A reflection on anniversaries and thanksgiving

I’ll preach at St. Paul’s Cathedral, San Diego on June 6, 2010, sixty-seven years to the day of my confirmation by Bishop Bertrand Stevens when we were still part of the Los Angeles Diocese. That was June 6, 1943, and the war was a heavy reality. D-Day on the Normandy beaches was a year away.

Also in June of this year I will equal in my retirement years the number of years I served as Rector, then Dean of that same St. Paul’s Cathedral. Sixteen years before official retirement–sixteen years since. I wasn’t sure what I expected after I retired. I only knew that I was tired of the church merry-go-round, and was determined to keep up my handball game and return to serious piano playing.

Some energy returned when the Bishop asked me to do temporary duty in a troubled parish, which I did. And the outcome of that was wonderful, life-long friends. Then there followed, for the next five years, interim duty at four congregations, plus several months at the Cathedral when my successor, John Chane, became Bishop of Washington.

I imagine I’m the only retired member of the clergy whose post-retirement equaled the activity of their last cure. What has kept me lively and interested, in spite of the inevitable health issues that come with aging, is the frequent obligation to be a Minister of Word and Sacrament, primarily at the Cathedral as well as our neighborhood parish church. Pastoral care is an ongoing activity in both congregations, partly because I’m the primary pastoral figure of communicants who were at St. Paul’s when I became Rector in 1978.

I remember Matthew Fox saying, in a seminar on contemporary spirituality which he offered so many years ago in Chicago, that travel was good for one’s prayer life. So Lanita and I did our share, leading a couple of tours before retirement, then really getting into it after retirement: the U.K. Ireland, Italy, Israel, a marvelous sweep through Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany; Russia; and then Ireland once again.

This anniversary month includes my birthday on the 2nd (81), fifty-six years in the diaconate on June 29, and fifty-five years in the priesthood on the same June 29. The Bishop of Olympia who ordained me, Stephen F. Bayne, Jr., did not shrink the one-year diaconate to six months, as so many do now!

Members of St. Paul’s Cathedral who read this, as well as many stalwarts of All Souls Parish, Point Loma, know quite well my presence and pleasure to be a part of their lives.

June of 2010 has been a unique time for me to pause and reflect…with thanksgiving.

The Rev James E. Carroll, Dean Emeritus

This year is also marks the 25th Anniversary of St. Paul’s becoming a Cathedral. If you have memories or reflections on the journey from St. Paul’s parish to San Diego’s “Cathedral for the City” send them on, we’ve love to post them throughout the year. Email your posts to: stpaulblog@gmail.com