Autumnal Gazing

Ever since my days as a boy in North Sanford, NY, I have been deeply appreciative of the Autumn season.  I love the colors in the forest - red, yellow, orange, pink, green - all mixed together in a chaotic jumble of exquisite beauty.  I love the warm sun on my face and arms, the heat seeping through the fabric of sweater, shirt, or jacket.  I love the chill of cool to cold northern breezes, raising "goosebumps" on my skin as the sun settles in the west and the earth's heat radiates back through the deepening blue of the sky into the black of starlit space.

Here, in Southern Illinois, our autumn scenery is what I would call "very pretty," but it lacks the crispness of mountain flora and atmosphere.  The warm days are more summer-like than I prefer, although I have grown used to them over the last thirty years of living here.  The black nights are not as black, since the population density here is much higher than it is in upsate New York, and every farm has an array of spotlights and security lights, and floodlights - as if the people are frightened of the dark.  If you read the papers and talk to people, you will learn that in the twenty-first century of the Common Era, fear of night is returning - which today is not fear of wild animal or savage Indian, but fear of neighbor or of neighbor's kin.  I suspect that this is also more true than I would want in Broome and Delaware Counties of New York, as well.  It does not speak well of us as a species.

Today the newspaper carried a story that this fall will be rather bland.  There have been "spot droughts," you see.  A  fungus has infected the trees and a wasp infestation has resulted in the tree leaves being attacked by insect larva - I have seen the galls on the leaf bottoms, myself.  All of this has affected the ability of the tree to produce the appropriate amount of sugar during the growing season and that will affect the ability of the leaves to show forth their most brilliant colors.  Good fall color will be, they say, a rather hit or miss affair.

Meanwhile we are in the middle of a political drought of sorts.  As one writer put it, we have the specter of "two bankrupt political parties, busy bankrupting the country."  The country seems to be infected with a swarm of money wasps, attacking the political system, implanting the multitude of growing parts with galls of money, bringing productive governance to a halt - all to feed their own greed.  The American political system is currently for sale.  Good fall color will be, they say, a rather hit or miss affair.

Thoughts on Missions in Springfield

Marti asked a couple of questions about the outreach fund and about the funding of mission churches. Those are two totally different issues.

Sue gave an excellent response regarding the outreach fund. What follows is my opinion about the funding of the mission churches and place of those missions in the life of the diocese.

For a number of years, I was a member of the Department of General Mission Strategies (DGMS), culminating with my serving a term as Chair of DGMS. When I became chair, Bishop Beckwith and I had a discussion in which we both agreed that the continued growth in funding the mission churches could not go on. The original concept (long before my time on DGMS) was that the diocese would fund "up to half" of the Vicar's pay (the priest-in-charge of a mission is, in our usage, called the "Vicar"), but the mission churches were tasked with improving their own stewardship, with the goal of ultimately eliminating the need for diocesan assistance. Over the years some churches (mine of St. Thomas, Salem) worked diligently to work our way to zero assistance. We achieved that goal around 2001 or 2002, if my memory serves well. Some churches, though, were happy to give their Vicar a raise, simply passing the need on to the diocese in their annual request for assistance.

It was that growth that I wanted to end. Bishop Beckwith wanted, for reasons we didn't explore sufficiently (my bad), to eliminate the funding altogether. I said, "Aye, aye, sir" in good military fashion (I'm a retired Navy Lieutenant Commander [of the Line], he a retired Rear Admiral [Chaplain Corps]) and off I went. In a few short years, around 2006, I believe, mission funding had been reduced to zero. At it's maximum, the total funding had been around $60,000 per year (give or take - I don't have an old journal to look at). We, in DGMS, allocated those funds to each church, EXCEPT IN THE HALE DEANERY, where the diocese handled the funding. The Hale deanery money would be above and beyond the DGMS administered funds. DGMS was never given an adequate report as to the Hale Deanery money, so we just quit asking, on the theory that to Bishop Beckwith and Treasurer Jim Donkin, we had become "just a noisy gong." The elimination of mission funding dealt only, we understood, with the non-Hale Deanery mission churches.

At the present time, all of the mission churches (Hale Deanery and part of the Darrow Deanery excepted) are on their own to secure priests. In the case of St. Thomas, Salem, the Bishop's Committee (the mission church version of the vestry) voted to pay me $16,992/year (I really forget how we came up with that strange number) starting in late 2002 (when I was a Deacon on the way to becoming a priest). That number has never changed, over the last eight years, but has resulted in a slow decline in reserve funds over the last four years as we lost a couple of fairly high giving members to death. I presume, but do not know, that other mission churches have similar problems.

That, of course, raises a good set of questions, as Marti indicates. Does the Episcopal Church, in its Springfield incarnation, want to have a mission role? Or does it prefer to "hunker down" in the parish churches of the larger congregations?

We need to recognize that in many of the Illinois communities (mostly large towns that the state, in its wisdom, has declared to be "small cities), the Episcopal Church cannot compete, in numbers, with either the Roman Catholic Church or the fundamentalist Protestant Churches (mostly in the guise of Baptist or Christian Church denominations). Do we really want to?

We are, and will always be, a small minority church, with mostly family size (less than 75 members) congregations. These can be quite dynamic, as any number of the small missions can tell you. But if, as Marti implies, we have the wrong model, then we need to rethink that model. That may, as Bishop Beckwith wanted, to mean the raising up of local deacons and priests, who are willing, as I am, to work for minimum or no wage at all, depending upon other sources of income to support our ministry (as noted, I'm retired from the military). But that means that the people must do much, much, more to pull their share of the load. In my church, they do. Almost everyone, not just "the few," do most of the work. But the importance of being part of the diocese, and not being seen as "step-children" cannot be over-emphasized. The problem of "big parish" versus "little mission" cannot be ignored. I suggest that both the parish churches AND the mission churches have been, and are, guilty of "us versus them" thinking, to the detriment of our Christ-given commandment to spread the good news.

So that's my "two cents, or less" on the subject.

Peace and blessings to all. Tom+

Little Egypt Parade

For those who don't know, this section of So. Illinois is known as "The Gateway to Little Egypt."  The story is told that a drought in the northern part of the state led farmers south seeking corn and fodder for their animals.  That was a trek that became known as the journey to Little Egypt.  So, of course, in a truly American way, we have a parade and time of festivities in early October to celebrate the name, if not the occassion.

The good people of St. Thomas always have a free lemonade stand, only on cold years it becomes a hot chocolate give-away.  This year was one of those exceeding strange days.  When the sun was shining, we had a run on lemonade.  But when the sun went behind the clouds, the temperature dropped a quick 8 - 10 degrees and hot chocolate was favored.  But no one left thirsty.

St. Thomas also had a small float in the parade.  The theme, as set up by chairperson Martha Stiehl, was "Volunteers: The Saints of God."  They played and sang the good old hymn, "I sing a song of the Saints of God."  The float was peopled by Jim Stiehl (a doctor - in life as on the float), Joan Baker (not a queen, but one of our English-women - isn't that about the same), Bill Smith (a soldier in life and on the float), Jeff Kozuszek (soon to be ordained - we hope), Willie and Olivia Shuler, along with Nick Kozuszek, at tea, Liz Hinman as an artist, and, of course, our Musical genius, Martha Stiehl.  Enjoy the Video of them passing the church.