June 30, 2004
Bishops
In 1956, the two-year old Brown decision legally desegregating the public schools was enforced at the small state college where, fresh out of seminary and collared green, I had just been appointed as our church’s chaplain.
At registration time that fall, black students, many of whom had day jobs, came in considerable numbers to register for night classes only to find campus entrances blocked by picketers carrying signs, baseball bats, and ax handles. As the word spread, the campus Methodist chaplain, the Presbyterian campus worker, the rector of our downtown parish, and I met, got our signals together, and walked students, one on each arm, through the pickets onto the campus and to the Registrar’s Office.
State lore often recounts with pride that it never takes more than one Texas Ranger to settle any size misunderstanding. I was comforted to note that in addition to the presence that night of a few dozen of our local finest, there were also two Rangers. Comforted, but not all that much.
The morning paper’s front page pictured us brazen clergy at work and surrounded by pickets. Later in the day, my bishop called, said, “Looks like you’re having quite a time over there. I’m getting a lot of unsympathetic callers wondering why I sent you and why don’t I send you somewhere else.” I mumbled something very unprophetic.
He said, “I know you’ll probably have to make some quick decisions, and I just want to let you know that whatever they are, they’re also mine. Just let me know as soon as possible so I’ll be able to say what we’re doing. Be safe.”
Nine years later, that same bishop became the Presiding Bishop of the church. He said at that time, “A bishop’s job is to keep his church family on the firing line of the world’s most desperate needs and to learn to accept the exquisite penalty of such an exposed position.”
How greatly I miss him and his kind.