Texas: Our Next Adventure Awaits

Earlier this year I remember waking one morning and feeling fear pressing upon me: I would be graduating from seminary soon and had no place to go, a wife to care for and student loans soon coming due. The heaviness upon me seemed to have grown like the giant icicles that hung outside the bedroom window. As Melissa lay sleeping beside me I prayed silently, “Dear Lord Jesus, I cannot bear this on my own. You have to take this from me.” And he did. I fell back asleep.

Graduation came and went and we still didn’t know where we were to go. Within a few days of leaving the school I received an offer to work as an assistant at a parish in Chicago—a nice position that came with a four bedroom house and a talented rector to learn under. But Melissa and I felt that this wasn’t where God was calling us and so I nervously turned it down.

A few days later I was ordained as a deacon in Florida and then flew to Houston to interview for an assistant position with a very likeable man and a great listener. Next I flew to a small town north of Dallas to look into a position as deacon-in-charge of a mission congregation of about sixty people. Although this would be a risk for a young guy like me, my heart leapt when I spoke with them—was God directing me toward Dallas?

Decision time came when the rector from Houston called about flying Melissa and me back for a second interview. Yet, I hadn’t heard from the church near Dallas—did our interview there go as well as I had thought? Were they going to extend a call? Were they hearing the same thing from God that I was hearing? I didn’t know, but I had to be honest with the rector from Houston who was now on the phone. “I’m beginning to lean strongly toward a church near Dallas,” I told him. “Okay,” he said, “I’ll keep looking.”

That same afternoon I received a call from the mission church near Dallas. They wanted me to come and be their pastor. And so we’re off. In less than two weeks time we head to Texas to learn and grow with St. Peter’s Episcopal Church. Our next adventure awaits.

May Newsletter

There I knelt before the dean of the seminary, the faculty and hundreds of guests including the archbishop of Kenya and the archbishop of the West Indies. The chapel was packed full of people who had come to witness and participate in the 2008 graduation from Nashotah House Theological Seminary. As the faculty stood surrounding me in a half circle, the dean who sat in the center asked, “Sirs, do you approve?” “We approve,” they responded. And then the dean ceremonially tapped me on the head with a Greek New Testament and said, “I admit you to the degree Master of Divinity.” A hood was hung around my neck, I shook the Dean’s hand and then stood. This was the culmination of three years of study and discipline. I had made it through.

Over the next few days Melissa and I packed everything that we owned into a little U-Haul trailer that was hitched to our 1991, Oldsmobile (which by the way has over 260,000 miles on it) with the hope that it would take us back to Florida where I would be ordained as a deacon the following week. We said our goodbyes to the friends we had made--people we're going to dearly miss--and then began the two day drive. Unfortunately the drive was frought with stalls and difficulties including an over-heating car. Somehow or another, with much fear and trembling and prayer, we arrived in Florida.

A week later I found myself again in a great chapel, the Episcopal Cathedral in Orlando—a building of immense grandeur, of stone and gothic architecture. At the beginning of the service I and the others involved walked down the center isle to our seats. I was then presented to the bishop by the people of the Church to be ordained to the sacred order of deacons. Before everyone present I solemnly declared that I believed in the Holy Scriptures to be the Word of God, and to contain all things necessary to salvation, and to conform to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of The Episcopal Church. The bishop then laid his hands upon my head and prayed, “Therefore, Father, through Jesus Christ your Son, give your Holy Spirit to Philip; fill him with grace and power, and make him a deacon in your Church.” And then all the people said, “Amen.”

And now, Melissa and I are off to follow God’s leading—the prayerful and humbling process of seeking a parish in which to serve. Melissa has also received her degree, Master of Arts in Religion, so we’re a dynamic, well trained team, sure to have an energetic impact where God calls us to be. We appreciate your prayers as we move through the interview process.

March Newsletter

Alleluia! He is Risen!

Melissa and I hope that you are having a blessed Easter season. This semester has been a challenge between school demands and time spent seeking a position so that I will have a place to go when I graduate next month (May 22). My bishop has released me and his other seminarians to look outside of the diocese for positions. I've spent hours on the phone talking to people around the Church about possible leads and openings, networking and gathering contacts of those who would be willing to bring on a young, go-getter deacon, soon to be priest who is fired up about preaching the gospel. This whole process is pushing me to trust fully in God, as graduation creeps ever closer.

This week at the seminary I’m in charge of leading our chapel services—which includes singing some of the prayers—solo, an activity that brings on a feeling somewhere between thrill, terror and great humility as I lead God’s people in worship. I could feel myself shaking up there, but I made it through without the becoming the target of rotten fruit. I have a few more days yet to go, but so far everyone has said “You’re doing an excellent job.” I also preached my senior sermon in chapel a few weeks ago and received strong feedback, even from people who weren't there: “Hey Phil, I wasn't in chapel on that day but someone told me that your sermon was really good.”

Melissa has been working hard, but feeling somewhat down. Her time is spent at home sitting on the couch (or at Starbucks) reading theology and drafting the chapters of her master's thesis. As you know, Melissa is energized by being out and about with other people and so this introverted solo pattern of studying and writing is demanding on her extroverted personality. The professor who is overseeing her writing is pleased with her accomplishments on the thesis. Once that is finished she will be granted her master's degree in religion. The work, though draining will soon be done.

Please keep us in your prayers as our time at seminary draws to a close. After graduation we will be returning to Florida for my ordination to the transitional diaconate (May 31). If you are in the area, the service is at three o’clock at the Cathedral in Orlando and we would love to see you. We know that God already knows where we will best serve Him, he just hasn't revealed it to us yet. Please pray for us as we discern God's leading for our ministry in the Episcopal Church.

Voice of Deliverance: The Language of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Its Sources

Here's an interesting book that I read yesterday about the influences upon some of the greatest sermons and speeches given during this century by one of Americas best orators, Martin Luther King Jr.

A Trip to New Orleans

Last week, I and a few other seminarians went down to New Orleans to help out with the some of the relief efforts following Hurricane Katrina. We left Wisconsin at four in the morning and arrived at our destination, the basement/bunkhouse of a rectory at about ten o’clock that night.

The following morning we awoke for a breakfast of Beignets and coffee. During the drive to a local breakfast diner, I was awestruck by the array of mansions that lined picturesque St. Charles Avenue with its oak trees, joggers and the romantic rumble of streetcars as they passed. These Romanesque, French-chateau, and Greek revival style houses struck me as tremendously large with dozens of rooms in each, incredibly landscaped.

Behind this portrait of wealth and Southern charm, hidden away in the backstreets, were blighted ghettos, houses with caving roofs and broken windows—two different worlds separated by a walk of but a couple of minutes! Here there were no iPod attired joggers, but rather a black man who politely said hello and then went on carefully picking through a trash can, collecting cans and other bits of metal that he could sell by the pound to the local scrap metal dealer. These much smaller houses, had in the past housed the slaves that built and cared for the mansions on St. Charles Avenue, tending the lawns, cleaning the houses and cooking the meals.

A man by the name of Charles Jenkins, the bishop of Louisiana wants to change all of that and so he started an organization called the Jericho Road Episcopal Housing Initiative. This program was named after a speech made by Martin Luther King in which he said:

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies...we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more that flinging a coin to a beggar. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation. [1]

During the first day we worked on renovating a house which belonged to Mrs. Wilson. Her insurance company had given her but $2,000 for the damage, and so the church had stepped in to help. We and the other volunteers busily caulked cracks, framed windows and painted. Mrs. Wilson had been out of her house for over two years now, living along with her children at her sister’s two bedroom home, a place much too small for so many people. It is our hope that her house will be fully renovated and ready for her to move back in within about four months. The next day we helped to finish the landscaping around multiple houses that had been built in some of these bereft neighborhoods and then offered for sale at the lowest possible costs in hopes of revitalizing the community through increased home ownership.

During the evenings, Edward who lead the trip and is a native of New Orleans, had established invitations for us to the homes of his rector and his parents—an opportunity for us to experience true Southern culture which consisted of fine wine, fish tacos and boiled crawfish. Delicious.

The day before we left, we had the opportunity to meet Shakoor Aljuwani, a recent convert to Christianity from the Nation of Islam, and an amazing community leader who is functioning as a voice for the poor and oppressed people of New Orleans. As we bumped along in the back of his fifteen passenger van, he pointed out houses that had been wiped away by the waters of mighty Katrina. Other nearly deserted neighborhoods stretched for miles with but a worker here and there throwing rotten building material out of the house and onto the front lawn—growing piles of rubbish that had been blackened with mold.

We drove slowly through a neighborhood of brick buildings that had not been damaged by flooding, but had been secured by the government with great steal casings over the windows at the price of $110 each so that the owners could not return for their belongings. The government had been eager to demolish these functioning buildings and to replace them with more attractive houses. The evacuation of the city via Katrina functioned as a means to quickly remove people from these homes—though it pains me to know that for the past two years many have been without housing and their belongings, because of this decision. They are not allowed back into the buildings. A growing tent city of homeless folks sat as evidence of the treatment of people who did not have the ability to fight—people pushed under this overpass by government officials in an attempt to conceal the hideous sore of a people shorn of their homes and their dignity, dejected by the prosperous city owners. It was a bleak inconsolable passage through the hidden corners of the city. I felt myself becoming angry as I listened to stories of city counsel meetings and pleas for the poor of the city that were heard with disdain and then disregarded.

The church in New Orleans has regularly been sending their deacons to these tent villages with food, much to the disappointment of city officials who feel that this action simply encourages these folks to stay, yet I don’t know how it is humanly possible to ignore such destitution and impoverishment and still be able to live in good conscience

After the tour we had lunch with the bishop. He asked us what we had seen and what we would say to the people back home. It was clear to us that the racism and greed that was molesting the poor mostly black people of New Orleans was breaking his heart and had convinced him to take action in any way that he could. “When you go back home, tell my story,” he said to us, “Tell my story.”

The trip was an eye opening experience for me.

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[1] Rev. Martin Luther King, “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence,” 4 April 1967 (Hartford Web Publishing, 1999), http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/058.html (accessed on January 12, 2008).