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.
