BISHOPS CAN BE DOLLS

The after party for my deaconing on December 1 2000, was a hoot. 

Hat's off to my family and the northern suburbs white friends who braved the journey from the Cathedral in the centre of the city to Soweto in the deep south. It was a  trip to no-man's land for most of them. Moreover, it was a Saturday evening. 

Their abiding image of Soweto was of death, carnage and violence. In fact it is a 'city', with a variety of neighbourhoods and various levels of safety. 

Diepkloof was a nice suburb. 

Some upmarket homes

and others not so posh.






Because I hired a bus to get them in and out everyone was pretty relaxed.

As I've mentioned before, my parish did me proud. The food was beautifully cooked and presented. The hall was decorated. The music and the singing was unforgettable. The St James folk had gone to inordinate lengths. (As I write this I am choked.)

A deacon's stole
Next day I wore my deacon's stole appropriately crossed in front and tucked into the girdle around my alb, which my domestic helper and I called 'that long white dress'.

(Cringe. I know. I know. I'd lost my money. We'd moved into a pretty crummy suburb and used the dog's bath for a while. But I was basically a kugel. My wonderful domestic helper travelled that long road with us. Today she manages a small business for me.) 

Back to being a deacon. 

At that time there was huge drive to push the concept of 'the ministry of all'. As lay ministers we'd visited the sick, conducted funerals (too many people were dying of AIDS related diseases). Many of us had also conducted Baptism and Confirmation classes. We'd even officiated at services with pre-consecrated wafers! Essentially we'd been doing 'deacony' stuff for quite a while before our ordination. 

I seriously wondered why one couldn't just be done and dusted straight into priesthood in one shot.  

Not by osmosis
By then I'd studied and passed 13 theological subjects but I have always been conscious of not having absorbed Anglicanism - the tradition, the vestments, the ritual - by osmosis.  

So I was delighted to discover the modern cassock alb which meant I could chuck the girdle. To this day I see nothing holy in a pall, especially for the extra chalices. It's only a useful cover to keep insects and dust out. My heart bleeds for lay folk who get themselves into a knot about these things when serving at the altar. There is such a danger of confusing ritual with worship.

Useful for keeping flies and dust out

My other world, which included working as speechwriter and media liaison officer for Archbishop  Njongo Ndungane, involved bishops, whose names I could never remember. 'Doll' did come in useful as most were very gracious.  (It's a strange fact - bishops are often less status conscious than their clergy.)

A horrific pandemic
There was also that 'AIDS' thread. Although Njongo's prime focus was development, by 2000 the HIV/AIDS pandemic was horrific. Africans were dropping dead at an alarming rate. Stigma reigned supreme. Our State President and our Health Minister were denialists. Refusing to acknowledge any connection between the HIV virus and AIDS she advocated garlic and sweet potatoes over anti-retrovirals.  They were dubbed 'a medicine from hell.'

Njongo declared the national AIDS policy "sinful" 
in 2000 led a protest march on parliament.

Meanwhile, his international advocacy role was growing apace and President Clinton invited him to a White House function on World Aids Day  on the first of December that year.

Always one to marshal expertise for his pet projects, the archbishop zoned in on Ted Karpf. The tall  Washington  priest with a Texan accent had written the liturgy for the AIDS Day service. But was better known for risking the loss of an entire congregation for insisting that a man with AIDS be allowed to attend the Eucharist and receive Communion using the chalice.   

The Rev Cannon Ted Karpf

                     
That first week the infected person was too ill to attend and nobody else pitched. In short, he experienced every priest's nightmare - an empty church.

Ted has a great turn of phrase so I'l let him share the next bit, "The night before the White House events, I learned an important life lesson: never drink scotch during a decision-making session with an Archbishop on an empty stomach. In the course of a long conversation, he suggested that I come to South Africa to help build an AIDS response.

"It was a major challenge as the province included 10 million people in seven countries, including the worst-affected in the world. Njongo argued that God had answered our prayers and it was clear what I was really called to do. I capitulated.

"The next morning at breakfast with the President, Sandy Thurman, and South African ambassador Sheila Sisulu, the President offered the Archbishop whatever support he wanted. The response was: “I want this priest, Ted Karpf, to come to South Africa to work with me.”

Ted was instructed to go to Africa where the archbishop steered him into strategic planning on how to meet the challenges of HIV/AIDS in 23 dioceses over half a dozen countries.

Above all, our new AIDS champion was to listen.

Never one to stay quiet for long, Ted soon had us all listening and responding. He and the archbishop quickly became a formidable force. Together they developed a programme, coining the notions: We are building a generation without AIDS, as well as No one dies alone and no one cares alone.

Funded by the British government (DFID), the Americans (PEPFAR) and many others, it was until recently, the largest funded programme for faith-based AIDS work in Africa. 

An added bonus for me was a very special friendship. The spare room in our home is still referred to as 'Ted's'. (Don't get too excited, he's gay.)

Part of what brought us together was the fact that we had both discovered Anglicanism in adulthood. And he, like me, had a strong Catholic connection. 

Do you see Jesus?
Ted tells the delightful story of a great aunt, an immigrant Irish nun, a Sister of Charity. "She saw it as her mission to convert her heathen nephews and nieces. We would go to see her at her convent, and she would take us, gravely and with great care, to the sacristy in the convent. 'Do you want to see Jesus?' she would ask. 

"Then she would solemnly take the key out of the sash in her robes, go to the tabernacle box, and open it slowly. 'Do you really want to see Jesus?' 'Yes', we would answer. 

"She would reach in, and pull out the host, (a large consecrated wafer.) By now I was convinced that Jesus must be tiny, a kind of Tom Thumb. She would carefully pull out her hand, then, before we saw anything, thrust the door closed. 'You can’t see,' she said, 'because you are not Catholic'. And that was that."

There's plenty more to tell of Ted. I have an abiding memory of  him teaching me how to celebrate the Eucharist the night before I was priested. We used an ironing board, dishcloths and an excellent red wine.

A QUARTER COW AND MOTHER'S PEARLS

Ever shopped for a cow? I hadn't and didn't know where to start. But if I wanted to celebrate my ordination to the diaconate properly I needed a mountain of meat. 

In Soweto egg mayonnaise sandwiches were not going to crack it.

We had this amazing butcher shop a few doors away from the church where you could braai (barbecue) your meat at a fire in the yard. 

A typical buy and braai set up in Soweto

Because services in the township end when the Holy Spirit decides I would emerge ravenous after as long as three hours.  Across the road from St James was a small supply store where I'd pick up a couple of lovely fresh buns. Next door was a tavern that stocked my favourite red wine. They'd sell it to me by the glass which I'd carry with my buns to the butcher where I could buy fillet steak for a song.  

My mouth waters as I write this. Those lunches were to die for dolls! 

I learned later that all the surrounding shops knew when I had preached because the congregation would emerge at least half an hour earlier.

Who needs a mic?
Speaking of preaching, I am always amused when wealthier parishes panic if the sound system packs up. We had a huge congregation but no microphone. So the norm was to trot up and down the aisle as you preached at the top of your voice. 

If you don't have a mic you trot up and down the aisle to preach

It's a wonderful way of connecting. One thing I never had the courage to do was to start a chorus while I was expounding on the readings of the day. My rector, another who has since become a bishop, would do this with such aplomb. 

What I did learn to do was worship with my whole body. I didn't have a singing voice but oh the joy of dancing to those choruses! Many year later when I was serving a traditionally white parish I was touched when a parishioner shared  that she had prayed for me before the service - until she added, "that you will stand still during the hymns."

Numbers don't count But, back to my ordination and the after party.  I still couldn't pin my rector down on the number of people I needed to cater for. Silly me. The system is to do the best you can. If the food runs out that's life. 

There was no way I could afford a whole cow even though my favourite butcher gave me a good 'clergy' price. So we settled on a quarter cow and several boxes of whole chickens. The Mother's Union, who volunteered to do the cooking, also gave me a shopping list for side dishes like rice and three bean salad. 

Wonderful township food

The feast they produced was memorable. 

More importantly the township approach to catering taught me an invaluable lesson. So three extra people pitch for Christmas dinner. Bring in extra chairs from the garden and share. It's the company that counts. There were times during those years when  I felt as if I was witnessing the miracle of the feeding of the 5000. 

You can imagine how I cringed on one of our ordinands' training week-ends. Held at another Soweto parish, the deal was that we would all bring lunch and share. We whiteys duly arrived with our cooler boxes, serviettes and cutlery but there was huge resentment when the rector invited his Mothers Union to join us. Horrors they hadn't brought any food!! Several indignant ordinands shunned the hall and took their cooler boxes to a spot where they could eat without sharing.  

I was so ashamed but the miracle was that we all had ample lunch that day and the fellowship made the event special. 

In these circumstances it would have been easy to romanticise the whole Soweto thing but God had given me Archbishop Ndungane to work for. Among the gems of his sage advice was to insist on punctuality "there's no such thing as African time". Another was to always stay on the right side of the Mothers Union in the parish. Often a good translation for "It's not in our culture" was "I don't want to do that."

Spectacular on a small  budget
Another practical lesson was how even a relatively poor parish (60 percent unemployment) could stage a spectacular event. Typically, when the archbishop visited our parish for an AIDS service the huge parking lot was carpeted with our congregants' finest rugs. Everybody, including pensioner grannies caring for their orphaned grandchildren, contributed. It was a feast of note.

In that congregation there was no discussion about whether tithing should be calculated before or after tax and I often witnessed the power of the widow's mite. My years in that wonderful community underscored what the archbishop was telling the world as he campaigned for the cancellation of the debt owed by the by the most impoverished African countries to the World Bank.  

He also argued that South Africa’s foreign and domestic debt, since it was incurred under the apartheid regime, “should be declared odious and written off”. 

An interest treadmill

Although I had been a political journalist I was surprised to learn that Africa was on an interest treadmill. Original loans had been repaid several times over. In an era when international handouts to our continent were the norm, more money was streaming out to the developed world than was coming in.

At a grass roots level I was learning that people aren't poor because they are lazy and choose to be.

Ordination
My ordination date galloped closer, there were stoles and to be designed and clerical shirts to be tailored. Invitations to print and distribute (Okay, I'll admit I was still a bit of a kugel.) 

St Mary's Cathedral

Buses were hired to take my congregants to St Mary's Cathedral in Johannesburg's city centre. Another was hired to transport my rather nervous white friends and family to the after party. They had to be convinced that they would emerge  from the township alive, their jewellery and handbags intact. (The effects of segregation were insidious and still are.)

Thank goodness those of us who were to be deaconed were placed in a conducted silent retreat at St Benedict's. I stepped off the merry-go-round into the oasis where I had first received my calling, where I was now a tertiary. It was a profound experience. 

I felt loved by God, loved by the nuns who I had grown close to, loved by my parish, my friends and my family. 

So often people who know I only really became a Christian at the age of 50 will comment on how I must have experienced happiness for the first time. Do they really think I was miserable until then? In fact I've been happy for most of my life. 

What I did experience at my ordination was unprecedented joy. Except for one small problem, I wore my mother's pearls for the service and, as we prostrated ourselves for the long litany, those damn beads really hurt - a touch of reality. 

Advice: Don't do this wearing a string of pearls!

PS: See my guest blog on TheologyMix 
http://theologymix.com/biblical-interpretation/its-time-for-christian-women-to-lean-in/