It was another festive dinner -- this time with the diocesan staff and the clergy who had gathered from around the diocese and from other dioceses – some had driven from Manila (9 hours) to get here for the ordination of the transitional deacon. These folks really show up for each other.
One retired priest, when prompted, shared a recollection from the Marcos days. He was on the government enemies list. One day someone told him the death squad would come to his house that night to kill him, so he stayed in another town. When he came back, his home had been burned. He said there were several such death threats over the years, but he figured he would die when God was ready.
Today, we ordained (yes, I got to be in on it – asked questions – hands on the head, the whole bit) Baby Auhra A. Galope as a transitional deacon. I know our context is different, but their discernment and formation process is so different from ours that it has to say something. She became an aspirant in 2002. She finished her 4-years of seminary in March, 2009. She then served as an intern lay pastor until today. I asked the bishop if there was some reason for the nearly 2 years between graduation and ordination, expecting him to explain why it had been so long. Instead, he told me there was a pressing need for her services so was on the fast track. It is normally over two years. She will now serve as a transitional deacon for two more years before being eligible for ordination to the priesthood. We are talking about a 10 year track to priesthood going at it full time.
It was a splendid service. In addition to ordaining Baby Auhra, a sparkling eyed diminutive young adult as the first non-Cordilleran clergy person to serve in this diocese, we dedicated the brand new St. Joseph’s Church. Their stained glass West window commemorates St. Joseph the Worker, showing him not with carpenter tools but plowing with a water buffalo.
We also had baptisms, confirmations, and receptions. I got to do the receiving. 11 new Episcopalians. The open air church sat 150 people. It was packed SRO plus chairs and people standing outside for a marathon liturgy in hot humid, often raining weather. The high point for me, after the ordination and the receiving, was the offertory. We sang a rousing version of Standing On The Promises while the new deacon censed the altar, the altar party, and the congregation. I have never seen incense used while Standing On The Promises was being sung. I loved it!
After the liturgy and lunch, we had a full afternoon of presentations. First, the MC invited the Senior Warden to say a few words about the construction of the new church. He took the mike and sang Victory In Jesus in mellifluous soulful tones! Asian Gospel! The last time I was so moved by a song, it was a Filipino singer at St. Luke’s, Las Vegas, singing Why Me Lord – I recall doing a blog post about it. There was of course playing gongs and dancing galore. There were more speeches and more songs.
At one point, the cutest little girl – about 6 with a missing front tooth – wearing a pink ballet outfit came over and placed a pale blue ribbon around my neck. The blue ribbon held a circle of pink ribbons enclosing white daisies. I wore it proudly the rest of the day. The children were simultaneously fascinated by me and shy with me. The afternoon was full of children and singing, dancing celebration.
You may recall I visited another brand new church yesterday, and stopped by yet another one with the paint barely dry on my way back from dedicating St. Joseph’s. The faith is on the move in the Philippines.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Monday, December 6, 2010
The Asian Journals Of Bishop Dan: Part 4
Last night I had dinner with Bishop Alex Wanadag and a young engineer from New York who is here with the Young Adult Service Corps doing community development work with the diocese. We then shared a traditional Filipino breakfast this morning before joining the diocesan staff – about 18 of them – for Morning Prayer.
After the daily office, the staff told me about the things they do. There is a major push on evangelism. The Episcopal Church has traditionally been identified mostly with the Igarot tribes, but is now drawing members from other tribes as well, especially in this diocese. The other big push is on Christian formation, specifically “lay enhancement” (particularly training lay preachers and Eucharistic Visitors) and continuing education for clergy. All of the clergy come to the two clergy retreats per year. I was about to explain that our clergy cannot do that because of our vast distances. To set up my explanation I asked Bp. Alex how long it took the most distant clergy to get to the retreat. He said, “It’s about a two days’ walk.”
Next I heard from their staff members who work full time in community development. There were 6 of them. They have more people working in community development than our entire diocesan staff. Community development includes a variety of projects like: forming agricultural cooperatives, setting up micro-credit small business and agricultural lending to free farmers from usurers, building a warehouse to store agricultural products without charge to the farmers, converting a water project’s power source to solar for cost savings, working with Heifer International to provide livestock to farmers and overseeing the farmers’ passing on the offspring of their gifts to other farmers.
Community development begins with the diocesan worker living with the community for a few months to learn their needs and earn their trust. They then do Asset Based Community Development analysis: what could this community do together for economic support? The diocese then offers training – first in the values of Christian living essential to being a cooperative, then in business methods and financial responsibility, then in the enterprise itself.
The government has also tried to form these cooperatives but theirs fail while the ones established by the Episcopal Church survive. The difference is the Church builds a real community with relationships and values.
I was inspired by the enthusiasm of the whole staff about how they were overcoming poverty through creative enterprise and Christian values. Instead of offering band aid charity to the poor, they are putting people on their feet. Self-reliance is a core value they practice and teach. Their challenge is to keep the social ministry tied to evangelism so that they nourish the souls as well as the bodies of the people. It is a challenge but it is a front burner priority for the community developers. This is, by the way, closely related to what we are trying to do through PICO in Reno and Las Vegas Valley Interfaith with our community organizing efforts. It is so inspiring to see the Episcopal Church here going beyond maintaining its Sunday morning operation and going beyond hand-out charity, to make a lasting difference in people’s lives and transform the society and economy around them.
This afternoon, I visited two small open-air churches. One had a large concrete slab used for drying the members’ grain and a warehouse for storing it. The priest, Fr. Tando, also showed me their health clinic. They have no doctor so they use herbal remedies, massage, and acupuncture. They grow their own herbs and have begun a major herbal soap business. Fr. Tando is also a bee keeper and has hives there on the grounds. Poor farmers can’t sustain the church with cash so honey and soap sales go to pay the bills; and the farmers can give more since they are not paying a warehouse to store their grain. Other churches are helping farmers convert to organic farming. Some are helping their coffee farmers who have been selling raw coffee beans to big companies process the coffee for sale themselves.
Bp. Alex and I had a serious talk this morning about the human rights situation here. I don’t think it best to blog about that, but one story is public knowledge – except that I somehow missed it. Did you? On Nov. 23, 2009, there was a massacre here in Miguindanao. One political leader had warned a potential rival that if he announced his candidacy, he would be killed. So the rival sent his wife (figuring in a Muslim region women would be safe) to make the announcement accompanied by a convoy of journalists. The entire convoy of 57 people was abducted and gunned down in broad daylight. 32 of them were journalists. 42 were women. That case was unusual because of the numbers, but political killings here are frequent and usually go unpunished. Human rights violations are being addressed this week by a group of visitors from the World Council of Churches. Participating in or reporting on the political process here is not for the faint hearted.
After the daily office, the staff told me about the things they do. There is a major push on evangelism. The Episcopal Church has traditionally been identified mostly with the Igarot tribes, but is now drawing members from other tribes as well, especially in this diocese. The other big push is on Christian formation, specifically “lay enhancement” (particularly training lay preachers and Eucharistic Visitors) and continuing education for clergy. All of the clergy come to the two clergy retreats per year. I was about to explain that our clergy cannot do that because of our vast distances. To set up my explanation I asked Bp. Alex how long it took the most distant clergy to get to the retreat. He said, “It’s about a two days’ walk.”
Next I heard from their staff members who work full time in community development. There were 6 of them. They have more people working in community development than our entire diocesan staff. Community development includes a variety of projects like: forming agricultural cooperatives, setting up micro-credit small business and agricultural lending to free farmers from usurers, building a warehouse to store agricultural products without charge to the farmers, converting a water project’s power source to solar for cost savings, working with Heifer International to provide livestock to farmers and overseeing the farmers’ passing on the offspring of their gifts to other farmers.
Community development begins with the diocesan worker living with the community for a few months to learn their needs and earn their trust. They then do Asset Based Community Development analysis: what could this community do together for economic support? The diocese then offers training – first in the values of Christian living essential to being a cooperative, then in business methods and financial responsibility, then in the enterprise itself.
The government has also tried to form these cooperatives but theirs fail while the ones established by the Episcopal Church survive. The difference is the Church builds a real community with relationships and values.
I was inspired by the enthusiasm of the whole staff about how they were overcoming poverty through creative enterprise and Christian values. Instead of offering band aid charity to the poor, they are putting people on their feet. Self-reliance is a core value they practice and teach. Their challenge is to keep the social ministry tied to evangelism so that they nourish the souls as well as the bodies of the people. It is a challenge but it is a front burner priority for the community developers. This is, by the way, closely related to what we are trying to do through PICO in Reno and Las Vegas Valley Interfaith with our community organizing efforts. It is so inspiring to see the Episcopal Church here going beyond maintaining its Sunday morning operation and going beyond hand-out charity, to make a lasting difference in people’s lives and transform the society and economy around them.
This afternoon, I visited two small open-air churches. One had a large concrete slab used for drying the members’ grain and a warehouse for storing it. The priest, Fr. Tando, also showed me their health clinic. They have no doctor so they use herbal remedies, massage, and acupuncture. They grow their own herbs and have begun a major herbal soap business. Fr. Tando is also a bee keeper and has hives there on the grounds. Poor farmers can’t sustain the church with cash so honey and soap sales go to pay the bills; and the farmers can give more since they are not paying a warehouse to store their grain. Other churches are helping farmers convert to organic farming. Some are helping their coffee farmers who have been selling raw coffee beans to big companies process the coffee for sale themselves.
Bp. Alex and I had a serious talk this morning about the human rights situation here. I don’t think it best to blog about that, but one story is public knowledge – except that I somehow missed it. Did you? On Nov. 23, 2009, there was a massacre here in Miguindanao. One political leader had warned a potential rival that if he announced his candidacy, he would be killed. So the rival sent his wife (figuring in a Muslim region women would be safe) to make the announcement accompanied by a convoy of journalists. The entire convoy of 57 people was abducted and gunned down in broad daylight. 32 of them were journalists. 42 were women. That case was unusual because of the numbers, but political killings here are frequent and usually go unpunished. Human rights violations are being addressed this week by a group of visitors from the World Council of Churches. Participating in or reporting on the political process here is not for the faint hearted.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
The Asian Journals Of Bishop Dan: Part 3
Sunday began for me at 4:30 a.m., up early to pack and get ready for Church. The 6:30 service was Holy Mass in the National Cathedral's side chapel. It was a service at once simple and high, as a side chapel Cathedral service should be. I believe this is my favorite form of the Eucharist. Two young men in albs assisted an old white bearded priest, who presided at the liturgy of the table facing liturgical East – which is to say the altar was against the wall. He reminded me a bit of the Rev. Canon Edward West who was this sort of priest at my beloved Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. (Here I resist the urge to go on a long tangent about Canon West.) The liturgy was close to our Rite 2 Prayer A with a few variations in the ECP BCP. I loved it! It was just so Episcopal! I miss services like this so much – no personal idiosyncrasies, no egoistic surges of “creativity,” no attempt to mix other liturgical season into Advent, no carving on the liturgy to make it acceptable to someone’s theological sensitivities – just the ritual reverently prayed by two dozen early risers, with a solid competent Advent sermon by one of the young men in an alb. There are many wonderful ways to celebrate the Eucahrist. I respect them all and enjoy most of them, but this one is my favorite.
After Mass, the old priest, who turned out to be a seminary professor, invited me to breakfast at the student café. He talked at some length though I only understood some of it, for he mumbled a bit and seemed more interested in his ideas than he was in either me or himself. He was not so much communicating as pondering aloud. I did not even learn his name, only that he was an American from Maine but had spent most of his adult life in Asia and planned to be buried here under a tombstone which will say “I lie here in protest and hope for the resurrection.” He also quoted someone – was it Ramsey? – who said “A priest is someone who stands before God holding his people in his heart.”
Then it was on the road with my driver, Wilson. Having a sidekick named Wilson keeps me feeling as if I am in the movie Cast Away and that my experience of Wilson as the son of a miner, husband of a working wife, and father of three children, one of whom is autistic, might all be my own delirious projections onto a soccer ball. If you haven’t seen the movie, just disregard this paragraph.
The drive was long and wonderful. Once out of Manila, we drove through rice paddies and sugar cane plantations – the sky sunny with a few clouds, the weather warm and humid, coastal. The cd player brought us Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton “Islands In The Stream” -- Abba, “Dance With Me” – Elton John “Daniel” (personally significant because of my brother’s death in the 70’s) – The Carpenters “I’m on the top of the world, looking down on creation . . . .” – Ann Murray – “Just one touch and then it happens. I fall in love again. . . .” Somehow you hear all that differently while driving through rice paddies.
Then it was up into the mountains, where lush tropical forests were interrupted by villages and more rice paddies – didn’t know rice grew so high up. Today I have seen my first water buffalo and my first ox carts. In fact, these may have been my first oxen. Where are the oxen in America? I know we used to have them. There were security checkpoints on the road. Wilson tells me they are looking for illegal logging and guerilla insurgents. I haven’t seen either – just water buffalo, oxen pulling carts, and the occasional goat.
We stopped for lunch at Angelina’s Eatery Ihaw Ihaw (which means the food is roasted over coals) in Turo Turo a village consisting of two, maybe three buildings. I had chunks of pork over rice. Wilson said it was a typical Philippine lunch. We ate al fresco under a thatched roof. As we left, the owners told Wilson I was the first “foreigner” who had ever eaten there. I hope I behaved well. Wilson said he would get flack from the National Church Office for taking a visiting bishop to lunch there. I’m glad he did.
As the sun was setting, we arrived in Santiago City, capital of Isabella Province – the last region to succumb to the American military in the 1920s. One of the diocesan clergy helped us find our way to the Gatian Hotel & Resort. I cannot figure out what sort of place this is. I have a simple suite in a compound that has lots of bright Christmas lights. Outside my window is a multi colored star of lights with more lights circling it in a progressive round flow of red. (Keeps me from being too homesick for the Fiesta Casino sign that flashes outside my window in Henderson. By the way I did put up last year’s Las Vegas style Christmas tree and ornaments before commencing this Asian odyssey.) Inside there are sticker signs. One is a sticker on the door to the bedroom saying “Jesus never fails” and one on the mirror says “Jesus Loves You. John 3:16” – which is not exactly what John 3:16 says, but the point is good anyway.
There is a Gideon Bible and towels so I am content. There is also an unplugged floor lamp. Remembering what happened to Thomas Merton, I plan to leave it unplugged.
After Mass, the old priest, who turned out to be a seminary professor, invited me to breakfast at the student café. He talked at some length though I only understood some of it, for he mumbled a bit and seemed more interested in his ideas than he was in either me or himself. He was not so much communicating as pondering aloud. I did not even learn his name, only that he was an American from Maine but had spent most of his adult life in Asia and planned to be buried here under a tombstone which will say “I lie here in protest and hope for the resurrection.” He also quoted someone – was it Ramsey? – who said “A priest is someone who stands before God holding his people in his heart.”
Then it was on the road with my driver, Wilson. Having a sidekick named Wilson keeps me feeling as if I am in the movie Cast Away and that my experience of Wilson as the son of a miner, husband of a working wife, and father of three children, one of whom is autistic, might all be my own delirious projections onto a soccer ball. If you haven’t seen the movie, just disregard this paragraph.
The drive was long and wonderful. Once out of Manila, we drove through rice paddies and sugar cane plantations – the sky sunny with a few clouds, the weather warm and humid, coastal. The cd player brought us Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton “Islands In The Stream” -- Abba, “Dance With Me” – Elton John “Daniel” (personally significant because of my brother’s death in the 70’s) – The Carpenters “I’m on the top of the world, looking down on creation . . . .” – Ann Murray – “Just one touch and then it happens. I fall in love again. . . .” Somehow you hear all that differently while driving through rice paddies.
Then it was up into the mountains, where lush tropical forests were interrupted by villages and more rice paddies – didn’t know rice grew so high up. Today I have seen my first water buffalo and my first ox carts. In fact, these may have been my first oxen. Where are the oxen in America? I know we used to have them. There were security checkpoints on the road. Wilson tells me they are looking for illegal logging and guerilla insurgents. I haven’t seen either – just water buffalo, oxen pulling carts, and the occasional goat.
We stopped for lunch at Angelina’s Eatery Ihaw Ihaw (which means the food is roasted over coals) in Turo Turo a village consisting of two, maybe three buildings. I had chunks of pork over rice. Wilson said it was a typical Philippine lunch. We ate al fresco under a thatched roof. As we left, the owners told Wilson I was the first “foreigner” who had ever eaten there. I hope I behaved well. Wilson said he would get flack from the National Church Office for taking a visiting bishop to lunch there. I’m glad he did.
As the sun was setting, we arrived in Santiago City, capital of Isabella Province – the last region to succumb to the American military in the 1920s. One of the diocesan clergy helped us find our way to the Gatian Hotel & Resort. I cannot figure out what sort of place this is. I have a simple suite in a compound that has lots of bright Christmas lights. Outside my window is a multi colored star of lights with more lights circling it in a progressive round flow of red. (Keeps me from being too homesick for the Fiesta Casino sign that flashes outside my window in Henderson. By the way I did put up last year’s Las Vegas style Christmas tree and ornaments before commencing this Asian odyssey.) Inside there are sticker signs. One is a sticker on the door to the bedroom saying “Jesus never fails” and one on the mirror says “Jesus Loves You. John 3:16” – which is not exactly what John 3:16 says, but the point is good anyway.
There is a Gideon Bible and towels so I am content. There is also an unplugged floor lamp. Remembering what happened to Thomas Merton, I plan to leave it unplugged.
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