wfn.org | Griswold reassures clergy 'there is a place at the table for all'

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

February 10, 1998
Episcopal News Service
James Solheim, Director
(212) 922-5385
jsolheim@dfms.org

98-2086
Griswold reassures clergy 'there is a place at the table for all'

by Michael Barwell
	(ENS) In the weeks following his January 10 investiture as presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, Frank T. Griswold was on the road, reassuring clergy and lay leaders in Florida, Connecticut and Louisiana that there "is a place at the table" for everyone in the Episcopal Church.
	The theme in each of the retreats--two of which were scheduled before he was elected last July--was that the Episcopal Church is a community of believers on a spiritual journey together.
	Griswold told clergy in Connecticut that his vision for the Episcopal Church is "a community that is less reactive to shrill voices, more able to stay centered and focused on the ongoing life and mission of the church, and not be drawn off by relatively few voices. 
"I would hope it would be a community that would engage more deeply in civil conversation and be less prone to name-calling and judgment and reducing people to the positions they hold," he said. The church should be a community  "that could live with more nuance as it went about discernment and corporate decision-making.
	"I would also hope that it would be community filled with laughter and joy," Griswold added. "I'm so sick of the dreariness that afflicts us, and the anxiety-it's not of the Gospel."

'Let no one be scandalized'
	He repeated his promise that as presiding bishop he "belongs to all."
	 "Let no one be scandalized" to find him in dialogue with those of different persuasions, Griswold said. The need to meet people where they are "applies equally to anyone who shares the reconciling ministry of Christ."
	In forming his vision for what the church's ministry might be during his nine-year tenure, Griswold spoke to clergy in the Diocese of Florida of his wish to "speak modestly so that what one says has some chance of realization." He also told of his "increasing sense of communion, connection with the wider church."
	"I feel very much that I am a servant of communion, caught up in the 'process of Christ,'" Griswold said. "The process of Christ is profoundly incarnate. We're always bumping into one another," he explained, adding, "some of the strains in the church come from our failure to acknowledge" the differences among us, often missing "the subtle movement of the Spirit."
	"The Word of God is more than Scripture," he said. "The Word of God is Christ. The scriptural word has its power and grace because it is animated in Christ. The Word of God is alive and active because it is vivified in Christ . . . Scripture continues to be life giving with new nuances because we can't bear it all at once."

'A desire to interact'
	During his remarks in Florida, Griswold warned the clergy against becoming "technicians of the sacred" who may have lost the capacity to meet Christ in the sacramental life of the church. "The Word is within you engrafted, provoked into consciousness by the scriptural and liturgical Word," he said. The consequence is being caught up into Christ's risen body, he explained.
	"Let yourself receive One who is opening you so deeply. Wake up in Christ," Griswold said, inviting his listeners to be "in him transformed" as if love filled every part of the body.
	"I sense in Bishop Griswold a genuine desire to interact, face to face, with the clergy and laity of the Episcopal Church," Bishop Stephen Jecko said following the meeting. "He has promised all 'a place at the table.' Bishop Griswold will not dodge the hard questions facing the church, but his responses beg as many questions as they answer."

Listening to the Word
	Griswold next went to Louisiana to lead a diocesan clergy retreat which had been scheduled two years ago, long before his election as presiding bishop and months before Louisiana's election of the Rev. Charles E. Jenkins III as bishop coadjutor last September. 
Thrust into Louisiana's busy Epiphany-Mardi Gras season, the presiding bishop rode a spiritual roller coaster that blended the inward, meditative aspects of the silent retreat with the overt, celebratory nature of the diocese's first consecration service in 22 years.
	Jenkins used the retreat to prepare spiritually for his consecration on January 31-Griswold's first consecration as presiding bishop. In reflecting on the retreat, Jenkins said he noted Griswold's demeanor. "What impressed me most is Griswold's commitment to graciousness. He is gracious in his dealings with others." 
	While attending Jenkins' consecration banquet in New Orleans, Griswold commented, "I don't feel like a stranger who just dropped in," he said. "I've gotten to know the clergy here from our recent retreat. This is a happy and whole diocese," he added.

Spirituality for busy clergy
	Moving on to Connecticut, Griswold led the clergy of the diocese in a retreat on "Ignatian Spirituality for Busy Clergy."
	"What you're going to get is not a piece of theory but a piece of lived experience.  I hope [it] will be practical and something that you can use and translate into your own experience, or in some way make use of in the days ahead," he told the clergy at the retreat. 
	During the three days in early February, Griswold gave three addresses designed to help the 170 clergy move into a deeper spiritual understanding of their life. The presentations were based on the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus. 
	Alluding to earlier introductions and welcoming remarks to clergy new to the diocese, Griswold said that he, too, was new to his job--which he characterized as "bracing" and "stretching." Connecticut was the third diocese he had visited in 10 days.
	"Community is taking a very new form for me," he said, noting it was different from when he was rector of a parish or bishop of Chicago. "Now after the 10th of January I have to start all over again," he said. "Here's an even grander scale on which to play out the mystery of community." 

'Grace on the run'
	Setting a pattern for all three presentations, Griswold began by revealing chapters from his spiritual journey. In his annual retreat at a Benedictine monastery in 1978, he said, his good intentions during an undirected retreat led to such unexpected and unsettling results that a friend counseled him to take a directed retreat in Pennsylvania with the Jesuits.
	With preconceptions that the Jesuits were all "very tall, very thin, very bald, had steel-rimmed glasses, never smiled and walked in locked step," he went anyhow.  "What followed was the most overwhelming experience I'd had in my life to that point," he recalled. The retreat consisted of "eight days of silence except for an hour with my director, during which he presented me with various pieces of Scripture and invited me to just let the Scripture accost me, however it might choose to break into my life or break into my consciousness.
	"There were some horrendous and terribly unsettling moments when I thought quite frankly I was on the edge of madness," Griswold said, but his spiritual director "didn't seem concerned. His lack of concern, his ability to say 'It's okay, just stay with that piece of Scripture or stay with that line of prayer,' gave me the confidence to relax.  The thing went deeper and deeper and deeper. By the end of the week I realized I had had a profound experience with the risen Christ. My life had been changed."
	Ignatian spirituality, he explained, offers an "apostolic" form of prayer in which "you show up knowing that God's going to show up and that grace is going to happen on the run." The fruit of your prayer may be courage or compassion in the midst of things that are going on, he said.
	"The presupposition of Ignatius is that you're going to be busy doing the Lord's work, and it's in the doing of the work that you're going to experience your intimacy with Christ."

Enthusiastic reactions
	Reactions to the Connecticut retreat were enthusiastic, especially in a church where "the clergy are hungry for leadership and a deeper relationship with Christ," according to the Rev. Canon Richard Tombaugh of the diocesan staff.
	The Rev. Mary Korte of Trinity, New Haven, agreed. "I thought the greatest gift he gave us was his accessibility. He was very approachable, very calm, centered, and I heard a number of people talking about that and feeling very energized by that."
	"I'm very happy for the future of the Episcopal Church," said the Rev. Patricia Hames of St. Mark's, New Britain. "Encouraged, too. I think he has the kind of leadership that is centered. I think he'll work well to bring the pieces of the church together. The core of his being seems to be so spiritual and Spirit-filled in Christ that he will be an easy leader to follow."
	"It gives me such hope for the church," said the Rev. Jesse Bigham, interim rector of St. John's in Salisbury, Connecticut. "I feel this is a man who can draw all people to the table and we can talk in harmony. I'm very touched by his spirituality."
	"I was especially glad to learn so much about the presiding bishop early in his tenure," said the Rev. Geoff Little of St. James, Fair Haven. "Before he became an issue, he became a man of God for us personally. It's going to be hard for us to view anything he does or says in the future without thinking of all we've learned here."

--Michael Barwell is deputy director of news and information for the Episcopal Church. Compiled from reports by Virginia Barrett Barker of the Diocese of Florida, Ann Ball of the Diocese of Louisiana, and Karin Hamilton of the Diocese of Connecticut.