Grief and The Good Shepherd

Following the very difficult announcement I made to the Vestry last Tuesday evening that my family would be leaving San Diego and hence, I must resign as Rector of St. Alban’s, Canon Suzi told us, “You are now a parish in transition.” Transition means movement and change, a shifting from one state into the next, and it is the in-between time of that change: as one Vestry member quickly chirped, “Yeah, but I don’t like change.” Indeed, I can’t say many of us do.

This week I have been reflecting on the several Rectors who have served St. Alban’s in the past 35 years. I had the honor of knowing Fr. Treat, who was here for 22 years as Rector and was the Rector Emeritus when I came in 2007. I have a very precious memory of Fr. Treat at my Celebration of New Ministry. He was joking with me before the service with the very dry sense of humor he had, allowing me to shake the butterflies welling up in my stomach before the big event. And then I heard his heartfelt and solemn reading of my Letter of Institution as your Rector. It is such a good memory. I thought of him again as I read the Scripture texts for this week, noting that today is Good Shepherd Sunday and Fr. Treat, who was himself such a very good shepherd of this congregation, died on Good Shepherd Sunday two years ago. His love and legacy continues and since Fr. Treat, St. Alban’s has had 3 rectors, including myself.
Rectors are the pastors of the people in their charge, and the word pastor is a Latin word for “shepherd.” Christian ministers took on the term and title of shepherd after Jesus’ directive to Peter and the apostles to “shepherd my sheep” in the Gospel of John and following St. Paul’s exhortation to the leaders of the church in Acts to “shepherd the flock of God among them.” Pastors, of course, come in all shapes and sizes, with varying gifts and weaknesses, but hopefully, by God’s grace, they are meant to serve faithfully to bring about God’s will in the mission and ministry of the church in partnership with the members. It is a wonderful and sacred gift, and one I have treasured dearly here at St. Alban’s because of you all.

I was visiting a very old, historic church and I saw there a wall of photos of all the rectors that had ever served that parish, as many Episcopal Churches have. There were a lot of pictures, maybe 20 or so faces hanging with their dates below them. The Rector pointed out to me the varying terms that they had served, a few for just one or two years, some for four or five, and others for over a decade or more. I thought of St. Alban’s and what our wall would look like, and I noted how St. Alban’s has had a similar history of both short, medium, and long term rectors, and I even pondered what my dates would be….2007 to when? “Only God knows,” I thought.

But I the photos reminded me that all rectors are ultimately temporary shepherds and that there is only one true and lasting shepherd- the Good Shepherd, Jesus himself, who is the shepherd and guardian of our very souls. The Good Shepherd of St. Alban’s has always been here and will never leave, and that is why churches like St. Alban’s have continued to grow and thrive throughout the decades and even the centuries, they are following the Good Shepherd.

The role of course, as the sheep, is to listen for the voice of our Good Shepherd, who calls us each by name and “leads us out,” as Jesus says in our Gospel today. My family and I have had several months of seeking to listen and hear the Good Shepherd’s voice regarding out future, and I can tell you that is not always easy to listen, especially when it sounds like he is leading you away from some place you love. In fact, in looking at my own journey since early March, when Salvatore was offered the position as a post-doctoral research fellow at Washington University in St. Louis, I can track in myself the several stages of grief that hit since our own transition began.
The first stage of grief is shock and denial, and that was certainly my first reaction: “I don’t and can’t believe,” I thought, “that this is happening.” I was denying the fact that all of us would have to leave St. Alban’s and the San Diego area, where we are very happy. I love being the Rector of St. Alban’s, it has always felt like God’s hand had guided us together and that it is a wonderful fit. That’s just not something I’ve doubted and I have grown to love and become deeply attached to you all. So, that was definitely stage one for me, shock and denial.

The second stage is pain and guilt and it started for me when we began to really talk about what was best for our family given the news before us; it became clear that I needed to think about leaving soon, and then the pain really hit. I started to use the word “grief” when I spoke of it to my friends, especially as I contemplated having to resign. And guilt fell closely behind because of course, as your pastor, I don’t want to leave and I certainly don’t want to cause any amount of pain to any of you! Plus the guilt over all the things I didn’t do that I wanted to do or could have done but didn’t, of wanting to stay longer, and all of my own shortcomings related to my own limits and weaknesses as a priest and pastor. I am and have been far from perfect.

But by April I was in the third stage of grief: anger and bargaining. I was angry that things had not worked out for Salvatore’s very, very promising career as a gifted doctor of psychology since earning his PhD and angry that this meant our family would either have to be separated or that I would have to leave California and St. Alban’s: “two,” as I told God, “very terrible options!” I told God then, and only now do I see it as bargaining, that unless God opened a door for me in full time ministry, which, I figured, was going to take at least a year, I couldn’t possibly leave.

And then it didn’t work like that. That is when I hit the fourth stage of grief: depression, reflection, and loneliness, which I am still going through on this roller coaster of emotions. Once the transition and move became more real and tangible, I started to feel depressed, found myself reflecting a lot on what it all meant, and began feeling like no one could possibly understand what I was experiencing. And then the “possible” door for ministry opened itself this past weekend, when I was formally offered a new position to be on staff of a large and wonderful parish in the suburbs of St. Louis.

You can only imagine my feelings when I called the Bishop’s office and began planning last Tuesday’s Vestry meeting. You could say I entered that meeting with “fear and trembling” – although, of course, the dear Vestry was beyond gracious and loving. Canon Suzi, who was also present at the meeting, commented on how much care and compassion exuded from our Vestry members, and she is absolutely right. “That,” I told her, “is why I came here!” St. Alban’s is in good hands with so many gifted lay leaders and a very caring staff at the Bishop’s Office.

I suppose the good news in all these stages of grief is that the next step of grief is the “upward turn” where an adjustment starts to take place, followed by the sixth step of reconstruction and working through, and finally, the seventh and last step of grief: acceptance and hope. We each go through these stages at different paces, but we do have to hit each one to get to the next. Sometimes we move back and forth as well, which I have also been experiencing.

All of us who have experienced grief know that we will get through it eventually, that in God’s gracious plan there are steps to our grief that eventually lead to hope. Jesus is calling to us even now, calling us by name, waiting for us to hear him. Unlike the thief, Jesus tells us, he “came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” My friends, my flock (for 8 more weeks), my beloved brothers and sisters in Christ: my prayer and hope for you is that you all will continue to follow the Good Shepherd, just as you have, to have his life and to have it abundantly (not just a tiny bit, not just to survive, but to have it in great and magnificent abundance, with overflowing). Because Jesus, our Good Shepherd, is here, he is leading the way, and we are blessed in and by one another, as members of his beloved flock.