Twenty-four years is a long time to be a bishop , but that has been both my privilege and my responsibility since the Diocese of Newark elected me on March 6, 1976. The years of my episcopacy in this diocese were not always easy - the leadership role never is. However, they were never boring. Indeed, I found them demanding all that I had to give and fulfilling beyond anything I could have anticipated. I now prepare to hand these duties over to the one you have chosen to be my successor. To do it cleanly with grace and dignity is my professional task. It is an easy and pleasurable experience since like so many in this diocese I share a deep admiration and appreciation of Jack Croneberger. From my retired life I shall watch with pride as the Diocese of Newark enters the next phase of its distinguished history. I find my final days in this office engaged with the task of viewing the past, not as one who wants to live "among my souvenirs," but rather as one who yearns to see the building blocks of the future that I helped to lay. I survey the rich resources present in this diocese over which the bishop has a fiduciary responsibility. Those resources are both human and material. On the human side are men and women, ordained and lay, leaders and followers, traditionalists and frontier seekers, homosexual and heterosexual. They are people of African, Asian, Hispanic and European ancestry, who live in urban, suburban, small town and rural settings. They have enriched me in millions of ways and their faces float past the eyes of my mind with regularity. I think of the more than 649 clergy who have come through this diocese since I became its bishop. I remember Martha Blacklock and Susan Fortunato who were the first and the last priests that I ordained and the 102 men and women in between. I think of the five alumni of this diocese who sit today in the House of Bishops. That is an enormous tribute to the common life of this diocese. I think of the eight clergy who served in this diocese before becoming Deans of Cathedrals and the dozen or so who today occupy some of America's most influential pulpits, from Princeton to Norfolk, from Louisville to Washington, from Worcester to Newport. I think of those lay people who have, from this diocese, risen to shape the very life of our whole Church. Names like Marge Christie, Michael Rehill and Louie Crew come to mind. I think of those who have managed our financial resources to an 800% increase in value, and my mind's eye focuses on such faces as Eliot Knight, William DuBose, Sam Wang, Howard Mackey and Bruce Bensley. I think of churches we have built physically in communities, like Chester/Long Valley, Vernon, Wantage, Budd Lake, and church structures we have renovated and expanded in Montclair, Mendham, Allendale. I think of churches that I have watched pass from death, or at least a low level of life, into robust health - Christ/East Orange, St. Agnes and St. Paul's/East Orange, Epiphany/Orange, St. James/Hackettstown, Our Savior/Secaucus and St. John's/Boonton, and churches that have broken the mold of convention to transform themselves into islands where future dreams of what a church can be are born - Redeemer/Morristown, Grace VanVorst/Jersey City and St. Paul's/Paterson spring instantly into consciousness. I think of lay leaders who have cared so deeply, worked so hard and made our community of faith ever so much richer because of their contributions. Their names are legion - Ward Herbert, Gerri Jeter, Deborah Brown, Christina Hembree, Joe Piel, Joe Leidy, Bill Heick, Gus Allen, Carlotta Budd, Michael James, Marie Obermann, Peg Dengel, Bob Simmons, Clara Horsley, Mary Hager, Dagi Murphy and countless others. I think of those people who chaired the task forces that shaped this diocese first and our national church second: Nelson Thayer, Al Jousset, William Coats, Ed Hasse, Fletcher Harper, Tracey Lind, Mark Beckwith, Mary Hager, Stephanie Wethered and Larry Falkowski. I think of Harry Smith because when one has met Harry Smith, one cannot avoid thinking of Harry Smith who may be the most dedicated and unique priest I have ever known. I am still not sure whether his custom of receiving the communion host on his tongue was a product of his Catholic training or a way he could stick his tongue out at his bishop regularly. I think of our courageous gay and lesbian clergy and all that they have taught me and the trusting way that they have given me their love and support. I think of so many of our once closeted and fearful gay and lesbian lay leaders who found in the common life of this diocese the courage to be themselves openly and honestly. I will always remember their tears of joy at the ordination of Robert Williams in December of 1989 when for the first time they believed that the Episcopal Church welcomed them. I think of Barry Stopfel and Will Lecki, deeply committed to each other and deeply private people who through no fault of their own were cast in the role of those pivotal lives upon whom the whole Church would turn in its struggle to overcome the homophobia of the ages. I think of Walter Righter, that strong, fearless bishop, who in retirement was called to be the agent of change in the life of this Church and the singular grace he displayed in his ordeal. I cannot help comparing his stature to the arrogant pseudo righteousness displayed by his accusers. As history records value I note that already most of the people of this Church have difficulty recalling the names of his accusers while Walter Righter stands visibly larger than life. I think of The Oasis, its rocky beginnings, its powerful witness, its future strength and people like David Norgard and Elizabeth Kaeton who have been its leaders. I think of the contributions that Jack McKelvey made both to the life of this diocese and to me personally. I think of resurrection stories like the one lived by David Hamilton, whose career went from heights to depths to heights again. I think of the support staff people with whom I have worked in housing, in finance, in program and in administration, first at 24 Rector Street and later at 31 Mulberry Street, who built a community in which personal growth for all of us was inevitable. I think of those who served as secretaries who made so much of our life possible. Parading each of them before my conscious mind brings smiles of joy: Wanda Hollenbeck, Lyn Conrad, Gail Deckenbach, Beverly Anderson, Lucy Sprague, Sally Kemp. I think of John Burgess, Steve Galleher, Jim Sell, Leslie Smith, James Blackburn, Denise Haines, Dale Gruner, Michael Francaviglia, John Zinn and Petero Sabune who as core staff people did far, far more to make this Church be faithful to its vocation than will ever be fully appreciated, as so often their ideas were implemented inside the wrappings of anonymity. I think of those brilliant theological and biblical scholars who have graced the life of this diocese at New Dimension Lecture days. They ranged from Hans Kung, Charles Curran and Jane Schaberg on the Catholic side of Christianity to Elaine Pagels, Keith Ward and Mortimer Adler on the Protestant side. They also included Karen Armstrong, Buckminster Fuller, Daphne Hampson and a host of others who might be called speakers from a post-Christian perspective. I think of those years when we brought visiting bishops from the developing countries to be a sign to us of the Church's universality - Desmond Tutu, Henry Okullu, George Brown, Peter Hatendi and Dinis Singulane from Africa, James Pong and Peter Kwong from Asia, Paco Reus, Tony Ramos and Lem Shirley from Latin America. I think of bishops who have preached at our conventions - John Hines , Ed Browning, Michael Peers, Barbara Harris, Douglas Theuner, Mary Adelia McLeod, Frank Turner, Jane Holmes Dixon, Chester Talton, Ted Gulick, David Crawley, James Cruickshank and so many others. I think of battles fought, issues engaged, defeats absorbed and victories won. I recall the struggle led by our clergy to force the Church Pension Fund to withdraw from its South African investments until apartheid was dismantled. I think of our role in forcing the Church to look at its racism and its homophobia. I think of the way we anticipated the biblical ignorance that manifested itself at the 1998 Lambeth Conference with our own task force on how the Bible can be "the word of God" in our post-modern world. I think of the report from our Task Force on Physician-Assisted Suicide that was incorporated into the Congressional Record and was debated by the House Committee on the Constitution under Chairman Henry Hyde. I think of two clergy, Ray Roberts and Bernie Healey, who touched my life so deeply and who in their deaths with AIDs discovered pulpits of enormous power through which they still can be heard to preach the Gospel. I think of the personal trauma which I endured during the long sickness of my wife Joan, her death in 1988, the dark tunnel of grief and guilt through which I had to journey to discover personal wholeness once again. But I also think of the power of love to resurrect and still look in wonder at that former member of the vestry of St. Peter's, Morristown, who later co-chaired our Commission on Christian Education and who still later served as the Chief Administrative Officer of this diocese. Her name was Christine Mary Barney. Today she is Christine Spong, the very light of my life whose beauty of both countenance and character never ceases to amaze me and whose love I receive as the most graceful gift I have ever been offered. I adore this person with whom I celebrated the tenth anniversary of our incredibly holy marriage on January 1, 2000. Life moves on and all of us move with it. Chris and I go to Cambridge, where I will experience the life of a faculty member at Harvard University. Bishop Croneberger begins to build the team that will guide this diocese into the 21st century. I shall treasure these and countless other memories. I thank you for choosing me to live among you for so long. May the blessings of God, the Source of Life, the Source of Love and the Ground of Being be forever manifest in the fullness of your life, in the wastefulness of your love and in your courage to be all that God has created you to be. Shalom to you, my sisters and brothers. --Return to Contents