wfn.org | New presiding bishop reveals core of his spirituality during first

[ENS.parti@ecunet.org (ENS)]

press conference
January 15, 1998
Episcopal News Service
Jim Solheim, Director
212-922-5385
ens@ecunet.org

98-2063
New presiding bishop reveals core of his spirituality during first press
conference

by Michael Barwell

     (ENS) At the stroke of midnight on January 1, 1998, as the silver
globe descended atop Times Square in New York City, Bishop Frank
Tracy Griswold officially became the 25th presiding bishop of the
Episcopal Church.
     But 1,000 miles away it was still 11 p.m. as Griswold entered the
sanctuary of the Church of the Ascension on LaSalle Street in Chicago to
begin the liturgy celebrating the first day of January.
     "It is the Feast of the Holy Name, which is also my baptismal
day," Griswold told a group of reporters the day before his investiture on
January 10 in Washington National Cathedral. "So in the homily I
pointed out that I've come a long way from that font. Why I am here
now is directly related to that experience 60 years ago when I was
innocently baptized. So I said, `Watch out! You never know where your
baptism might in fact take you.'"
     He was introduced formally as the new presiding bishop at the
announcement time in Chicago, well after midnight eastern standard
time. But for Griswold, spiritual matters and the liturgy took precedence
to becoming "an ecclesial functionary." 

Grounded in prayer
     Griswold is a voluble and eloquent story teller, and his remarks
during his first press conference in Washington provided an early
glimpse at how he will respond as presiding bishop. Often throughout the
45-minute meeting with religious and secular press, Griswold redirected
and focused questions and answers in spiritual terms and values while
relating a story.
     Even his "first official act as presiding bishop" led to a story
about how he centers his spiritual life. 
     "I fled to a monastery in upstate New York for five days of
retreat because I thought it was very important that I regained my center
and approached this new ministry out of a grounded place of prayer and
reflection," he said.
     Griswold has been going to the Roman Catholic Benedictine
community of Mount Savior Monastery in Elmira, New York, for 34
years and the brothers there "have followed me through every turning in
my life." He said that it "was a wonderful way to go through the final
piece of transition," which began on July 21, when he was elected
presiding bishop in Philadelphia during the church's General Convention.
He described transition as a "time of grace and confusion" as he
completed his duties as bishop of Chicago and tried to "get up to speed
with my new responsibilities."
     Griswold confided that he is well aware of the pressures facing
him during the next nine years. He said that he told the Benedictines,
"You're going to be very important to me in the months and years to
come because by virtue of the office of presiding bishop I'm going to
become a center of controversy--like it or not.  And probably in some
people's minds I'm not even going to be a human being. I'm simply
going to be a living issue of some sort," he said. "It's very important
therefore that some people have a sense of who Frank Griswold really is
who have nothing to do with the Episcopal Church and its ecclesial
systems, but simply know him as a person of prayer, a devotee of St.
Benedict and a long-time friend."

Some tough first questions
     The questions from the press began with some tough queries and
perceptive answers.
     "Where do you expect to lead the church?" was the first query.
     Griswold pounced on the question: "I hope to lead the church in
the right direction," he said with a chuckle, displaying his well-known
wit and humor, immediately switching gears to provide a serious answer.
"I think that--just to stay with the Benedictinism that I referred to earlier-
-one of my models for ministry is the abbot as depicted in the role of St.
Benedict. And the abbot is seen very much as one who listens to the
different voices within the community, can be aware of the different
needs that exist in the community, can also listen to the visitor who
introduces a word of insight or criticism that the community might not be
aware of by virtue of simply living the life.
     "But the abbot is going to listen to a diversity of voices and
hearing all those voices, and what they have to say into the ongoing life
of the community," he explained. "So I think broadly conceived, mine is
a ministry of drawing people together in conversation, mine is a ministry
of listening with care to the diverse voices in the community, and making
sure that diversity is honored."

`Discovering together'
     Several times he referred to his "rather foundational" experiences
as a priest and bishop in responding to questions about his leadership
style.
     Comparing his first experiences in a wealthy, suburban parish in
Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, and a smaller congregation in Yardley,
Griswold said he "had to learn all over again what it meant to be a
minister, that I had so defined myself in terms of that first experience at
the other church, that I had to learn from these people who I was. Over
time it became very clear to me, partially because the congregation
pulled ministry out of me, that I was not so much shaping and forming
them, as I was being shaped and formed by them--and that together we
were discovering in a living way the word of God in our midst.
     "I have found since then, moving on to another congregation and
then into my life as the diocesan bishop, that in each case I have been
formed by the community," he said, "and that the Word has emerged
from our life shared rather than being something that I simply declared."
     As he enters into his new ministry, Griswold said that he wonders
"first of all what community is going to be because it is so diverse and
spread out. My community is a series of sub-communities. I assume that
in each instance we're going to find the Word together. It's not so much
a question of Frank Griswold determining what needs to be done, or
what should be said, but Frank Griswold listening with care and out of
what is heard in the conversation with the community then speaking. It's
an unfolding, dynamic notion. . ."
     
Always an open door
     Questioned about various groups within the church vying for
leadership or attention, Griswold returned to the promise he made in his
election acceptance remarks at General Convention.
     ". . . A bishop's heart must be open, a bishop's door must be
open to everyone, absolutely everyone," said Griswold, quoting a
Brazilian Roman Catholic bishop. "Don't try to pin me down either to
the right or to the left. My sense is that I'm ready for conversation. All
one can do is to open the door and say, `please come in, please sit down
and let's talk.' I certainly intend to do that and hope to do that. I think
on the other hand . . . they can choose not to come in and talk, there's
no way you can compel them to do so. The door is open and I do hope
that some of those who feel alienated and devalued in the life of the
church will find a way to sit down and possibly together we can find a
new way to live in communion with one another.
     "Certainly there are voices abroad in the church threatening
separation and calling for the establishment of separate provinces,"
Griswold said in ticking off some of the issues facing the church.
"Conversation with dioceses that do not recognize the ministry of
ordained women is something else on the desk to be dealt with. I think
more fundamentally for me there is the whole question of what does it
mean to be the presiding bishop, getting my sea legs, so to speak."

What is truth?
     One questioner suggested that both sides in the issue of ordaining
homosexuals claim either "propositional truth" or personal experience as
the ultimate authority.
     "There are different modes of truth and propositional truth is one
mode of that truth," Griswold explained. "Truth is presented to us
relationally. Jesus says `I am the truth.' The only way to know the truth
in Jesus is through relationship. `I in you and you in me'--the mutual
indwelling, which is certainly supported by the whole sacramental system
of the church. It's all a question of relationship."
     It is important, Griswold said, "for people who take their stand on
Scripture to realize that Scripture itself is an account of people's
experience of God, and that the Lord of Scripture--that is, the risen
Christ--presents truth relationally and experientially. One can go beyond
that to the Acts of the Apostles, where it was the experience of the Holy
Spirit showing up in unlikely and seemingly suspect places that made the
early church aware of the fact that the gentiles could be included in the
community. So experiential truth is biblical truth in large measure, and
propositional truth, though an important part of tradition, isn't as biblical
as experiential truth.
     "I would hope to help the community become more biblical," he
added, "in that sense as it looks at the whole question of what's true."

Final reassurances
     Pressed to offer an absolute or firm assurance that "the church
should be able to give to people who are seeking God," Griswold
returned to the basics of church teachings.
     "Our salvation is in Jesus Christ, our risen Lord. That's where I
would start," Griswold said. "I would say that we encounter Christ, to
borrow from St. Ambrose of Milan, face to face in the sacraments that
the sacraments shape and form us and mediate the presence of the risen
Christ for us.
     "I would say that Christ is the Lord of Scripture. My sense is that
Christ continues to make the scriptural word the living word in our
experience through the power of the spirit that . . . unfolds it over time.
The truth is developmental. We are always growing into the truth who is
Christ and so we must listen carefully and discerningly to truth as it
comes to us in a variety of ways and see that as part of the unfolding
mystery of the risen Christ in our midst."
     For Griswold, the bottom line will be "this common search for
the Word . . . and that's something that I will be shaped by as time goes
by."

--Michael Barwell is deputy director of news and information for the
Episcopal Church.