Slow Fade - Retirement Year Three

 

The sign itself is more than a dozen years old. 

In 2006, the Episcopal Church, in a burst of energy, took over the old Church of Christ Scientist south of the West Lafayette high school. Dr. Jack Kelley decided we needed a presence at both ends of Good Shepherd's new street. So Jack went ahead and ordered two "Welcome" signs for the busy intersections of Meridian & Grant and Meridian & Northwestern. Today they look shabby.

The Lambeth Conference is taking place in England. A decennial assembly of bishops of the Anglican Communion, it was postponed by Covid from 2018. Lambeth started talking about sex in 1998. It is still talking about sex.

The Episcopal Church held its General Convention this summer in Baltimore. I have no idea what it did. I expect I would agree with whatever it did. But the news from the convention is that there is no news from the convention.

The Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis left the Interchurch Center near Butler University to rent office space in downtown Indianapolis from Christ Church Cathedral. I am sure both parties benefited from the contraction. Our cathedral is next door to another iconic memorial, Monument Circle.

I wonder, three years out from my retirement (my last Sunday service at Good Shepherd was August 4, 2019) why this fade doesn't bother me more. It does bother me; it concerns me about as much as the Chicago White Sox's once promising team fading to .500 this season. Was it the injuries? Is Tony LaRussa too old to manage?

Part of the shrug is my being disappointed by the diocese at the end of my professional career. That ended any meaningful allegiance to the local institution. Another is the lack of political energy the church seems able to muster in the face of the rise of Christian nationalism. Without it, the church becomes a hobby, a therapy, a performance. Their righteous Jesus claims to save babies and runs for school board. Our non-binary Jesus is working on "they/them" pronouns and self-care. Which is nice; but then what? We leave 'tikkum olam", the repair of the world, to Jewish Democrats.

The Meridian St. signs are an embarrassment. They are public facing. They are faded. They are bent. They are metaphor. They point to a lack of energy or awareness in the church, as well as to a building down the street. Whatever.