow in leadership in order to serve St. Mark's and the wider church more effectively. It has been a way of putting my leadership insights and practices into the fire, to test and temper them. This has been a very trying time - the sort of thing that creates new strengths and pulls all of one's gifts and inner resources to the front.
During the time of my service we have settled a complex of law suits for 2.3 million dollars, had an investigative task force that issued a public report to try to improve employee relationships, faced employees and township residents who are struggling with an array of real issues and concerns, worked on the problem of an $80+M school budget defeat that now becomes a Council decision, and worked with the whole array of matters related to facilities, development, and planning. I was glad to be on the Council when we finalized the purchase of and setting up an Advisory Board for an historic burial ground threatened with development, a place where people of Native American, African, and European ancestry were all buried. I've met a tremendous number of fascinating and gifted people who live in our community and who serve this very diverse town.
I am clearer than ever on the central role of leadership in the health of an organization. I have found myself tested. I have had to be strong, clear, to think deeply (and quickly! and a lot!). There's also been a need for perseverance: the time demands have been extreme - especially considering so much else is also demanding (expanding ministry at St. Mark's, Bishop Nominating, Commission on Ministry, new programs with Holy Name Hospital, my doctoral work, to name a few).
I hope I have represented St. Mark's well and that people will understand St. Mark's as a faith community that connects to, ventures into, and serves the real world. I have made controversial decisions that I hope will in no way hurt this faith community, but that were necessary in order to not represent us as weak, vascillating, or of no real practical value (namby pamby Christians). I'm sure there are some things to regret - they will be more plain as time goes along, no doubt.
Overall, this ministry has been highly rewarding and one that I pray will continue to bring forth gifts for the future of St. Mark's and will help shape the overall direction of ordained ministry in my life in the church. I am grateful for the opportunity to serve and for being given the grace to respond to it.
Friday, December 16, 2005
Twenty Years of Ordained Life
From the Rector
I was ordained in the third week of Advent in 1985, on a Thursday evening.
As is often the case looking back, years seem to have flown. At the same time, I know very deeply how transformative these years have been.
On one hand, life continues to be ordinary, human - with my chief distinctive identification being as one of the baptized - a sharer in Christ's priesthood with the whole body of the faithful. Especially as I understand the calling of the Church to be in the world, I do not hold myself aloof from everyday life and culture.
At the same time, I know that in all contexts, I am a priest - that I have a particular calling and reason for being. I don't have a sense of "owning" this form of ministry or in any sense mastering it. It has simply come to me as an expression of the community of faith, by the leading of the Holy Spirit, and as a revelation of who I am - including the generations that have gone before me and my particular experiences.
I realized early on (by grace) that I needed to accept the priesthood that had come to me - to allow it life despite any reservations or insecurities (of which I could have many, though they would have only undermined others and me were I to have entertained them anything but fleetingly).
If it were not true, it would be a cliche to say that I am most at home presiding at the Eucharist, particularly leading the sacramental prayer of the community at the altar. It has been a profound gift to have been given this opportunity - a life-changing experience that has been both demanding and fulfilling at once.
My life has been turned more and more outward year by year.
There is a psychological inventory called the MBTI (Myer-Briggs Typology Indicator) that notes, among other things, one's level of introversion (tendency to draw energy from an inner world of thoughts, feelings, and reflections requiring substantial time alone) and one's level of extroversion (tendency to engage the things, people, places and activities going on in the outside world for one's life force, rarely feeling drained by interaction with the outside world and other people).
When I was in seminary more than 20 years ago I was in a balance between introversion and extroversion on the MBTI. Recently, I did the inventory again and am decidedly extoverted. In reflection, I feel I have been drawn into extoversion by the ministry of priesthood - identifying my work and life as being for others. My focus is necessarily beyond myself to what God is doing in the world and to what God desires for others in any given situation (mundane or substantial).
I realize that it is in living out a ministry of priesthood that God has continued to convert me in Christ. Conversion for all people is a life-long process of growing more and more into who Christ is and who Christ desires to be in the world.
At this 20-year mark, I am aware that this conversion is meant to continue in new ways . . . This is not a startling revelation, but I cannot be complacent or settled, a tendency that seems typical of the human condition. God is a constantly changing and renewing Being (Source of all that is) and calls us into this persistently active process of growth and movement. Much as any of us may wish, we simply do not "arrive" at a final point. In God's life, there is always more; the journey continues.
I am grateful for a very full and rich life. I am thankful that I can die tomorrow knowing how substantially I have been able to live, by God's grace.
My friend Nancy Cox says a priest should always be ready to preach, pray, and die. At this anniversary (and it has taken all this time), I think I am ready.
Thanks be to God.
I was ordained in the third week of Advent in 1985, on a Thursday evening.
As is often the case looking back, years seem to have flown. At the same time, I know very deeply how transformative these years have been.
On one hand, life continues to be ordinary, human - with my chief distinctive identification being as one of the baptized - a sharer in Christ's priesthood with the whole body of the faithful. Especially as I understand the calling of the Church to be in the world, I do not hold myself aloof from everyday life and culture.
At the same time, I know that in all contexts, I am a priest - that I have a particular calling and reason for being. I don't have a sense of "owning" this form of ministry or in any sense mastering it. It has simply come to me as an expression of the community of faith, by the leading of the Holy Spirit, and as a revelation of who I am - including the generations that have gone before me and my particular experiences.
I realized early on (by grace) that I needed to accept the priesthood that had come to me - to allow it life despite any reservations or insecurities (of which I could have many, though they would have only undermined others and me were I to have entertained them anything but fleetingly).
If it were not true, it would be a cliche to say that I am most at home presiding at the Eucharist, particularly leading the sacramental prayer of the community at the altar. It has been a profound gift to have been given this opportunity - a life-changing experience that has been both demanding and fulfilling at once.
My life has been turned more and more outward year by year.
There is a psychological inventory called the MBTI (Myer-Briggs Typology Indicator) that notes, among other things, one's level of introversion (tendency to draw energy from an inner world of thoughts, feelings, and reflections requiring substantial time alone) and one's level of extroversion (tendency to engage the things, people, places and activities going on in the outside world for one's life force, rarely feeling drained by interaction with the outside world and other people).
When I was in seminary more than 20 years ago I was in a balance between introversion and extroversion on the MBTI. Recently, I did the inventory again and am decidedly extoverted. In reflection, I feel I have been drawn into extoversion by the ministry of priesthood - identifying my work and life as being for others. My focus is necessarily beyond myself to what God is doing in the world and to what God desires for others in any given situation (mundane or substantial).
I realize that it is in living out a ministry of priesthood that God has continued to convert me in Christ. Conversion for all people is a life-long process of growing more and more into who Christ is and who Christ desires to be in the world.
At this 20-year mark, I am aware that this conversion is meant to continue in new ways . . . This is not a startling revelation, but I cannot be complacent or settled, a tendency that seems typical of the human condition. God is a constantly changing and renewing Being (Source of all that is) and calls us into this persistently active process of growth and movement. Much as any of us may wish, we simply do not "arrive" at a final point. In God's life, there is always more; the journey continues.
I am grateful for a very full and rich life. I am thankful that I can die tomorrow knowing how substantially I have been able to live, by God's grace.
My friend Nancy Cox says a priest should always be ready to preach, pray, and die. At this anniversary (and it has taken all this time), I think I am ready.
Thanks be to God.
An Advent Retreat
From the Rector
Sunday through Wednesday this week I participated in an Advent retreat at Washington National Cathedral. Called Christ-Dayspring of Wisdom, it was led by our Presiding Bishop, the Most Rev. Frank Tracy Griswold, and two of the canons (assistant clergy) of the Cathedral.
The event allowed me to connect two significant strains of my 20 year journey of ordained life. I was ordained by Bishop Griswold in the Diocese of Chicago and initially served there. For nine years I was in Washington working for Canterbury Cathedral (in England) and serving at Washington National Cathedral. The retreat allowed me an opportunity to consolidate experiences and to reflect on where I am and, to a small extent, where I am going.
With the release of the Profile of the Diocese of Newark last Thursday, the retreat was exceptionally well-timed. I can't really claim superior planning as I had committed to the retreat long before I knew when the Profile would be completed. But that's God for you. I had a good and much-needed opportunity to slow my pace and refocus after a very demanding experience co-chairing the small committee writing that document.
I was grateful for being able to re-connect with a small circle of people who mean so much to me from my Washington days - people with whom my spirit strongly resonates. When I left Washington I really said "good-bye" in order to be fully in my new place - but I realize that at least a few relationships have persisted in being important and lively; I'm grateful for that awareness and the opportunity to re-establish conversation. Aren't the best relationships often the ones you can pick up where you left off - even after years?
Bishop Griswold's retreat addresses were rich and powerful. He constantly urges listeners to embrace God's authentic presence in the world unveiled - and points to relationship with God in times of both joy and stuggle (consolation and desolation are the "technical" terms). Who can know where God will lead? We can discover the path only in giving ourselves to God wholly - and then actively engaging the journey in faith, by God's surprising grace.
Soon I was back at St. Mark's sprinkling ice-melt on the sidewalks for our Thursday evening meetings as the sleet and freezing rain began. The mundane never waits - but is never the whole story.
Sunday through Wednesday this week I participated in an Advent retreat at Washington National Cathedral. Called Christ-Dayspring of Wisdom, it was led by our Presiding Bishop, the Most Rev. Frank Tracy Griswold, and two of the canons (assistant clergy) of the Cathedral.
The event allowed me to connect two significant strains of my 20 year journey of ordained life. I was ordained by Bishop Griswold in the Diocese of Chicago and initially served there. For nine years I was in Washington working for Canterbury Cathedral (in England) and serving at Washington National Cathedral. The retreat allowed me an opportunity to consolidate experiences and to reflect on where I am and, to a small extent, where I am going.
With the release of the Profile of the Diocese of Newark last Thursday, the retreat was exceptionally well-timed. I can't really claim superior planning as I had committed to the retreat long before I knew when the Profile would be completed. But that's God for you. I had a good and much-needed opportunity to slow my pace and refocus after a very demanding experience co-chairing the small committee writing that document.
I was grateful for being able to re-connect with a small circle of people who mean so much to me from my Washington days - people with whom my spirit strongly resonates. When I left Washington I really said "good-bye" in order to be fully in my new place - but I realize that at least a few relationships have persisted in being important and lively; I'm grateful for that awareness and the opportunity to re-establish conversation. Aren't the best relationships often the ones you can pick up where you left off - even after years?
Bishop Griswold's retreat addresses were rich and powerful. He constantly urges listeners to embrace God's authentic presence in the world unveiled - and points to relationship with God in times of both joy and stuggle (consolation and desolation are the "technical" terms). Who can know where God will lead? We can discover the path only in giving ourselves to God wholly - and then actively engaging the journey in faith, by God's surprising grace.
Soon I was back at St. Mark's sprinkling ice-melt on the sidewalks for our Thursday evening meetings as the sleet and freezing rain began. The mundane never waits - but is never the whole story.
Brokeback Mountain and the Church
From the Rector
I just finished reading the short story Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx, first published in the New Yorker. The story has been made into a recently-released film.
The story is beautifully written and masterfully presents the tensions between male affection and dominant culture. It is a story experienced by many in our world and the Church.
Our Christian and spiritual lives need to make sense in connection to real world experiences - the stuff of the best stories we tell. Real human lives are the focus of God's love in Christ and our faith needs not (dares not) shy away.
I just finished reading the short story Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx, first published in the New Yorker. The story has been made into a recently-released film.
The story is beautifully written and masterfully presents the tensions between male affection and dominant culture. It is a story experienced by many in our world and the Church.
Our Christian and spiritual lives need to make sense in connection to real world experiences - the stuff of the best stories we tell. Real human lives are the focus of God's love in Christ and our faith needs not (dares not) shy away.
Saturday, December 10, 2005
Two St. Mark's Advent Poems
St. Mark's is blessed by God with poets - people who can see and express reality and truth in a language that transcends the literal. (The literal is rarely true.) Soon there will be an 80th anniversary collection of poetry by St. Markers - celebration of God's Word spoken in our individual lives and in the life of this faith community. For now, a foretaste of that banquet: two Advent poems.
LET US PREPARE
Snow is expected
the birds know
there they go
off to the left
in formation
dip low
bank right
circle
separate
re-group
soar
Advent approaches
we must prepare
where are the candles
the wreath, the crib
what are the prayers
the hymns, the hopes
who will take the babe to his bed
why must we wait
to walk in the light
Advent approaches
let us prepare
– Jeanette Adams
November 29, 2002
Snow is expected
the birds know
there they go
off to the left
in formation
dip low
bank right
circle
separate
re-group
soar
Advent approaches
we must prepare
where are the candles
the wreath, the crib
what are the prayers
the hymns, the hopes
who will take the babe to his bed
why must we wait
to walk in the light
Advent approaches
let us prepare
– Jeanette Adams
November 29, 2002
ADVENT 2000
The sky was a blackboard
nothing written there for me
It was cold and dark
when the demons struck
a clanking noise from the belly of my car
I should have been scared
would have been too
but I looked at the sky, and saw
a sudden spillage of stars
Then a man/angel
stopped to help me
Jesus was in his eyes
The leaves were glistening
and I knew
the Birth of the Christ Child
was near
– Pamela Malone
The sky was a blackboard
nothing written there for me
It was cold and dark
when the demons struck
a clanking noise from the belly of my car
I should have been scared
would have been too
but I looked at the sky, and saw
a sudden spillage of stars
Then a man/angel
stopped to help me
Jesus was in his eyes
The leaves were glistening
and I knew
the Birth of the Christ Child
was near
– Pamela Malone
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