[Magdalen] Down-hearted

[Marion Thompson]

Thanks, I'll try, Ginga.  I remember SO well, too well, the horrors you 
endured at your former parish.

Marion, a pilgrim

On 8/17/2015 6:34 PM, Ginga Wilder wrote:
> I am so sorry, Marion.  The church and your service to the church is so
> integral to who you are.  My prayers that you will take exquisite care of
> yourself in this.
>
> BTDT at my former parish.  When John and I left there 7 years before the
> schism, we were so relieved, but what we went through in making that
> decision.
>
> (((((Marion))))
>
> Ginga
>
> On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 5:33 PM, Grace Cangialosi <gracecan at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Oh, Marion, this just breaks my heart! It seems everywhere I turn I
>> see/hear of folks being badly treated and sadly wounded by the church. How
>> did we get to this place?
>>
>>> On Aug 17, 2015, at 5:09 PM, Marion Thompson <marionwhitevale at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>> That is right, Grace.  Our numbers and money at this time are not
>> adequate to pay a full-time priest and 'they' wouldn't let us form a search
>> committee when our last priest left for BC in February.  At that time we
>> were deemed to be Unsustainable.  We loved the interim we had for five
>> months, a warm pastoral man who viewed his time with us as an enriching
>> learning opportunity.    The bishop paid us a couple of visits and outlined
>> a rather grim future for us, essentially become a mission of one of the
>> uptown churches or die/close. Thanks to the sterling work of the Food Bank,
>> now 'under new management', we are now called Strategic.  We were told that
>> this new man would start a maximum two-year appointment at the beginning of
>> July and be heavily subsidized by the Diocese. ( Our interim, alas, to his
>> regret and ours was cut out of the game.)  As the bishop's man, he has made
>> very clear that his job is to bring the wardens and the congregations up to
>> the same point of thinking as the bishop now is, and he is to get us ready
>> for a Yes/No vote sooner rather than later.  He's talking months.
>>> If we live that long, I am NOT looking forward to Holy Week on his
>> watch!  I can see continuing with the Food Bank, but it may come that I
>> might as well patronize one of the two Anglican churches a stone's throw
>> from my home, heck, maybe even the RC church virtually across the street.
>> I'd certainly save an awful lot of gas.  Sure the bishop can lift my lay
>> reader's licence, but I have my pride and that might just be the price I
>> would pay.  My previous dealings with them have prepared me for such a move
>> on their part and it would be their loss.
>>> Marion, a pilgrim
>>>
>>>> On 8/17/2015 3:23 PM, Grace Cangialosi wrote:
>>>> I'm puzzled at the phrase that your new priest was "issued by the
>> bishop." Don't you all get to call your own priests? Or are you a mission?
>>>> I guess if he's the bishop's man, so to speak, there's little you can
>> do...is that right?
>>>>> On Aug 17, 2015, at 8:02 AM, Marion Thompson <
>> marionwhitevale at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> Our new priest, who was issued to us by the Diocese, is  a real
>> problem.  Early word that he would have no trouble with our Anglo-Catholic
>> liturgy has proved true -- he simply ignores it.  All is chaos as he
>> insists on imposing his will and ways on us, and has so from the very first
>> Sunday.  He spends the liturgy of the word down at the rector's desk not
>> even reverencing the altar with us when we enter.  "We are people of the
>> Word."  He has moved the lectern into the middle of the crossing (such as
>> it is in our small place) and has moved the candles that used to flank it
>> up behind the altar.  It is now a hazard for the thurifer censing the
>> congregation and a general clog in the flow of traffic.  Yesterday being
>> the Festival of the Blessed Virgin Mary, he pointed out to me (yesterday's
>> preacher) that the icon had been placed in its place on the side altar.  I
>> then said , Yes and when censing the altar he would  stop at the halfway
>> point and come down to cense the icon then go back up.  'I'm not
>> comfortable censing an icon', he said. Nor did he.  He doesn't use the
>> paten.  Furthermore, there is no warmth or intimacy when he  giving out the
>> sacrament.  He could just be throwing a piece of orange peel over his
>> shoulder, having already moved on to the next person with eyes fixed on
>> some distant point.    Our poor altar party and servers are in total
>> disarray  because he has changed everything and comes to the service with a
>> new list of what he wants done, which is totally at odds with what they
>> have learned over the last weeks, months or years.  Speed is all.  And he
>> speaks too quickly, leading the Creed (from the chancel facing the altar)
>> at breakneck speed.
>>>>> A total control freak, he wants us to become a totally BAS church.
>> blecch.  He informed me some weeks ago he wanted my PoP to be based on one
>> of the templates therein and sent me what he wanted.  I eventually complied
>> -- but he STILL rewrote them totally.  So yesterday I did what I would
>> always do for the Feast of the BVM, not necessarily longer , but with some
>> soul and caring.  He has already insisted that the rota of readings I
>> prepare be moved from the RCL (which he has dismissed as American) to a
>> peculiarly Canadian one which follows the stories of the Old Testament,
>> rather than themes. That's what he likes to preach on.  Dry as dust
>> exegesis and, as someone said recently, nothing to take home with them.
>>>>> Personally, I think that the agenda is that he is to prepare us for
>> absorption by one of the other more Protestant churches to the north,
>> retaining only our excellent Food Bank which serves this depressed end of
>> town.   He had his own Prayer Book church which closed and was merged with
>> another church  in Toronto, so he has experience in this sort of exercise
>> which is the flavour of the month in this diocese.  Rid us of our papish
>> ways so that we will fit better.  So I delivered a rock 'em sock 'em
>> Assumption homily that must have curdled his blood.
>>>>> Written in rebellious dejection.
>>>>>
>>>>> Marion, a pilgrim
>>>