The photos are scattered about; some in albums assembled chronologically in yellowing plastic pockets, others tumble into a pile in my lap when I open the album. The glassine overlay sheets designed to protect these old photos have become brittle with years, and the adhesive that previously held them in place has lost its stickiness. I try to reaffix them, but it’s no good. When I turn the page, they all slip to the center binding. Tucked within the pages of the albums are yellow-orange Kodak envelopes, each containing a fistful of photos from a roll of film developed at the local drug store. These are the photos I planned to include, but once tucked away, it’s often a long while before I have cause to browse these memories again. When I do, the urge to open the envelopes and study each photo individually is certain.
The box I have found today surprises me, sitting there on the bottom shelf in the garage among the paint cans and assorted solvents. I shouldn’t be surprised, really, since it was only three years ago that I must have marked and stored this box labeled only “Photos.” I was certain all the photos during this last move were safely stashed under the bookshelves in the Family Room. But this box, an outlier that somehow escaped the culling and cleaning process, sparks my curiosity. I carry it to the dining room table where I can spread out a bit and excavate its offerings.
The sorting process defies the brevity I want to bring to the task because there are always those photos determined to engage me in dialogue with the memories they possess. It is almost as if their job is to serve as a repository for those memories that long ago slipped my mind. Regardless, the business of reviewing photos generally turns out to be less about Swedish Death Cleaning and more akin to rediscovering the oft-forgotten chapters of a much-loved book that’s impossible to now set aside. As I dive into the box, I see the album labeled “Church and Family Photos.” I am reconciled to the reality that I shall be occupied for the time being in nostalgic flights of fancy with stories that invite their telling and retelling.
Opening the cover, the jumble of images teases my senses. Listen now: a familiar voice, the turn of a phrase, the smell of a household, the autumnal light, the ache of loss, the tears of uncontrolled laughter. This box of photos… no, this box of stories now sits opened on the dining room table. I spread a handful of prints like a card trickster: “Pick a card, any card.”
One catches my eye—taken from the driver’s seat of my car on the ferry. The framing is clumsy: half window frame, half Puget Sound horizon. The sky and sea blur together, a wash of greenish gray. The island in the distance is a dark camel hump against a dreary horizon, firs and cedars bristling along the ridge. Houses dotting the shoreline gradually emerge through the mist and soft rain. I am still trying to acclimate to this new world. A welcoming note from a new colleague said I would come to love it in time:
“The summers, of course, are lovely, but you will find when the gentle but persistent drizzle of fall and winter return, you have missed them like an old friend who invites you in from the chill to enjoy a hot cider and deep conversations by the fire.”
And then, a more strident, contradictory voice joins that of my colleague
“We have what we call up here ‘sun breaks.’ These are brief moments in January or February when the clouds briefly part, allowing the sun to shine through just long enough for you to wonder whether that’s what’s been wrong with you. Have no doubt: you will ponder whether it is depression or simply a matter of missing the sun.”
Oh, the impact of the colorless skies and surrounding sea should never be underestimated. For those who found the melancholic Pacific Northwest a boon to their creativity (and creativity abounds in the Pacific Northwest), it was Celtic harps and poetry. The sun-loving Californians often found the transition depleting. “I’m tired of living with the mole people! I need the sun!”
I have intentionally chosen to sit in my car for the forty-or-so-minute ride from Seattle to the Island. The Island was a relatively small community, and leaving my car to go topside invariably meant an encounter with someone I knew. The rumble of the ferry’s engines was strangely soothing, and I enjoyed how the sound became a foil for drifting somewhere between thoughts and napping.
I.
I was returning from Seattle, where I had my monthly lunch with Jay at the Harbor Club. He was an imposing six-two or three with a striking lantern-like jaw that added gravity to his presence. In his sixties, always well-groomed, but with the distinct look of a tough guy. In fact, he reminded me a great deal of the character Tessio from The Godfather—that same sense of quiet, weathered lethality hidden behind a suit. Jay was the CEO of a large seafood company, and I imagined he developed some of those tough guy looks working the fishing boats in the Bering Sea as a young man.
I remember when he was appointed by then-US Secretary of Commerce, Shirley Temple Black, to be the Trustee of the Pribilof Island Trust. His task was to shift the workforce from making a living by the gruesome clubbing and selling of white baby seal pelts to something sustainable (and more palatable). He was also a member of our church’s governing body, the Vestry, where he became known for questioning the fiscal viability of anything new that was not included in the annual budget.
“From whence cometh…?” he predictably asked every time an unbudgeted new project was proposed. If he deemed the answer unsatisfactory, he would simply deadpan again: “From whence cometh…”
The Harbor Club was essentially a dining club for business leaders in Seattle. The servers all knew Jay and brought him his scotch on the rocks in a glass tumbler held especially for him. They knew to refresh it regularly over the course of what always turned out to be a two-hour lunch. Jay’s son was a parish Vicar in the UK whom I met once when he and his family visited his parents. Both Jay’s son and daughter-in-law, ardent Anglophiles, had adopted refined British accents, which I wondered if they imagined were charming but struck me as practiced and a bit disingenuous. Jay was anything but charming—down to earth, a little gruff. I couldn’t imagine Jay listening to his son speaking like a British Lord with a straight face.
I don’t remember exactly what we were talking about, only that while lunching on Copper River Salmon, Jay mentioned that his son made unannounced house calls on his “flock,” which Jay didn’t think much of. I agreed and said in most US parishes, pastoral house calls would be viewed as somewhere between being invasive or excessively quaint and of another time—like a scene plucked from PBS’s All Creatures Great and Small. Maybe in the Yorkshire countryside.
Jay listened to my take on house calls and, to underscore his distaste for them, he reached for his tumbler of scotch, sat back in his chair, and emptied it (his second). Then, with a sigh, he began. “Ya know, m’boy…” (He affectionately called me ‘m’boy’ when we lunched.) After a moment’s pause, he set the empty glass back on the table and leaned in close, his head with that massive jaw crossing into my space as if about to share a secret.
“I don’t come to church to find my friends. I have friends. Barbara and I don’t need you to come out to the house. If she needs her priest, she’ll call you.” His tone was serious, and I really wasn’t sure what point he was trying to make except to warn me not to call on them unannounced.
“I get that, Jay. I don’t want unannounced visitors either.” I was feeling a tad defensive, which I suppose he noted, and he smiled, perhaps to put me at ease.
“I don’t want to join the choir or the men’s group or teach Sunday School or anything like that. I go to church on Sunday at 8:00. There’s no music, no hymns to sing—and no one wants to hear me sing—the sermon’s short.” He paused, then added, “Most of the time.” I noted one eyebrow was raised when our eyes locked. Behind his thick glasses, I saw his eyes narrow as the corners of his mouth showed the hint of a smile. He concluded, “I get in and get out!”
Jay was teasing me as much as teaching me. I had learned the value of recruiting people into every role I could dream up, believing investment was the lifeblood of a parish. For good or ill, I was perpetually busy and focused on building a bigger and bigger church. Jay wanted me to know he didn’t need chasing. His commitment was already settled. He was “old school,” he explained unapologetically. He’d seen priests come and go, attendance go up and down, heard plenty of sermons, some great, some miserable, and none of that had ever or would ever change his commitment, which was rock solid. He contributed generously, served on our board, and went to church on Sunday. It was a personal matter for him, and he didn’t need or want a cheerleader.
It was a watershed moment for me. I didn’t know if he was making conversation or dropping pearls of wisdom, but I realized two things that day: first, I was not as important as I sometimes imagined myself to be. His faith, his loyalty, belonged to something larger than me, larger than any program. Second, our monthly lunches were just that—friendship, nothing more required. It was rare for an ambitious young man with a desire to build a monument to something or someone he was unclear about to consider such a concept. While Jay would never have described it as I have, every month, I took the ferry to Seattle to meet Jay at the Harbor Club and there he would be, sitting at the same white-linen-covered table in the clubhouse dining room, tumbler of scotch in one hand, the other outstretched.
“How are you, m’boy?”
But look here. I have found another photo. Look at this! That’s the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. Glorious, isn’t it?
II.
I am spending the week in Washington, DC, at the National Cathedral attending the College of Preachers. We are a small group of maybe twelve to fifteen Episcopal priests. This particular session is mentored by Donald Coggan, the Archbishop of Canterbury. The purpose of the College is to hone our skills as preachers—or, in the jargon of theological academia, a course in homiletics.
Time has a way of softening the blow of humiliating experiences, so I’m no longer cringing at the recollection of the goddamned Archbishop of Canterbury cutting me off mid-sentence in front of my peers as I was delivering what was a pretty great sermon I had prepared for the first damn day to create a good first impression! But I have exceeded the allotted time given each participant and am dumbstruck by his interrupting me with a “time’s up.” I lift my head to see him smiling back at me. I see his smile as oozing pastoral empathy. I stare back incredulously at his pale British face and imagine him saying, “You were up first, old boy. I said ten minutes and no longer. So sorry. Now cheers and ta!”
I am still standing at the podium stunned when the Cambridge and Oxford graduate and head of the entire Anglican Church adds in his rarefied British accent a quote from America’s own Mark Twain, rubbing salt into my newly inflicted wound: “Wasn’t it Mark Twain who said, ‘I would have written a shorter letter if I had the time’?” I slink away from the podium seething but smiling awkwardly, my face flushed, betraying efforts to mask my embarrassment and humiliation. I opted to be more circumspect about volunteering to lead off on the next few rounds of preaching assignments.
On day four, arrangements have been made for us to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Honestly, I am not sure why. The principal leader and driving force behind getting the memorial built, John Wheeler, is our guide. John is a very prominent Washington, DC, lawyer and graduate of West Point. We are instructed to feel free to wander about and “take in” the experience of it all after arriving. I know little about the memorial beyond the controversial design. It’s controversial because its abstract design is unappealing to those who believe a memorial should incorporate the likenesses of the warriors who fought and died. The designer is a Chinese Yale undergraduate, I recall, because I too had graduated from Yale (Divinity School) almost ten years earlier. I’m happy to associate myself with Yale’s accomplishments. The designer’s young age, and that she is the daughter of Chinese immigrants, helps feed the controversy surrounding her selection.
I approach the memorial alone and discover how photographs fail to capture the impact of its haunting simplicity: the highly reflective black granite blanketed by the sea of names from one end to the other. The chevron-shaped, polished black granite reflects back to us our own image, suggesting we ourselves are a part of the memorial. The chevron, that some describe as a black gash, is neatly embedded into the side of a small hill that follows the shape of the memorial. The names are listed chronologically, according to the date of death. The intent is to invite us to imagine how the names engraved one next to the other fought and died next to each other—which, in fact, they did.
The power the memorial possesses is how it beckons visitors to interact with it. Some make rubbings of the names they wish to remember. As I watch, I wonder: are they family, or perhaps a friend? I scan the length of the wall from one end to the other and cannot help but be moved by the intensity and intimacy of each visitor’s interactions with the monument. Mementos, clearly recalling some private experience between the fallen and a friend or family member, are scattered below the names listed above. The mementos are anticipated, but the grief conveyed in the letters we solemnly read, no one is prepared for.
The intimate recollections, the expressions of heartache and sorrow, the pain of loss; it feels like an invasion of privacy. The letters are taped next to the deceased name. I am aware the experience is impacting me in multiple ways: unleashing waves of compassion I am unaware I possess, intense grief for the dead, for those who fought, for my friends, for their families, for us all who never really understood. The medals, the battle ribbons, even combat boots placed at the base of the monument show how the interactive power the memorial possesses is intended to help bind up the wounds of war. A woman is pressing her face against the warm black stone; she holds it there, her eyes closed. A father holding the hand of his small son stands before the monument and suddenly begins to cry, and then to sob as the confused boy looks up at his father, obviously concerned. The father squats down beside the boy presumably to explain but simply cannot stop sobbing.
Wheeler, our guide, rallies the group, assembling us in a circle a short distance from the monument. He is recounting the story of the efforts to get the memorial built—one he has clearly told many times before. As he drones on, the wop-wop-wop of a helicopter flying low overhead startles him. He pulls his shoulders up close to his ears and hunches as if bracing for something dangerous. We stare at him in silence, wondering.
The flow of his presentation broken, he abandons his well-worn speech and looking up at the small group of clergy that surround him, apologizes. “Every time I hear that wop-wop-wop of a helicopter, it’s like I am back there again. I don’t know. I’m undone, and not sure what to do or where to go.” Silent now, he stares at us who encircle him as if he suddenly discovered he is lost. He speaks to the archbishop. He is tentative and his words are halting. “Sometimes, the burden of all this feels too great for me. I am overwhelmed and don’t feel like I’m doing right by all those lost lives who I’m supposed to carry on my shoulders; I feel it is my responsibility alone to look after them… it’s too much.” He begins to weep, and the archbishop puts his arms around him and pulls him close but says nothing. His head relaxes onto the archbishop’s chest. And in the Archbishop’s embrace, he continues as if trying to convince himself of something about which he is uncertain. “But then I think… I’m not alone.”
I’m puzzled. What? I ask myself. What is he talking about?
“There is a communion of saints. Isn’t that right?” He is worried and looks up at the archbishop’s face for assurance. “They are the communion of saints, right?”
It’s the dead he’s referring to. I understand now. He is talking about the dead… the men and women who died and are named on the memorial. The dead… the communion of saints. That’s what he means. I’m humbled and a little ashamed; the earnestness of his belief is as if I am seeing something too intimate to be shared so publicly. He lifts his head and steps back from the archbishop, almost pleading for certainty. “There is a communion of saints, isn’t there, Bishop?”
The archbishop nods. “Yes,” he says softly.
“And they can help me, right?”
“Yes,” the archbishop answers. That’s all he says, but he smiles warmly.
And our guide begins to compose himself. It is impossible to escape the sensation that we are all wrapped in something profoundly sacred, something holy that demands simply silence. I take a deep breath, realizing I had been holding it for fear of interrupting their fiercely intimate exchange.
Oh my! Let me get back to this box of photos… my box of stories. I have to confess that I cannot remember which story I was looking for. In fact, I’m not sure I was looking for any particular story. What was the name of that song? Every Picture Tells a Story. I think they do. My wife has suggested I either organize its contents or throw the box out. Hopefully, you can understand why I just can’t toss it out. The problem is, once I’m gone, no one will be able to make any sense of these and… well… if I haven’t captured for you the value of these photographs, let me just reach in here and randomly pull out another. Okay, perfect. Look at this. It’s a photo of Vincent Gowan. He’s ninety-one years old in this photo, I believe. He was the first Vicar of the new Episcopal mission church, St. Barnabas, built at the head of Eagle Harbor after the Second World War. I became Rector of that same church in 1982.
III.
When I arrived as Rector of St. Barnabas, many members were anxious for me to meet Vincent, now in his nineties and regarded as something of an institutional treasure—not to mention, I’m sure they rightly felt there was much he could teach me. Vincent still celebrated the Eucharist on Sunday evenings for a small group of parishioners. Many of the attendees were also members of a class he hosted weekly on the ancient classics. During his Sunday evening service, he was assisted by a Deacon who read the lessons and helped administer communion and ensured he got around the altar area without stumbling because Vincent was blind. The service itself he had memorized long ago.
As was often the case, when a parishioner was unwell, a call to the church office requesting a pastoral call was common. When I learned Vincent was not well, I offered to bring him communion. His home lay at the southeast end of Bainbridge Island right at the water’s edge on Port Blakely. The road to Port Blakely is narrow, lined with tall Cedar and Fir. The towering trees and Northwest gray skies, together with a late afternoon sun sitting low on the horizon, required headlights to find my way to this corner of the Island. Vincent’s house was surrounded on three sides by the Puget Sound. The shrubs were overgrown; the house and surroundings bore witness to the toll of time, weather, and living at the water’s edge. A rusted old car sitting in the driveway seemed fitting, and a dory with flaking paint laying hull-side up in the side yard. Stories of Vincent’s rowing prowess were legendary. Most old-timers remembered or even witnessed his record-breaking thirty-eight-minute Puget Sound crossing from Seattle’s West Point to Bainbridge Island.
At the entrance, I tried the bell, which didn’t work, so I pounded on the door knowing Vincent was not only blind but very hard of hearing. A woman who introduced herself to me as Carmen answered and led me up a few stairs to the living room, explaining that Fr. Gowan would join me momentarily after he was dressed. The home had a mix of not unpleasant smells: stale pipe tobacco, the musty smell of mildew and aging were not unfamiliar to me and, together with the collection of dusty antique furnishings—many of which were clearly from China—enhanced my anticipation of what I expected would be a collection of exotic tales shared by the reportedly eccentric, kind, and distinguished gentleman.
As I waited, I was mesmerized by the breathtaking seascape vistas from virtually all the living room windows of Restoration Point and the shipping lanes just beyond. After a short wait, I heard commotion from the top of the stairs and saw that Carmen and Vincent were slowly making their way down the stairs to the living room. Carmen presented Vincent. He had prepared for communion by vesting in a cassock, surplice, stole, and academic hood. The sight of Vincent in his badly wrinkled cassock and yellowed surplice conjured up images of Carmen hastily pulling them from the bottom of the hamper when she went to help him dress. He wore black-rimmed glasses with thick lenses that magnified his sightless eyes.
Vincent extended his arms to welcome me to his home, and we shared a respectful and restrained embrace. So, I thought, this is Fr. Gowan. He stared unsmiling in my direction, looking slightly above my head, taking the measure of his successor several times removed. I too surveyed him again and judged he was magnificent, arrayed in his wrinkled vestments, his yellowed surplice, frayed pea-green stole, and academic hood. He was ready for us to conduct this service together, not as a sick patient but as a colleague. Together, we celebrated mass, as he was accustomed to calling it, using his old prayer book.
I immediately became aware that Vincent was someone I wanted to know, someone I wanted to talk with, someone I wanted to learn from. Why this was so, I’m not sure, except that he exuded a sense of confidence and equanimity that suggested he had no concern for the condition of the vestments he wore and that we were undertaking something of much greater import. Vincent had spent a number of years as a young missionary in China and, curiously, the word that came to my mind was the Mandarin word for teacher or master: Laoshi.
This marked the first of many visits I would have with him over the next many months. We typically visited in a dusty and cluttered dark room over the garage which he chose to be his study—largely, I suspect, because it offered some measure of protection from the various people who came to assist him with cleaning and meals. The room was sparsely furnished with a desk where he sat and an old easy chair with threadbare arms where I sat across from him. The only light in the study came from a window next to the desk, illuminating a small portion of the room and leaving the rest in the dark. Vincent always insisted on preparing tea for us, which he did quite aptly. The teacups were another matter and rarely clean. The boiling water brought all kinds of surprises to the surface of my cup. This didn’t bother Vincent at all and so, I decided, wouldn’t bother me either. I simply wouldn’t look. Then Vincent settled into his chair, lit his pipe, and happily shared with me his stories, which might better be described as adventures.
After Vincent was ordained by Bishop Huntington of New York, he left for China where he lived and worked for many years. He served as a Chaplain aboard a naval destroyer during the First World War. During the Second World War, he fled China for the Philippines where he became a prisoner of the Japanese along with others in the community where he lived. While a prisoner, Vincent helped to organize a school for the children who were also part of the imprisoned community. He was designated headmaster and carried on this way throughout the war. He even composed the school song that conveyed the hope they all clung to for better days to come. The affection I felt when he appeared in his wrinkled vestments I felt again when he pushed back his desk chair and stood in that dingy room, the light from the window partially illuminating the side of his face while the other remained in darkness and sang me the school song.
In his 92nd year, Vincent’s body began to fail. Carmen could not adequately care for him, including managing the demands of the catheter he was tethered to. He was moved to Martha and Mary’s Convalescent Home for the last weeks of his life. In my final visit with him, I asked him to pray and give me his blessing before I left. He placed his hand on my head where I sat bent over his bedside. He prayed eloquently, as he always did. Lying in his bed, eyes open and staring at what only he could see, his prayer was more an exhortation.
He said the time was right, righter than it had been in his lifetime, to preach change through love.
“People must be taught to love… that is the only way things are going to change, David… by love.”
His words felt more prophetic than quaint advice. Vincent had never spoken this way to me, and I was aware of the sensation that we were both in the presence of something greater than either of us. There was something about his words and demeanor that felt biblical. I didn’t say anything, nor did he. I began to wonder if such sensations, while extraordinary for me, were the norm for him. Our goodbyes were formal, as they always were, but brimming with mutual respect. I felt privileged, as if having been granted an audience with Vincent and that which spoke through him.
Vincent died two days later. It broke my heart, as it had been broken so many times before. It all came with the job.
I like to share Vincent’s story because I have found that the greatest influences on my development as a priest, and more especially as a person, have little to do with the things I have learned and the principles I have come to believe in, and everything to do with the people I encounter. My spiritual director at the time made the casual comment: “Ask God for an answer and he’ll send you a person.” I’ve come to believe this is one of life’s greatest spiritual truths.
When it comes to what makes us what we are, it is less about education and more about formation. We are formed—and to a lesser extent educated, sometimes against our will—by the people with whom we live and love. I have read and reread the little book by Margaret Craven (a pen name) called I Heard the Owl Call My Name. It was later made into a movie, which was quite wonderful. In the opening scene of the movie, there is a poignant exchange that takes place between the main character, Mark, and his Bishop in the sacristy of the Cathedral after Christmas Midnight Mass. Mark learns from the Bishop that he is being sent for his first assignment to a remote indigenous village in Northern British Columbia to serve as Vicar of the Anglican mission church there. Mark, who graduated at the top of his class, is speechless. WHY?!, he wonders, is he not being sent to one of the wealthy, prestigious churches where his intellectual acumen would be appreciated.
“Because,” his Bishop responds. “Because you are so bright, because you performed so well in seminary, because you are such a wonderful preacher and teacher… and because… Mark, you know nothing at all.”
So, Mark goes to the community where he lives with the Kukooweet people, who teach him to become a person. He is formed through the relationships that are forged in the hard-scrapple life of this tiny village. There was a time not too long ago when we referred to ordained ministers and priests as parsons. The word is derived from the word person. In a world where standing at the center of your community requires you to project a polished image, it is hard to remember the task of the parson was to be the person… the person in the midst of the community so that the community does not lose the meaning of, and is ever mindful of, what it means to be a person.
So I wanted to share this photo and the story it evokes with you about Vincent who, in his old age, became the person in the community where I lived as a pastor. I wanted to share this because I think the Vincents of the yellowed surplices and wrinkled cassocks, the Vincents of the dirty teacups and dark rooms above the garage, are where the wisdom of God is hidden from the wise. I wanted to share this because I think it is somewhere between hard and nearly impossible to be the person in the community’s midst these days without getting yourself killed. I wanted to tell you because I believe that whenever we ask God for an answer, God always sends us a person—someone to help us separate our personhood from our persona through the revelation of this hidden wisdom which God has curiously and mysteriously granted to those we are least likely to believe possess it.
It is time to put everything back in the box. One of these days, I’ll organize it all. Opening a photo album, lifting the lid on a box of loose photos—it shouldn’t be done without giving the matter some thought and consideration for how you might integrate what you’re bound to learn. The opportunity to savor the times of our lives, to reflect on and harvest from the past something new is, after all, where life’s purpose is discovered and rediscovered.
Consecrate the time by mining the stories that exist on either side of the fraction of a second the camera shutter remained open. You have three opportunities to be changed by what you captured- What inspired you to capture the moment, re-encountering that moment as an image, and finally your reflection on its meaning. This is where the lessons of your life wait to be discovered.
Something to Say 