Four years later

Nobody reads this besides me, and that's OK.

For about a year now, Kay and Joe have been gone. That was an odd exit. Their house has been sold and they have moved to be closer to their offspring, which is totally understandable. One thing which always discombobulated me was Kay's attitude toward me after my exit from St. Matthew’s. If a valued church member who volunteered everywhere (and gave a lot of money) suddenly left without much warning, it seems rational to expect a clergy person to come up with one (or more) responses:

• What happened here? Why are you going?
• Are you OK? Is there some personal tragedy driving this? Health? Finances?
• Are you angry? What set you off?
• Did someone in the church say something offensive? Do we need some sort of reconciliation?
• I didn't think you would take it that way. Let's see if we can heal the relationship.

None of that happened. The best summary of Kay’s attitude was “Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.”

Then things got weird. After a couple of years had passed, she would come up to me (at the gym, mainly) and be all smiles and positivity. No hint of any split between us; no attempt at a reconciliation. It was all sweetness and light. I always sort of smiled and tried to edge my way out. I suspect that was all part of the gaslighting narcissim working its way out.

A couple of years have passed. The diocese (rather clumsily) attempted to push the idea of a Triad of Ashland, Mansfield, and Shelby joining to share two priests. It didn’t work.

1. Mansfield and Ashland lost their priests, and they knew that they would have to do something and do it quick. Shelby deludes themselves into thinking that Daniel will be there more or less forever, half his pay supplied by the Food Pantry.
2. Ashland and Mansfield are very welcoming to LGBTQI+ people; Shelby still thinks gay people do not belong in church leadership. The new priest is gay.
3. The focus of St. Mark’s is very SHELBY. They are not at all thrilled by the Episcopal denomination; they are much more focused on things such as Shelby Salvation Army and the local Catholic church. If it is not Shelby, it’s outsiders.
4. The same holy dozen have been sitting in the pews for years, so they assume they can keep going indefinitely.

Looking back, it was pretty inevitable that Mansfield and Ashland would join together and Shelby would stay aloof. Shelby has no sense of need and has a raging independence.

I know some things they do not know. I know that Daniel will not be funded by the Food Pantry after December 2026. I know that of the dozen regulars, only two families are currently employed; all the rest are retired. These people (including me) are old. I know that the Masonic Lodge approach (“To be one, ask one”) of anonymous checks to good causes does not grow the church. I know that St. Mark’s does not offer anything particularly unique to Shelby—there is really no good reason for it to survive.

I also know that my reasons for going to Shelby were all related to a need to escape Kay Ashby. She is gone now. I honestly believe that the Shelby church has about 24 months to go. I know that I want a church where I can be out and where I can feel like I am not stuck in a small Bible study group. I keep looking for a trigger event, but more likely the church will simply erode away.

Three years later

This all went to sleep (and it was a good idea) after the discussion of the exit from the Ashland church. I decided to simply leave cold turkey, so I never lingered around, giving explanations to people or complaining or anything like that. Most of the people there never got a word of explanation from me, though I know that Sharon Broeder's dying wish was that I would return and Andi Shifley was in tears, begging me to reconsider. I didn't want to start any kind of political battle.

So I've been gone for three years. Occasionally there's a death and a memorial service and I return and see old friends. I always have good times with the Reeds and others and get cold shoulders from the nuns.

Soon after I left, a new treasurer was appointed, a woman who had corporate experience and was brand new to the parish. We met to go over all the stuff I had been doing, and she was full of praise for my diligence. She lasted about a year, then got forced out. After she left the parish, three of us got together: her, me, and Allan Andersen. We traded stories about how toxic the priest was—and I remembered some of the ugly stuff from when Allan and Mike McKinley were negotiating the lease with the Montessori people in the basement. All the accusations that were flung at them. 

Anyhow, all that is behind. I'm in a good place now, and I don't expect to ever be on a Vestry or serve as a treasurer. Shelby has become a good home.

Almost

I began a blog series of responses to the corona virus and at first I planned on putting it all here. Then I thought again. I'm planning on publishing the address and this has a lot of negativity about St. Matthew's, so I finally put it all on "Curt's Trail." Better choice.

Sick day

Today (Monday) I finally took a sick day. My sister said, "You never do that!" True, but I had a pretty good fever on Sunday, so I cancelled. Today it's mainly aches and a cough. Hope I'm back together by Wednesday.

Today, with some distance on the thing, I began pondering the teaching ministry of St. Matthew's. Adult Sunday School never happened. I suggested it several times, but the response was that (a) everyone is over 80 and it's asking a lot just to get them to church by 10, and (b) many of them are out of here like a bullet out of a gun with the last hymn, and besides, you couldn't do a lesson after coffee hour! I have noticed, though, that Lenten evening lessons were well received, so it's not a universal allergy.

There's been a children's Sunday school, off and on, for years, but apparently the focus is entirely on getting them up to speed on the Sunday liturgy.

One result is a real biblical illiteracy. I remember when someone handed a Bible to a Vestry member and asked her to read something from Mark. She was totally lost. Had no idea where to find it.

I think this is the fruit of Bishop Spong. If one believes the Bible is a bunch of foolishness, why make it a centerpiece of the church's teaching?

So why did I stay? Well for one thing, there is Bible spread all through the morning liturgy; it's not like Grace Fellowship, where the Bible reading was "my favorite three verses that I read a couple of weeks ago anyhow." For another, in spite of Kay's personal attacks, I did get three or four chances a year to preach or teach. I really did think I could improve things, though my preaching was almost always on "Morning Prayers" days when only 18 people would show up.

On Criticizing the Church

I guess I'm still in the phase of reverberating. I don't know if my exit from St. Matthew's is permanent, and I certainly don't know if I am permanently walking away from the whole Episcopal Church. I do notice, however, that the administrators of the Episcopalians on Facebook page have urged people to moderate their personal attacks. Kay's attacks on me aren't the only ones, but they were pretty strong. I'm not going to put this material on Facebook—too risky—but here is my estimate of a hierarchy of personal/corporate attack:

1. John Doe is an idiot. Definitely out of line, whether it's "he's an idiot" or "you're an idiot." The writer should face some sort of censure.
2. John Doe said/did stupid things. This one is borderline. If the "John Doe" is a local private person, definitely out of line, but what about public national figures? If Bishop Spong has published a book with which I disagree? I think the key here is to address issues, not personalities. Bishop Spong might be a fine person, but it's the content of the book that should be addressed.
3. My parish/diocese did stupid things. Again, out of line because it's often an appeal to get some sort of majority opinion to override the local decisions. If the Vestry decided that the Sanctuary Lamp should have a red glass and you wanted a blue one, complaining on Facebook isn't the right avenue.
4. I don't understand. (OK—maybe I will post this one.) I've gotten barbecued—repeatedly—for just not knowing stuff. Sixty-four years of Presbyterianism followed by eight years of Episcopalianism mean that I constantly run afoul of the old-time correctness police. But this is not a sign that I hate the church. Even education in a Protestant seminary did not prepare me to know that "Mass" is an appropriate term for the Sunday morning event, that "acolytes" are not necessarily pre-teen children (though all the pictures one finds of acolytes depict them this way), or that "sanctuary" is the wrong word for the big room where the congregation sits on pews and sings hymns. It's not a sign that I disrespect (or even hate) the church; it's a sign that when I write, I work from previous experience and often do not know that I must consult the Episcopalian Dictionary to clean up my act.

Beginning Again Again Again

Wow. All the years that have passed. One of the most surprising things is that it is about eight years, almost to the day, since I began my journey in the Episcopal Church. And it is now about 24 hours since I ended it.

I'm certain that nobody will read this blog, so it can be a very personal journal—and that's why I'm not deleting any of the old files either.

Reason for the exit: Beginning about 15 months ago, the priest (aided sometimes by one of her closest colleagues) has been carrying on an increasing campaign of personal attack. The final week, I got hit three times, and for very minimal reasons. (She launched a "prophylactic" attack in a meeting because she wanted me to look up some numbers and she figured I needed a fire built under me; I did not instantly respond to a request for a computer password; and finally I mentioned on Facebook that I had suggested a way to save money, then gave up when I realized my idea was unworkable.)

Three odd fall-outs from all this:

1. I've never been truly happy with her content-free sermons; only yesterday in doing some research on our terrible history did I learn that she's a fan of Bishop Spong, the guy who thinks the Apostles' Creed and the Bible are a bunch of foolishness. Hmmm.
2. I'm wondering what will happen when they figure out that 10% of their pledge money just walked out the door.
3. My exit was accomplished with a strongly-worded hand-delivered typed letter that laid the blame squarely at her feet. Twenty-four hours have passed. Not a peep from her. Not a "we need to talk" or a "gosh I didn't realize you took it that way" or even a "how dare you?" Total silence.

---

Now what? Allan Andersen (bless his heart) texted me to ask how I was doing. I told him we could talk after a while, and he accepted that. (We will need to anyhow because I've shoved the job of church treasurer into his lap.) My sister Melissa and my friend Paul in Colorado have been enormous sources of support and strength.

So now, for the time being, I'm going to lie low and do some healing, both emotional and physical. This has been a very difficult few weeks.

Unexpected Benefit

I was pondering the church change this afternoon. My reasons for changing were sort of an accumulation of things—yes, there was a smoking gun, but there was also an accumulated weight of straws trying to break this camel's back. I wasn't expecting much from St. Matthew's though. About all I could foresee was attending every Sunday, quietly listening and participating, then slinking quietly back to my apartment.

That's not what happened.

The first couple of Sundays I discovered that several coworkers were in the congregation, that someone thought I'd be just great in the choir (haven't responded to that one yet) and that I was really welcome there.

St. Matthew's has an odd idea about volunteers. Grace Fellowship sees volunteering as a lifetime commitment, but at St. Matthew's a person can volunteer to do something once in a while. That means that there's essentially no screening process for someone to read a Bible verse. For another thing, the St. Matthew's question is whether the volunteer can do the work, not whether the volunteer is spiritually ready to do it or needs emotional validation. That's why I'm doing the St. Matthew's website but wasn't allowed to do the GFC website. I can do websites. That's a vote in my favor in Ashland, but a vote against me in Mansfield. The main reason Ashland wanted me to do a website was to get a website; in Mansfield, the main reason would be to make me some sort of officer—for a lifetime—of the church.

One Episcopalian oddity is that it takes an enormous number of people to make things happen, and there are always openings in the cadre of volunteers. On any given Sunday, we need at least someone to read the Bible, someone to help with communion, a couple of people to pass the offering plates, and someone to put the after-church meal together. Then there are the ushers, the Sunday school teacher (only a few kids), and the people who clean the church. And the choir. If we had a few teenagers, we'd have torch-bearers, too. Grace gets along just fine with a couple of ushers. Yes, there are musicians, the PowerPoint person, the announcement reader, and the coffee person, but those tend to be lifetime jobs, not available for casual volunteers.

So the surprise is that the structure is incredibly permeable. There's a way for people to start being part of things almost immediately.

If you build it

The St. Matthew's website is now really finished. I spent most of Saturday getting it nailed down, and I think it's beautiful (and two or three friends agree).

Now the issue is Google (and Bing and Yahoo). Google apparently reindexes everything about every two weeks, and until that, we're stuck on the bottom of page six. They all have methods of submitting websites for consideration, but I think that's only a device to make the audience feel better. It doesn't seem to speed up the indexing process at all.

So now I get depressed, obsessively check the traffic reports, and try to tell myself that it's going to be OK. All that work and no result! Blogs have a very easy way to tell how much traffic (and where it comes from). I'm usually the only one who has looked at the church blog. (or this one)

Anyhow, my goal is to get the church somewhere on the first two pages if someone searches for "church ashland ohio" and at the top of the first page if someone searches for "episcopal church ashland ohio". Currently the denomination beats us. A listing of wedding fees beats us. An old newspaper article about which churches local politicians attend beats us.

I'm hoping to hit that goal by August 1 to catch people who might be moving to town to take new jobs. That gives me about 3½ months, which is about seven passes for reindexing. Google is incredibly specific, weird, and inscrutable about the characteristics that take one to the top of a list, but I've got seven tries to figure it out.

The last indexing was twelve days ago, so I'm hoping to see some results this week.

Too Spiritual

This set of ideas got started when I was reading the Robert Webber book. I don't quite buy the trichotomy of some writers, that the human being is made up of three entities, body/soul/spirit, but it does sort of explain the three church traditions I've now been part of.

Rational: Presbyterian
There was an incredible amount of logic in a Presbyterian seminary. We studied Systematic Theology. The interesting thing is that we were applying all that logic to some fairly illogical concepts. Here's an example. God does no evil; God predestines some to eternal life; God does not, however, predestine others to eternal damnation—they do that to themselves. OK. That looks really good, and it's what we worked with all the time, but it's pretty deadly stuff for a Sunday school class, and the sharp 12-year-old always asks the fatal question. If God decides to save some, isn't He deciding not to save others? The Calvinist answer is 50 pages long, and never really deals with it. Anyhow, there's little sense of talking to God here—it's all talking about Him.

Spiritual
If you walk into Grace Fellowship on any Sunday morning, it's entirely normal to hear half a dozen people saying that God told them things. It's sometimes very minor, routine things. One lady gave a testimony that God told her to stock up on canned coffee because the price was about to go up. EVERYTHING is spiritualized. You can't have a party without a prayer session. You can't do a barbecue without spending time in worship. Interestingly enough, the physical side of humanity isn't too important there. Ray once told us that we are to kneel "in our spirit" during worship. People show up on Sunday wearing the most shabby clothing they can find because there's no point in looking good for God. Eucharist is almost entirely a matter of silent internal meditation. Yes, there are a few who wave flags or jump about, but nobody is quite sure why they are doing it.

Physical
When I joined a liturgical church, one thing that was rescued for me was the physical. Actions actually have meaning. When I cross myself, it's my body praying along with my mind. There's an actual reason to be kneeling, a reason that the liturgical color of the season is displayed. Adam's fall did not involve a pure spirit acquiring a body; his body was already pretty good. And because we are also worshiping with our bodies, it makes a difference what we do and how we do it. Not just a mind trip. Years ago, a new teenage convert asked me why we close our eyes when we pray. I didn't have a suitable answer. Now I do.

Worship Three Ways

I've been reading Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail: Why Evangelicals Are Attracted to the Liturgical Church by Robert Webber. (Footnote: "Evangelicals" here is used in the older 1970s sense of "Biblically conservative, but not Fundamentalist". Nowadays, the word conjures up television preachers and anti-intellectualism, but that wasn't the connotation when Webber wrote this book.)

Webber actually graduated from the same seminary I did, about four years previously. I remember his name but unfortunately never met him. It's my loss. Anyhow, he got me thinking about three ways that worship occurs on Sunday mornings.

Presbyterian/Rational
At Covenant Seminary, we were taught to pull together three-point sermons that could be easily outlined by people in the congregation. Half an hour or more of sermon/lecture seemed about right, and the main point was to explain and teach. Calvinism takes a lot of teaching, and Calvinists worry a lot about fine points of doctrine. I have to admit that I never did quite give my heart to the business of explaining single predestination (somehow, in that doctrine, God decides in advance who will be saved, but does not decide who will be damned). It's all very logical, very academic. I never could exactly explain why listening to a lecture fits under the definition of "worship" either. Webber quotes a visiting preacher who referred to the hymn-singing and all the rest as "preliminaries," and that's how it felt. At least we did get to sing the grand old hymns, all the verses. Depending on the congregation, 1890s emotionalism (for example, the hymn "I come to the garden alone") was also very popular.

Summer Camp
The tradition I am just now leaving had its roots in the Jesus People. Singing and dancing in the meadow, and no real advance planning—that's divine worship. You can't worship without a guitar and the Holy Spirit is dishonored by such things as forethought. (It's typical that nobody knows exactly what will happen on a Sunday; yesterday's basic song list was still in rough draft form 30 minutes before the service.) In the singing department, newer is better: of yesterday's ten songs, the oldest was written in 1990. Repetition is also really valued: One of yesterday's songs consisted of the verse "O, draw me, Lord" repeated three times, followed by the words, "and I'll run after you". If the song is sung as written, you do that five times, but the worship leader got excited and repeated the whole operation, so "O, draw me, Lord" got repeated thirty times. The order of worship typically amounts to six or eight songs sung without any particular theme or introduction, followed by a lengthy sermon that urges us all to give our hearts to Jesus and a call to come down front for prayer at the end.

Liturgical
Yes, it is all figured out in advance. Buy a copy of the Book of Common Prayer and it's all there, except the hymns. But it changes. We just celebrated the sixth Sunday after Epiphany, and that governs everything from the colors in the church (green at the moment) to the Scripture we read to the hymns. You're not going to get "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" during Epiphany. Yes, there's a sermon, but it's not really the most important event of the morning.

For me, the most vivid change was a change in focus. Lots happens in the Episcopal Church, but it's really not a performance. I cannot imagine anyone applauding during Sunday worship. I'm not there to learn something or to take home something good. It's more of a meeting with God. Lots of times in other churches I've gone back to my seat with the little thimbleful of grape juice and sat there pondering my own spiritual state. That's what I was supposed to do. But now when I kneel at the communion rail and someone helps me take a sip of the eucharistic wine, something really different, powerful, and unexpected happens. (No, it's not the alcohol. I drink wine at home.) I often wish I could just stay put there for a while. I don't want it to end. It all really happened. He's really here. I can't focus anywhere else.

Coming Clean, volume 3

I look at the traffic statistics on this blog, and I realize that I don't have to worry that much about offending people. Not many are reading.

Lonely 1
When I look back over the decades in my former church, the dominant emotion is loneliness, on three levels. The obvious one is personal and immediate: in social terms, the church is all about women, children, and teenagers, so my age group is pretty much forgotten. Men's only legitimate social interaction is with their wives. Of course, that also means that families are isolated from one another too. One gets the idea that plain old fun is a problem unless it's sort of a bait. Youth groups have fun so the kids will show up and listen to the program. The Alpha Group has fun so newcomer families will want to stick with the church.

Lonely 2
I think the image of the ecclesiastical Marlboro Man somehow hooks up with several other themes. Yes, men are supposed to be strong, and not need help. So many of the church leaders are somehow involved in psychological counseling professions that the ethics of those professions leak over into the church—and it's really unethical for a counselor to initiate contact with a client, so when bad things happen to a church member, the leaders wait hopefully for the member to make an appointment. And ultimately, it's all about Sunday worship. If the group can do well at singing and dancing, the griefs of one individual don't count that much. Whatever the causes, over the last decade or so, when family and business troubles weighed me down, when family members died, when I was just tired and worn, I always knew I had to work it all out on my own.

Lonely 3
John, the last surviving Apostle, apparently died in about 100 AD. This new manifestation of the church started in about 1970. During the gap, nothing happened. At least that's the attitude I keep running into. Wisdom from ancient writers is useless and so are expressions of worship. It's all very lonely to be part of a church that's shipwrecked and afflicted by amnesia.

The loneliness eventually just overwhelmed me. I wasn't suicidal, but I needed a church connection that didn't continually whisper, "You're all alone, you know."

Coming Clean, volume 2

When I was in Washington, I bought a copy of The Episcopal Handbook. Hilarious little how-to. One of the questions they ask is whether coffee is the third sacrament (the answer is "yes, probably").

I've got to admit that the coffee hour was one of the main things that attracted me to St. Matthew's. Now when I say "coffee," that's really a poor description. The menu at the most recent included (and I'm sure I'm missing something):

• Home-made chicken rice soup
• Home-made rolls
• A cheese and sausage tray
• Chips and nacho sauce
• Date bars
• Fruit
• Coffee

By local standards, that was a fairly slim "coffee" menu. There always seems to be more than enough, and you're always welcome to sit at anyone's table. "Coffee" takes at least an hour after church. It's an extremely important part of what happens there. I recently took a couple of loaves of bread to a potluck, and people are still talking about them. (As bread goes, it wasn't that wonderful, but I feel very good every time someone brings it up again.)

I think the welcome there is an extremely strong draw. When I showed up for the first time, the priest actually remembered that I'd visited two years ago. They seem honestly glad to see me, and that hasn't diminished now that I'm a "regular." (Later I'll talk about the odd string of coincidence when I walked in the first time.) OK—it's an extremely small group (like 30 or so), but I'm still impressed that they keep offering me ways to participate. It takes a bunch of people to make Sunday happen. Aside from the food and the invisible things like cleaning, there are greeters, a reader, a couple of torch-bearers, someone to carry the cross, and a few others. And it's assumed that these responsibilities will rotate throughout the congregation. Not a spectator sport at all.

Anyhow, the welcome is strong, and from what I hear, that's an Episcopalian characteristic.

Coming Clean, volume 1

I suppose I should come clean on this one. After about 30 years as a semi-faithful member of the church here in Mansfield, I'm now attending St. Matthew's Episcopal Church in Ashland quite regularly. No, I'm not a member there yet. That takes a class and being received by the bishop.

One friend asked what pushed me over the edge. I think I'll keep that one to myself (or perhaps for later); I'd rather talk about my history.

Before Mansfield, almost all of my church experience was very "high church." On the East Coast, even the Presbyterians (my original home) are fairly formal and liturgical. There's very little sense of "God, my best buddy" and even today, people who worship on Sunday morning are very unlikely to rate the event on its "fun quotient." In a sense, the Washington National Cathedral has been a second home since I was a boy (and yes, it's Episcopalian). In college, my spiritual home was Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, an organization with strong Church of England roots, and I often attended a Lutheran church near campus. Seminary was a conservative Presbyterian seminary, where the essential question was "what's true?" not "what feels good?" or "what promotes Americanism?" or "what safeguards my consumerist lifestyle?" During those years, I was part of a church that was deeply involved in community service, in study, and in worship. Yes, we did sing Bach chorales and had a small pipe organ in our storefront church.

All of this helps to explain why a return to a more formal, more liturgical church that's deeply rooted in church history just feels right. I recently took a personal inventory and realized that almost all of the spiritually important moments in my life were somehow Episcopalian. Maybe (if someone asks me to narrate them) I'll say more some day.

Anyhow, I think I should avoid negativism here. But I feel I should begin explaining myself a bit.

New background, new beginning

I'm not dead.

Fall was extremely busy. Six sections of English. New roommate. Trying to keep my head above water.

The semester change in December just flew by. Prepping for two new courses. Then another new one. Then that one got killed. Then prepping for yet another. All while visiting Mom and trying to keep my head above water.

New semester and I'm teaching only five sections, but three completely different preps.

Depressed
I spent some time this morning reading about two years of posts on this blog and I saw the same themes coming back over and over:

• Frustration with the church here
• Loneliness for other Christians
• Feelings of being excluded from the warm heart of Christendom

OK—to be fair, there's a lot about the agony of online banking and the way colleges work, but all that is minor. If I would simply write paper checks and keep one step ahead of the game, those two would go away.

The most difficult, and the one that caught me off-guard, was the exit of our pastor in Mansfield and of the last remaining elders from the "old days," thus completing a change-over in the church to something quite different from what we had. My daughter phoned me and said, "Dad, you've just got to leave that place!"

New beginning
I've been doing a lot of reading over the past couple of months and spent a lot of Sunday mornings at a small Episcopal church in Ashland. The welcome there was instant. The worship is well thought through and deeply grounded in Scripture. I feel as if something that was broken in my life is now repaired (or at least on the way there).

To be quite frank, one reason I stopped blogging is that I was bored with myself and my continual complaints. Now I think I have something to say again, and I'm hoping it won't be the stream of negativity.