picking flowers
Saturday morning, fresh and cool, my day to finish prep for Sunday School class tomorrow morning, later today go to the church office and print handouts for the class session. Seeing the Library is still unsuitable for use (How Long, O Lord?!) we do not have our study bibles with us, and will meet in the church nave (sanctuary) again, so I'm printing as handouts whatever we would otherwise in class be looking up in our bibles. I don't mind, and a plus is that instead of tiny microscopic print on too thin paper pages of our Oxford study bibles, we get larger print on 20 lb bond in a readable handout.
We're doing One Thessalonians in class tomorrow, maybe a glance at the other Propers (collect and readings).
Couple other things. Yesterday the Episcopal News Service (ENS) published an article seeing The Episcopal Church's demise in the next generation. While some parishes (ours) are vigorous and flourishing, the church picture they drew does not include TEC after about 2050. It's not a scare tactic, just the facts. And, mind, this is with numbers and stuff before covid19 began its decimating and worse. One might wish to shuffle the report out of sight into the back file of the bottom drawer, but there it is https://www.episcopalnewsservice.org/2020/10/16/2019-parochial-reports-show-continued-decline-and-a-dire-future-for-the-episcopal-church/ like one's torn and worn drawers hung out to dry on the front porch railing.
What's indicated? Well, my 1957 BSBA from Florida had a Marketing major, and comes to mind that Henry Ford's ideological approach to Model T design was one of getting it right and then keeping it the same. Ford believed the Model T was all the car a person would, or could, ever need, and it was all he intended ever to offer. As other companies offered increasingly more appealing convenience, comfort and styling advantages, at competitive prices, the Model T lost market share and became barely profitable. Changes were not as few as the public perceived, moving beyond "any color so long as it's black", and adding a stylish slanted windshield, but the idea of an unchanging model was kept intact. Eventually, on May 26, 1927, Ford Motor Company ceased US production
and began the changeovers required to produce the Model A. Having persisted in his bullheadedness even after 1921 when Wm Knudsen resigned as Ford's production manager saying Henry Ford couldn't work with anyone smarter than himself, went to GM and took over Chevrolet determined to beat Ford, the stodgy stubbornness of Henry Ford almost put FoMoCo out of business. If this were a case study at Harvard Business School, I'd leave it at that and let the class go to work.
But it isn't. A key marketing principal is If they don't want what you sell, sell what they want. (Steve Jobs was able to pull off They don't know it, but they want what you sell, so teach them to want it). Public trends are away from organized religion. The society is no longer "Christian" but secular. Theology needs a telescope and Enlightenment. Fer chrissakes, wake up and read the poem/hymn lyrics:
His wonders to perform
He plants His footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm
Of never-failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs
And works His sovereign will
The clouds you so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings, yeah, in blessings
And in blessings on your head
On your head
But trust Him for His grace
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face
Unfolding every hour
The bud may have a bitter taste
But sweet will be the flower
The clouds you so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings, yeah, and in blessings, yeah
And In blessings on your head
And on your head
On your head
On your head
And scan His work in vain
For God is His own interpreter
And He will make it plain
In His own way
In His own way
Consider that our rote prayers for the unifying, and uniting of the Church as One, may at last be coming to fruition despite our obduracy. Give up particularity, give up obsession with ancient prayers and tradition. Open your mind: unite and combine with other churches to save the ship for another generation or three, maybe even a century or two. Free the Holy Spirit to open windows and Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord. IDK, I loved TEC the way it was, and I've loved it even more the way it has become with the new BCP, open and progressive thought and aggressive social action. The more it changes, the better I've liked it, and I pray for its future even if I wouldn't recognize it as my grandfather's Oldsmobile.
The other thing. Bishop Duvall died this week. We watched his burial service on Facebook. Memories came back. I met him in 1984 when I came down from Pennsylvania to teach my graduate classes in political science at the Univ of WestFlorida. Went over to his office in Mobile to visit because I was recently ordained priest, had a call to be rector of an Episcopal parish in Pennsylvania, but, retired from the Navy and anxious to complete my life's dream by returning home to the Florida Gulf Coast, had found out that the pulpit was empty at Trinity, Apalachicola.
Charles and Nancy came to visit us every year but one during our fourteen years at Trinity. (that year, the Duvalls were away, and Bishop & Mrs Patterson came and we made forever friends). The Duvalls stayed with us in the rectory every visit and we enjoyed them and got to be friends. We had oysters every time, and every year, Juanita Wade, a parishioner, gave the Duvalls an iced-down gallon of freshly shucked oysters to take home. Every visit, we changed the Sunday morning schedule so everyone could gather in Benedict Hall, our parish house, and hear his latest story - - he had a new Bible story every year, "Stories to tickle the ear and touch the heart" - - I have ten or so on cassette tapes that grandson Nicholas and I used to play during our travels driving between Apalachicola and West Palm Beach at the time.
One year the bishop noticed that my Sunday worship bulletin said Everyone is invited and welcome to Communion, and told me it should read All baptized Christians are welcome. I pushed back on that, saying Jesus never put up such a barrier and even if it meant his taking my collar, neither would I. I kept our Altar open and opened the Altar of every church I served from then on, and the bishop let me get away with it.
At a clergy and spouse conference once, twenty-five or thirty years ago (well, it was Fall 1988, I remember what it was about) I angrily rose and spoke against a prevailing notion, employing, from my fish-house and Navy years, saltier language than clergy and spouses present evidently were accustomed to hearing, causing the session to shut down and recess while everyone fanned themselves to keep from fainting. We sorted that out, and I apologized for my intemperate language. On his next visit to Apalach, the bishop confided in me that he also had grown up with a foul mouth, and that a friend had suggested he do some transposing to more flowery terms such as petunia, tulip and nasturtium; which is when I picked gardenias and dandelions.
In 1998 at age 63, I resigned from Trinity, retired from active parish ministry, and after a while of supplying here and there including at two Presbyterian churches in the area, started helping out at Holy Nativity. As I left Apalach, Bishop Duvall said "If you keep your hair cut and your shoes shined I'll have more work for you" - - to which my secret anti-Navy thought was If that's the case, I'll never shine my shoes again or get another haircut. But one day spring 2000 as I sat outside on my upstairs front porch at The Old Place, the bishop phoned and asked if I would help him out at Grace Church. They took me in as Interim Rector there for just over a year and a half as I slipped back into more parish involvement and lots of love.
Everybody loved the Duvalls, except maybe one priest who'd worked with him when they were priests together, who had nearly knock down drag out shouting matches with the bishop at clergy conferences, and who at least once got thrown out of the bishop's office! With Charles Duvall as my bishop, I had a good time adjusting to an overseer who was not "a boss", who was a couple hundred miles away, and who, no arrogant Navy admiral, did not have more gold stripes on his sleeve than I had on mine.
&PTL
T+