Communication

In the News

"The Puppy ate my Prayer Book"
Elizabeth Kaeton

My beloved Ms. Conroy came home the other evening with tears in her eyes.

Now, you only need spend 10 minutes with "Nurse-Jane-Fuzzy-Wuzzy" to know that she's been a tough old bird since birth. The kids have always lovingly called her "Mother Superior." Some of the folks at St. Paul's call her "The Rock" because she is so solid and trustworthy. Her Hospice patients and families call her, "MY nurse" and say that as long as she's around, they know they can face even death and it will be okay.

Suffice it to say, it takes a great deal to make her cry.

"The puppy ate my Prayer Book," she said, with a distinctive lump in her throat. In her hand was her 1979 Prayer Book Hymnal, the front cover ripped in to three major pieces, the thin pages beneath bearing tiny teeth marks and little tears.

At her feet, looking up with curiosity and anticipatory contrition (and with enough cuteness to break your heart) was the culprit - our daughter's 7 month old Havanese: CoCo Chanel, AKA "The Upper East Side Pooch" AKA "CoCo Pup" now known as "CoCo the Ripper."

(Her North Jersey name is "Ethel Fuzzbutt" but we dare not say that in front of our UES daughter who is already negatively predisposed to the "Bridge and Tunnel" crowd.)

Mind you, we had taped together the back binder of that same Prayer Book about 2 years ago and promised ourselves to have the whole thing rebound - soon. But, well . . . with one thing and another . . . you know how it goes. Ah, life in the fast lane of parish ministry!

The book was given to her on the occasion of my ordination 20 years ago by my ordaining bishop, Frederick Barton Wolf, retired bishop of Maine, now resting in life eternal.

He had given it to her with the advice that she and I develop a circle of friends outside the church. "Make friends with the folks in the Garden Club, the golf course, the tennis court - anywhere but the church," he said, sternly. "It would be even better if the friends you make are not Episcopalian, much less Christian. Not only will they keep you honest about your faith," he warned, "but they'll also keep your relationship sane and intact."

Thirty years later, we have never regretted taking his advice.

Her Prayer Book, like mine, is filled with the names and places of the various churches and communities where we've served together. Every time we've left a place, we've asked people to sign their names on the pages at the front of the book. Reading through the names is like a walk down ecclesiastical memory lane. My beloved and I have taken on the spiritual discipline and practice of highlighting the names and praying for those who have died every November 1st. It has become an important part of our prayer life.

Various prayers and hymns are marked with laminated prayer cards from the many funerals we've attended over the years. There's a whole flurry of them from the 80's. I stopped counting after we had lost the 50th friend to AIDS. I dare not count them, even now, for fear that I, too, will begin weeping - a much easier task for me. If I ever started to really grieve that loss, I fear I'd never stop.

Strangely enough, it is the stain on the corners of the pages that attracts my attention this time. I never noticed it before. There is a dark stain from palm sweat, leaving a mark in the exact place where her hands have held the book open. I've gone to check my book and have discovered the same phenomenon.

There are interesting differences. She and I both have the same palm marks on page 355 - Holy Eucharist Rite II - and following. The stains get darker again at page 358 - the Nicene Creed. And, of the six Eucharistic Prayers, Prayer "A" seems to have gotten the most use.

However, I have more stains on Morning Prayer and she has more stains at Evening Prayer. We have maintained the discipline of saying Compline together - another of Fred Wolf's gems of advice - so those pages are equally stained. However, I have more stains at the pastoral offices: Marriage, Baptism and Funerals.

On the one hand, after twenty years, it's probably time to break down and get a new Book of Common Prayer. On the other hand, how can we? That BCP has been with us every step of the way in our ministry together. It has seen us through times of grief and sorrow as well as joy and celebration. It is our connection with the saints - those who are here in the church militant, those who have gone on before us, those who are yet to come.

It has been the source of our solace and strength in times of oppression and prejudice, the words of our Baptismal Covenant bolstering our strength and inspiring our soul. It has been the silent recipient of the sweat of our palms, the labor of our prayers.

It is a holy book, sure and true.

Much ado has been made by the leadership of our church regarding the so-called "four instruments of unity" in the Anglican Communion. In my humble opinion, not enough attention has been paid to the Book of Common Prayer as the heart and soul of what it means to be an Episcopalian who is a member of the Anglican Communion.

The upcoming General Convention (June 11 - 22) will, no doubt, be a watershed moment in the history of The Episcopal Church. The conservative drums keep pounding out the message, "Walk together or walk apart." Even some of the most optimistic liberals are becoming more and more concerned that schism is a greater probability than possibility. The Presbyterians will also meet in June and it is reported that tensions in that church are also thick.

I have a thought - an antidote, of sorts, to the negative spin cycle in which we seem to be caught. Check your prayer book tonight. See if you have evidence of palm sweat on the pages. I dare say that, at the end of our days as the national churches gather, it will be the palm sweat on the pages of our Prayer Books that is more important than any thing else in our common life of faith.

Charges of heresy and threats of schism may gnaw away at the ties that bind, but it is the prayers we say together, the baptismal vows we make together, the communion of saints we celebrate together that make our life in common holy.

That's enough to bring tears to the eyes of even the toughest old bird in our flock, and healing to the marks and tears on the hard covers of our lives.