Looking for the bishop, I thought I almost saw him in the alpenglow of a harvest moon, in a hedge bursting with buds no bigger than a child’s fingerprints, in a neighbor’s plastic pinwheel spinning clockwise in the wind. I thought I saw him in tiny grains of hope, in a woman brushing the hair from a sullen boy’s face, in the balm of sudden healing from shredded clouds racing from the stars. The bishop is will-of-a-wisp, a puff of breeze, more hopeful in his flowing red gown than any figure I know. He walks by my window on his daily sojourns, emerging from the hidden chambers of peace and clarity to sustain me in surprising ways, a figure so out of character with this part of central Michigan as to be laughable, lovable and mysterious all at once. His hood shrouds his head like an oddly draped flower, announcing his presence before you notice the thin, small body sheathed in flowing folds. I have never seen his hair. The bishop is Eastern Indian, with a triton beard and long delicate fingers that taper off like the hands in a Byzantine painting. He is doubly, triply strange for all that, a man visiting from another world yet a part of this one, more vivid because of this. No one can quite tell me how he has come to be here, but would any reason make his presence less mysterious?
I see him walking everywhere in this small town, taking the night air upon an evening, the hems of his robe swirling in gentle eddies around his slippered feet. A part of me wants to follow him or fit inside one of his pockets like a bright polished key. I would take up residence in his flowering hood, become his watch tower, his bird’s eye view, or hunker down where the clean folds of his robe billow out into forgetfulness, the ripple of a fresh, gentle wind. I want to walk the way he does, watchful and alert, more incongruent here than a rare plumaged bird whose colors remain unbesmirched by the drabness of winter. He is the cardinal bird that could make all the difference, burning his sacred red feathers in a slow fire that will never die out. He walks by my house sometimes, and each time my heart gets a little lighter, clearer, opening a tiny door that feels like a frail hope ascending until I realize I am supposed to notice him, take his example to heart, follow his lead, and become pure, vivid color in a land of black and white. What do I know about him? Nothing I don’t see in his thoughtful gait, the alert owl look in his dark brown eyes. Nothing he does not already show me though he does not know it, a simple long walk, the veil of a consciousness he gives me each time I see him. I need his walk like a covert response to things that make me uneasy, to the vague malaise dripping like a bad faucet at the heart of town, the malice of revved-up pickup trucks, gun racks; the bishop shows me how to live here in subtle, surprising ways, how to walk in a small town and the kind of grace I ached for without realizing it, his long red robe and careful steps over patches of ice.
You could go a long time without an example like the bishop, twenty, thirty years, a whole life. You could ignore people or signs like him, not take them into your heart or let them peel it open layer by precious layer. You could choose to close the curtains or drapes, lock the door and turn up the TV, but if the bishop should ever walk by your window or down your neighborhood street, you could have the opportunity to sense the hushed lightness trailing behind him, the seed-blossoms of his robes riding the air to find a place to plant themselves and take up growing. You could work the bishop walking by into any belief system you have, into the words of a prayer undirected to any god, into a chant for hope and brightness, a candle flame flickering in your cupped hands. You could use the bishop however you like, to get over sadness or death, or loneliness that drops like a single stone into a dark well, to imagine your life past the threshold where you are who you have always intended to be, that upright person in the mirror without longing or shame. But you must be careful with him, handle him as you would a porcelain jar that contains all the secret and dangerous ingredients of spring, or the fragrance of a night you do not want to forget. His presence is careful and oh-so-delicate, because he comes sparingly and when you least expect it, like all good surprises.
I hear his name mentioned sometimes around the Alma campus, the bishop is leaving for Brazil, the bishop is going back to India for a spell, the bishop is flying to New York. Sometimes he sits by himself in the faculty dining area, arrayed in his exotic uniform, serene and staring out the window. I’ve seen him eat hard-boiled eggs as if the earth’s ovals were at home in his mouth, a beneficent and cosmic gape. I don’t particularly want to know the minutiae of his life, the name of his native village, his conversion to the Orthodox church long ago, the demands of his office. I smile when I see him and he smiles back, we chat about the weather, his courses. Maybe some time we will go into things more deeply, but it doesn’t seem to matter much. What’s important is that he’s here, that I have the chance to see him. He need not even know how important he has become. Maybe some day I will tell him how much his odd presence means to me, how it has gained its own quiet and hopeful momentum, that I was hardly aware of it myself before this, that his walking is simple grace and nothing more. Does he need to know this now or ever? Would it violate a pact no one can see or understand?
Stranger, we have met and touched briefly in a land far away from home, and the brief exchanges have sustained me. The unknown distance between us spools out into the infinite, and we fill it with hope like bright, clear water dripping from the eaves. You are not of this place; I am not of this place. Together and separately, we part the invisible waters of our destinies and notice how a bird alights on a slender branch. We are far away from home. We have forgotten what home is. You travel to every corner of the earth and the taste and memory of it all reel by in a kaleidoscope of human touches and voices, people reaching out to you, and I know this same kind of ministry happens right here, right now, adding to the same continuum where nothing is lost and everything merges into one.
Seeing you disappear down the street or around the corner does not frighten me; death itself after you have departed does not frighten me. I have nothing to run from in your presence. After you leave and pick up your mail the ache throbbing in me since I first knew consciousness subsides a little, becomes bearable, becomes my dear friend. I believe in the invisible when I see you, I believe in the unseen net that catches me everywhere I go, the same frail net held up by threadbare strings so few and precious and strong I dare not dwell on them for long. You remind me, bishop, that I could be catapulted from this very chair right now to another part of the world by catastrophe or loss, that I could lose everything in a fire or flood, that I someday will lose it all anyway, the ring of laughter, the memory of love in strange rooms, that the people I care about will leave me behind, that I will leave them knowingly and unknowingly, that I will only see many of them just four or five times more, that what’s put in motion cannot be stopped, must be played out, that I, like you, will continue this strange wandering for the rest of my life, that I’m finally ready for this, at least on my good days, that I can never quite trust human permanence again, that that’s how it is, a mystery, a slow-moving prayer. Maybe you have known this all along. Maybe it is only this you have intended to show me. But intentional or not, more and more each day I wake with a sense of wonder, telling myself and believing it that anything is possible today, good and bad, that I will notice both and try my best to love them in their open or secret surprise.
I used to think human intimacy was a matter of deep disclosures, physical contact, constant presence; but I no longer believe this. Now I think it can happen any time, any where, in seeing a brightly robed bishop from another part of the world taking a stroll, hands folded behind his back, noting the beauty around him. I need hope incarnate like him, I need to glimpse his example more than once in a while. I need to fall in lockstep behind him, not because he is Christian or a bishop but because he changes the molecules of the air into something reverent, mysterious and faintly humorous, as if God himself truly is playing a joke on us, not a knee-slapper, but some kind of gentle benediction that gives us the capacity to smile. I greet him when I see him, and he is always pleased and surprised, and I am always pleased and surprised. Wonder works this way, in sudden, inexplicable meetings. Hello, bishop, hello. Each time I see you I greet you without words, thankful that you are here, thankful that I’ll always have your example in the back of my mind, that grace never disappears, that it’s subtle and clean like washed sheets on a line, that it lives in the manifold openings and unfoldings of things coming to life and curving themselves to the sun. I need you more than I can say, but now I know it is not you yourself I need really, but something inside you that beckons me to follow. Hello, bishop. If I never see you again, I will continue to look for you anyway in anything that is vivid and real, in darting sparrows, broken glass, the people I come into contact with who wail and laugh and cry without opening their mouths.
Charles A. Dana Professor Emeritus Ronald Massanari
