Epilogue (part i)

Palm Sunday

Let me begin with a couple of recent journal entries (unedited):

07.03.16
There is something I should have given up for Lent but did not. To publicly share what it is does not presently seem to me to serve any larger good, but what may be of benefit to others is to learn that it is possible to be midway through a process only to discover that it is failing to meet the desired objective. If such is actually the case, then this may require a correction which can be as radical as changing course completely in order to head in the opposite direction. It is my understanding that this is the literal meaning of “repent”.

07.03.23
Repentance is a principal source of hope. To realize that I am not preordained to a static fate opens the door to genuine volition, and with choice comes the possibility of change. The hope of the Christ is revealed in the Divine’s omnipresent availability for relationship that transcends even mortal sin. So, just because I don’t get it right the first time does not deny me the opportunity to keep trying until I do. The only thing that can prevent me striving for perfect relationship is my belief that it cannot be done.

It is time for me to finish this justification of surrendering my credentials to The United Methodist Church. Just as I must be careful not to leave those who have been sharing this journey of faith with me feeling shortchanged, so I must be faithful to my intention to experience this Holy Week as one of healing and renewal. There are many sordid details of the Trinity nightmare yet unreported, but having learned early on from my mother that “discretion is the better part of valor” (only by referring to Barlett’s Familiar Quotations did I discover that she was introducing me to Shakespeare: “The better part of valor is discretion.” Henry IV, Part I, V, iv, 120) I must now determine which will serve some beneficial purpose by being told and which will best be served by being forgiven and forgotten.

Among the elements of the Christ’s passion is betrayal, and to relate the betrayal that I experienced at the hands of William Dew, Thomas Mattick, and Michael Downing may be the most appropriate means by which to summarize the manifestation of “evil” that expressed itself through Las Vegas Trinity UMC (friend/colleague/counselor Francine Greene, under special appointment to the Nevada Mental Health Center located adjacent to Trinity, repeatedly described the church to which her conference membership was related as “an evil place”).

Downing was just as apt to schedule a charge/church conference as he was a more appropriate local administrative council meeting. The charge conference is normally an annual affair over which the district superintendent presides and at which the local church budget (apportionments included) and various work area reports are approved. But Michael knew that by the presence of the D.S. there was at least the impression that the clout of the annual conference lent greater finality to any decisions that might be made (i.e. an action approved at a charge conference carries more weight than an action approved only at the local church level). I still don’t know why Mattick was so accommodating of Downing’s eccentricity, but Tom convened at least three charge conferences during my final 18 months at Trinity.