I just wanted to post this.

This is something I wrote four years ago. It has a lot of private references in it, but I share it in order to honor an extraordinary woman. My apologies to those who are bored by it. Just know that it is a part of my personal literature, and please receive it as such.

____________

A SACRED MOMENT

Written on the 12:22 AM New Haven Express out of Grand Central Terminal, Early Tuesday Morning, August 29, 2006.

I witnessed something sacred tonight. I certainly did not plan on the experience, but then when can one plan on partaking in the sacred – the truly sacred when you know you have but one moment to take in what is happening.

The day had started rather roughly. As the vicar of an Episcopal parish, I had to drive the ten miles from my home to Bridgeport, Connecticut to deal with a flooded church basement, the result of too much rain and badly needed drains. Calls to insurance companies and ServPro were the unplanned actions of the morning, causing me to miss my train into Manhattan for the planned lunch, the final “official” meeting with the woman who has been my supervisor for years. An icon of the pastoral counseling/pastoral psychotherapy movement, Margaret Kornfeld is leaving New York. She and her husband Larry are exercising their audacity to move to California, to be near family, and to start something new. Happy for them, I was rather sad for me, and I had this strange sense of standing on a precipice witnessing transition.

So anyway, back to the ServPro people. They can’t come out until tomorrow to make an estimate of the damage caused to my newly renovated church basement. The insurance company of course is not answering its phone. So now that I’ve missed my train into the city, I decide I have to drive, to keep my one o’clock lunch appointment with Margaret, my private one-on-one going away party for her, at a cute French bistro just a couple of blocks away from her office, which, by the way, is at Calvary St. George’s Episcopal Church in New York City. I, by the way, am Vicar of Calvary St. George’s Episcopal Church in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

I leave Bridgeport at 11:30, knowing that I am cutting it way too close. It is about a 60 mile drive. What I had forgotten was that the US Open and the Mets were both up and running that afternoon, bottlenecking the already overcrowded New England Thruway into Manhattan. So I call Margaret on my cell. No way to make it for lunch by one. That was fine, considering she had miscalculated and had us down for noon. We arrange that I should come by her office though, look through her books, and give her a hug before her 2 o’clock. Great. Best laid plans, yada yada yada. Who’s in denial here?

Traffic gets worse. I exit, go over to Long Island, and am going through the Midtown Tunnel, very close to both of our offices, when my 1999 Saturn goes “thunk.” Hmmm. Then all the lights on the dashboard start blinking red. Something has happened. I pull over at 39^th and Park, pull out the manual, which helpfully says “If this particular light is steady red, do not shut off your vehicle but drive immediately to your nearest Saturn dealer.” Or something like that. Steam, or perhaps smoke, starts coming out from under the hood. I decide to go ahead and turn off the vehicle. Triple-A on the way. I wave good-bye to my car on 39^th Street. And I have called Margaret. No way I can see you this afternoon. She graciously invites me to come by her office after my last appointment, and hers, at 9 PM tonight.

9 PM. No car. I walk to Margaret’s office, giving her what I thought was an appropriate opportunity to say goodbye to the group she was having. I call at 9:10, when I’m outside her door. No answer. I call again at 9:15. She answers and says, “Come on up, but we’re not quite done.” I say no, let’s give it some time, and I walk down the block to a nice wine bar where I have a pinot grigio and watch Andre Agassi play some tennis on the TV on at the bar. Damn US Open. At 9:40 I call again. Larry answers. Says come on up. Up I go, in the antiquated elevators with the doors and the gates and the buttons that scream 1930. 6^th Floor. Party going on. The group. I knock on the door. I walk in. Margaret greets me, introduces me to everyone and to no one, and I go and sit next to Larry on the couch. We talk. He tells me about California, about the move, about all that is happening. All of a sudden I realize that I am witnessing an Event. I’ve been in this office countless times in the last twelve years. It’s now all boxes and such. The rooms (she had two) are still crowded with people. It is truly a group reunion. I feel like an intruder, albeit an invited intruder. Why am I here?

Gradually people leave, saying their goodbyes. The rooms are quieter. Then come the final goodbyes. Then a private moment. I AM the intruder. Margaret. Larry. The memories that come from the sixth floor of this building behind Calvary Church. How many hours. How many years. This has been a sacred place of healing. Like Sedona. Or Taize. People have come here and been transformed. And now, look around, boxes, old books, trash, and two beloved individuals hugging each other, crying, and me, watching, participating, and I’m thinking, time to go.

But no. We want you here they say. Why I ask myself. They talk. They talk about packing. They talk about moving. I sit. I stay quiet. Then it’s time to go. “I want a cheeseburger” Margaret announces. McDonald’s, I think? No, off to the bistro, where she and Larry can have their cheeseburgers (medium rare) and I can have my steak tartar (even more rare). We start to leave the office, and she realizes she has forgotten her keys, and her glasses (Alan Chisholm: remember the umbrella?) Larry and I hold the elevator (not hard to do – just keep the door open) and finally we’re off. But not before Larry looks down the hallway and says “Would you like that?” pointing towards the Solinsky print that I have privately admired for years. Would I? Ohmygod! Just that afternoon I had been looking at a place on a wall in my office that needed something. Ohmygod! The Solinsky print with the lavender window. Yes I say. Yes.

I know that there have been many scholarly articles written about the relationship between supervisor and student/supervisee. The article, which may be out there but may have escaped my unacademic pursuits, is the one where we address the profound mutual relationship that is created and the space in which that happens. For more than a decade I have almost literally sat at Margaret’s feet, as I have at others previously, and absorbed her experience and her wisdom. She has taught me through her intellect, as well as through her kindness. We have not always agreed, but we have always had respect. She has understood the unique nature of my pastoral ministry, a combination of pastoral psychotherapy and a more traditional parochial setting, and helped me to understand how to maintain boundaries even as you break them, prayerfully in appropriate ways. As a supervisor, she has modeled how to be non-judgmental, and how to be firm. With Larry, she has been a friend to myself and my partner, even as we maintain a professional relationship (she charges for the professional hours, not the personal ones.) She truly has helped me to understand what the word “pastoral” means in all of its contexts. And for that I am ever grateful.

In my perception, she also helped break open AAPC to invite in the spiritual dimension that is ever present in our lives. I speak out of line here, because I don’t have the full historical perspective, but since I joined the Executive Committee of the Eastern Region in 1994, my thoughts have been that as AAPC presidents Margaret (and Han van der Blink before) invited us to reconnect with whatever that dimension is that we consider transcendental. I’m an Episcopalian, so I have to call that God and Jesus Christ and on certain occasions the Holy Spirit. But what a gift to give to us to allow us to talk about the Spiritual as well as the Psychological. In the Eastern Region, I watched as the topics of our conferences became more integrated and less compartmentalized.

Dear Margaret and Larry: AAPC, and the Eastern Region in particular, have so much to be thankful for in your presence in our midst during the past forty or so years. Larry, the New York theater scene has been shaped by your talent. Margaret, you have helped create the professional ethos of pastoral counseling. Together, you have touched so many lives, and transformed so many people. As you join your daughter Sarah, her husband Scott, and your grandchild, know that you will be missed by us, but we will champion your new endeavors on the left coast.

I have little pride. I took the Solinsky print. We went to dinner. I had my steak tartar. My car may well be in a chop shop right now, but I don’t care. I was there when the door was shut on decades of healing ministry by this tremendous person in this particular place. The ministry goes on. California knows not what to expect. But what an honor, what a privilege it was for me tonight to be in that space, opposite Gramercy Park, New York City, Buzzer #6, and shed a tear as I, mere person that I am, was asked to turn off the lights.

1:20 AM. The next stop is mine. Thank you for tolerating my ramblings. But thank you more to Margaret and Larry for the love and devotion you have given to me and to all of us as you, quite literally, have created a community of people.

Oh yes. Next time, dinner is on you. I’ve got a damn car to track down.