August 22, 2024:
As far as I know, I have only one friend who has ever punched a tiger in the nose.
Wade Bradshaw was a classmate of mine at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, IL from 1988-1992. Before that he had studied large animal veterinary medicine at Texas A&M–he didn’t play football, so I didn’t hold A&M against him. He used his veterinary training as a means to serve the Lord as a missionary in Nepal; it was there that he found himself in close proximity with a tiger.
Since 1990, I have worked on (OK, badgered) Wade to become an Anglican priest.
He worked from seminary until 2006 at L’abri, England. When he and his family returned to the States, I thought we had him! Instead, he was ordained as a Presbyterian and worked at Trinity Church, Charlottesville for many years.
Today, he and his wife, Chrysse, own a Retreat House (benedictionfarm.org). If you get the urge to get away for a spiritual retreat and pet a water buffalo, it’s the only place I could send you.
And finally, last Saturday, Wade was ordained to the transitional diaconate by our friend, Bp Chris Warner!
Just before his ordination, Wade wrote–and illustrated–a reflection of wearing vestments. I thought it was fabulous, and want to share it with you…
Friends,
I write this as much for me as for anyone else.
I expect to be ordained a Deacon on Saturday. And this has been a long process: really long if I consider how I meant to be in the Anglican Church since returning from England in 2006. But it all began in earnest about two years ago. It has been a wonderful and grueling experience. Wonderful in how broadly the Church ministers to those involved. Grueling in that the Bishop wisely required me to meet with a ‘trauma-informed therapist’ and, rather by definition, that can’t be pleasant.
So, on Sunday night I went away for one day to pray and examine myself, and ask the Holy Spirit to examine me. Was I doing the right thing, for the right reasons, at the right time?
Then, on Tuesday, I wanted to try on the vestments that I would be wearing at the consecration.
This is the experience that I want to reflect upon.
First, it was funny. Chryse had to help me put on the cassock, because I have no experience in putting on a dress.
And the surplice behaved like a parachute after landing in a windy pasture.
Now, how does one move around in such gear?
This is important because in one part of the liturgy you are actually prostrate before the awesome responsibilities you are being equipped to do by Christ’s Church.
So, I practiced that.
When Chryse told me to get back up, I didn’t immediately. This was the moment, without others watching, when I could consider what the posture meant and how appropriate it was considering Who I am giving myself to. It is not just the duties that are awesome but the One to whom they are performed.
But the clothes? Why the clothes?
Lots of better educated people than me have weighed in on this. First, the clothes weren’t always so out of fashion: they were clothes of a time and offices of that time. Be it later Roman Empire or Medieval vocations. So, I shall be wearing things that reflect that the Church has been through many ages. This is something I can value: being relevantly fashionable is not the only way to dress.
Then there has been the metaphorical move: over the centuries people began to see the various articles of clothing to picture some theological truth: whether it be the righteousness of Christ or the yoke of His discipleship. This is something that I can value: what we wear has meanings that we ascribe to it, whether or not others see it.
Next, an Eastern Orthodox author wrote of ‘this unnecessary beauty.’ There is a goodness in abandoning the practical for the sake of the beautiful. This is something I can value: being casual—and comfortable—is not always most important.
But it’s the last notion that has caught my imagination. People speak of vestments as being a uniform. They let you know a person’s role. I have used such language myself, but have grown to dislike it.
No, my funny clothes are not so much a uniform as they are a livery. You know how at the court of a monarch or the country estate of an aristocrat, servants wore a designated livery. It showed whom the servant was serving. The monarch or the aristocrat or visitors to the castle or mansion didn’t wear livery: it was reserved clothing, but reserved for servants.
This is why I shall happily—though not without a certain unavoidable self-consciousness—wear funny clothes as I take vows and have a Bishop ask God’s blessing over me on Saturday. They show beyond doubt who I am serving.
~Wade
