Tom Secules: A Reflection

A Reflection on the Occasion of a Memorial Service

for the Life and Witness of

Thomas William Secules

All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, NC

April 29, 2017

Thomas E. Wilson, Friend

In John’s Gospel Jesus says: “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going." Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

It has always been an irritation that, in John’s Gospel, it is Thomas, the rather dull, dim-witted disciple, who just does not understand. I used to wonder if my name was my destiny as the one who just never could get around to understanding Jesus. But Tom Secules had the same name, and he was never dull or dim-witted and he understood Jesus as his friend whom he shared with anyone he met.

When I was much younger, in the 1950’s, I was given a gift of a crystal radio set which I put together and, after the lights went out, I would use an earphone and listen in bed to the Sunday evening preachers. They explained this passage from John to me in a very literal way. I was told that I must accept Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior in order to get into the heaven above the sky after I die and, if I did not, I would burn in the everlasting fires of hell. To “Believe” was to accept the doctrines in the inerrant Bible, and if I did not, God would banish me to the outer darkness reserved for Papists, pagans, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and unbaptized African savages.

Over the next 60 years, I let my crystal set get mislaid, and I tuned into transistor radios and stereo systems to listen to Folk, Jazz, and Rock and Roll.  Only much later did I wander back to this passage from John. My understanding was that the place that Jesus was referring to was not a place of geography but of being in the full heart of the Christ, the creative energy of God who promised through Jesus that when two or three are gathered, Christ would be there in the space between us. It did not matter where I was or how good I was, God’s spirit, as Jung said, “summoned or not God is present”.

I came to understand that the “Way” was not a path to somewhere else like a heaven after we were dead but a way of living as if God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven.. The “Way” meant learning to care for neighbor as Jesus did so that the Creative Spirit of God, the Christ, would give us the power to walk humbly so to love, even our enemies, wanting what is best for them even when they don’t have our best interests at heart. The “Way” meant to forgo passing judgment on others, as Jesus did, even when you are right.  The “Way” meant taking up the towel and being a servant, as Jesus did. Some days are easier than others, but the journey and the destination are the same and, with the Spirit of the Risen Lord, we would never be alone. But there are days when I need a coach, a fellow traveler, a model, someone who would keep me honest, and over the years God has gracefully given to me and fellow pilgrims that kind of coach - and one of the best was Tom Secules.

For Tom, the “Way” also meant to keep his promises, to honor his commitments, and to cherish his beloved family, friends, community, and church. When I came here, Tom’s wife Beth was on the search committee and Tom was on the Vestry welcoming us as he wanted to see the best in me and to make sure I would do my best for the church.  He served several times on the vestry and those times he showed true leadership. He was forceful but not disagreeable in handling differences, because what he was working for was what would be best for the church. For him “Semper Fi” was not just a slogan he learned long ago in the Marine Corps- it was a way of life. He would pass on the formula to me that he was not an ex-Marine or a former Marine. He was always a Marine but in a different uniform and in a different phase of life.” For he was faithful to his God, his country, his wife, his family, his community, his friends,  his church and his neighbor. He had been a coach and knew that the team was more important than any player, but each player had to be guided to use their talents to the fullest on a daily basis. As Satchel Page used to say, “You win a few, you lose a few. Some get rained out. But you got to dress for all of them.”

To dress up for the important game of being a follower of Jesus is not about uniforms, insignias, or special equipment, but to prepare ourselves mentally, physically and spiritually each day. For most of my years here I, “Tom”, would meet each week with my brother “Tom S” (Secules) and the person we called OBT, the “Other Brother Tom”. We began when Tom was chosen as Lay Rector of a Cursillo team and he asked me to be one of the Spiritual Directors. OBT, The Other Tom, was recruited to be on the music team and Coach Tom, the Lay Rector, wanted us to meet weekly to prepare ourselves spiritually. After the Cursillo weekend we continued to meet. Sometimes we would meet in my office, sometimes we would meet at our homes over some good scotch, and sometimes over dinner with our wives. Years later we would meet with other people as well. We would spend an hour answering three questions: 1) What was your moment closest to Christ this week? 2) What has been your study this week to nourish your relationship with Christ? 3) What has been your action this week to be an outward and visible sign of God’s Kingdom in the world?

Since the worship services seemed to be the center of the church’s life it seemed only natural that the “moment closest to Christ” would have something to do with worship, and many times it did. Tom loved filling in for acolytes, lighting the candles and carrying the processional cross when we would have services in the middle of the week as for Memorial services and the acolytes were in school. He would fill in as his way of honoring the life and ministry of the church member who had died. Death did not stop Tom being a good friend. He loved serving as a Lay Reader because he had a love for God’s word. He was humbled when he served as a Eucharistic Minister being able to symbolically bring God’s healing strength by bringing the cup for those who need strength to partake of the blood of Christ to make it through the day when they attended the church service and to bring it to homes and hospitals for those who were unable to make it here.  It was that sense of being on a team and helping out. When he carried the cross in procession he reminded me of a Marine on parade; disciplined and proud to serve for something greater than himself; “Semper Fi!” He enjoyed being a greeter and welcoming strangers to the church he loved and to welcome parishioners who had been away to know that they had been missed.

The “moment closest to Christ” could also when he would listen to a friend go through a difficulty as he shared the burden with a friend after a round of golf over a beer. God was not locked up in a church building but was whenever two or three gathered together in love; Tom knew the Christ was there and he hallowed those moments. You could always count on Tom for a listening ear. Tom’s quiet nonjudgmental listening ear was really helpful for me and OBT, his other brother Tom, as many times we would share prayers for what was in our hearts. Over the years each of our wives had horrible encounters with ill health and we would worry about our children for no matter how old your children are you worry about them. I remember one week when he had been so busy helping care for Beth, he apologized that he had done no action outside the home and I and OBT reminded him that Christ was being honored when he was faithfully continuing his Holy Vow;  “for better, for worse, in sickness of in health.” Marriage is a ministry and to the God who calls us into this ministry we ask to be given the grace, strength and will to serve faithfully.” God is known when people take their vows seriously and faithfully. We counseled together about people we knew who needed some help. Many of our discussions were not about church stuff but centered on love we had for our families and friends; as the Hymn goes “God is love and where true love is; God himself is there.” In our meetings and in our lives touched by those meetings we won a few, we lost a few. Some got rained out. But each week the coach would make sure we dressed for all of them. We gave God thanks for wins, we assured each other about the forgiveness for our losses, we encouraged each other to put up with the rain, and we pledged to be there with each other.

I was only one of so many who were gently coached by Tom Secules and gathered strength from him and the God Tom served. If I were to choose the Iconic image for Tom Secules  it would be for his leadership in the Room In The Inn Program here at All Saints. I remember how hard he worked to bring it about and make sure that all of our homeless guests staying here for the Room at the Inn would be welcomed and treated with respect. The people who were down on their lick needed to be treated as brothers and sister. He insisted that the volunteers didn’t just put food in the kitchen but all would sit down together and get to know each other as fellow people on the way not clients on cold comfort charity. I remember how he dealt with a parishioner who was starting her long slide into full dementia. She was terrified that homeless people were going to be so close to her house. Tom was patient and kind and during that first week she and her husband were one of the people who brought dinner one evening and enjoyed these new neighbors. She could be a trail but she was a fellow child of God. Tom saw no reason for pity when empathetic love was what was needed. There was no room for pleasantry or bromides when honest strength and wisdom could be shared. Gratuitous advice was never served up when non-judgmental listening was on the menu. Everybody could play on Coach Secules’ team.

Today we give thanks to God for letting us know Tom Secules, even if it was for much too short a time.

Tom Secules: written on Palm Sunday 2017

Coach, coach; back me up in the game!

Let me try to hit it out of the park,

set up the touchdown,

assist in making the basket,

boot it into the net.

With you behind me I can do anything,

as it has been since placing on this team, 

when you did that small big smiling laugh,

placing your huge hand on my shoulder

wishing me the best, reminding me

of his confidence of the scouting reports.

I did not always succeed, but even then,

the huge hand came back on the shoulder,

saying; “God was with you as you did your best.

Outcomes are beyond our control,

but never doubt that I love you.”.

I never did.

I knew he always did his best,

Thank you coach.

Your huge hand is still on our shoulders.

as your love echoes.

3rd Easter 4-30-17 "Did Not Our Hearts Burn Within Us"

A Reflection for III Easter                                         All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, NC April 30, 2017                                                                  Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Acts 2:14a,36-41         1 Peter 1:17-23            Luke 24:13-35             Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17

Did Not Our Hearts Burn Within Us

From the lesson from the Acts of the Apostles, the people were “Cut to the heart.” From the reading from the Gospel of Luke, Jesus calls the two unnamed disciples “Slow of heart,” and they later reflected that “Were not our hearts burning within us?” 

The tradition is that Luke, the attributed author of Luke and Acts, was a physician, but the conditions described in the heart don’t disturb him because he didn’t take the Bible literally, didn’t diagnose major treatment if the heart is cut or slow or burning. The ancients looked at the heart as both a physical and psychic entity. Only once in the Bible does it name the heart as a physical organ.  All the rest of the time it suggests that it is the center of being, identity, will, and connection with the spiritual realms of God or evil.   

For example, in the Eucharistic service, the old opening going back to at least the 3^rd Century is “Dominus vobiscum” – literally first-person plural “God is with us” - an announcement of the presence of the peace of God, and that is acknowledged by the people, “Et cum spiritu tuo” - returning that peace. This greeting is followed by “Sursum corda” which meant “Raise the hearts”, or as we translate it “Lift up your hearts!” The instruction could mean that, since the Holy Presence is here, we need to stand up in honor so that our body is raised up, lifting up the physical heart. But in the psychic sense, it means that, because God is here, let us bring our very being, our will, our soul, our heart, our openness to spiritually connect with God.

Pascal said: “The Heart has it reasons that the mind will never know” by which he meant that we can never fully understand the world, ourselves, or our God just with our mind alone. Oh, but to turn one’s heart over to God is a frightful thing. The Book of Hebrews warns us: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God.” In our cowardice, we want to hold on to that little me, the ego, that we have carved out for public presentation, and let that take the place of our commitment. The danger is that since we are so used to dealing and staying on the surface with the public persona and the ego, the undiscovered country of our heart is unknown territory. God is so gentle that God keeps knocking on the door, instead of battering the door down.

John Donne in his Holy Sonnets: 14 is so aware of how reluctant he is to fully turn over his heart to God that he begs God to force the issue:

Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;

That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend

Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

I, like an usurp'd town to another due,

Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;

Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,

But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain,

But am betroth'd unto your enemy;

Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,

Take me to you, imprison me, for I,

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

But God does not ravish hearts. Look at the way the Risen Christ deals with the two unnamed disciples who had deserted him. They are running away from their guilt and from the possibility of hope. We fear that we might be hurt again and we make the vow that this hurt will  not happen to us again. The Emmaus Road experience is a metaphor of what happens in all of our lives as we try to distance ourselves from our pain.

Teddy Roosevelt at age 25 lost his beloved first wife Alice, age 22, from undiagnosed kidney failure disguised by her pregnancy. He wrote of her:  “Fair, pure, and joyous as a maiden; loving, tender, and happy. As a young wife; when she had just become a mother, when her life seemed to be just begun, and when the years seemed so bright before her—then, by a strange and terrible fate, death came to her. And when my heart's dearest died, the light went from my life forever.”

In his pain, he went out to the wild plains of the Dakota Territory to deal with his depression where he rode as a cowboy saying, “Black Care rarely sits behind a rider whose pace is fast enough.” The problem is that our paces are never fast enough, for God is always with us on whatever escape we hope to make from our broken hearts.

On the Road to Emmaus, the Risen Christ walks with them as a seeming stranger and slows them down by listening to them. Healing of a broken heart begins when we allow ourselves to slow down. The Risen Lord truly listens, unlike many of our own conversations where we only pause in order to come up with a response to gain mastery. How often are we around people who truly listen, putting aside their own agenda to fully hear you? Sometimes we get annoyed with God because God seems to not chime in with God’s own opinion as is the norm with most of our conversations.

Finally after they have stopped talking and are ready to hear, then and only then, the Risen Lord brings soothing words of comfort, for indeed he is the “Balm of Gilead that heals the sin sick soul.” There is no agenda of putting a Band-Aid over the hurt, but only the walking gently with them on the long journey through a wilderness. When they calm down long enough to stop their rushing retreat from pain and from the possibility of new hope, he waits for them to invite him.

When the time is fully come, the Risen Lord takes the Bread, blesses it and breaks it and gives it to those who have need of care just like Jesus did at the last supper before his own death. He shows us that a broken heart is not the end but a gateway to a deeper level of life.

Every day is a Road to Emmaus journey as we try to escape the pain we feel or cause, and the Risen Lord is walking on the road with us, quietly listening until we are aware that our hearts have been burning..

Did not our hearts burn within us?

Walking to an Emmaus, heart heavy with grief,

For I let down my vows as my heart wavered

Not supporting whom God’s heart favored.

Slinking out of town, heart shaking like a leaf.

Then hearing heartened story beggaring belief

Of women’s hearts being lifted, visions seeing

Many overflowing hearts of heavenly beings,

Rumors of body stolen by dark hearted thief,

Holds that heartfelt hope in dynamic tension.

Met one of whose hearty company I yearned

Have a heart to heart over my views concerned

Heart breaking confusion without condescension.

Looking into my broken heart his eyes discerning

Only then was I ever aware of my heart burning..

Thomas' Defense Reflection and Poem for 23 April

A Reflection for II Sunday of Easter All Saints’ Episcopal, Southern Shores, NC April 23, 2017 Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Acts 2:14a, 22-32 1 Peter 1:3-9 John 20:19-31 Psalm 16

Thomas’ Defense

Let me start off with a quote from Frederick Buechner; The Face of Jesus;

The earliest reference to the Resurrection is Saint Paul's, and he makes no mention of an empty tomb at all. But the fact of the matter is that in a way it hardly matters how the body of Jesus came to be missing because in the last analysis what convinced the people that he had risen from the dead was not the absence of his corpse but his living presence. And so it has been ever since. 

Let’s use that quote to approach the Doubting Thomas story differently from its usual point that you need to banish doubt. Thomas had doubt; but so what? We all have doubt, for doubt is the shadow of faith. Without a shadow, everything is one-dimensional. Shadows give depth, allowing one-dimensional ideas to come to three-dimensional life. It is like weightlifting. Muscles are developed by adding weight and resistance which brings about growth. It is like study - the only way to learn is to admit I do not know. In life, the only way we are able to enter into healing is when we first admit that we are powerless. Faith grows in the struggle with doubt. Doubt is not the enemy, it is the opportunity to grow deeper in faith. I admit to having doubt only on days that end in the letter “Y”, for each day I enter into the wonderful struggle to find awe in all of creation, to find the living presence of God in my life or, as the writer of the passage from 1^st Peter for today thanks God, “a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection.” Each day I am like the father of the child possessed by a demon in Marks Gospel who cries out, “Lord I believe, help my unbelief!” Doubt moves faith from an intellectual assent to some theological principles to the fullness of life where faith is acted out in life, or as the Psalmist for today sings, “You will show me the path of life, in your presence there is fullness of joy, and in your right hand are pleasures for evermore.”

You know the story. Thomas has a previous engagement – he’s probably in hiding - and misses the first meeting of the Disciples. In that meeting, Christ Jesus shows up and the Disciples marvel at the event. The boys look up to Thomas and tell him that he really missed something for the body of Jesus appeared in the room, where the doors were locked out of fear of the authorities. Thomas says, “Boys, you have got it wrong. I am not interested in a body, I want the wounds.” 

 

I tend to have an affinity with the disciple Thomas, and as I meditated on him, I think Thomas had been mourning while in hiding, lamenting the death of his friend and his own cowardice, but more importantly, a lack of meaning in his life. “Who am I without my purpose, my mission?” He had been with Jesus for years, and he understood that this man Jesus had God’s presence in him and Jesus’ mission had been to show that God was present in all the brokenness of this world. God, through Jesus with the Spirit of the creative energy of God within him, was redeeming all things, giving life to the dead, and entering into the wounds of the world to bring about healing.

When Thomas comes to the next meeting, he puts his fingers and hands into the wounds and claims his meaning in life again. As a follower of this Risen Lord, he is not just to sit in locked rooms ruled by fear but to take his hands which have been blessed by the living presence of Christ and touch the wounds of the world to bring about the healing in which God calls us to be involved - do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.

Thomas is a symbol of the church, the living presence of God, that refuses to hide in buildings but agrees to go out into the world to bring to a deeper reality the presence of God to our own wounds and to our brothers and sisters in God.

Today we are taking some time for some good friends to share how they expand their own agendas to be icons of Thomas into this broken world, to convince people of the living presence of Christ. We will also distribute the proceeds of the All Saints After Dark proceeds to help our friends who join with us in mission to bring healing of mind, body, and spirit in our community.

Thomas’ Defense

I have to touch the wounded hands

place my hand into his wounded side

not denying death or prove he is alive

or claim membership in religious bands

but I touch him to enter fully into my life

accepting my complicity in our betrayal

when the world’s pain was in our denial

when we dismissed a vulnerability of life

overlooking preciousness in each moment.

He entered into all facets of life’s messes

placing hands in/on wounds as he blesses,

redeeming all things as part of at-one-ment.

Let me follow him with hands inside placing

entering as he into world’s wounds embracing.

Easter 2017

A Reflection for the Feast of the Resurrection 

All Saints Episcopal, Southern Shores, NC 

April 16, 2017 

Thomas E Wilson, Rector

Acts 10:34-43 Colossians 3:1-4 Matthew 28:1-10

Easter 2017

Today I want to start off by focusing in one word in the Gospel passage for Easter. From Matthew’s Gospel: “Suddenly Jesus met them and said, "Greetings!"

“Greetings”? Come on now; if I had been in charge of writing this Gospel, I would have written a snappier opening line than “Greetings”; maybe something like, “TA-DA!!!!!” Or “Surprise, Surprise!!” Or maybe a variation of the way we do it on Easter morning; “Alleluia, I am Risen! I am risen indeed, Alleluia!”

But “Greetings”? I remember more than a half century ago in 1964, during Christmas vacation from my first semester of college, I was just turning 18, and the day I got home, there waiting for me was an official letter from my friends and neighbors at my local draft board which started off “Greetings”. It told me to sign up for the military draft. What kind of greeting did I expect? “Merry Christmas, we really want you to enjoy your present!” or “OH joy and Rapture; Congratulations you have been selected to receive a special prize!” or “We regret to inform you, etc. . . .” They wanted to make the greeting as commonplace as you could get: “No big deal, this is business as usual.”

On Easter morning we usually go whole hog and crank up the organ, except the organ is in Missouri being upgraded so we have to rely on loud voices and the concert grand piano. It is the day we put on the best vestments, we all dress pretty, flowers are all over the place, we have Easter Egg hunts for the children, big Easter meals, and where I have to sweat to churn out a humdinger of a sermon to impress, literally, “the hell out of you”, so you will be tempted to come back next week.

But “Greetings”? The Greek word is “Xaipete” (hair-e-teh) which is sort of like “Good morning”, a standard kind thing you say every day to friends and family in ordinary life. In this story, both the angel and Jesus follow it up with the standard thing that is said to someone who is having their mind blown - “May phobiesthe”, “Don’t be afraid”. That particular phrase, or a variation of it, happens a lot in the Bible. I haven’t counted them, but somebody else has and says that it is repeated in Greek or Hebrew 365 times, or on an average of once for each day.

The Bible knows that we spend all of our lives in fear. We are afraid of things we cannot understand, we are afraid of losing control, we are afraid of dying, we are afraid of living, we are afraid of loving, and yet in the middle of it all comes the quiet, gentle refrain, “Greetings, don’t be afraid.”

In this Gospel story, the women, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, are afraid for things don’t make sense There was this earthquake, the huge stone has been rolled away by this massive glowing angel who is sitting on it, the guards have all passed out in fear on the ground, and the Angel tells them that Jesus has been raised, inviting them to enter the cave to see what has happened and to tell the disciples. This increases their fear - and notice that they don’t go into the cave, but run away. Joseph Campbell writes that the cave in stories, myths, and dreams is a symbol of facing fear: “The cave you fear to enter contains the treasure you seek.” They run away from what they seek and Jesus comes to them in their fear. Jesus appears to them as they are running away with a matter-of-fact “Greetings” – “business as usual, don’t be afraid.” 

 

John’s Gospel starts off by saying:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. . . And the Word became flesh and lived among us,

 

In the beginning was the creative spirit of God, and those people who followed Jesus experienced the creative spirit of God in the life of the man Jesus and after his death, they continued to experience that spirit in the everyday life. The life of the Spirit was business as usual in this life and the next. The creative spirit before the beginning of time is still continuing, creating and living among us in everyday life. That story tells us that the Creative Spirit does not die; much as we try to kill it by starving it to death, it lives in us in this world and the next.

Frederick Buechner in his “Magnificent Defeat refers to this kind of behavior as “In the Midst”:

Jesus is apt to come, into the very midst of life at its most real and inescapable. Not in a blaze of unearthly light, not in the midst of a sermon, not in the throes of some kind of religious daydream, but . . . at supper time, or walking along a road. This is the element that all the stories about Christ's return to life have in common: Mary waiting at the empty tomb and suddenly turning around to see somebody standing there—someone she thought at first was the gardener; all the disciples except Thomas hiding out in a locked house, and then his coming and standing in the midst; and later, when Thomas was there, his coming again and standing in the midst; Peter taking his boat back after a night at sea, and there on the shore, near a little fire of coals, a familiar figure asking, "Children, have you any fish?"; the two men at Emmaus who knew him in the breaking of the bread. He never approached from on high, but always in the midst, in the midst of people, in the midst of real life and the questions that real life asks.

Don’t get me wrong; I am real glad you showed up here today on Easter, the Feast of the Resurrection, but the real feast of the resurrection is every day; every day the creative spirit encounters us to create, to forgive, to walk with each other in peace, to be present to give thanks, to dream and work for justice and mercy, to be kind to strangers, to respect the dignity of every human being, to live each day fully in this life and the next, and to not be afraid when things are just outside of our control or understanding. 

 

“Xaipete” “Greetings.”, “May phobiesthe”; “Don’t be afraid” for Alleluia, Christ is Risen. The Lord is Risen indeed.

Easters 2017

When I was young, only four,

baskets came out to gather eggs

to grab as much while outdoor

fast as I can run with short legs.

When I was closer to the ten

A new basket was brought out

for my little brother, but the yen

stayed with me hid by a pout

because at one level I did learn

that Easter was about new life

but it seemed like a way to earn

approval from Mom, Dad’s wife,

as we dressed up in new glad rags

marching off to church to mumble

formula while tearing off price tags

and being warned not to grumble.

When I was home after being eighteen

breaking from college so much wiser

sneering at this superstition at the scene

doling out sufferance like a mean miser.

The Jesus story wasn’t really heard by me

thinking ages earlier come up with

a hoax, but dead is dead as far as I did see

for I was too smart to believe a myth.

When I was a father at twenty and three

I held my daughter and turned to pray

for this miracle, holding her so close to me,

here was full life; not mere child’s play

as love isn’t swapped but rather shared

as life fully given out of that deep love

so that each new day won’t be spared

so many moments of awe found thereof.

Now I am passing seventy of full life

I know much less now but do love in myth

that new reality being risen to afterlife

leaving shackles of reason dispensed with

for each day is a new creation savored

of something much greater will not end

by tasting heaven on earth full flavored

for existence doesn’t end but transcend.

.