My Current Status

 As of Saturday, July 26, 2025:

I am feeling uncomfortable right now. My church is apparently going through some sort of "Revitalization"  process," which I am not comfortable with. Sounds like it is much too focused on evangelization, and, to top it off, they are meeting in Omaha to discuss it today or tomorrow, and I am not comfortable traveling for a number of reasons, including PTSD -- I irrationally I am told fear being abandoned in some place I cannot get back from, and some health issues, like incontinence, that have popped up recently.

In any case, I feel that the church might be changing around me, leaving me without a church I can embrace. I have never felt that my input was ever really welcome or relevant to others in the church. I suppose I ought to be used to it ... but I am not.

Whatever happens, I intend to keep on as I am, unless I am told not to or they try to make at The Lion, a venue for evangelization.

Also the "Big Red Welcome" gets underway soon, and the church is all abuzz about how they are going to get students to come to our church, and I feel certain none of it will come to anything, in terms of St. Mark's state goals.Everyone seems laser-focused on either evangelization or advertising, as if we were a business. That, I feel is not what "attracting people" ought to mean.

But no one ever listens to me in this regard. We are simply a part of the community, and ought to act as such, and represent ourselves as such, welcoming them to campus, rather than luring them to our part of it.

The same is true of this "Revitalization" effort. Students are not here for the purpose of choosing a religion or denomination. We are here to help them become better people, if they want to approach us for that reason, but I feel it is wrong to view the university as some sort of people wier, with the purpose of guiding people to the church where they can be trapped. 

I am not saying that St. Mark's would do that, but many churches and churchmen would, and I am nervous that we might be coming under the influence of these forces in a desperate desire to survive. 

I want these kids to find their own way, whether that be Christianity, Buddhism, or simple classic philosophy and ethics, or whatever. 

I do, however, want them to see us as someone who can appreciate their views, even if it means that we will die as a church. On the other hand, if they see us as someone they can trust in this manner, they will be more likely to turn to us -- or perhaps some of their friends will.

I feel that if we are genuine in what we have to offer, then that is enough -- but we do need to express that; a genuine need to be there for them when they are in need, and simple friends when they are not in need.

As of Wednesday, April 2, 2025:

I am currently baffled by a situation at church. Someone who wants to be the poster child for finding acceptance at the church, is themself blatantly, rudely, and very outspokenly embodying the essence of the rejection of others.

What I hear this person saying is, approximately and not even slightly tongue in cheek: “The first and greatest commandment is: 'you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' Mark 12:30 “The second is like the first: 'Go ahead and hate your neighbor, go ahead and cheat a friend, you can do it in the name of heaven, you can justify it in the end.'” Skeeter Davis – One Tin Soldier.

I do feel for this person, yet do not know how to point out this contradiction to them; for one thing they would feel attacked, and they would reject my assessment. And rightly so: I am not God. Even so, I stand by my assessment.

And yet, I feel pressured to accommodate this person in the venue, as a poet, on stage.

I also do not want to encourage evangelical poetry. I have written a lot of that myself, which I would share with Christians, but would not impose on the general public because it would be too easily misinterpreted. Such poetry can very easily, albeit unintentionally, drive people away from God.  I do not view poetry as a way to sell God or Church to others, but simply as an aspect of my life that is an integral part of my raison d'tre – not to urge God or Church as a part of other people’s raison d'tre. I prefer to point to God, not to theologize or evangelize God. If people can see God, then they should and will come to Him of their own accord, which is the best way to approach Him, after all. The God they seek is the God they will find. I would prefer to simply be at their side as a friend, lest they veer too far off course, not as a guide because I can too easily get lost myself!

This all makes me face my own weaknesses. I have long understood that by inviting the community into our church building, as a means of establishing a rapport between neighbors and church, at some point conflict could arise, as it did for Dorothy Day, St. Francis, and others – I just never thought our congregation would be a source of it.

Some neighbors I invite in to at The Lion might become problems at the venue, which is, I think, what my difficult church friend fears.

How does one deal with rejection – even violent rejection and opposition – by a neighbor or member of your own congregation to the nature of who you (and they!) are in God? I intuitively feel it is not by preaching to them, nor by evangelizing them, but rather by quietly and lovingly, rejecting the negativity or the violence of the other person, while simultaneously inviting the embrace of the person God sees in them – even if you cannot see it yourself.

This is simply how God works, and sadly, how martyrs (including Jesus) are sometimes made. To embrace God, one must allow for bad outcomes, as does God. We must also trust, in faith, that those who love us will understand – even if the worst occurs. As did the brothers at Taizé after the murder of our beloved prior, Frère Roger Schutz, when they forgave his murderer and sought only her rehabilitation, not vengeance.

In the end, preaching God's word at people, evangelizing, is not the answer so much as embodying God's word in your behavior. I know that I am not attracting the masses to St. Mark's as a religious organization, but those few who might come to us can listen to God's word on Sunday, after they decide they want to listen to it. Meanwhile, I prefer to attempt to embody the love to be found in God, not as "religion," nor as evangelization, but as how neighbors and friends ought to relate to one another.

I can only hope that, even if a standoff ever occurs, I am up to it.

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 As of Monday March 31, 2025 

My Relationship With St. Mark's On The Campus

This is only my personal perspective . . .

First and foremost, I clearly & emphatically, do not believe that St. Mark's (or any church or denomination or religion for that matter) IS God. God has all the “power,” which “He” uses, rather amazingly, and very sparingly. Humans, unlike God, bind themselves with theology and doctrine, none of which is created or written by, God; only inspired by God.

If anything, I am Ecumenical. I use that term as something that embraces Christianity and other religions – including atheism . . .  internally and communally among religions. The only church I ever felt fully at home in was Taizé, where I lived for a time in France in 1975. God is both immanent and eminent, and I seek Him in both manners.

I do love St. Mark's on the Campus, primarily because this is where Sarah and I came together to become man and wife. In this sense it is a very sentimental relationship; but we remained and raised a family there, going through many rites of passage there, making friends there, and so on, making it our community . . . our home.

For my part, I left it on three separate occasions: 

• Once when I felt disabused of it; specifically of a very basic belief in the dignity of human life, threatened by the Death Penalty, which I had thought was shared by the Episcopal Church; it was not, vehemently, at least not by my rector who attacked me for my belief from the pulpit, after I asked him to sign a statement to be sent to the Governor,  to the effect that the Death Penalty was wrong. The presiding Bishop was opposed the the Death Penalty; I thought other clergy would see the error in it too. “The pulpit” is always a temptation to clergy, which is all too easily abused.

I returned to, and became a member of, the Roman Catholic Church. This was difficult, and while Sarah supported me, it was a stressor on the marriage, as it involved a rejection of our joint church. 

• However,I soon found a very similar problem in the Catholic Church when Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz issued a mass excommunication for those Diocesan Catholics with whom he disagreed and with whom he was too childish and churlish to talk. I felt he was not representing God, but was, rather, trying to usurp Him, and far too many people of the Lincoln Diocese supported him in this. 

I felt homeless and tried to return to St. Mark's to be with my wife and family.

• Then, a general rift occurred within St. Mark's on the Campus, fomented by the falling out between the rector and a deacon, which tore the church apart, with many parishioners leaving for other churches. St. Mark's on the Campus has never recovered from that, and neither the rector nor the deacon has ever seemed concerned with the impact their argument had on the church, little less apologized, little less reconciled. I believe it is . . .  now, slowly . . . healing, but perhaps too slowly; I can only hope it is fast enough to avoid utter disbandment of the church, I cannot say.
  
  I sincerely hope it does not disband: it would be devastating for me and others, in many ways. It is the only remaining remnant of a neighborhood that saved me in 1970. The people of the neighborhood rescued me at the time, far, far more than did the church.
  
  In fact, that might be St. Mark's greatest "failing," historically, is to be found in its reluctance to push people into its religion (very much to its credit, in my opinion); it has failed to sufficiently go beyond the accouterments of religion and embrace God as manifest in its “non-religious” or “non-Episcopalian” neighbors. 

I do not mean to imply that it has not proselytized enough nor that it should have evangelized more. It, like most Christian churches, has been a victim of the tendency to feel that God does not exist in the hearts of others outside of its church walls, or religion for that matter, and therefore make them feel welcome in our midst as they are.

I think (I believe it is more than just hope) that this is changing. I know, without question, that the people of this congregation do not believe in that cultural tendency to evangelize first and ask questions later but they have, historically, had significant difficulty overcoming it. This is not evil or sinful, or even inherently bad. They, like I, have simply had difficulty dealing with it due to our particular psychological or cultural challenges.

With this poetry reading venue, “at The Lion”, I, and I hope they, are beginning to overcome that, however slowly and late in the life of the church. I only hope that the community in the neighbor hood, downtown and on campus, can accept and embrace this new relationship, which sees them not as fodder for the congregation, but as friends of the church and the neighborhood in which it resides.

St. Mark's on the Campus has three component parts in its architecture: (1) the Sanctuary, where God is worshiped in the Episcopal Liturgy, (2) the Parish Hall, where the congregation and larger communities can engage in dialogue and mutual support, and (3) a Courtyard where the Church with its congregation can cross paths with the neighborhood in which we reside.

I, as a St. Markian, try to see God in my neighbor – not a God of doctrine or dogma, but the God that created us all, and instilled from birth in us a raison d'être that we all spend most of our lives trying to find, clarify, and fulfill. This is not the calling only of a “religious” person, but of every student and person pursuing a career of any sort. That is inherently moral and religious, even if one does not understand it or espouse a religion per se. That reflects my “religious feeling,' which I strongly sense has a place at St. Mark's on the Campus. Hence, I continue to give St. Mark's a chance, not only as a church, but as a neighbor in this community.

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