Always in trouble

I've been in trouble a lot.  As a priest, I'm used to hot water.

Bishop Robert Atkinson (rest his soul) who convinced me to come back to West Virginia after seminary, though I'd been offered a job at a huge church in Chicago, had two nick-names for me: 'My rogue priest' and 'my personal fire starter.' (I liked both, by the way.)

I came to Charleston, WV, to serve a mostly Black church, St. James. St. James sponsored a day care Institute, where my son went .The kids exchanged Christmas ornaments and Josh got a strawberry. He was gravely disappointed.  It's still on our tree every Christmas.

Anyway, the chancellor of the Diocese (that's the lawyer for the Diocese) told a colleague, also an Episcopalian, that the day care was run by 'uppity Negress'. And the colleague told me.  I told the vestry of St. James, and they demanded that the Bishop fire him.

In a meeting with the Vestry, the Bishop told them the chancellor had said "Negress", not the n-word, and that since the man was from South-Western Virginia, that was the pronunciation of 'Negroes' there.

I remember a member of the Vestry filling his pipe -- people still smoked in public places back then -- while saying, "Bishop, 'Negress' isn't the problem. It's 'uppity'."  The chancellor resigned.

Then, at the next diocesan convention, the Bishop gave the former chancellor the 'bishop's medal of honor'.  I fainted and fell down on the floor.  EMT's interrupted the convention to take me to the hospital.  J.F. (St. James' representative) and my friend Jorge were at my bedside when I woke up. "Pretty impressive," Jorge said.

Bishop Atkinson gave me some of the best advice I've ever been given. I called him one day and said "Bishop, is it ok if I...."  He stopped me right there. "Jim," he said, "if you ask and I say 'no' and you do it anyway, which you probably will, l have to come down on you hard. If you just go do it and I don't approve, I'll just slap your hand."

Great advice. I've followed it ever since.

Then, years later, at St. John's in Waterbury, CT, I had put in the church bulletin --"All are invited to receive communion"-- which is what I always said, but writing it down really troubled a member of the parish and the choir, who complained to choir members, who told me.

I went to him (knowing full well that under church law, only baptized people can receive communion) and asked him about it. He denied he had said it and was angry with me. A week later I received a letter from the Bishop telling me to take it out of the bulletin.

I did.  But you see, in my first five of 21 years at St. John's, I had baptized five people who came to the baptismal font because they had received at the communion table. If the font leads to the table, why can't the table lead to the font?  By the way, I never again acted on second hand information. If you have a problem with something, tell me.

Then, years later, I invited Integrity (LBTQ Episcopalians) to use St. John's as their home.  Three (you guessed it) older white men were furious. A retired priest in the parish was Integrity's chaplain, and he sat in on my private meetings with them. The meetings were brutal. 

So, with the other priest's advice, I dragged the whole thing out into the open in parish-wide meetings.  At the first one, one of the most respected members of the parish rose and shook his finger at the three. "My son is gay," he said, "and I am horrified that you think my son is evil."

That ended it.  The three left the parish; later one came back with apologies I accepted.

I'm used to trouble.   I'm the 'rogue priest'.   I'm the 'fire starter'.   I like that.

                     Jim Bradley, from his blog Under the Castor Oil Tree