Who is this incredible person? I know her as Chrissy. Others know her as Christine. On January 1, 2000 most of the world will celebrate the arrival of the third millennium, but Christine and I will celebrate something that is to us even more spectacular. It will be our tenth wedding anniversary. Never before have I known what it means to share life so totally with another person, but in the years of our marriage that kind of deep trust and ultimate commitment has done nothing but grow. Those who knew me in what I call my B.C. (Before Christine) days understand just how deeply she has enhanced first my humanity and second my ministry. She is not just a sustaining and loving wife, she is my editor, the organizer of my life and my outside commitments, my confidant, my partner in dreams and visions, my alter ego and my most appreciated personal advisor. She is also much loved by each of my daughters. She has interestingly enough become my capable stand-in. At funerals that I am not able to attend of people deeply involved in the life of this diocese, she is present to read, on my behalf, words of condolence and appreciation. In British Columbia in the summer of 1996 I was doing a series of lectures when an influenza bug felled me reducing my voice to a whisper with laryngitis. Christine replaced me and delivered my lectures for the next three days until I was able to return. The conference did not seem to lose a thing. When I was laid up this fall with viral meningitis, she delivered one lecture for me in Houston, two lectures in Little Rock and one lecture in Princeton. In each instance, I am told, it was a remarkable performance. Increasingly the Church at large has recognized us as an inseparable, interchangeable partnership. In 1995, the Kanuga Conference Center invited the two of us to lead a conference that they advertised as "Conversations with Christine and Jack Spong." The conference was sold out in no time and Christine's contributions were greeted with standing ovations. She was later invited to repeat those lectures in Mississippi and this fall the two of us led the clergy conference for the Diocese of North Carolina in which, once again, the advertisement listed as "keynoters" Christine and Jack Spong. Long before she became my wife she was an active Christian and devoted member of her church. She was twice elected to the vestry of St. Peter's Church in Morristown. She became deeply involved in the church school and was asked to chair a committee whose task was to revive the educational program for those whose ages fell between one and ninety-nine. She organized and directed that program as a full-time, unpaid volunteer until the life of St. Peter's was strong enough to expand its staff significantly. She then became co-chair with Richard Shimpfky of the Christian Education Commission of the Diocese. The Diocesan Education Conference was born under their joint auspices. In 1984 she was chosen for the position of Diocesan Administrative Officer and served with distinction in that office for six years. She was asked to consider running for the position of warden of St. Peter's at about the same time we decided to get married. David Hegg, then her rector and always my close friend, was, however, not eager to have as his warden the wife of the bishop. I did not blame him. Besides, as my full-time partner, she would have time for little else. That commitment to do ministry together has transformed my episcopacy. Christine is not only welcomed, she is now expected everywhere I go. When family responsibilities have prevented her from going with me on a Sunday confirmation visit, which has occurred less than half a dozen times in our lives together, the disappointment in the congregation is so great that we have to plan another visit to that church just so that she can be present. I have the sense that if she went instead of me, that it would create no disruption at all, if she could only confirm. The two of us have been also committed to what we call a "ministry of hospitality" in this diocese. During an average year, we will entertain about 300 people in our home for a meal and we will welcome about thirty over-night guests. Our home has functioned like a diocesan hotel and social center. Both of us enjoy cooking and we do it together. We avoid getting into each other's way by a simple division of labor. I will, for example, be responsible for the first course and the dessert and she will prepare the main meal on one occasion and, for the next, we will simply reverse the roles. She is the professional chef with extraordinary skill. I am the rank amateur. However, I have been a quick learner and now I do all of the pies and most of the soups, and I have certain dishes that are uniquely my own. We collect recipes from restaurants around the world and add them to our repertoire. At the famous Pump Room in Chicago we ran into a whipped potato dish that was unusual and memorable. When we inquired about it with much delight, the chef came to our table and shared with us its elegant simplicity. One starts with Red Bliss potatoes which cream beautifully. With the skins left on, flecks of red adorn the final dish. To this is added chopped chives to provide flavor as well as flecks of green. Then with milk, butter and salt to taste, we cream them into a smooth, delicious dish. At the last moment we add sufficient horseradish to perk the dish up, but not sufficiently to reveal that horseradish has been added. It has been a hit every time. That recipe is one of our staples and one of our favorites. Our usual dinner party is a group of eight. We try to entertain our new clergy and their spouses soon after they arrive in the diocese. We also like to bring together our clergy and lay leaders with the exciting guests who grace the life our diocese as convention or New Dimension speakers. Neither Christine nor I will ever forget a dinner party at which Bob and Terry Lahita of St. Elizabeth's in Ridgewood joined Wanda and Dick Hollenbeck (my former secretary and her husband) to help us entertain Fred and Ruth Westheimer. She is of course better known as "Dr. Ruth." Memories of the conversatons that marked that evening still double us up with laughter. Among our favorite social occasions is the spring luncheon we have hosted for a number of years for all our retired clergy, their spouses, and any clergy widows who are able to come. Between 30 and 50 folks who carry in their minds the oral history of this diocese arrive before noon and seldom depart before four. It is a rich and wonderful day for both of us. Christine also has a private party for clergy spouses or partners about once a year, to which I, like all the other clergy, am specifically not invited. It is a group in which both male spouses and gay and lesbian partners of our clergy now feel quite comfortable and welcome. This has been Christine's way of saying that the spouse or partner of an ordained person has a unique life experience that needs to be celebrated. I am allowed to help prepare that meal and set up the tables and chairs and I can also help to clean up but I cannot be present. All of the conversations from those evenings are held by Christine to be in the sanctity of the confessional. Frequently I will become aware, from the spouse but never from Christine, that she has become pastor to a clergy spouse or partner and that she knows that person far better than I. When I am away on a lecture series, Christine becomes a second pair of eyes and ears and interprets my audience to me as we move through the event. When we are in a hostile environment, she is almost like a body guard. She watches for strange behavior and any threatening presence. On two occasions she has been apprehensive of actual physical violence in a non-welcoming group and on both occasions she has moved quietly, but effectively, to defuse the situation or to take necessary security precautions. She has walked with me through a shouting mob of fundamentalist protesters in San Diego, endured with me a bomb threat at Catholic University in Brisbane, Australia, and sat silently while I was being verbally abused in audiences in various places around the world. She has held my hand at General Convention when we walked past Fred Phelps and his anti-aborton, anti-homosexual campaigners from Wichita, Kansas, who were carrying placards proclaiming "Spong and Tutu are fag lovers." She has my trust and my love so totally that it is fair to say that I no longer know how to function as an individual apart from her. We are a team and she has called me into a whole new realm of being. How can one speak of this kind of relationship without sounding maudlin, soupy and sentimental? I do not know. I do know that I love her so deeply and that I live in her as she lives in me. I do know that I would give her anything I possessed, including my life if that were to be required. I also know that when our date of retirement comes on February 1st of the year 2000, the people of this diocese will feel her loss, I suspect, far more profoundly than they will feel mine. Honesty compels me to say these things publicly before that date arrives. So thank you my beloved and wonderful Christine for being the person you are and for enabling me to be the person your love has created.   --Return to Contents |