Episcopal Press and News
Browning Describes Personal 'dark night of the soul,' New Hope for the Future
Episcopal News Service. July 27, 1995 [95-1185]
(ENS) Describing the past six months as a "dark night of the soul" that at times left him feeling lonely, embattled and immobilized, Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning told national church staff that he feels he and the church are finally emerging into the light.
"I do believe we're at a turning point," he said in candid and deeply personal talks during three, hour-long staff forums held at the Episcopal Church Center in New York, July 10. "We're turning the corner and moving ahead."
Browning said that the combined burdens of Bishop David Johnson's suicide in Massachusetts, the firing of treasurer Ellen Cooke and the subsequent revelation of her embezzlement of $2.2 million contributed to a "spiritual journey" that he has only recently come to recognize. "It's often easier to reflect on things that are past, rather than when you're in the middle of them," he said.
As the reports of Cooke's embezzlement sparked a national furor, Browning admitted that at times "I was almost totally immobilized in the darkness of the moment. You don't know how to move, but you move anyway."
With much of the criticism directed at him personally, he said, "I saw everyone coming against me. I felt terribly abandoned." At such a time, he said, "you begin to look at all the slings and arrows pointed toward you and your paranoia rises to its highest height. You begin to question your own worth and purpose."
An important part of the spiritual journey has been confronting his own responsibility for the crisis created by Cooke's embezzlement, Browning said. But also, he said, he has been able to gain some perspective that has helped him determine the validity of different criticisms.
"You can say, 'This criticism is for the birds, so you put it in this box,'" Browning said. "For other criticism you might say "'There's validity to this,' so you put it in another box."
Many people were reaching out to support him "in ways I was not always able to touch," but in ways he still greatly appreciated, he said. "I really did have some wonderful people who really were giving me some very good counsel."
While the events of the past six months "have been terrible, have been horrible," Browning said that what is important is "how we live through the events." In the end, he said, the experience has led him to a deeper understanding of community as described by theologian Henri Nouwen. Deeper connections with the pain of others is possible, he said, "when you get in touch with your own sense of worthlessness, your own sense of fragmentation."
In particular, he said, "I think I've learned more about the meaning of baptism than I've ever known before." Browning said that he sees the baptismal covenant vows as undergirding the emphasis on inclusiveness and compassion that he feels is the hallmark of his ministry as presiding bishop.
"You can not take the baptism vows and not think that the issue of racism, the issue of sexism, the issue of human sexuality aren't important to the life of the church," Browning said. "If you look at the ministries coming out of the national church, all of them in some form, in some way" deal with inclusiveness, he said. That emphasis has "threatened the hell out of some people," he added, but he pledged to spend the remaining two years of his term working even harder to make the church "more inclusive and more compassionate."
To help him reflect on the experience of the past months, Browning said he sought out a spiritual advisor who he identified as a member of the Society of St. John the Evangelist community in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "We are all called to value and re-examine our ministries," he said. Bishop Charlie McNutt will be another welcome source of help when he joins the staff September 1 as chief operating officer in charge of many administrative functions, he said.
Browning stressed how pleased he was that the Executive Council meeting in Seattle in June made a point of recognizing the national staff for its work under difficult circumstances. The human resources department has been designing programs to help staff members deal, if necessary, with their own emotional responses to the embezzlement, and a staff retreat may be planned for the fall, he said.
He also reassured the staff that despite a projected $1.5 million shortfall in revenues for the 1995 budget, "down-sizing is at the absolute bottom of the list" of possible solutions. The possibility of a shortfall resulting from reduced diocesan pledges "really was known to us before we knew about the Ellen Cooke," he said. "I don't think it's necessarily related to the Ellen Cooke affair."
In response to the shortfall, he said, there has been an unprecedented "proactive" process by the treasurer's office of "getting back to the dioceses to talk about their pledges." Significant savings may come as well from a number of sources, he said, including being "very, very careful about new hires," plus renegotiating equipment and maintenance contracts for the church center building.