Holy Week 2014: Fear is Dead

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Beloved of God,

This week, Christ is in procession. He comes among us and goes on parade before our eyes. He walks as both king and captive. His clothes are, at one and the same time, the robes of royalty and the rags of a slave.

His kingship is acknowledged even by his torturers even though they mock Him for it. They dress him in a crown of thorns and a purple robe. They laugh and spit. Yet, He does not act the part of the offended monarch. He does not answer the jeers with insults of his own. When they strip Him, He is not ashamed. When they beat Him, He is not indignant. As the nails go in, He forgives.

How can a slave be a King, and the King a slave?

This King is a servant to His Father’s will. He is a slave to Love. His blood is the blood of mercy, prefigured in every sacrifice, now poured out for the life of the world, once for all. His robes are the robes of death and disgrace. He willingly wraps himself in the shadows of every dark thought that has ever been cast over every human heart that has ever lived or ever will live: from the plot of Judas to our own most desperate private inklings. He wears these on his sleeve, publicly exhibits them as His coat of arms, claims them as the sovereign territory which the Father has put under His feet.

All of this He will change into glory. On the third day, the crucified flesh becomes radiant. The stopped heart, the glazed eyes, the clotted blood, rise out of death and become the spiritual Body of the Resurrection. He comes to us, the dark thinkers, walking through locked doors into the middle of our rooms. He stands among us and shows us our true inheritance, asking us to put out our hands and touch Him, to feel with our senses and take in with our minds the very substance and character of the Kingdom of God. Then He breathes on us, and tells us to go into the world and share this good news: sin is cancelled; death is done for. There is, from now on, nothing to fear.

So often, we do not live as though this were true. We are chained by our anxieties and our mistrust. We guard our love as precious food in short supply. Our minds echo so loudly with “What if?” and “If only-” that we cannot hear the angels shouting “He is Risen!” And yet, what we remember over a week, can happen to us in a moment. The murmured prayer, the raised Host, the kiss of peace, can kindle in a flash, from us, the act of courage, a plot of kindness, a strategy of love: we can be the ones who stop the bleeding of the world. May God grant us such grace to take in the mysteries of what we recall in these days, that our lives become vessels of the glory He has won.

Faithfully your bishop,

+Dorsey
crux est mundi medicina

A Prayer for Those Affected by the Murrysville Tragedy

Almighty God, most merciful, Father, whose son Jesus was attacked and wounded: comfort and heal your wounded children in Murrysville.

Surround their families with your care, and stir up in us so strong a spirit of compassion, that we may persevere with them in prayer and minister to them in steadfast love.

We ask this in the name of Christ Crucified and Risen, in whose Life we find our own. Amen.

+Dorsey
crux est mundi medicina

Pilgrim Uganda 2014 Summer Mission

Pilgrim AfricaDear Friends in Christ;

As you know Betsy and I have been active in mission for many years with Pilgrim Africa, an indigenous, non-denominational Christian relief and development organization bringing the mercy and hope of the Gospel to the people of Northeastern Uganda through education, agricultural development and public health initiatives. I blogged a great deal about Pilgrim’s mission and ministry during my trip last year; to find out more, please scroll down.

At Soroti Hospital, with an insufficient number of beds in the pediatric ward, mothers and children are forced to camp outside for the duration of their medical treatment. Photo courtesy Pilgrim Africa)

Betsy and I are returning to Uganda from July 18th to August 4th. We will be teaming up with old friends from New York who will be leading a seminar in trauma therapy in Kampala, but we will be spending most of our time in and around Soroti, the capital of the Teso region. We usually tailor our activities to match the gifts and interests of the team who go with us.

That is where you come in!

yoga-noi250Please think and pray about whether you have a call from the Lord to this mission field. We are particularly interested in addiction specialists, teachers, nurses and physicians (general surgery, OB/GYN, pediatrics, hygiene education, etc.), but have taken dozens of people with a bewildering variety of gifts: actors, writers, EMT’s, gardeners and horticulturists, business consultants, accountants, evangelists, and folks with gifts of prayer. Please don’t think you have nothing to offer.

+Dorsey with Angella Amuron, Pilgrim's head of operations for Soroti

The cost will be about $1,500 per person in addition to airfare. Some scholarship aid is available. In the past we have taken children as young as ten, though twelve is a preferred minimum age.

If you are interested, or would like more information please contact me as soon as possible through my diocesan e-mail, dmcconnell@episcopalpgh.org.

Blessings,

+Dorsey

Five Joys

FamilyBetsy and I are on our way to Evan’s graduation from Saint Lawrence University. Yes, I can’t wait to see our son cross the stage and get his diploma, and I am sure I will be a sobbing mess when he does. But as we make our way to northern New York State, I am thinking of the joys I have come through in just the last seven days.

Joy #1: Accepting an honorary doctorate from General Seminary.

l to r, The Rev Carol Anderson, Dean Patrick Malloy, Bp. Andrew Dietsche and moi.

l to r, The Rev Carol Anderson, Dean Patrick Malloy, Bp. Andrew Dietsche and moi.

On Wednesday, almost exactly thirty years from the day that I graduated, I knelt again before the Dean in the packed Chapel of the Good Shepherd, and received an honor and a blessing. I was surprised by how moving it all was. Andy Dietsche, the Bishop of New York and my colleague in the House, also received one, as did Carol Anderson, rector emeritus of All Saints, Beverly Hills. Carol was also the priest who, as rector of All Angels, Manhattan, brought Betsy and me back into the life of the Church and sponsored me for ordination three decades ago. It was especially joyous to be in her company.

Joy #2: Wiliiam Ogburn’s ordination. The afternoon following the ceremony at the seminary, I had the joy and privilege of ordaining William to the Sacred Order of Deacons. Archbishop Peter Carnley preached the service held at the Church of the Incarnation in Manhattan, where my old friend Doug Ousley is the rector. It was a well-attended, reverent and Spirit-filled event, and I know William was especially touched to see so many members of his sponsoring parish, Redeemer Squirrel Hill, in the pews. Congratulations, William! And, with three more to be ordained next month and the priestly ordinations last December, what a blessing to have nine new clergy in my first year as a bishop.

Joy #3: Confirmation at Saint Andrew’s. I confirmed or received a total of four people in Highland park last Sunday. I love every visit to this parish, which I think is blessed with wonderful pastoral leadership in the persons of Bruce Robison and Jean Chess, stunning music through the efforts of Peter Luley and his magnificent choir, and is simply one of the most drop-dead gorgeous liturgical spaces I have ever seen. I absolutely loved the worship, and I took the risk of vesting in a red chimere, though I knew Bruce would point out I shouldn’t actually be wearing this until after I had been made a Doctor of Divinity. (He did.) The people could not have been more welcoming to me– a wonderful day.

Joy #4: The Episcopal Church Women United Thank Offering at the Cathedral. The spring ingathering last Saturday morning was an excellent occasion, thanks to the leadership, especially, of Betty Duckstein and Betsy Hetzler. I celebrated and (walking off the cliff) preached on the ministry of women in the Church; my sermon was graciously received and at lunch afterwards I asked their help in partnering with the Mothers’ Union in the Diocese of Soroti, Uganda, in the area where Pilgrim does most of its work, to help advance their work in rural health and education. I am always impressed by the talent and experience embodied in this group of my sisters in Christ.

Joy #5, and this, perhaps the greatest: Roast Beef Dinner and Eucharist at Saint Barnabas, Brackenridge. Months ago at my first visitation there, I had challenged the parish to re-institute their once-renowned roast-beef dinners, and I then volunteered to help. This lovely church is recovering from a very hurtful experience during the split, but thanks to the grace of God working through Kamila Blessing, Frank Yesko and deeply committed and caring lay leadership, Saint Barnabas is back! Though I was rushing from the Cathedral, I managed to make it just in time to offer grace before dinner, and afterwards I helped clear tables to make good on my promise to volunteer! The evening ended with a Eucharist in that beautiful nave. There were 55 for dinner and well over thirty at the Mass, but most important was the spirit that surrounded the event, of a solid, lively and affectionate fellowship that I now know will grow and will be a blessing to its community for years to come. And thank you, Saint B’s, especially for the t-shirt that says “The Episcopal Church Welcomes Yinz!” I will wear it with pride!

Epilogue: On Being a Pilgrim

Bloody Lane, Antietam, VA

Bloody Lane, Antietam, VA

I am standing in a place where thousands died in a single day.  They were brothers, and they killed each other.  The dead were so many, one witness observed, their bodies seemed to be stacked like cordwood.  The name of this place is Bloody Lane.

I have come on pilgrimage.

On my way home from the airport in Washington, I have pulled off the highway and driven the ten miles to Antietam.  Here, in 1862, Americans tore one another to pieces, with 23,000 casualties in less than twelve hours.  There is a terrible site called simply the Cornfield, where the carnage was nearly indescribable.  But the Bloody Lane is the whole day in miniature.  You can stand here and feel where the bodies fell, and you can also feel what one poet would later call “the sadness of war, the sadness war distilled.”  It is a kind of darkness that goes beyond the physical cost of so many brothers and sons taken away in their youth.  It is a resignation that becomes more concentrated with each one lost, distilled into a nearly perfect despair.  Here, it seems, any possibility of life is overwhelmed by death.  I just stand and take it in.  I am trying to remember where I have felt this before.  And then it occurs to me. Continue reading

Helping to Build a Nation: UCU

Me and Dr John Senyonyi of UCU

Me and Dr John Senyonyi of UCU

The Rev. Canon Dr. John Senyonyi is the first Ugandan Vice Chancellor of Uganda Christian University.  I have always wanted to meet him, but two years ago, when I was last in Uganda, he had just been appointed and I couldn’t get in to see him.  But now, with Teso University looming closer and Pilgrim having to solve the real logistical issues of building a campus and launching a school, I have an even better reason to meet with him.  So, at dinner with the board on Tuesday, I wonder aloud what the odds are on making that happen in the narrow window I have Wednesday morning.  It was an abstract question; I had written it off.  Next time, I think.

Hellen gets up from the table with her phone and goes outside.  Five minutes later, she walks back in and says, “My Lord Bishop, you have a meeting with Dr. Senyonyi tomorrow morning at 9:30.  Is that all right?”  My jaw drops.  Turns out she and he were in grad school together.  Whom does this woman not know? Continue reading

Divine Appointment

It is almost exactly 24-hours later that we meet with the folks from the U.S. Embassy.

I have been trying to get this appointment for two weeks, and after an incredibly frustrating series of missed phone calls back and forth, have managed to arrange a conversation with two senior USAID staff in Kampala, along with a member of our board, Dr. Ben Khingi, plus Hellen and Calvin.  Anthony has been taken away for a funeral way up in Gulu and is not able to make it.

R to l: Dr Ben. Calvin Echodu, Hellen Grace Akwii from Pilgrim. Dr. Seyoum Dejene, Dr. Kassahun Belay from USAID.

R to l: Dr Ben. Calvin Echodu and Hellen Grace Akwii from Pilgrim Africa. Dr. Seyoum Dejene and Dr. Kassahun Belay from USAID.

The meeting takes place in a lovely restaurant called La Petit Café.  I know it should be Le Petit Café, and I’m annoyed every time I have to write it, but that’s really the name.  When we’re all gathered, I start to introduce the agenda in the usual strolling Ugandan way.  But these guys are thoroughly Americanized and waste no time.  They want to know our anti-malaria credentials, and they want to know them now.  When Calvin begins to describe the pilot protocol in Katakwi back in 2009, they pepper him and Dr. Ben with technical questions, mainly around the mass distribution of antimalarials, a highly controversial approach.  But as we talk, they seem convinced that Pilgrim is a serious player, and they offer a hand in partnership, describing the USAID grant application process and giving us some other very useful information.  This is more than I was expecting from an initial meeting, but of course, we are all delighted.  When one of them has to leave, we are left with Dr. Kassahun Belay, who offers himself as our major contact with the agency. Continue reading

The Honorable Minister

No matter how many times I walk into a pediatric malaria ward, I cannot get used to the sight: the listless children, the mothers at once afraid and resigned, the staff laboring with so little to pull kids back into life.  It is the reminder that health policy is not an abstract set of strategic objectives.  It often means life or death.

Dr. Christine Ondoa

Dr. Christine Ondoa

The person in charge of health policy for the entire country of Uganda is the Honorable Minister of Health, Dr. Christine Ondoa.  Hand-picked by the president, she is relatively new in her post; young, very bright, very dedicated, with an extensive background in malaria intervention and community health.  Dr. Ondoa really wants to get something big done; she wants to eliminate malaria in Uganda.  Unfortunately, there are many forces set against her.  Undeterred, and with the support of the president, Dr. Ondoa has brought in major partners to design and implement a long-term strategy against malaria.  These include both the Global Fund and Pilgrim Africa. Continue reading

Papa Ilukor

The post-colonial period in Uganda through the 1960s was troubled but relatively functional. With the ascent of Idi Amin in 1971, however, the country spiraled into a prolonged period of violence.  Within seven years, the careful infrastructure left behind by the British had been destroyed, dismantled or sold.  Inter-tribal rivalries, carefully regulated by the colonial powers to enhance their own security, boiled over in unpredictable and uncontrollable ways.  For the next 35 years, the peoples of Uganda were set against each other and tore each other to pieces.  It was madness on a scale of millions.  Children were made to kill their parents and then trained to view their new commanders as their true fathers.  Twelve-year-olds committed atrocities against whole villages. Wild tribes from Karamoja rustled cattle and murdered the herders, sometimes with government help. Whole families were slaughtered for rebels to gain a bicycle or a chicken.  Hundreds of thousands fled to camps where they often died just as quickly as they would have at home.

Meeting Papa Ilukor

Meeting Papa Ilukor

Papa Ilukor was the Bishop of Soroti during most of this turbulent period.  He has a first name, but nobody ever uses it.  He is simply Papa.  Nearly alone, he had the integrity and courage to hold together the people of Teso even as the rest of the country was falling apart at the seams.  He is sometimes called the Mandela of the North.  More than once, he simply walked into rebel encampments and persuaded them to put down their arms.  He convened talks between parties who had vowed to kill each other.  He brought about reconciliation where there was simply no possibility of it.  He flew abroad and presented the crisis in Uganda to a world that didn’t want to hear about it, and he returned, miraculously, with planeloads of food, blankets and medical supplies.  He saved the lives of thousands. Continue reading

The Diocese of Soroti

mapsorotiThe Right Reverend George Erwau, my Lord Bishop of Soroti, is a cheerful, ebullient man, built like a rugby player, with a strong evangelical faith and an active and creative mind.  He presides over a diocese of 70 clergy serving 48 parishes, which comprise a baptized membership of roughly 700,000 Anglican Christians.  Yes, you read that right.  Each parish may be divided into four or more congregations, each in turn, under the immediate care of a lay reader.  On Sundays, the priests get around from service to service on a bicycle.  You know you’re a cardinal rector when somebody gives you a motorbike.  At ordinations, each of the priests is solemnly presented with a new set of tires. Continue reading

The Wedding at Mukura

Fleeing-the-rain-treeThe worst road in northern Uganda may well be the road to Kumi. This road has been a disaster since before I came to Uganda.  Over the last seven years it has been more or less in a constant state of reconstruction, and if anything, it has deteriorated.  It really does put the route to Katakwi unequivocally in second place — potholes you could drown in, ruts the size of river beds, heavy traffic with massive, overloaded trucks headed mainly to southern Sudan.  The road to Katakwi is just poor and neglected, but the road to Kumi has been made worse by years of government attention.  According to Dr. Mwanika, “In Uganda, every man behind a desk is a problem.”  So, here, corruption, poor planning, substandard construction, countless inefficiencies, turf wars, and the like add up to a traveler’s nightmare.  Thank God for our driver, Francis, who manages to get us past the bad section in little more than an hour. Continue reading

MFP’s

The road to Katakwi

The road to Katakwi

The road to Katakwi is about forty kilometers of washboard and potholes that will test the quality of your dental work.  This is one reason why you don’t want to think about driving in Uganda.  Francis seems to have radar for parts of the road that seem innocent until you get right over them.  As awful as the trip is, I have a special love for this road because of where it leads.  Katakwi is the district that includes Usuk, the first IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camp I ever visited.  Six years ago there were still several thousand people there, and there I preached my first sermon in Uganda, to several hundred hopeless farmers.  I preached on the parable of the sower and the seed, and in my first words realized I had stumbled by God’s grace into a text they all knew more deeply than I ever could; then I pulled out a couple of puppets and did a homily for about three hundred kids with simultaneous translation into Ateso. 

Aboiboi-two-huts300The camp is gone now, and the people have almost all been resettled into traditional lands.  Since then, Pilgrim has concentrated on the task of helping them become food-secure.  There have been floods and drought and crippling financial pressures that made us pull staff from the fields.  Somehow, by the grace of God, we have managed to keep going, and the original vision is at last slowly becoming a reality. Continue reading

Yoga Noi!

yoga-noi250Wherever you travel in Uganda, you will meet schoolchildren.

In Teso, they are almost always dressed, especially the girls, in the colors of their local primary school: dresses of yellow, green, blue, or purple are the most popular.  They almost always walk to and from school on the dusty clay roads.  They are unfailingly polite, smiling and curious.

Especially when they have a chance to meet a mzungu.

Mzungu is the universal African word for a white person.  It is Kiswahili, but every tribal language I know of has imported it.  Some say it comes from a Bantu expression meaning “here and there”, which describes the impression East Africans had of their British colonizers, that they were always rushing up and down.  Small children in rural areas of Uganda are particularly smitten by the chance to touch the skin of a white person. They have always been told white people really are ghosts. Continue reading

World Malaria Day

At Soroti Hospital, with an insufficient number of beds in the pediatric ward, mothers and children are forced to camp outside for the duration of their medical treatment. Photo courtesy Pilgrim Africa)

At Soroti Hospital, with an insufficient number of beds in the pediatric ward, mothers and children are forced to camp outside for the duration of their medical treatment. (Photo courtesy Pilgrim Africa)

A footnote to my previous post on Malaria.

Today in Soroti, on ridiculously short notice from the district officials, and with help from the Bishop’s Discretionary Fund of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, Pilgrim set up a diagnostic and informational tent as part of the grossly underpublicized  local observance of World Malaria Day.  Dr. Okwana from our clinic, two of his technicians, and our trauma counselor Susan Akwii, manned the outpost.  They screened 150 walk-ins, none of whom were experiencing signs of malaria, but who were merely curious.  27 of them were found to be carrying the parasite.  This is an infection rate of nearly twenty percent, from a small, random, and asymptomatic group.

The New World

I first heard of Teso University when the vision for it occurred to Pilgrim’s founders several years ago.

Part of my job, as President of the International Board, is to be skeptical.

Me:  “So, you want us to start a university in an area of East Africa that has absolutely no record of success in higher education, in which we are barely able to sustain a secondary school, on property we don’t yet have, with money that isn’t there?”

Answer: Yes.

Under such conditions, what can one do but pray? Continue reading

Malaria

Dr_Okwana250In the afternoon, I visit Beacon of Hope clinic, and talk with its director, Dr. Okwana, and his staff.  We have high hopes this ten-bed clinic will evolve into a real hospital, and include a regional psychosocial trauma center covering northeastern Uganda and southern Sudan.  Here they handle everything from infections to viruses, and undertake a lot of basic education in hygiene, pre- and post-natal care, and help families with the traumatic issues endemic to the rural poor.

But the abiding enemy is malaria.

motherchildmalaria250Down the hall lying on a cot is a woman afflicted with cerebral malaria.  She alternates between delirium and unconsciousness.  As I stand by her bedside, I can see another malaria patient with an IV drip, and two mothers with sick children.  I remember some of the facts. Continue reading

Under the Fig Tree

figtree250The children at Beacon of Hope gather for their assemblies and worship under the shade of a huge tree, related to the fig tree, that has become holy ground to us all.  If you drive up after they have begun their worship, you can hear them singing from several hundred feet away.  These kids are so full of joy and so grateful to be here, I can never think of them without feeling joyful and grateful myself.

When I arrive this morning they are all standing around in a neat semi-circle.  I greet old friends in the administration and faculty as chairs are set out for the “distinguished visitors” and a typically ceremonious program of introduction follows, with an opening prayer from a student, very brief remarks from several of the team, until I am asked to preach. Continue reading

October 10, 1996

We’re glad to be on the road out of Kampala.  I almost got caught up in a national anti-malaria colloquium at the Sheraton for which our senior staff was invited to present on short notice.  Anthony jumped in to make the presentation, and by about 1 p.m. it appeared there was no point in tossing an American bishop into the mix.  So William and I left, and hoped to make it to Soroti shortly after dark.

Besides flying, or driving over open bush, there are two roads from Kampala to Soroti, the heart of the Teso region.  One goes west and north through Mbale, famous for its coffee.  The road is equally famous for its potholes and construction delays, so we choose instead to head north toward Lira, cross the Nile, then drive east.  We immediately run into unreported jams and closures, but after patiently navigating the obstacles, our driver Francis has us sailing on a good road through lush countryside.

baboon250

We’re in the rainy season and the green of the mango trees, cassava fields, and sawgrass is stunning.  We drive for several hours, much of it a long stretch through Lango, William Omara’s tribal area.  Just before we cross the Nile, we come across a troop of baboons on the roadside, mingled with a couple dozen black-faced monkeys. Since we’re obviously not eating, they’re not very interested in us.

At one point, William points north.  “This is the place where God saved my life,” he said, matter-of-factly. Continue reading