Although an ordained priest for over ten years, I hardly felt like a pro. I had given parish ministry a try and found it not a fit for my gifts. I did not have the stamina, skill, or desire to manage a small business, let alone the politics and the stress of loneliness. I had wanted to be ordained priest of Word and Sacrament, not a manager of money, and of mostly all-male vestries. I was surprised, therefore, when the Suffragan Bishop of Massachusetts, The Rt. Rev. Bud Cederholm, called me to ask if I’d be willing to mentor a new priest. I said yes.
Scene LXVII. My Little Mentee
I moved to Gloucester, Massachusetts in 1997 where Dick had accepted a position as rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church. I would establish my pastoral counseling/spiritual direction practice in a neighboring UCC parish and serve as a non-stipendiary Sunday Priest Associate at St. John’s with regular opportunity to preside at Eucharist and preach. Perfect!
Dick and I had tried to secure a joint rectorship in Connecticut, but no one was ready for that “heresy,” or for a divorced couple, the female, me, with a lingering reputation as a reject and possibly a seductress of innocent clergy. We both, however, had discovered after over ten years of marriage that the hardest thing about divorce was not overcoming the Episcopal Church’s attitudes, but the grief of missing the proximity of most of our growing children. Oh yes, everyone could visit, but you know it’s not the same.
So we settled in a new diocese for a new start. Bishop Cederholm took office in Massachusetts in 2001. He decided that it would be a good idea for newly ordained diocesan clergy to have seasoned clergy mentors who would lend them support and counsel as they started out. I was invited to be a mentor. Hardly seasoned, I was about to be a mentor myself now.
My mentee, the Rev. Stephanie Spellers, a young vigorous and gifted African American woman was ordained priest in 2006. Stephanie is a small woman. I called her “my little mentee.” I meant nothing racist by that. We both were small women. I had no idea why I was selected as her mentor, nor did she, but we hit it off. She lived in Boston and hopped on the train about once a month to come see me. I picked her up at the station. We would enjoy lunch together and have lively talks about heaven knows what. As I recall we had lots of laughs, a bit of serious ministry talk, discerning gifts and ambitions, and a shared passion for the Episcopal Church.
Stephanie and I didn’t talk directly about racism, but I knew it had to be burbling under the surface in us both. I never felt uncomfortable with Stephanie, and I hope she felt the same with me. We would joke whenever we ran into each other at diocesan events about whether she had a boyfriend—no, the right boyfriend—yet.
Then once at a diocesan gathering she showed me a picture of her guy, and we had a hug and a laugh. I do not think marriage is the only goal of anyone, but I do know Stephie wanted that. In fact, in her latest book, The Church Cracked Open. Disruption, Decline, and New Hope for Beloved Community, she wrote for him this acknowledgement: “To Albert DeGrasse, . . . patient, smart, kind, not woke-but-waking White guy who nodded as I read aloud (and loudly) from racist eighteenth vestry minutes, fed me fruit and veggies, did laundry and built fires like a boss. Yeah, you, the one out there teaching the Doctrine of Discovery to seventh graders. The one who put that ‘Beloved Community’ sign up over your classroom door. The one who agreed to marry me in the midst of this madness. You inspire me every day. Now let’s get after it.” [The Doctrine of Discovery, a version of White Supremacy, was used for centuries to justify seizure of indigenous lands and subjugation of populations. It was in time repudiated by the United Nations.] Stephanie and her beloved were on the same political and spiritual track to go forward together, to carry on as White teacher and African American priest, together.
I knew Stephanie was both talented and ambitious. She was on the road to happiness and a sterling career as a writer and a priest eager to lobby against racial injustice in her beloved Episcopal church. It wasn’t long before she became the priest for a ministry called The Crossing in Boston, a ministry for those who lacked access to adequate resources, including the liturgical ministrations of Christian liturgy. She wrote her first book called Radical Welcome, urging the Episcopal Church to be more hospitable—genuinely welcoming to all “sorts and conditions” of humanity as one of the confessional prayers in the Book of Common Prayers identifies all people.
I recalled my own experience, way back in the late 1960s in Alabama where my first husband and our three young children lived for a short time. The “uptown” Episcopal Church had a “warning” sign about its segregated status—Whites only. The downtown church welcomed black people, although their worship was more Baptist than Episcopal. I stayed home and wondered what White was—really. I guessed it had much to do with culture, geography, and varying styles of worship, each according to how their people saw God and proffered Jesus.
Stephanie Spellers brought her joy and zeal into her church, dancing her way and jumping through the hoops of the Episcopal Church’s political ecclesiology, while never losing sight of her vision. My “little mentee” now serves as Canon for Evangelism, Reconciliation and Creation, serving Episcopal Presiding Bishop, the Most Reverend Michael Curry, himself a spirited black man. (Stephanie’s charge as Canon is mighty spacious—just like her own soul and her God.)
Canon Spellers has been my mentor-model for me as I hope I was for her. We both know what it takes to stay true to one’s own passion for justice, while hanging onto a broad vision written into Stephanie and Albert’s marriage covenant: “Life is short and love is precious”
For me, the Church and seminary, oddly and despite obvious statistics, were not the first but the richest contexts in which I encountered racial diversity. Living too much of my life without black people has been, for this white woman, like living half a life, and certainly spiritually too shallow.
Scene LXVIII. A Deep Conversation
Usually when clergy get together at the annual clergy conference they want either to gossip among themselves, confront the bishop about some itch, or whine, sit in the bar for idol chit-chat, or maybe even a serious conversation.
At such a conference in 2019 we gathered to listen to the dynamic black woman priest, the Rev. Canon Kelly Brown Douglas, theologian and president of Episcopal Divinity School (EDS) at Union Theological Seminary, New York, and Canon Theologian of Washington National Cathedral, who told us many wise and true things about racism in the institutional Church. What I remember most was her anguish about her growing son’s safety, even thinking fearfully about sending him away somewhere. Would he be safe? Would he stay alive? Such questions I have worried about as well, mostly in relation to alcohol abuse. I have felt frightened for a son who nearly died after surgeries. But I never had to say: “Will my son be shot to death?”
During the afternoon break, Dick and I decided to engage two black clergy friends over lunch and through the break time. It felt urgent to get serious about personal experiences with racism. Each of us shared out personal experiences with racism. I spoke about Carol Lee and the racist decision I had made as a child and still remembered. Each of us shared a unique experience and emotions to go with it. I learned how hard it is to be brown thanks to mixed parentage, and how difficult it is to be able to “pass” for either color—but not really. And what it means to be definitely dark black and originally from another country where color consciousness was an issue, only because whites stood out as different. I learned how hard it was to have trust and closeness to black friends whom your parents know by name only—until the time comes for your parents to meet/see your dear friends. Our deep conversation was fruitful for us all, and we stayed friends over some time and met for more lunches filled with wit and soul.
I was invited to preach at St. Cyprian’s in Boston where one of these friends was the Rector and the other the Deacon. It was a scarily thrilling experience for me to look out upon a large congregational gathering and see no white faces. I focused on the Gospel’s awareness of justice for all peoples and spoke directly to the growing concern about voting injustices. My sermon was punctuated by a few “say it, sisters” and “amens”—so supportive. When I concluded the whole congregation burst into applause. I asked the Deacon “Do they always do this.” He shook his head from side to side and grinned. I think I flew all the way home with sure and certain knowledge that the Episcopal liturgy and ritual could be a force for uniting the races.
Scene LXVIX. Blessing All Saints
When I presided at the Eucharist, I would touch each child’s head gently as I used a paraphrase of ancient biblical words to offer each one a blessing at the altar rail. They kept their small heads bowed, humbly obedient to their parents’ wishes that they not receive Holy Communion until they were confirmed. One Sunday, a very small saint, standing and white-knuckling the altar rail so as not to topple over backwards, tilted her head up to give me a broad grin and a giggle. A blessing.
May God bless you and keep you
May the face of God shine upon you
—and from within you—
This day and always. (Numbers 6:24, YHWH to Moses, paraphrased)
AMEN.
(and please!)
