CHAPTER 1

Bearings

"The Usual Thing"

It was 1996 and I was as new as a bishop could be. The episcopal waters wereeven less charted for me because I had never had the advantage of being acoadjutor or suffragan and had spent the previous eight years as a professorwith only part-time duties in a very small parish. To add to the generaluncertainty on this occasion, Diana and I were visiting a parish that had norector or interim rector. Nonetheless, the liturgy got started and seemed to gowell enough through sermon, confirmation, and peace. Then came the offertory.The table was set. Everything suddenly came to dead halt. Clearly something wasexpected from me before the offertory concluded, yet there was nothing inobvious need of blessing, elevating, or touching. People started to stare. Iwhispered to the deacon who always accompanies me to "find out what comes next."He inquired, and returned somewhat distraught with the message, "He says to dothe usual thing."

"The usual thing" has in the following decade become code between us forsituations in which we have no idea what is going to happen and no way offinding out. While we no longer worry about it very much and do go with theflow, a little sting remains, and now I cannot help but smile when I readliturgical guides that say that the liturgy "continues in the usual way."

After my jaw returned to its full upright position I simply plunged into theeucharistic dialogue, without learning what I had left out. I am comfortableenough in my role these days to just go over to somebody else and ask what is tohappen, but the "usual thing" experience that day in church prompted severalresolutions.

The first was that I would always discuss with the rector or person in charge ofeach parish what happens in the key action areas that the rubrics do notexplain, such as entrances, censings, offertory, the version of the Lord'sPrayer to be used, and the preparation of vessels for communion.

The second was the decision to provide all parishes with an outline("customary") of how things would flow insofar as that is my decision, leavingroom for what is distinctive in the life of each parish. Priests and musicianshave been very grateful to have detailed customaries, especially since thosedocuments invite them to respond with questions or points where what I proposeis not useful or not possible in their space.

We are a western church. Liturgically this has never been more true than it isin the wake of the majority of the reforms of 1979, despite the revival of a fewancient eastern texts. The original spirit of the western liturgy is simplicityand clarity, almost austerity. Recapturing this spirit was the major work of thelast century's reforms in Roman, Lutheran, and Episcopal liturgy. Creative andcrisp liturgy, fully expressive but without wasted time or pointless movement,happens most easily when bishops and parishes plan together and together form asense of the arc of that day's celebration. Bishops know what they hope willhappen on a given visit; the parish often has a list of things they wish toexpress or celebrate. These conceptions need to meet. Some bishops reportmeeting personally with the rector a month before the visitation to plan it indetail.

One factor that makes planning complex is the existence of those two sets ofexpectations. The other is that spatially no two Episcopal church buildings arethe same. Thus, although it would make life simpler, one cannot provide anexhaustive point-by-point cook book with an all-inclusive recipe for everyepiscopal liturgy in every circumstance, as all writers concede. The specimencustomaries provided at the end of this book are only that, specimens: eachcustomary will need to be adjusted or totally replaced, depending on localcircumstances. In addition to the limitations just mentioned, it is true thatthe prayer book provides too many textual options for one formula to fit all.Finally, the freedom enjoyed in our churches in how the simple ceremonialdirections of the prayer book are to be carried out makes every liturgicalexperience something between adventure and nightmare for those who only rarelypreside at liturgy in the same place two Sundays in a row. Thus a word aboutitinerancy seems in order.

A Wandering Minstrel, Host and Guest

None of this would matter if the bishop's appearance in a parish were simplythat of a magnified supply priest or visiting dignitary. Neither is the case,however, and bishops live the identity of both host and guest at visitationliturgies. In North America we experience something historically andgeographically rare in Anglicanism (and something not contemplated by otherchurches possessed of the episcopate, historic or otherwise). We expect that onSundays bishops will be preaching and celebrating in the parishes in their care.It should be said in fairness that the bishops of the Roman Catholic andOrthodox Churches would be shocked to learn that there are churches such as ourswhich do not observe the ancient norm of the bishop presiding and preaching inthe cathedral on the Lord's Day.

Rather than visiting firefighter or interesting guest speaker, the bishop comesto visit in a number of ways that have liturgical consequence.

The first is that in her own person the bishop comes as the one who has ultimatepastoral responsibility for the parish, so the weight of the event is different:the family table is fuller. Furthermore, because the bishop is by ordination andcanon the chief evangelist and pastor of the diocese, the assembly rightlyexpects an extraordinary word of gospel proclamation and a genuine interest inits own mission. As one bishop put it, "I had to learn a new way to preach."

The second is that in these liturgies the bishop is joined at the table by thelocal presbyters who are the bishop's first-line colleagues. Certainly everyliturgy on every occasion should look and feel like a team effort of the entireassembly. But when the bishop and colleagues stand together at the table it isto demonstrate that clergy are also part of a team of colleagues—there are to beno Lone Rangers or Wonder Women hiding inside collars. The visitation is a goodtime to enact ritually the truth that presbyters are not ordained because thebishop cannot be everywhere: presbyters are ordained so that the bishop'sministry can indeed be everywhere. According to the formularies of this Church,presbyters and bishops form one thing, a college in which no member actsindependently or arbitrarily. The more we enact this truth...