The Truest Forms of Outreach
I have had a partnership with the Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts going back to September 11, 2001. I remember watching the planes hit the twin towers at Diocesan House the same day I met my new boss, then Bishop Gordon P. Scruton.
Back then, I was a freelancer who wrote the news the Diocese put out in its magazine for the parishioners in its 67 parishes across western Mass. Now, the entity has Victoria Ix on staff; she writes for the magazine, Abundant Times, manages the website and social media, distributes press releases and promotes the good work of the Diocese in general.
I continue to have the good fortune to design Abundant Times, and this means I still get to be among the first to read the stories of transformation, which always touch me in a deep place.
In November 2014, as Vicki and I worked together to put out the December 2014 issue of the magazine, I loved reading about Bishop Doug Fisher’s 60-mile walk across the Worcester corridor of the Diocese.
As Vicki reported in her editor’s column, “These walks were not about physical achievement, although 15 miles per day would be a feather in any cap. He’s walking to meet people where they are everyday—to listen, to engage, to wonder and to allow the Holy Spirit to work through these walks to bless us.”
As Communications Director, Vicki got to ride in a caravan with Bishop Fisher and the other clergy and lay people who joined him at times on his course. She got to watch the expressions on people’s faces as the man in the purple shirt walked along the roadways carrying a shepherd’s staff. “I got to meet amazing people who bring their faith to work with them every day. I got to pray in funny places and be grateful when I thought I’d lost the bishop, and he suddenly appeared in my rearview mirror,” Vicki wrote for Abundant Times.
The bishop walked and talked with people where they live and work instead, he said, “of meeting with them where I live and work.”
Bishop Fisher visited with staff at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. He held midday prayer outside a diner in Upton, and he prayed with the members of St. Matthew’s in Worcester, many of whom are Liberian, at a time when they were watching the news of the Ebola outbreak in their country.
I was so proud of the Diocese, of which I am also a member. I was proud of Bishop Fisher, and prouder still I was when reading this January, as we prepared the February issue of the magazine, about the Very Rev. Jim Munroe, dean of Christ Church Cathedral in Springfield, and the Rev. Canon Tom Callard.
Jim—the rector at St. John’s, Northampton, when I first joined in the mid-1980s—and Tom are engaged in a lively, urban ministry in downtown Springfield.
As Vicki wrote, “On a regular basis they leave the confines of the cathedral—often with members of the congregation but sometimes alone—to bear witness to God’s love for the people who need it the most.”
They have offered Ashes-to-Go at the Peter Pan Bus Station. Received prayers on the streets during Holy Week, holding a giant sign that read, “How may we pray for you on Easter morning?” And they also make weekly lunch runs; every Wednesday a group takes sandwiches and bottled water on foot to the streets and alleys where hungry folks might be.
“I watched the interactions,” Vicki reported. “Most were hungry, but many wanted prayers and blessings, as well. Food made by the faithful at Christ Church Cathedral was delivered with sensitivity and care. Jim often called people by name.”
My favorite line in Vicki’s story, which I carefully laid out with the photos she’d offered up to me, was this: “Relationships were being built one sandwich at a time.”
The Diocese is full of good news, and there is no shortage of stories to tell. When I work on the next issue, I suspect I will get to read about the bishop’s next series of walks. He is scheduled to walk the Pioneer Valley corridor from April 8-11.
Be on the look-out for a middle-aged man in a purple shirt with a kind, compassionate countenance walking your streets with staff—both employees and his rod. Be open to what he has to offer up.
Also take a moment to read Abundant Times online.
