Pages

Friday, January 28, 2011



Jeanne Provenzano answers, "A Day in the Life of a Bishop's Wife" for Church of England Newspaper, London
by Peter Menkin

Responses to Peter Menkin interview questions for “Day in the Life of a Bishop’s Wife”
By Jeanne M. Provenzano, January 2011

Mr. Menkin, in the selection of interviewees and the naming of your “Day in the Life of …” article or column or series, please consider that in the Episcopal Church we have women bishops, as well as men, and a gay and a lesbian bishop.  
 –Note by Jeanne M. Provenzano
  
In this warm and thoughtful interview, a Bishop’s Wife tells us something of her “Day.”   I note that the first wife in this series offers in her official biography a few salient points worth quoting here as introduction:
Jeanne M. Provenzano was born in Waterford, Connecticut, to Arthur and Edna Ross, the fourth of five children and the only girl in the family. Her father worked for the United States Postal Service and her mother was a nurse who worked in several different medical fields.  
   
Jeanne was educated in public schools and went on to college, earning a Bachelor’s degree in English literature. Following college, she worked in publishing.  
   
She met her husband, Larry Provenzano, a Roman Catholic priest, just weeks after graduating from college.  They left the Roman Catholic Church, were received into the Episcopal Church and were later married in the Episcopal Church.  They moved to Rhode Island where Larry was received as a priest in the Episcopal Church and served as a curate in a parish there for four years.  They then moved to North Adams, Massachusetts where Larry became rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church and served there for eight years before he was called to be rector of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Longmeadow, Mass. The Provenzanos lived in Longmeadow for fourteen and a half years until Larry was called in 2009 to be the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island, New York.  
   
When the children were of school age in Longmeadow Jeanne entered the Western New England College School of Law.  She graduated in 2002 and was admitted to the bar in Massachusetts that year.  She practiced law and served as an assistant district attorney in Hampden County, Mass., until moving to New York. She had also been admitted to the practice of law in Connecticut.  Not yet admitted to the bar in New York, Jeanne is not currently practicing law.  
   

 THE INTERVIEW: A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A BISHOP’S WIFE
  1. On a typical day, say today, what is a typical morning like starting with breakfast?

On a typical day during the week, the bishop is often at meetings in the evening and can’t return home until late.  Consequently, we have late nights and rise later than we ever did in our life before he became a bishop – around seven or seven-thirty in the morning.  We both try to spend some quiet time reading and/or praying to start the day.  Some mornings Larry has breakfast meetings. Occasionally, we’re able to have breakfast together. 
Most of the time, once we are done with our quiet time, we both move into our respective days.  Mornings do, however, provide time for us to catch up about each other, our children, household concerns, and to share other topics. 
Then, my mornings are spent tending to household chores, tending to needs of our children or other family members or providing hospitality to friends and colleagues.  Because we have been in this diocese for just one year, I have spent a fair amount of time continuing to settle into our home.  Weekends are filled with parish visitations and other events, so we are up early and traveling to one part of the diocese or another, which stretches for 150 miles.
  1. Please tell us something of your prayer life?  How is God moving in your life?

My prayer life/spiritual life is undergoing some transformation due to the recent changes of our life. Those changes include leaving our former parish family and church community.  The regularity of parish life necessarily provides a rhythm to one’s prayer and spiritual life.  As the spouse of a bishop, I no longer have the regularity of that kind of community life. 
Each week we are in a different parish with different traditions and practices.  That new reality is a wonderful one and has begun to transform my view of the church, the world and consequently, my understanding of, and relationship with God. 
Although we are here because of the diocese’s call to Larry to be its bishop and Larry’s belief that God was calling him to this ministry, I felt that coming to Long Island was the right next step also for me.  Both my prayer and action so far have been to be open to God’s movement in my life as I walk through this amazing experience.  I have recently engaged a spiritual director, a Roman Catholic nun, to work with.  Our time together has been very life-giving. 
  1. What do you see going on in your life that excites you?  What do you think is there about the Church that is good?
There are so many things going on in my life that excite me.  I am excited and happy that we have been blessed with being chosen to be part of such a dynamic and faithful diocese in TEC.  I am gratified to see Larry so fully engaged in doing the kind of ministry that he loves.  Our children are happy and busily engaged in their own lives.  And I am personally excited by being in this new place, with wonderful people, exciting ministries and boundless opportunities.  The diocese has provided a comfortable home for us to live in that allows us to extend hospitality to many different people in and beyond the diocese. 
By saying in your question, “the church,” I’m guessing you mean, The Episcopal Church.  There is so much that is good about The Episcopal Church. The Church is engaged in vast ministries locally, nationally and internationally in response to our call to “love one another as Christ loved us.”  At the same time, we faithfully consider the thorny issues that occupy our current time. 
  1. How old are your children?  Are they at home?
We have three children.  Katy is 27, Mary is 25 and Christopher is 21.  Katy and Mary are out of college and living on their own.  Christopher is still in college and is away from home a good part of the year.  
  1. What do you think being a good parent means?  Does your husband agree?
   
I think being a good parent can mean many different things – however, mostly it is to love your children unconditionally to your absolute best ability, allowing them to grow fully into the person that God intends them to be.  I believe that my husband would agree with this.   
  1. Have you always been an Episcopalian?
   
No.  I was raised in the Roman Catholic Church.   
  1. Life before the Bishopric?  What was it like?
   
Before Larry became the bishop of the Diocese of Long Island, he was the rector of St. Andrew’s Church in Longmeadow, MA.  We lived in the rectory, three houses away from the church.  Our children grew up and went to school in Massachusetts.  They participated in sports and other activities. Shortly after arriving there, I entered law school.  After graduating from law school and passing the bar exam, I practiced law for seven years, until coming to New York.  Our life was busy with our children, the parish, and my law profession.
(Note:  The following three questions and response have been grouped together because they deal with the same theme.)  

  1. 8.      Should a Bishop’s wife be active on her own? Are you? In what ways?
  1. Do you have a ministry, not just working on boards and the like?
  1. Is there a committee or Board you look forward to working with – Why?
   
I had the privilege of participating in the work of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (UNCSW) in New York last winter with women from many provinces of the Anglican Communion.  A group of women from our diocese, which included me, who attended the conference, have begun a Women’s Commission in this diocese to pray over and work on issues concerning the lives and treatment of women and girls globally.  I look forward to continuing to be part of the Women’s Commission ministry.  
I am also passionate about our diocesan clergy spouses, partners, group.  We have recently had our first retreat together and are in the beginning stages of planning further events to build community and support for spouses, partners and families.  
  1. How do you not get involved in political issues at the Cathedral and in the Diocese, if you do not? Do you find doing this makes it easier to get along?  Do you work together with your husband or by yourself without your husband with others to solve and resolve misunderstandings and arguments?
   
I don’t get involved in diocesan issues in any way, and I don’t allow others to try to draw me into them.  As bishop, Larry has professional lay and clergy staff to assist him to work through issues that face the diocese.  If there’s an issue at the cathedral, the bishop and the dean work together to resolve it.   
  1. How do you like being a Bishop’s wife vis a vis a Rector’s?
   
I’m having trouble responding to this question – or at least to the way it is phrased.  It seems to suggest in the use of the terms “Bishop’s wife” or “Rector’s wife” that there are certain prescribed roles.  That has not been my experience.  Being married to a person who leads a parish community brings with it certain joys and challenges.  So, too, with being married to a person who leads a diocese.  I like both phases of our life together as a couple.   
There is no prescribed “role” for bishops’ spouses or partners in the Episcopal Church.  We are a diverse group of men and women who pursue different careers and participate in the church in varying ways.  This reality can be both a blessing and a challenge.  The blessing is that we are not forced to step into a role previously defined by another person or persons.  The challenge is having to define one’s own role.  I have chosen at this point in our life together, not to work in my law profession but for now to get to know this new life we have been called to.  I am doing that by traveling around the diocese to parish visitations with my husband each weekend and to some other engagements during the week.  This has allowed me to begin to get to know the diocese geographically, and to get to know the people, churches and different ministries of the diocese.   
  1. What is the difference between a normal wife and a Bishop’s wife?  Is your life that much different from someone in the pews?
   
I don’t think our everyday life is that much different from anyone else.  We have professions, are married, have children and work to educate and raise them.  We run a household, drive cars, care for the cat, have friends, socialize, etc.   
I do think that we have a different relationship with the institutional church than the average person in the pew.  It’s in the same way that a doctor or a nurse knows the inner workings of a hospital or surgery center more deeply than the average person.   
Practically, though, the rhythm of our life is often very different from that of a person who is not a clergyperson or spouse or partner of clergy.  Our life is not structured by the Monday through Friday business workweek.  The concept of “the weekend” does not exist for clergy.  Saturdays and Sundays are filled with weddings, funerals, multiple worship services, Sunday School, confirmation.  Clergy families struggle to accommodate this reality.  Our lives are always in tension with the structures, agendas and expectations of the secular world.   
A bishop necessarily lives a more public life than the average person, and our life together, therefore, is a more public one.  The role of the bishop is holy and special, and by association to him and that role, I am afforded a degree of unearned respect and privilege.  I continue to work to earn those honors.  
   
  1. What do you think about where you live – you’re leading a special life and live in a special place. You have a special role in the Diocese.  Will you tell us a little of how it is special and different.
   
The cathedral for the Diocese of Long Island is in Garden City, New York.  Garden City is centrally located in the diocese.  West of Garden City are the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens. Garden City is located in Nassau County and to the East is Suffolk County.  Our home is a short distance from the cathedral and the diocesan offices and is situated in a suburban community.  It is also one block from the Long Island Rail Road which provides easy access into New York City.  We are able to take advantage of the myriad cultural opportunities there. And, Long Island itself has many beautiful beaches, parks and gardens.   
There are so many aspects of the life of a bishop’s family that are special.  It is special in that wherever we go, we are received with expectation and joy. The people here are warm and hospitable and eager to share with us what they are doing as a congregation.  We are often treated to wonderful meals, and displays of music and dance.  The children are always excited to see and meet us.   
The diocese is extremely diverse.  For example, there are over 100 languages spoken within the borders of the diocese.  This diversity makes our experience of the church varied and broad.  The diocese includes very urban areas, suburban areas and some more rural areas.   
The diocese recently formalized companion relations with two dioceses.  One is from Ecuador, the Diocese of Ecuador Central, and the other from Southern Sudan, the Diocese of Torit.  The two diocesan bishops and their wives from those dioceses attended our annual diocesan convention last November.  Following the convention, the bishops and their wives stayed at our home for a week.  It was a privilege to have them in our home, to learn about the church in their countries and to learn from them.   
14. Are you an important part of your husband’s ministry?  
I think you would have to ask him that question!  
  1. What is your worship life like?  What is your spiritual life like, and what refreshes you most about it?
   
My worship life centers primarily on the weekly visitations to different congregations within the diocese.  Those church services are always warm and festive and celebratory.   
My spiritual life is fed best by silence and being alone.  I have gone on several week long silent retreats at a Benedictine monastery and have found that discipline to be most refreshing to me.  When I don’t have the time to devote an entire week away, I also benefit greatly from just a morning, afternoon or day away at a retreat center or monastery.  I can physically feel myself relax and shed stress that accumulates from time to time in our lives.  I am much more aware of God’s presence when the distractions of day to day life are stripped away.   
16. Are you active in the national Church?  If so, why?  
I am part of the national bishop’s spouses and partners group in the Episcopal Church. Other than participation in that group, I am not currently active in the national church.  Prior to my husband becoming a bishop, I was working full time, running a household and caring for children.  There wasn’t much time to be thoughtfully engaged in anything else.   
  1. Do you disagree with your husband about Church issues?
   
We agree on most issues.   
   
  1. Are you an affiliate of a religious order, as in an associate.  If so, what drew you to it or a religious sense of your own devotion.
   
No, I am not.  
END INTERVIEW 

Thursday, January 06, 2011

Reprinted from The Christian Post, an article on Lesbian Marriage (recently held 2011, January)...




|Tue, Jan. 04 2011 04:01 PM EDT

2 Lesbian Episcopal Clergy Marry on New Year's

By Lillian Kwon|Christian Post Reporter

Two lesbian Episcopal priests kicked off the New Year by marrying in Massachusetts.


The Very Rev. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale, dean and president of Episcopal Divinity School, and Mally Lloyd, canon to the Ordinary, married on Saturday at St. Paul's Cathedral in Boston in front of nearly 400 guests. The Rt. Rev. M. Thomas Shaw, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, solemnized the marriage.

For orthodox Anglicans, the lesbian union was another act of defiance.

"This is another action of reckless disregard for the life of the Anglican Communion and the authority of the Bible by The Episcopal Church," the Rt. Rev. David C. Anderson, president and CEO of the American Anglican Council, told The Christian Post. "They continue to ignore the Communion’s pleas for restraint and continue to go their own way."

The Episcopal Church in the U.S. defines marriage as between a man and a woman. But in 2009 the national body passed a resolution allowing bishops, particularly those in civil jurisdictions where same-sex marriage and civil unions are legal, to provide "generous pastoral response to meet the needs of members of this church."

That year, Shaw gave the green light for clergy in the Diocese of Massachussetts to solemnize all marriages. Same-sex marriage was legalized in Massachusetts in 2004.

The blessing of same-sex unions within The Episcopal Church is nothing new and such actions have drawn rebuke from the wider Anglican Communion, which is comprised of more than 77 million members worldwide.

Anglican leaders worldwide agreed to a moratorium on the blessing of same-sex unions in 2004. They also agreed to practice restraint on the consecration of bishops living in same-sex relationships. But the U.S. body has continued to defy the moratoria to the frustration of conservative Anglicans.

Robert H. Lundy, spokesman for the American Anglican Council, noted that The Episcopal Church has long blessed same-sex unions. But the latest union between Ragsdale, 52, and Lloyd, 57, is being touted as a marriage, and the first lesbian marriage of two senior Episcopalian clergy at that.

"For many people, this is splitting hairs," Lundy commented. "It may be the first time it's being called a marriage, but it's nothing new."

"All this will do for others around the Communion is further illustrate what we've been saying here," he said. And the AAC has long stated that The Episcopal Church has departed from traditional Christian and Anglican Communion teaching.

"For most people, they already broke the camel's back a long time ago," Lundy said.

Last year, The Episcopal Church consecrated its second openly gay bishop despite calls by the wider Anglican Communion to practice "gracious restraint." As a consequence, The Episcopal Church was suspended from participating in ecumenical dialogues and stripped of any decision-making powers on the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order – a body that examines issues of doctrine and authority.
PRESS RELEASE

Lesbian Episcopal Clergy Married by Massachusetts Bishop 

“The majority of the Episcopal Church is increasingly practicing a separate faith.”
-Jeff Walton, Spokesman for IRD’s Anglican Action Program

Washington, DC—The marriage of two lesbians, both high-profile Episcopal priests in Massachusetts, has spotlighted anew the long-running controversy over same-sex unions in both the U.S.-based Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion with which it is affiliated.

The Rev. Mally Lloyd, a ranking official of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, married the Rev. Katherine Ragsdale, dean and president of the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, on New Year’s Day in Boston, according to the Patriot-Ledger. Bishop M. Thomas Shaw, the state’s highest ranking Episcopal prelate, presided. Ragsdale has been a controversial figure in the 2.1 million-member denomination for both her outspoken affirmation of same-sex “marriage” and homosexual clergy, as well as her unqualified defense of abortion as a “blessing.”

Bishop Shaw has also openly supported gay marriage for years. Shaw gave his parish priests permission to perform same-sex marriages soon after the 2009 Episcopal General Convention voted to allow “generous pastoral response” in such situations.
Jeff Walton, spokesman for IRD’s Anglican Action Program, commented:
“Much like the consecration of openly partnered homosexual Bishops Gene Robinson and Mary Glasspool, the Episcopal Church’s embrace of same-sex unions continues to drive a wedge between liberal Anglicans in the U.S. and traditionalists in the Global South.

“Ultimately, this is a dispute about scriptural authority, with liberals following what they attest to be widening human experience about sexuality, while traditionalists appeal to historic teachings of the Church and a plain reading of Scripture.

“The majority of the Episcopal Church is increasingly practicing a separate faith from what most Anglicans practice worldwide.”

Alan Wisdom, IRD Vice President for Research and Programs, commented:
“The Scriptures consistently teach that marriage is instituted by God as a gift to all humankind, and that we are to honor that gift.

“Shall we assert the right to redefine marriage to suit our own contemporary notions of justice? Shall we treat marriage as if it were no different from other sexual relationships? Or shall we reaffirm the vision of an exclusive, lifelong, one-flesh union of the two complementary sexes created by God? Only the latter option is faithful to the Scriptures and the worldwide Christian tradition.”
Alan Wisdom’s paper “Is Marriage Worth Defending?” is viewable on the IRD website.
The Institute on Religion & Democracy works to reaffirm the church's biblical and historical teachings, strengthen and reform its role in public life, protect religious freedom, and renew democracy at home and abroad.
###


Commenting on this Press Release, and "Is Marriage Worth Defending," the Rector of the Church I attend in Mill Valley, California (Church of Our Saviour) responded by email in this way:

Dear Peter,


Regarding the IRD piece, I think most or all of these points from the perspective of scripture, tradition, and reason are much more comprehensively handled in Tobias Haller’s scholarly Reasonable and Holy. ( https://www.churchpublishing.org/products/index.cfm?fuseaction=product&productID=6228 )

I agree with some 90% of what the IRD author articulates as goods of marriage. The deeper question is what is essential to marriage. He appears to argue that procreation, amongst a few other goods, is essential. I find this assertion fallacious, as we know numerous heterosexual couples who are biologically childless, and I think we would be loathe to claim that their marriages are any less valid than, say, my own. Moreover, the assertion that marriage can only be between a man and woman is largely just that : an assertion without any deeper appeal to reason, along the lines of “we’ve never done it this way before.”

I also quibble with the author over the assertion that the Bible offers a consistent view of marriage. Given the tacit acceptance of polygamy amongst some of the patriarchs, concubinage amongst the heroic kings of Israel, the primacy of celibacy in the New Testament, and Jesus’ largely negative view of the institution of marriage as it was manifest in his time (our appeal to the wedding in Capernaum in our wedding liturgy is amongst the flimsiest of scriptural arguments in the BCP – the focus is never on the bride on the groom, but rather on what Jesus is up to in the kitchen!), I find the assertion, along with the remark that marriage should be the “norm” dubious. Moreover, the understanding of marriage and sexuality – even in Jesus’ time – is very far removed from our own. Much of the biblical world regarded sexuality as the domain of the man (the woman was regarded as passive, and idealized as obedient) and marriage largely about the transmission of patriarchal property and legitimacy and the protection of male honor. This is a very far cry – probably farther than we can imagine – from the legal equality and protections that are mutually held and enjoyed by married couples today, or the legally recognized agency of women in sexual relationships (prohibiting rape in marriage is a strikingly recent addition to the law in many states), or the recognition that same-sex orientation is found naturally occurring in the human family and wider creation.

For these reasons, I think it best to say the biblical record seems to hold this overarching theme: that fidelity, mutuality, and charity define a healthy relationship of any kind. Given the ways marital fidelity and infidelity are used as images by the prophets and in the apocalyptic literature, faithful marriage exhibiting these virtues is held as an example of the fidelity that God hopes for His people.

As Tobias Haller has argued more eloquently than I in Reasonable and Holy, I do not believe that same-sex marriages pose the threat that the IRD and others appear to argue they do. Quite the contrary. The question has helped raise up the goods of marriage which I believe are essential, and have been too often lost in a hyper-sexualized, unchaste, and shallow depiction of married life in much popular media. For starters, the goods of marriage include:

• Mutuality (which assumes, as I understand it, monogamy)

• Fidelity and stability

• The creation of a locus of hospitality that brings good to the wider community (the establishment of the household) – and this can include hosting a family, including children – biological or adopted.




The sexual relationship is meant to help support, reflect, and cultivate these goods in the relationship. It is not an end (a good) unto itself. In this sense, marriage helps us discipline our sexuality. The witness of same-sex couples in my own lifetime has been to precisely this. In many cases, I have learned more about how to be faithful to my marriage vows and wife from them than from many heterosexual married couples I know. Put another way, and contrary to the assumptions of the IRD article, to argue the good of heterosexual marriage does not necessarily negate the possibility of these same goods in homosexual marriage.

I am concerned that much of the argument coming from the far right tends to raise marriage to the level of an idol. It is clearly not the ideal state for all people. In this regard, however, I remain quite conservative (and I believe orthodox) in that permanent fidelity or continent celibacy are the ideal choices held for us vis à vis sexuality both in the overall biblical record and in Catholic teaching. Christian marriages are healthy and fruitful only in as much as they cultivate the charity of each member of the family and charity in the wider community. For me, marriage is certainly not the end-all and be-all of Christian life. But I see no salient reason yet to withhold it from those same-sex couples who feel called to it. This is something the wider Episcopal Church is studying presently.

Unlike the IRD, I think we’re actually turning a corner with younger generations. I see younger people entering marriage with far greater care and attention to the vows and content of marriage than did many of their parents in the “me” generation. In The Episcopal Church, we have gotten much more serious about premarital preparation. Even for couples who are already cohabiting, this has turned out to be incredibly important work to forge a lasting and faithful marriage.

Another irony of our times: it is my understanding that the highest divorce rate is not found in the more liberal parts of the country, but in the Bible belt and the deep South. My analysis of this is actually marriages are set up to fail by overly high expectations often clothed as Christian ideals and exacerbated by the economic pressures and inequities and the sexual romanticism of our age.

I don’t have to tell you (or anyone) that marriage is hard work. So is living in community. Both require considerable discipline. But then, a life of charity always does, whether we’re coupled or single, right?

The Reverend Richard Helmer +
Rector, Church of Our Saviour
Mill Valley, CA

Wednesday, January 05, 2011

Sunrise by Henry Worthy, Obl Cam OSB, London
The Courage to Pray Easter Prayers



By Peter Menkin



Searching for the words, the courage


to pray enters my life. Like an arrow,


the declaration of thanksgiving comes


and I say aloud, moving my lips:






Like promise, like heart song, like breath


that is in me--speak. My friend the monk


advises: speak. So trying short notes,


with courage of soul, speak I do.






There is just the two of us; so I believe:


God in Christ, Holy Spirit, for it is courage


brought to the self through the grace of God,


I pray. Like an arrow, the words go heavenward.






Leaving your Mark, photo by Rick White, Mill Valley, CA

Peter Menkin (on left), Linda Shirado,
Brother Rich Atkinson
at The Redwoods, Mill Valley, CA
in Ministry to the Elderly
 Alleluah!! Easter!!
By Peter Menkin




At the intersection of Easter


we wait with thoughts of new life,


the life of a baby, the life of the Baptized,


the life of the lamb, and the memory of slaughter,


of the death is fresh, but forgotten for the time


we say, He is risen! He is risen indeed!!






Those bones, those bones, those dry bones


are linked, renewed, given flesh, given life.


More than renewal, like freshness, like birth...


Out of the tomb, white as lightning, transfigured...


we are mystified, believers, quiet in surprise,


wondering at the miracle and hearing how the Apostles


told their friends the tomb is empty.






He is risen! He is risen indeed!!






The mind cannot fathom God's working, the promise,


we go on with the tale, this myth, this story


this reality after vigil, after waiting, knowing the end


does not come, for from generation to generation the day


is celebrated, as from everlasting to everlasting there is Christ.






Shall we say it the third time, Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy,


Lord have mercy. He is risen! He is risen indeed!!






Alleluah!






Freely is the offer made, freely we take the body and blood,


...we bless you in this freeform of sentences, for our creation,


preservation...above all for your immeasurable love in the redemption


of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ; we share in his victory over death.







Stone on Beach by Rick White