reflection on Jack Mann

A Homily on the Occasion of a Celebration of the Life of Jack Mann                      May 16, 2013 All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, N.C.                                                    Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Lamentations 3:22-26, 31-33  Psalm 139:1-11.          2 Corinthians 4:16--5:9                       John 14:1-6

“All will be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well" (http://www.umilta.net/showinglove.html )

Jack and Dottie

 

I cannot tell you the number of people who wanted to speak today because of their love for and admiration of Jack. They wanted to talk about how he had opened up doors;  moral doors for them into a deeper dimension of service in this world to our fellow images of God, and/or practical doors into a better way of finding our way through the pitfalls of this life, and/or spiritual doors into the spiritual journey to the heart of God.

I have this understanding of why we are all here; we all have something in common, and that is that we are friends of Jack Mann, and we are ticked that he is dead. We want to make sense of his death.  After all, there are plenty of people we could name that the news of whose death we would rejoice, but God - why Jack Mann? 

There is an old Yiddish word for the kind of person Jack Mann is - I’m not going to use the past tense – Jack is a Mensch. It means someone who walks with integrity, who makes the world a better place because he is in it. Jack knows himself and the world he lives in quite well because he allows God to show him the mystery underneath both.  He is a man who echoes the opening line of the Psalm for today;

LORD, you have searched me out and known me; *
you know my sitting down and my rising up;
you discern my thoughts from afar. 

I first met Jack ten years ago when he was the head of the search committee which recommended to the Vestry to call me here. My wife was a bit intimidated by him because he was polite but a bit stand-offish, this tall, slightly stooped figure, straight from central casting - all he needed was a long black frock coat and a Bible in his hand - he was taking this religious task so seriously. Jack has penetrating eyes that looks deep into your soul. He clears his throat to speak and starts off with a sigh to send a message that his listening silence is broken to say words you might consider well. He seems to have a built in BS meter which does not suffer fools gladly, and my on our first meeting my wife was so afraid I would blow the interview and that buzzer would go off if I relied only on my limited charm. We had been in the Episcopal Church for years and were leery of the outwardly Christian pseudo-spiritual people who insisted on prayer and use words like “listening to the Holy Spirit”, but who were narrow and judgmental and there was nothing loving inside. My first impression was that Jack might be one of those people because he seemed too good to be true.

Boy was I wrong! Yeah, he has a tendency to be sarcastic sometimes, and he does use the BS meter effectively on friends and foes alike, but underneath it all is a spirit of pure love, which is not trapped in cloying sentimentality but with the penetrating focus of claiming the space between him and another person as holy space. Jack does not waste time. I referred many people to Jack who were struggling with addiction, because he knows what it was like to spend half of his life with that demon and the other half in recovery to sanity. He figures that he had wasted too many years wrestling with his demons where people were turned into objects to be used to reach his own goals. The second half of his life he devotes to help cleaning up some of the mess that people who had that similar habit created.

I did not know that Jack; that Jack who lived in a hell on earth had died, for when I met him he was now living into the resurrection where God is present. Our faith tells us there are two deaths, and when we go through the first, the death to ourselves as the center of the universe, the second death holds no fear for us. For Jack, the first death brought him into a deeper sense of freedom and joy, into a deeper consciousness where he lived into Paul’s words from the lesson for today from 2^nd Corinthians:  “Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day”.

I have two visual memories of Jack during worship services here. One was of his singing with full throat. He could sing so well - he may not hit the right notes or tempo - but he could sing with joy, which is all that matters. I also remember his head constantly moving during a sermon because he was listening and he would smile, look puzzled, frown, tear up, nod in agreement, or shake his head because, for him, listening to a sermon or a conversation was never a spectator sport.  It was a dialogue, and what was going on in his mind was reflected in his face. I always like the fact that the outside of Jack is congruent with his heart and soul. He has no need to hide.

I grew to depend on Jack as my social conscience and spur to deeper spiritual journeys. Jack knows that only the Inner Journey into the spiritual depth would take him to the Power that was greater than himself to do the Outer Journey of changing himself and the world. He warned that, without the honesty of the Inner Journey to hear the Holy Spirit’s call, all he would do is get worn out and bitter from chronic undifferentiated busy work.

When I came here Jack introduced me to his two friends, John Schultz and Dick Buchanan. John, Dick, and Jack were like the three musketeers, and they were the fathers of most spiritual study or servant ministry outreach in this church. Jack missed them both terribly when they both left their dwelling places here due to ill health in order to be closer to family and both died soon afterwards. But he continued their work for them. 

When Jack first started to talk about moving, I did not want to see him leave. I warned him about what happened to those two amigos who left their houses on the Outer Banks. I even suggested that I would put a curse on his house so it could not be sold. It is a good thing I am in the blessing business instead of the cursing business because it doesn’t work.  Jack by his life showed us we are called to walk this lonesome valley giving blessings not curses. He loved his work with Interfaith Community Outreach (ICO) and it works as a memorial to him, following the lesson for today from Lamentations:  "The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in him."

John’s Gospel for today remembers Jesus saying, “In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?”  Dwelling places are not on geographical maps; they are intersections of the human and divine which are here in this world after the first death and in the world to come after the second death. Jack lived and lives in what Julian of Norwich, a 14^th century English mystic, called the “ground of our beseeching”. 

Last week, Wednesday, May 8^th was the Feast day of Julian, and I remember a class Jack taught on Dame Julian years ago. But in my memory it is like yesterday, as he smiles broadly when he recited her favorite phrase she heard from God: “All will be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well".  Jack has died and in my imagination he recited that line the moment after he died. TS Eliot reflected on the impact of Julian on later generations in Little Giddings, the last of his Four Quartets:   http://allspirit.co.uk/gidding.html )

Whatever we inherit from the fortunate
We have taken from the defeated
What they had to leave us—a symbol:
A symbol perfected in death.
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
By the purification of the motive
In the ground of our beseeching.

When Jack left for Florida, the congregation gathered around him to lay hands on him to bless him on his way to continue his ministry. He was leaving this house to move to a different dwelling place. I believe that the animating spirit never dies but it leaves a residue behind with wherever and whomever it dwells. Jack’s legacy stayed behind in the Outer Banks, in this church and with us his fellow laborers in the Lord’s vineyard who love him. Richard Rohr, a Franciscan Monk, in his The Art of Letting Go; Living into the Wisdom of St. Francis says,  “The common metaphor is that the liquid world is moving to solid, then to vapor, and eventually back again. Just wait a while. It looks like a death, a loss in each case, but in fact it is a becoming.”

oday we gather around the remains of Jack’s body and we bless him on his way to a new ministry, a new becoming. Jack’s body was defeated, but we who were touched by him inherit his spirit and are heartened by the knowledge that “All will be well, and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.”

 In my imagination, when Jack died, the Yiddish angels in heaven saw him coming and said, “Oy vey, what a Mensch!” Jack continues his “becoming”, more and more a Mensch in this life as his spirit gives us an example and an experience of love in action. Thank God we still have him and he is free to be a Mensch with God.

Reflections on Holy Space

Two moments over the weekend.
On Saturday I went down to do opening invocation to the Special Olympics spring games.  I do not summon God as I had always wanted to believe the statements of the director to Stephen in chapter 4 of The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
"To receive that call, Stephen, said the priest, is the greatest honour that the Almighty God can bestow upon a man. No king or emperor on this earth has the power of the priest of God. No angel or archangel in heaven, no saint, not even the Blessed Virgin herself, has the power of a priest of God: the power of the keys, the power to bind and to loose from sin, the power of exorcism, the power to cast out from the creatures of God the evil spirits that have power over them; the power, the authority, to make the great God of Heaven come down upon the altar and take the form of bread and wine. What an awful power, Stephen!"

But I do not summon God I merely point to where I think God is already here. An invocation does not make something "HOLY" it only asks that we remember that the the time space between us is full of grace. On that morning I did the invocation and it went well abut the "holiest" moment was when a young competitor for the games was asked to lead us in singing the National; Anthem. The task was out of his range but the crowd joined in th singing to show his that he was not alone.The Anthem was not treated as part of civil religion but as a moment of proclaiming a unity in that moment of helping one another through rough times.

when the weather is nice

I left the games to go to a memorial service on the beach. I was not leading the service, one of the retired associate priests of the church was doing the service out of friendship with the family. The wind was very cold and hard coming out of the east and about a hundred people showed up in that miserable weather to gather around an open gazebo overlooking the beach. The gazebo could comfortably fit about 25 and so most of us huddled outside. The son gave a talk about his father and the Priest did a homily and probably only 15 of the 100 could hear what was said. I was on the outside of the gazebo along with some others as a wind block, but the wind overwhelmed any attempt by the  speakers.to be heard. The only time we could hear what was said was when all read the 23rd Psalm and recited the Lord's prayer. Most of family friends were older and they had no business being out in that miserable weather but they were there- not able to hear much of the service but there out of love respect for the man, and love and compassion for his widow, the children and grandchildren. The blessing came from the people who used their silence to speak volumes about love.

If I had been in charge, I would have insisted that the service be done  in the church-- it was already in reserve if it was raining hard but it was only misting- nad the taken the immediate family down to the beach to commit the ashes.But a nice little religious ceremony would not have had the power of a community gathered in adversity as it proclaims that "we are with you no matter what!'

I don't have the power of Joyce's priest all I can do is point to God's blessing in the midst of us when 2 or 3 are gather together.in love

reflection on the advocate

A Sermon for VI Easter                                              All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, N.C. May 5, 2013                                                                   Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Acts 16:9-15        Psalm 67              Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5              John 14:23-29

All the lessons for today speak of allowing God’s spirit to guide us. The writer of the Book of Revelation has a dream which allows the spirit of be heard in the symbols of the vision. In the Gospel Jesus tells his disciples “the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” The Psalm has the Psalmist sing, “Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide all the nations upon earth.”  

In the verses just before the reading from the Book of Acts for today, the writer notes that Paul and Timothy had tried to go to two different places in modern day Turkey in Asia Minor but were unable to do so. Paul assumes that the Holy Spirit did not open those doors because she had another plan, but what it was he did not know. So Paul listens, looking for a sign of his next step. He enters into prayer. We tend to think that prayer means talking but, for Paul, prayer is about active listening for what God’s Holy Spirit might be saying. In his listening he has a vision, a dream, in which a young man pleads with him to cross over to Europe and come to Macedonia in Greece. There are four three steps that must be taken:

1)  to admit that help is needed from a power greater than oneself,

2)   to make oneself open to hear what the spirit might say,

3)   to gather with others to pray, listen, and discern together, for not all spiritual messages come from the Holy Spirit, they may come from the dark side of one’s own pride and ego, and

4)   to accept the closed door and walk through the open one.

He finds that the doors open for him, and he meets a woman from Thyatira, which is in Asia Minor, who was doing business in Macedonia. If Paul and Timothy had stayed in Asia Minor they would have missed her. Paul was able to pay attention and allow the Holy Spirit to open and close doors for him. Some people might call it coincidence, but people of faith believe that God wishes what is best for us, and we need to be freed from our own arrogance in order to hear what loving path is available. We hear with all of our senses and with entering into preconscious material as well and checking it out with scripture, tradition, reason and a community of faith. I remember one time a woman was on her way out of the house to take a brave step in one direction in life and it started to rain. She called me and asked if God was telling her not to take that direction. We told her that God was telling her to take a raincoat.

I am on a committee of the diocese charged with searching for a new Bishop.  What we have asked the churches of the diocese to do is pray and to listen about what the Holy Spirit might be saying about the kind of Bishop she has in mind for us and to open those doors. We will have a listening time for the committee to meet with interested people from the 17 churches in the Albemarle Deanery, which stretches from the Outer Banks to the Virginia border, over to Ahoskie, down to Williamston and back again, this Thursday evening at a central place, Christ Church, Elizabeth City. What we hope to hear is what you have heard the Holy Spirit say to you about what kind of Bishop would be best for God’s mission in this time and place. I will warn you that we are not looking for an agenda that fits our plans but for the results of your prayers as you listened to God. There will be other listening days around the diocese and then the committee will put together a profile and questions which we will ask applicants so we may listen to hear the congruence or dissonance, as doors open and close.

The committee has tried to spend a lot of time listening to what the Spirit may be saying to us and I have found that the time of discernment to be Holy Space when we gather. Our hope is that, although we are a diverse group of people from all over the diocese, we will not allow our own agendas to get in the way of listening.  We have a chaplain, a retired priest from Connecticut who now lives in Edenton, who has been very helpful and our chair, a lay person from Fayetteville, has been striking all the right notes. We take the four steps:

1)  To admit that we need help from a power greater than ourselves,

2)   to make ourselves open to hear what the spirit might say,

3)   to gather to pray, listen and discern together, for not all spiritual messages come from the Holy Spirit, they may come from the dark side of our own pride and egos, and

4)   to accept the closed door and walk through the open one.

In two weeks we will have a memorial service for Jack Mann. I first met Jack this month ten years ago as he was the chair of the search committee which called me to this church. Jack spent a lot of time listening to the Holy Spirit, urging all of us to take a journey inward to discover the spirit of God dwelling inside each of us in order to take the journey outward to help the poor and marginalized. Without the journey inward we become busy strangers to ourselves and will tend to be burned out by the demands of the journey outward, and without the journey outward we become precious little dilettantes playing at religion. Jack took prayer seriously and listened for the doors opening and closing, setting the tone for the committee to do its work.

12 years ago I had promised the church I was at that I would stay at least 5 years and then I started looking. I was working full time and so had lots of things to do, but I answered inquiries, visited and interviewed. After 2 years, and more than a few closed doors, I was wondering if I was wasting my time looking for another position. My problem was that I had my own agenda. I knew what I wanted and figured God had given me a brain to figure out problems and make decisions, so I wasn’t “wasting” much time listening to the Holy Spirit. And all I could hear was the sound of closing doors. Therefore, I withdrew my name and started to listen to see if the Spirit was asking me to stay there and if so, to open the doors for a renewed ministry. I figured that it was only when I have the freedom to say “No” that I have the freedom to say “Yes”.
As I made that decision to listen to the Spirit about staying, this church,, All Saints’, contacted me and I decided not care about giving the safe answers and fired off a response to the first round of the written questions - to which Pat wondered if I was trying not get hired. Listening to the Holy Spirit freed me to explore without being tied to my ego or to a check list of my agenda. At the top of my agenda was that I would never be involved in another building project. But the fact that Jack and your committee listened to the Holy Spirit allowed me to continue to listen as well.

Our visit down here with the search committee and then the return to talk with the vestry went well, and Pat was charmed and excited, but I was hesitant still. That night the vestry offered me the position and told me we would be meeting with the finance people the next morning. I had studied this church and had awareness about what the package would look like. I knew they could not afford to match the package I had. The way it is supposed to work is to meet with the finance people in the morning and thank them and say something like, “We thank you for your hospitality and we have much to consider. We will pray about the decision as we return home and will get back to you in a few days.”

That morning I woke up in the predawn hours and went to walk on the beach to pray and to listen. As I walked and stopped and walked, the red sun started peeking on the horizon and I saw dolphins jumping in water. I felt the breeze of the spirit enter into my soul at this sight and I realized that I was hearing the opening of a door. The Spirit was using the sun to tell me this was a new day and it was time to leave the past, and the dolphins were inviting me to join them in a place of joy and freedom. I ran to the place where we were staying and pulled Pat out of bed to return with me to the beach. When she saw the dolphins, she shrieked with joy. She told me it was a sign that I was to tell the vestry and finance committee that we would have no need for further prayers and would accept whatever they offered and we would adjust. Together we took the four steps:

1)  To admit that we need help from a power greater than oneself,

2)   to make ourselves open to hear what the spirit might say,

3)   to gather to pray, listen and discern together, for not all spiritual messages come from the Holy Spirit, they may come from the dark side of one’s own pride and ego and

4)   to accept the closed door or walk through the open one together.

The Spirit is speaking all the time; the problem is that we keep not listening. Hear again the words from the Gospel: “the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”