Presence

Just over a decade ago, I was serving as the rector of St. Francis Church in Holden. Our youngest was about to head off for college. I was asked by the Standing Committee of our Diocese if I'd be willing to chair the Profile and Search portion of a process that would ultimately lead to the election of a new bishop. I was glad to say yes, and the vestry at St. Francis was supportive of me taking on this volunteer role on behalf of our diocese.  

There were two main parts to that work. First, was to listen across the diocese to lay and ordained leaders toward the goal of putting together a "profile" that would tell potential candidates who we were, and where we believed we were headed as a diocese, and what help we needed from a bishop to follow God's lead in that direction. And second, to come up with a "slate" of candidates who had responded to that profile by applying to serve. We did the initial screening work; once the slate became public we turned the process over to a second committee, called the Transition Committee, who managed the rest. Previously, I had been involved at the diocesan level as a parish priest primarily in two ways. I had served on Diocesan Council and I had chaired the Commission on Ministry, responsible for discerning calls to holy orders. But this was a leap for me, one I was happy to take on. 

There was lots to tell in that Profile, but one portion was to let candidates know that we have a lot of college campuses across our diocese. We wanted some images to show that, so I scrambled into my car and headed six miles down the road from Holden to the campus of Worcester Polytechnic Institute to snap a photo. 

Fast forward: we elected a new bishop at a special electing Convention in June 2012, and  then that new bishop asked me to serve on his staff as Canon to the Ordinary, ordinary being a fancy Latin-derived word for bishop. I left parochial ministry after twenty years for diocesan work.

My family and I had lived in parish-owned housing to that point, but now we would need to enter the housing market and buy our first home at the age of fifty. We found one in the city of Worcester, near WPI. As mentioned above it was just a little more than six miles from where we had raised our sons in Holden. Out for my morning walk yesterday, and walking past that sign almost at the end of a three-month renewal leave (sabbatical) I had one of those almost mystical experiences. I felt fully present and the past nine years rushed over me. I felt like I was, and am, where I need to be. I paused to take that picture again, this time on my "smart phone." I reflected on the interior journey I've been on for almost a quarter of a century now in central Massachusetts, remembering that line from T. S. Eliot: "we shall not cease from exploration / And the end of our exploring / Will be arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time." ("Little Gidding") 

Continuing my journey toward Elm Park, I felt that same overwhelming sense of purpose - of being where I need to be. Not just on that walk. And not just in my work, but in my life itself. I'll turn sixty on my next birthday. With a father who died at 37, it's an occasion I truly never thought I'd reach and, since we only get life one-day-at-a-time I'm not counting on that until it happens. But it's now within sight...

There is a quote from Barbara Brown Taylor, in An Altar in the World, that I really love. It goes like this: 

No one longs for what he or she already has, and yet the accumulated insight of those wise about the spiritual life suggests that the reason so many of us cannot see the red X that marks the spot is because we are standing on it. The treasure we seek requires no lengthy expedition, no expensive equipment, no superior aptitude or special company. All we lack is the willingness to imagine that we already have everything we need. The only thing missing is our consent to be where we are. 

The only thing missing is our consent to be where we are. When we do consent, when we are fully present, when we know where we are, it can be a mystical kind of experience. It's not so much "out of body" as fully in body. A kind of awakening to purpose, and meaning, and joy. 

Sipping my morning coffee on this hot summer day and getting ready to go out for this day's walk, I find myself reflecting on what has happened during this time set apart, this time of renewal. I am fully aware that the world is spinning out of control, that the pandemic is not over, that our institutions are a mess.

...and also that life is still good. And that God is still present in the midst of our days. We don't have to go far to see that. We just need eyes that see and ears that hear.