New Presiding Bishop Reveals Core of His Spirituality During First Press Conference
Episcopal News Service. January 15, 1998 [98-2063]
(ENS) At the stroke of midnight on January 1, 1998, as the silver globe descended atop Times Square in New York City, Bishop Frank Tracy Griswold officially became the 25th presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church.
But 1,000 miles away it was still 11 p.m. as Griswold entered the sanctuary of the Church of the Ascension on LaSalle Street in Chicago to begin the liturgy celebrating the first day of January.
"It is the Feast of the Holy Name, which is also my baptismal day," Griswold told a group of reporters the day before his investiture on January 10 in Washington National Cathedral. "So in the homily I pointed out that I've come a long way from that font. Why I am here now is directly related to that experience 60 years ago when I was innocently baptized. So I said, 'Watch out! You never know where your baptism might in fact take you.'"
He was introduced formally as the new presiding bishop at the announcement time in Chicago, well after midnight eastern standard time. But for Griswold, spiritual matters and the liturgy took precedence to becoming "an ecclesial functionary."
Griswold is a voluble and eloquent story teller, and his remarks during his first press conference in Washington provided an early glimpse at how he will respond as presiding bishop. Often throughout the 45-minute meeting with religious and secular press, Griswold redirected and focused questions and answers in spiritual terms and values while relating a story.
Even his "first official act as presiding bishop" led to a story about how he centers his spiritual life.
"I fled to a monastery in upstate New York for five days of retreat because I thought it was very important that I regained my center and approached this new ministry out of a grounded place of prayer and reflection," he said.
Griswold has been going to the Roman Catholic Benedictine community of Mount Savior Monastery in Elmira, New York, for 34 years and the brothers there "have followed me through every turning in my life." He said that it "was a wonderful way to go through the final piece of transition," which began on July 21, when he was elected presiding bishop in Philadelphia during the church's General Convention. He described transition as a "time of grace and confusion" as he completed his duties as bishop of Chicago and tried to "get up to speed with my new responsibilities."
Griswold confided that he is well aware of the pressures facing him during the next nine years. He said that he told the Benedictines, "You're going to be very important to me in the months and years to come because by virtue of the office of presiding bishop I'm going to become a center of controversy -- like it or not. And probably in some people's minds I'm not even going to be a human being. I'm simply going to be a living issue of some sort," he said. "It's very important therefore that some people have a sense of who Frank Griswold really is who have nothing to do with the Episcopal Church and its ecclesial systems, but simply know him as a person of prayer, a devotee of St. Benedict and a long-time friend."
The questions from the press began with some tough queries and perceptive answers.
"Where do you expect to lead the church?" was the first query.
Griswold pounced on the question: "I hope to lead the church in the right direction," he said with a chuckle, displaying his well-known wit and humor, immediately switching gears to provide a serious answer. "I think that -- just to stay with the Benedictinism that I referred to earlier -- one of my models for ministry is the abbot as depicted in the role of St. Benedict. And the abbot is seen very much as one who listens to the different voices within the community, can be aware of the different needs that exist in the community, can also listen to the visitor who introduces a word of insight or criticism that the community might not be aware of by virtue of simply living the life.
"But the abbot is going to listen to a diversity of voices and hearing all those voices, and what they have to say into the ongoing life of the community," he explained. "So I think broadly conceived, mine is a ministry of drawing people together in conversation, mine is a ministry of listening with care to the diverse voices in the community, and making sure that diversity is honored."
Several times he referred to his "rather foundational" experiences as a priest and bishop in responding to questions about his leadership style.
Comparing his first experiences in a wealthy, suburban parish in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, and a smaller congregation in Yardley, Griswold said he "had to learn all over again what it meant to be a minister, that I had so defined myself in terms of that first experience at the other church, that I had to learn from these people who I was. Over time it became very clear to me, partially because the congregation pulled ministry out of me, that I was not so much shaping and forming them, as I was being shaped and formed by them -- and that together we were discovering in a living way the word of God in our midst.
"I have found since then, moving on to another congregation and then into my life as the diocesan bishop, that in each case I have been formed by the community," he said, "and that the Word has emerged from our life shared rather than being something that I simply declared." As he enters into his new ministry, Griswold said that he wonders "first of all what community is going to be because it is so diverse and spread out. My community is a series of sub-communities. I assume that in each instance we're going to find the Word together. It's not so much a question of Frank Griswold determining what needs to be done, or what should be said, but Frank Griswold listening with care and out of what is heard in the conversation with the community then speaking. It's an unfolding, dynamic notion..."
Questioned about various groups within the church vying for leadership or attention, Griswold returned to the promise he made in his election acceptance remarks at General Convention.
"...A bishop's heart must be open, a bishop's door must be open to everyone, absolutely everyone," said Griswold, quoting a Brazilian Roman Catholic bishop. "Don't try to pin me down either to the right or to the left. My sense is that I'm ready for conversation. All one can do is to open the door and say, 'please come in, please sit down and let's talk.' I certainly intend to do that and hope to do that. I think on the other hand...they can choose not to come in and talk, there's no way you can compel them to do so. The door is open and I do hope that some of those who feel alienated and devalued in the life of the church will find a way to sit down and possibly together we can find a new way to live in communion with one another.
Certainly there are voices abroad in the church threatening separation and calling for the establishment of separate provinces," Griswold said in ticking off some of the issues facing the church. "Conversation with dioceses that do not recognize the ministry of ordained women is something else on the desk to be dealt with. I think more fundamentally for me there is the whole question of what does it mean to be the presiding bishop, getting my sea legs, so to speak."
One questioner suggested that both sides in the issue of ordaining homosexuals claim either "propositional truth" or personal experience as the ultimate authority.
"There are different modes of truth and propositional truth is one mode of that truth," Griswold explained. "Truth is presented to us relationally. Jesus says 'I am the truth.' The only way to know the truth in Jesus is through relationship. 'I in you and you in me' -- the mutual indwelling, which is certainly supported by the whole sacramental system of the church. It's all a question of relationship."
It is important, Griswold said, "for people who take their stand on Scripture to realize that Scripture itself is an account of people's experience of God, and that the Lord of Scripture -- that is, the risen Christ -- presents troth relationally and experientially. One can go beyond that to the Acts of the Apostles, where it was the experience of the Holy Spirit showing up in unlikely and seemingly suspect places that made the early church aware of the fact that the gentiles could be included in the community. So experiential truth is biblical truth in large measure, and propositional truth, though an important part of tradition, isn't as biblical as experiential truth.
"I would hope to help the community become more biblical," he added, "in that sense as it looks at the whole question of what's true."
Pressed to offer an absolute or firm assurance that "the church should be able to give to people who are seeking God," Griswold returned to the basics of church teachings.
"Our salvation is in Jesus Christ, our risen Lord. That's where I would start," Griswold said. "I would say that we encounter Christ, to borrow from St. Ambrose of Milan, face to face in the sacraments that the sacraments shape and form us and mediate the presence of the risen Christ for us.
"I would say that Christ is the Lord of Scripture. My sense is that Christ continues to make the scriptural word the living word in our experience through the power of the spirit that...unfolds it over time. The truth is developmental. We are always growing into the truth who is Christ and so we must listen carefully and discerningly to truth as it comes to us in a variety of ways and see that as part of the unfolding mystery of the risen Christ in our midst. "
For Griswold, the bottom line will be "this common search for the Word...and that's something that I will be shaped by as time goes by."