Clergy, Coffee & Conversation

I'm grateful to Steve Opalenik of The Promethean Project for inviting me onto his Break the Chains podcast. It was a great and wide-ranging conversation! 

Steve is a licensed mental health counselor and, once upon a time, he and Bryna were colleagues at Bay State Community Services, where Bryna is now the Director of Development and Community Relations. He's also a terrific interviewer, basically the Oprah of the Massachusetts mental health podcast universe. 

Seriously, he is good at drawing out his guests and inviting introspection. His passion for physical and mental wellness also comes shining through his conversations.

We spoke about coffee, church, faith, dogs, dog poop, and...Bryna. Listen to the podcast and you'll learn her reaction to my telling her I felt a calling to the priesthood, while we were engaged. Yes, I told her in a public place.

You can listen to our conversation here. Enjoy!

In Good Faith: Walking Humbly

In the October edition of my In Good Faith column, I write about the joys of dog ownership and the importance of humility.

Walking Humbly

On most days, at some point, I can be seen walking down the street carrying a bag of poop. This

would be a much stranger sight if I didn’t also have one or both of our dogs walking beside me.  Yet I find that this small, simple act of dog ownership helps on the humility front. It’s hard to have an outsized view of yourself when you literally carry dog poop around town in a brightly colored bag on a daily basis. 

As Americans, we’re generally not too big on humility. We’re more into keeping up appearances and keeping up with the Joneses. We’re taught to seize the day, that might makes right, that only the strong survive. Rather than lifting up humility as a virtue, we’re more inclined to equate humility with weakness. 

And that’s too bad. Because if we all genuinely embraced humility, I’m pretty sure the world in which we live would be a much more enjoyable place these days. 

Maintaining a healthy and realistic view of one’s own importance isn’t about low self-esteem or self-renunciation. Rather, it’s about lifting others up, leaving space for those beyond ourselves to function more fully in the world around us. It’s about listening to voices besides our own and opening ourselves up to differing viewpoints.

Perhaps not surprisingly, I believe our current political landscape could use a dose of humility. Our politicians could stand to dial back the self-aggrandizement, and people on all sides might recognize that they may, even occasionally, not have all the answers. The amplification of one’s own views on social media surely doesn’t help with the ensuing divisiveness. 

From a faith perspective, without humility we tend to forget our place in the world. Our self-righteousness can take over and we slowly, but surely put ourselves on the same plane with God, rather than taking our place as humble servants of God. Which, in the religion business, is called sin. 

Of course, even faith leaders are not immune to a lack of humility. Joel Osteen drives a Ferrari. There are clerics who revel in the opulence of their office, more concerned with status than service. Which doesn’t leave much room for humility, for giving away power and prestige, rather than stockpiling it. Nor does it speak to the one who humbled himself on a cross. 

Embracing humility doesn’t mean spiritual groveling. We are indeed worthy to stand before God, and we should live with the sure confidence that we are truly and wholly loved by God. But setting ourselves over and above other members of God’s creation is neither spiritually sustainable nor how God intends for us to walk through this world. Which is easy to forget in this age of self-affirmation and self-reliance and self-indulgence and self-justification.

What is it that keeps you humble? It may be walking down Main Street carrying a bag of poop; it may be listening to others before sharing your opinion on Facebook; it may be acknowledging a mistake at work rather than blaming a co-worker. 

I invite you to reflect upon ways that you might walk more humbly through this world of ours. Dogs, of course, are optional.  

In Good Faith: For the Love of Dog

In my latest In Good Faith column, I write about the loss of our sweet 18-year-old family dog. 

For the Love of Dog

We lost a beloved family member last week. Well, technically speaking she was a member of our “pack,” as that’s how dogs see themselves. But Delilah, our yellow lab/husky rescue left this mortal patch of earth after 18 years and three months. It was an amazing run, not just for the length of time but for the love she doled out along the way.

Officially, Delilah was not a therapy dog, but she had her own ministry of presence at the

parishes I’ve served in both New York and Massachusetts. From welcoming visitors to comforting bereaved families to visiting nursing homes to putting children at ease, Delilah was a faithful companion to so many. Frankly, she was a more faithful pastor than I could ever hope to be, sprinkling unconditional love around with reckless abandon. 

Before being furloughed by both the pandemic and arthritis, Delilah came to work with me nearly every day. I know this was more unusual before all of our pets became co-workers over the past year-and-a-half of working from home. But she embraced her role and her commute, enthusiastically bounding up the stairs from the rectory to the church.

Delilah also served as a marker of time for our family. She journeyed with our children from elementary school to their early 20s; she’s been in every one of our Christmas cards for the past 17 years; she endured countless goldfish, two ferrets, and even our now three-year-old other dog; she accompanied us on an interstate move and countless other adventures. Delilah has simply been there, through all the sorrows and joys and messiness of life. She has seen it all and yet remained overjoyed to see us each and every day.

As anyone who has loved and lost a pet knows, the grief is real. There’s an emptiness that transcends the physical emptiness of the dog bowl and creates a paw-shaped hole in your heart. But it’s also part of the deal. We bring pets into our homes, give them our hearts, love them, allow them to minister to us in ways great and small, and then cherish the memories when they’re gone. The love is as fierce as the grief.

Although I realize it offers comfort to many, I’m less enamored of the whole notion of the “Rainbow Bridge,” that mythical crossing animals make from this world to the next. I am, however, keenly aware of the rainbow that forms over Noah’s ark in the book of Genesis. The rainbow that emerges after the flood, is a sign of God’s promise to never abandon God’s people. As the storm subsides and the rainbow appears, God says, “I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.” 

I believe our beloved pets are part of this covenant, and I’m convinced they play an integral role in our relationship with the divine. Through them, we glimpse God’s love for all humanity. In the ways that our pets comfort us and care for us and cuddle with us and even, at times, confound us, we see the very face of God. 

One of Delilah’s great joys in life was stretching out in the backyard and soaking in the sunshine. She could literally do this for hours. Besides the reminder to all of us to enjoy the present moment, something so many of us struggle with, I also hear echoes of the 23rd Psalm as I envision Delilah now lying down in green pastures and reveling in the celestial sun. 

And as the storm of grief abates, I look forward to reveling in the vivid, multi-colored, rainbow-like memories of Delilah that will cheer us all in the days ahead.

In Good Faith: Aging Gracefully

In my May In Good Faith column, I write about living with a 14-year-old...dog. Denial about what looms in the future is powerful. And I'm generally good with that.

Aging Gracefully

Delilah turns 14 this week. If she was a teenage girl and I was her mother, this would be an

intense time fraught with conflict and angst. But she’s a dog. An increasingly older dog. An “active senior” as her slightly more expensive bag of dry dog food proclaims, like she’s moved into a retirement community and keeps busy by playing bridge and attending Brigadoon sing-a-longs.

The multiplication tables drilled into my head as an elementary school student didn’t go up to 14 so I needed my iPhone calculator to figure out that she’s 98 in dog years. Regardless of species, that’s getting pretty long in the canine molar, if you ask me. And it’s starting to show. Like all of us, she’s slowing down. Walks are becoming more leisurely and rather than leaping up at the sound of the doorbell, she’s more apt to bark half-heartedly. 

Now, we talk about a lot of controversial topics in our household, from religion to politics to my eldest son’s inexplicable love of the New York Yankees. But the one topic no one will broach is the fact that Delilah is not, in fact, immortal. She will not live forever. 

Delilah’s advancing age has become our family’s elephant in the room. We’re all aware of it, but no one names it. For to do so would make a hard reality concrete and we’re just not ready to go there. 

Denial is not a healthy way to deal with inevitabilities. I’m always encouraging families to talk about and prepare for the death of a loved one. One of the greatest gifts you can leave your family is clear instructions for your funeral and burial so they aren’t left guessing amid profound and raw grief. “I think I once heard her mention she wanted to be cremated but maybe she was talking about her pet rabbit?” 

Yet, when it comes to Delilah, I literally can’t seem to practice what I preach. As with any adored member of the family, it’s hard to think about life without them. Our teenage boys can barely remember the years before we adopted her; she’s been that omnipresent in their lives. Her presence is intertwined with all sorts of family memories and it’s not just the myriad Christmas card photos that mark her yearly existence in our lives. That’s just a snapshot of what belies the daily interactions and informal encounters with our sweet yellow lab/husky mix. The same one who has come to work with me for well over a decade.

In the end (not Delilah’s end, since I can’t speak of that), gratitude for each remaining moment is what matters. Taking a moment to smile when she does that thing where she lifts up a single ear or summons the energy to sprint after the squirrel she’s never caught and never will, but not for lack of trying. Perhaps that’s the lesson for all of us as we collectively deny Delilah’s eventual demise: to enjoy the remaining time we have and stop to give her that extra belly rub. Which is not a bad way to interact with any aging loved one — minus the belly rub, of course.

In the meantime, we’ll celebrate her 14th birthday with reckless abandon. Since we adopted her the first week of May when she was “about one,” we mark it on May 5th. Or, as we call it, Cinco Delilah. 

In Good Faith: Dirty Work

In my latest "In Good Faith" column I find the spiritual connection in picking up dog poop in the backyard after a looooooooong winter.

Dirty Work

No, I didn’t actually put it on a scale. But, on the first warm day after the long winter of our discontent, I must have picked up 20 pounds of dog poop. I know what you’re thinking. “Tim, don’t you have two teenage boys to do this?” Yes. Yes I do. However if I wanted it picked up before the Fourth of July, it was easier just to do it myself.

As I bent down again and again, watching my step at every turn, I rued not doing this while it was all still frozen. I also envied Delilah, our 12-year-old lab/husky mix and the source of all this…stuff…sunning herself while I did all the dirty work. 

But after a few minutes of grumbling something changed. The fact is, I was enjoying myself. After a long winter, just being outside was a source of joy.  Perhaps there was some activity that would have been a drag on a beautiful day but I think even grave digging would have put a spring in my step as the temperature moved into the mid-60’s.

I’m no philosopher of feces, but this whole experience was a reminder that finding joy amidst drudgery is one of the keys to happiness. St. Benedict, the fourth century “Father of Western Monasticism,” encouraged his monks to view everything they did, no matter how outwardly mundane, as an act of worship. Whether this was tilling the soil or washing dishes or making the bed. I have no idea whether St. Benedict’s monks kept dogs (St. Bernards?) but if so, surely the same concept would apply to poop patrol.

This doesn’t mean picking up dog poop will be added to the Sunday morning liturgy at St. John’s— I won’t send everyone out to the backyard of the rectory just after the first reading to experience such a holy act. But it does mean that shifting our perspective, even slightly, allows joy to slip into our lives in unexpected ways.

Benedict took this concept further by helping his monks see that every implement or tool they used was a holy object. Thus a rake, when used to the glory of God, was just as special as the silver chalice used to serve communion wine at the altar. It may be difficult to see that plastic Stop ’n Shop bag I was using in my yard as something sacred but I’ll keep trying. 

What obligatory act in your life might be a window into an unexpected encounter with God? What menial or mindless task might be repurposed to change your perspective in a positive way? 

These are the questions that rattle around the mind as the long-anticipated spring fever arrives. For a fleeting moment the yard is completely poop free and there’s a zen-like state of bliss. But then, “Hey, Delilah what are you doing over there?!” It never lasts.

Media Hound

Delilah's gotten a fair amount of press over the years. In some ways she's the media darling I'll never be -- she's smart, funny, attractive and isn't too proud to beg.

She's was prominently featured in an essay titled "Dog Days" that appeared in my book "What Size Are God's Shoes." The publisher liked her so much she even appeared in cartoon form on the cover. A digitized picture of her once accompanied an article I wrote for the Episcopal New Yorker (a version of which you can read here) and she made the local television news in New York running with me down Sleepy Hollow Road following a man-on-the-street interview. In other words, she is the ultimate media hound.

So it should come as no surprise that when Forward Movement announced they'd be publishing a 2012 Episcopups Calendar she jumped at the chance to be included. Yesterday was the photo shoot but before I get to that let me explain the calendar concept.

You see for years Forward Movement Publications has put out an Episcocats Calendar featuring cute shots of cats in all sorts of poses. People, presumably Episcopalians, submit pictures of their cats and hope to be one of the lucky twelve. It's my understanding that the Episcocats Calendar has traditionally been one of Forward Movement's cash cows -- though they have not, to the best of my knowledge, ever released an Episcocows Calendar. (By the way, if you're interested in learning how to submit your dog's photo click here. But remember many are called, twelve are chosen).

When my archnemesis, Scott Gunn, seized the reigns of Forward Movement a few weeks ago he promised major changes and exciting new initiatives. I can only imagine that the Episcopups Calendar is one of these hot new ideas that will reimagine and reinvigorate the Church as we know it.

Anyway, the casting call for the new calendar has gone out. I've threatened Scott that if Delilah is not included I'll never speak with him again. Unfortunately, he was encouraged by this "threat." So I've had to submit Delilah's picture under Bryna's name to insure she's not left out due to the spite of the one I like to refer to as the Rupert Murdoch of the Episcopal Church.

I won't take this opportunity to malign Father Gunn's character. He's been a dog person for many years and, frankly, likes Delilah more than me. Though I do think that the only reason he got the position at Forward Movement was because he had a cat. What happened shortly after his enthronement was announced? His cat died. Hmmm. That's suspicious.


I didn't trust myself or anyone else in our family to preside over Delilah's photo shoot. For this reason we brought in her official fashion photographer, our friend Christine Dietterich of CED Design. She took some great shots some of which I'm sharing here but, because of the extreme secrecy surrounding the Episcopups Calendar, I can't post the shot we ultimately submitted. I'm thinking she'd make a great Miss January.