Growing Upwith Difference

Diocese of Western Massachusetts,The Episcopal Church

One of my first memories of church revolves around a handshake: one very long,hard, and energetic handshake.

I was five or six and my family belonged to St. John's Episcopal Church inNorthampton, Massachusetts. St. John's is an imposing,century-old building with a tall granite bell tower. It sits on the edge ofSmith College, an elite women's school, and just on the edge of thedowntown core of Northampton, the heart of what is known regionally as the FiveCollege Area, after the many institutions of highereducation nearby. Parishioners at St. John's include more than the averagenumber of university professors, and the city is more liberal andleft-wing than the rest of rural, agricultural western Massachusetts.

On Sundays, I waited in line at the end of the service to shake the rector'shand, as the adults did. The rector was a young man namedJim Munroe, a Marine veteran of Vietnam who had been wounded in combat andattended seminary after his long convalescence. He hadarrived at St. John's a few years earlier with a reputation for his preaching,praying, and wonderful sense of humor. Already he hadendeared himself to our family with his uproarious laugh and the need to tellthe exact same four jokes again and again and think they werejust as funny as the first time he told them.

Other people in line, I knew, usually exchanged polite, restrained handshakeswith Jim. This was not for me. When it came my turn, Ipumped his hand enthusiastically. Up and down, up and down, I shook his hand forall I was worth, week in and week out. Jim was alwaysmore than willing to play along, laughing uproariously every time. But thisSunday morning in late August was different. Jim was sayingfarewell to the congregation before a sabbatical. It was the late 1980s and hewas headed to New York City to volunteer at a hospice forpeople with AIDS. Standing on the top step of our granite church, I asked Jimhow many Sundays he would miss. "Twelve," he said. "I'll beback just before Christmas."

"Well," I said. "I'll have to shake your hand twelve times as hard."

And I did.

And Jim laughed. Uproariously.

* * *

My entry point to the body of Christ and the Anglican Communion came a few yearsprior to that handshake on the other side of thecontinent. I was three months old and my parents took me to Christ ChurchCathedral in Vancouver, Canada, where they were living andwhere I had been born. Graham Witcher, a priest at the cathedral, asked myparents and the aunt and uncle who were serving as mygodparents if they would raise me in the life of faith. He asked thecongregation if they, too, would support my walk in faith. Evidently,everyone agreed because water was sprinkled on my head. I died the death ofChrist and was raised to new life through the waters ofbaptism. It sounds dramatic. I wish I remembered it.

Within a year, my mother, father, and I resettled in Northampton so my fathercould go back to school. Soon enough, our family had adeepening relationship with St. John's.

When I became old enough, I gathered with the children of the Sunday school inthe parlors of the church house. We listened to Mrs.Jones, the Sunday school director, welcome us and lead us through the Lord'sPrayer. During the week, she taught at a school for deafchildren so her enunciation was perfect, tending toward the over-exaggerated."Ow-er Fah-ther," I learned to say, drawing out each syllablecarefully. When we reached "Ah-men," we were off, a confused mass of childrenand teachers headed up the stairs to our classrooms.

Church involved my whole family. My father and mother served on the vestry andtaught Sunday school. When my brother was born, hewas baptized with a splash of water from the Jordan River that Jim had collectedon a recent visit. At Christmas, we geared up for theannual pageant. There were the costumes to be dusted off and lines to belearned. By age twelve, having worked my way from innkeeper toshepherd to wise man, I graduated to the role of narrator. Standing in thepulpit, I did my best to intone in my unbroken, twelve-year-oldvoice such weighty lines as "A decree went out from Emperor Augustus ..." and "Faraway in the East ..." It was a heady moment, standingwhere I had only ever seen Jim and other priests stand.

One spring, when I was nine or ten, my parents took me to the home of the deaconthree Wednesday afternoons in a row. Mel, a retiredbanker, had been ordained when he retired. One of his responsibilities now wasto teach us how to receive communion. Sitting on his livingroom floor, he carefully set out a silver chalice and paten and began to explainwhat Holy Communion was and why it was important. Thefirst time he taught us to sip from the chalice he used water. The next time,though, he poured a dark liquid in. "He's using real wine!" myfriend whispered to me, excitedly.

"I know!" I whispered back, equally excited, but also nervous at the thought ofdrinking real alcohol. I tried to play it cool, but I stillsputtered when the cup first touched my lips.

I do not remember any of the teaching we learned on that living room floor. ButI do remember that on my first taste of the burn of thealcohol, I thought to myself, "Ugh. Why would anyone want to drink that?" Butfrom that first Sunday and ever afterward, I did, dutifullytipping the chalice closer to my mouth, sipping, tilting it back, pausing, andwaiting until the chalice-bearer had completed serving the personnext to me before returning to my seat. It was just as I learned on the livingroom floor.

With First Communion behind me, on one Sunday a month I missed Sunday school,pawed through the closet of white robes, found onethat more or less covered my growing limbs, lit my candle, and prepared to serveas an acolyte. At first, it seemed a fairly important affair—exactlyhow to bow and when, on which verse of the final hymn to begin marchingout of the church, how to tell the...