Hangin’ with Fr. Bo
“When religion lost the cosmos, society became neurotic. Then we had to invent psychology to treat the neurosis.” – Otto Rank
When Le Prêtre Noir, The Dark Priest, first made his presence known here at Salon, I rushed to judgment and assumed that we were about to suffer from some cadaverous and shadowy ecclesiastical presence along the lines of the lead clergyman in The Exorcist. It didn’t take long to disabuse me of that notion.
Fr. Bojangles, to use one of his noms de guerre, soon proved to be one of those enlightened priests that made me second-guess my decision to leave the church. Not only is he enlightened, but he is an Episcopalian, the same banner under which this once Christian soldier once marched to war.
First through the comments section, then in numerous e-mails, we came to know and appreciate each other. We shared a lot of history, a lot of frustration and a lot of stuff that perhaps only clergymen can comprehend.
I came to the conclusion that his Salon handle was supremely ironic. Here is a priest who, like the angel Lucifer, brought light to a rather dark world and has had to suffer the consequences. Unlike Lucifer, he does not suffer from the sin of pride. And, again, unlike Lucifer, he has not yet been cast out of heaven. Perhaps that was a bad theological analogy. Never mind.
Imagine my delight when he mentioned that he was going to be in the vicinity to attend his daughter’s graduation in Winthrop. That’s just a few miles, well maybe a couple hundred, over the Cascade Range from Bellingham. I urged him to take a side trip so that we might meet.
He seemed amenable to such a meeting of the minds, no matter how deranged, and said he would head this way on June 2. I quickly cleared my schedule for that afternoon. A close encounter with the Dark One was far more important that interviewing business people for my magazine.
There were a lot of cell phone calls involved in arranging our assignation. I had to talk him through the Byzantine maze that is Bellingham, but we finally made contact at Poppe’s, a local watering hole that offers comfortable surroundings for such momentous occasions.
There was instant recognition when we met. He knew me by my semi-professional dress, my platinum blond hair and the fact that I was talking on my cell phone. I knew him by the somewhat insane gleam in his eye and his similarly colored hair. I had halfway expected him to show up on his Harley, but it was not to be.
Kindred spirits recognize each other instantly, and so it was with us. We ordered a couple of beers and fell into a conversation that was as memorable as it was instantaneous. We talked of kings and rings and things and it was the most painfully short two hours I have ever spent.
I quoted Otto Rank at the beginning of this piece because it seems to sum up all the things we covered in our time together. We spoke of the joys and frustrations of the parish ministry, but that was just the beginning. We talked of his challenges of dealing with two churches several miles apart. We talked of my challenge to the church over gay marriage and subsequent departure. We talked of his challenge of being a priest in an unformalized relationship.
Chip (another of his noms de plume) talked of his writer’s block after having completed a 30,000 word thesis. I talked of how that block can be broken when you have a job that depends on writing 20,000 words a month on a deadline.
One of the things that came up was the unholy trinity consisting of The Preacher, Le Prêtre Noir and me as blogging clergymen. We decided that while The Preacher had undoubtedly created a ministry for himself, he had also created a black hole into which he has been sucked at the possible expense of his congregation. Chip and I are lucky if we score 30-40 hits a day. The Preacher gets hundreds of comments and seems to feel that he has to respond to each of them. On top of that, he is writing a book.
With all due humility, I have to say “I told you so.” When The Preacher first began blogging at Salon, I told him he was creating a ministry that might transcend his local concerns. It has and I was right. Why don’t I feel good about that? Because Chip and I know that the demands of a local ministry don’t leave time for the phenomenon that The Preacher has become.
OK, there’s a little bit of jealousy here that our spiritual efforts have not resonated the way that The Preacher’s have. But we both are thankful that we don’t have to deal with the burden The Preacher has taken on.
We are up to our asses in our own alligators. Fr. Bo and I are facing the various demons that come to haunt men in their 50s. Our minds tell us that we are still 25. Our bodies tell us that we are over 50. He took on that challenge by riding a Harley. I took on that challenge by learning to snowboard. We found common ground in that our parents would never have done something so outrageous.
That led us to a discussion of what defines a generation. Our parents were defined by The Great Depression, and, to a lesser extent, World War II. Our generation was defined by Vietnam. We wondered what the next generation would find as their defining element.
Fr. Bojangles noticed that our barmaid had a pierced tongue. It became immediately obvious that he had had long experience in chatting up barmaids. He was immensely charming and she, having just graduated with a degree in accounting, was helpless. I admired his technique, being one who takes notes on such things.
That led us to a discussion about rebellion and the values thereof.
“Hey,” I said, “We had hair. They have tattoos and piercings. We are probably the wussies here. Our rebellion didn’t involve pain.”
We talked of kings and rings and things and our time was much too short. The next step probably involves getting us together with The Preacher. A consummation devout’ly to be wish’d. I ain’t going to Texas and Fr. Bojangles probably shares my conviction. Let’s meet somewhere neutral. Like maybe, Hawaii or Mexico.
If there was any doubt about Fr. Bo’s holiness, it was dispelled by the fact that he picked up the check. Now, that’s a Holy Man.
11:49:22 PM 
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