Monday, June 29, 2009
A weekly look-around at the Church in the World.
Today (Friday) the news is overwhelmed with the passing of Michael Jackson, which eclipsed what would have been the top story from Thursday about Farah Fawcett’s death. But Wednesday, the LA Times told of the passing of Jerri Fitzgerald—Dr. Fitzgerald, that is (Los Angeles Times, June 25, 2009, story by Valerie Nelson.) Jerri was the physician working at the South Pole ten years ago, who diagnosed her own breast cancer: due to the seasonal conditions in
Antarctica
, she was effectively trapped there, so she began treating herself. While initially successful, she eventually was evacuated in a daring rescue that made headlines around the world.
Early on in the process of diagnosis and treatment, she started teaching the mostly male crew around her to be their own doctors and take her place, because she did not expect to survive. For her own treatment, they established some high tech hook-ups to the outside world and she trained the resident welder and carpenter in basic medical procedures: she described it as “the Marx Brothers do chemotherapy.”
The tumor in her breast initially shrank, but then came back. Everyone was urging her to find a way to get out, but she did not want to leave “the frozen frontier.” She had recently become divorced, and she said this:
“I was so happy there. I figured I was going to die anyway, and I’d rather stay in…my perfect home… The people are what make a home…I learned about community, I learned about friendship. What an important thing to find out, even if it is the last year of your life.”
What an important thing indeed… Once, right after a healing, Jesus was preaching, and his followers pressed through to him, saying “Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.” But to the one who had told him this, Jesus replied, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” And pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” Matthew 12: 47-50
A doctor in the Antarctic discovered what Jesus preached 2000 years earlier: that sometimes we are bound more powerfully by purpose than we are by blood. This is the nature of every vital congregation—you know and experience and practice this daily and weekly: you gather for worship and ministry, and through that work are continuously transformed into family, community—and this transforms our broader communities.
As a Bishop, my family is the annual conference: what you experience Sunday by Sunday comes into being in full for me once a year in
Redlands
. We sing and tell each other stories and renew our bond together as a people transformed by Christ, seeking to transform the world.
My sincere desire is that we would all know that this conference, this Body of Christ, is indeed our family, bound together by our common purpose: “to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” In the blessing of appointments, we are reminded that pastors are not appointed to churches, but to communities: that is their field of ministry. So also our bonds of affection and purpose do not stop at the borders of our zip codes: we are the Body of Christ incarnate and in witness across the whole of southern California, Hawaii, Saipan and Guam—and through our family members in ministry in Cambodia, Nashville, the Congo, Korea, New York, Singapore, Japan, Boston, Germany and Texas, we literally touch the world. We are many, but one Body: thanks be to God—and to you, my brothers and sisters in family!
Your sister and bishop in Christ, Mary Ann
