Go Back, You Didn't Say May I: The Diary of a Young Priest- Thirtieth Anniversary Edition

By Thomas L. Jackson

Vietnam. Civil rights. Politics. Campus rebellion. Urban warfare. Therapy. Murder. Sex. Drugs. And a lot of personal intimacy... In this reprint of a diary written thirty years ago (and originally published in 1974), Thomas L. Jackson--priest, mental-health professional, husband, father, businessman, carpenter...and pilgrim--offers his innermost thoughts and outward actions amid both the daily joys and constant chaos of times and places that forever changed Americas view of itself and the world. From Washington to Detroit to New Jersey to Ohio University to Los Angeles to Upstate New York, the days and nights of collision and community add up to an odyssey beyond the expectations of a young priest trying to make some sense out of a self, a society, and a church facing a post-modern world. The authors Afterword leads the reader to the sequel, In Any Given Moment...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 12, 2002
• ISBN: 9781465317070

Thomas L. Jackson

From standing alone in a doorway of a house on an early-May morning, looking out on the torn backstreets of a Texas city in the early 1990s, Fr. Tom Jackson--a “marginal” Episcopal priest and former “shrink“--began to experience a new life in what seemed to be a strange place…and the house would quickly become known as “St. Dismas House” (named for a criminal/saint)…and the House would fill and overflow with hundreds and hundreds of folks…and a roller-coaster ride would follow: a community life of work and ministry and emotion and loss and gain …and there would be more Houses and more folks and more kaleidoscopic life. Although this personal narrative is a continuation of the journey described in Fr. Tom’s earlier diary, Go Back, You Didn’t Say May I, it is, in fact, an entity unto itself: a record of the risks and glories of real people dealing with the life-and-death vagaries of Companionship at the turning of a new millennium…one day at a time.

Book preview

GO BACK,

YOU DIDN’T SAY

MAY I

The Diary of a Young Priest-

Thirtieth Anniversary Edition

Thomas L. Jackson

Copyright ©2001 by Thomas L. Jackson.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. for permission to reprint excerpts from The Little Prince by Antione de Saint-Exupery; and to Ramparts magazine for permission to reprint the excerpt from A Devout Meditation in Memory of Adolph Eichman by Thomas Merton.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-7-XLIBRIS

http://www.Xlibris.com/bookstore

[e-mail]

Contents

PREFACE TO ANNIVERSARY EDITION

PREFACE

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

AFTERWORD TO ANNIVERSARY EDITION

Books by the author

Go Back, You Didn’t Say May I: Thirtieth Anniversary Edition

Moments of Clarity

Moments of Clarity, Volume II

In Any Given Moment (2002)

Me, You, and Us (2002)

Life’s Secrets

Life’s Secrets, Part II

STOP! Before You Kiss that Frog … (humor)

PREFACE TO ANNIVERSARY EDITION 

In the final analysis all we really have to share with each other is how we live …

Br. Toby McCarroll

Vietnam.

Civil rights.

Politics.

Student unrest.

Kent State.

Urban warfare.

Problem pregnancies.

Therapy.

Intimacy.

Murder.

Sex.

Drugs.

Why bother—anyone could ask—to reprint a book from the chaos of three decades ago? And by a priest, much less? Great questions. And my own answer—for myself—is simply: because it is a specific history of a rambunctious time of American and world history.

It was thirty years ago that I first decided to put my diary notes into some form of readable narrative, and as in all cases of contemporary history, it is the reflection of one person—caught in the midst of thousands of persons—who is trying to make some sense out of nonsense, trying, however imperfectly, to record what is being done and felt in the crazy moments that fly by.

People who have found out about this first book I wrote, then remember their own place and time in the sixties and seventies, and—for whatever reasons—want to somehow compare notes on my experience and theirs … well, that option has not been available for a long time due to the out-of print status of the original edition. Other contemporaries have said that they would like their kids (or grandchildren!) to get a personal sense of that not-so-ancient history. And so it goes.

To look back at the events and emotions of thirty (and more) years ago in one’s life is a matter not to be taken lightly! As I’ve reread the words of the original edition over the years, I’ve always heard and felt those inner messages of Did I really do that/think that/say that/believe that/feel that? And, yes, of course, I did. And then I would remind myself that those memories and reflections were couched in a specific era, a place and time of fear and glory, confusion and discovery, frustration and celebration, turmoil and wondrous possibility. I must admit that there is a tremendous temptation to edit the original, to somehow try to make myself and others more wise, less naive … more brave, less fearful … more certain, less confused; yet the dishonesty of that is all too apparent, even in the thinking of it. Consequently, the few changes I’ve made are some additional lines from the original manuscript that were edited out (for reasons I don’t know) in the original edition.

I must remember that I can’t apply my present thoughts or beliefs to my point of development some thirty years ago; in fact, though, I find that I’m amazed how many of my thoughts and beliefs have remained, although they might be tempered a bit by age and gravity!

I must remember, too, that—as a dear friend has repeatedly reminded me—I was doing the best I could, given the circumstances. Amen.

Yet the amens were not universal at the time: critics and reviewers from religious institutions were very split in their assessments of my religious condition, and I can only remain grateful for the kind comments I received in print from those of the church who didn’t need me to be of a certain inner orthodoxy.

The secular press offered its own bias of admiration or admonition, depending on the political or social slant of the publication. I never expected more than that, and I was at least grateful for the readership, regardless of the kudos or reprimands.

As the original Preface testifies, this publication came out of a diary of sorts which I had written to my children; after some friends had been allowed to read it, they suggested that I send it to a publisher. I waited a while, trying to decide if I really wanted to share all of this with the world … yet finally decided to let others know what was going on in my head and heart; somehow I surmised that there would be a sense of community in the minds of many readers. There was.

My children are adults now. Each has read these words, and I’ve saved a first edition for each of them. I hope they will read it again, too, and perhaps continue to share with me how their own lives and experiences are rehearsed—or differ—from mine. I always love that.

Finally, I would remind us all about the somewhat astronomical increase of currency values in the past thirty-plus years; therefore, when dollar amounts are mentioned herein, we would probably do well to multiply them by five (for the 60s) or four (for the 70s).

I hope you will join me in the Afterword at the end of this new edition …

Namaste,

Fr. Tom

Lent, 2001

PREFACE 

This subjective, personal journal is part of a larger volume which I prepared for our children: Jennifer, Peter, and Lisa. Over the past few years, as I attempted to find the particulars of my own father’s life, it occurred to me that I might provide some material for our children; perhaps in future years, as they face the joys and sorrows and ambiguities of their own lives, they may want to know what we were trying to do in these bizarre times.

I have chosen to alter a few names and dates to protect the lives of specific persons, and these should be obvious to the reader. And, in most instances, I have not included the pedantic sic to note errors by other writers; the documents are generally printed as written originally.

Apologies are due. Given the limitations of time, space, and personal perception, I have undoubtedly omitted thousands of names and incidents. My lack of omniscience is obvious, but I here note the community of people in my life, whether recorded or not.

I extend deep thanks to patient and helpful typists—Rosie Wood and Barbara Moore—and to diligent and expressive proofreaders—Lee and Barbie Worman and Grace Gerbrandt. And thanks to Paul and Kate for their coffee, their living room, and their friendship near the waterfall.

Finally, I recognize the vanity, the embarrassment, and the risk in a personal history. So be it.

Peace.

Thomas L. Jackson

Ithaca, New York

February, 1974

I 

You do not live here, said the fox. What is it that you are looking for?

I am looking for men, said the little prince. Men, said the fox. They have guns, and they hunt. It is very disturbing. They also raise chickens. These are their only interests. Are you looking for chickens?

No, said the little prince. I am looking for fiends. What does that mean—’tame’?

It is an act too often neglected, said the fox. It means to establish ties. ’To establish ties’?

Just that, said the fox. To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world…

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince

August 15, 1969 We are here.

The new co-director of the United Campus Ministry at Ohio University has arrived in Athens, Ohio, with his wife and two weary kids.

We’re in a new home, surrounded by endless pyramids of yellow packing boxes, by scurrying carpenters, spattered painters, serious plumbers, and shouting electricians, each with a dozen questions about color, location, size, and alternatives.

There were no parades or banners or fireworks as we drove in but we are here. The present tense of that statement speaks a satisfaction only imagined during these last three months of upset and chaos. What a very long road we traveled to get here, what a refuge for the spirits this large, old house seems to afford!

Just five years ago, Judy and I were riding in my parents’ new ‘64 Lincoln, traveling from the Detroit airport to their suburban home. Christmas snow, a school vacation, the warmth of the car and of my family’s greetings, the satisfaction of our first full year of marriage—all of these things provided the setting I needed to make my announcement.

For the past eighteen months, I had played musical vocation in my head; whenever the academic melody stops, switch to a different vocational decision. Why not become a doctor? Architect? How about the law? Ever think of social work? Give business a try so you can take over your father’s corporation. Hey, journalism is your interest, right?

Judy had listened to it all amid family, friends, and university counselors. And always she said, "Tom, you could do any of those things, but do what you want to do."

As the car sped toward that home of memories, I nervously made my announcement: Dad, mom, I’ve decided something. For a variety of known and unknown reasons, I’m applying to an Episcopal seminary. I want to try it for a year, just to see what happens. I don’t know what to expect really, but I have to try it.

My father rarely took his eyes off the road when he drove, but he quickly glanced at me, and at mom and Jude in the rearview mirror—and he smiled broadly.

A few of the windows are now bracing air conditioners, so the humidity seems less an enemy to our homesteading chores. Jenny is searching each corner of each room for her elusive toy box. Peter, whom we received from the New York adoption agency only two months ago when he was four months old, is probably wondering if this crazy, nomadic Jackson family has finally found a permanent home. And I wonder with him. We all wonder and hope.

My parents’ home in the Detroit suburbs was our home, too, for the summer of ‘66, as I did some intern work for the Episcopal parish next door.

On April 3, my father had died, weakened by two years of hospitals and killed by two months of leukemia.

In May, I had been elected president of my class in seminary, an event of surprise and needed support.

In June, two letters arrived. The one from seminary informed me that my candidacy for Holy Orders was being denied, for I didn’t seem to be an asset to the seminary. The second letter, from a classmate who was several years older than I, said that he was willing to help me fight the decision, that he could not return to seminary if I was being tossed out. A virtual stranger had never before made a commitment to me like that.

As I ran a few errands this afternoon, I seemed to notice a genuine friendliness in the faces and voices of these Athenians. It’s a Norman Rockwell kind of town. Some farmers casually look at machinery in front of a feed store. A bearded professor gazes through a bookstore window. An Appalachian mother shops and copes with three crying toddlers. Four longhaired men in tank shirts play a lazy game of touch football. A clothing merchant laughs with a passerby in front of his store.

The fires around our parish in Detroit during the civil revolt of’67 had tempered some of our hopes, but also offered a quick education for our partial naivete. Those fires of frustration and destruction also focused some light on the desperate needs of the people in the ghetto—and on the characters of those involved.

Okay, Mac, how many grenades you got stashed in there, the cop demanded as he pulled me out of my Volkswagon at a roadblock.

I’m sorry, Father, another officer immediately added, but the sergeant’s a bit uptight with all of this gunfre going on.

Our street seems almost pastoral. Each side is lined by gigantic maple trees, creating a tunnel effect from one end to the other. Punctuations of sunlight mark the shadowed sidewalks here and there.

The driveway is composed of bricks bearing the Athens seal, separating our house from that of the Charle home, a family with six active and gentle children. Oddly enough, the youngest is a recently adopted biracial son, as our son Peter is. It seems like an incredible coincidence, but one which symbolizes our present feeling of finding a good home for all of us in so many ways. Maybe that driveway doesn’t separate but connects!

I sat alone in the huge gall of the New Jersey parish on that May evening a few months ago, feeling like Jonah inside the whale. I had been asked to leave my ministry in the parish two weeks before. Now I waited while the rector and the vestry—a jury of twelve—voted on my petition to have parish support for a street ministry in the area.

As I sat on the slightly elevated stage, staring down at the richly tiled floor, I tried to sort out the bizarre and overwhelming events of that day. I still wasn’t sure about the nature of my shortcomings, nor why I expected a favorable decision on my petition.

Now and then I could hear the drone of discussion from the next room, followed by sudden, prolonged periods of laughter.

Why are they laughing?

There had been extensive arguments and debates in the parish during the preceding days; many people seemed pleased with my apparent departure, while others were extremely upset about it. Various parishioners had various reasons for wherever they stood.

I felt betrayed and partially destroyed.

More laughter. Why?

About noon on this day. Jude received a call from the adoption agency, informing us that they had a son for us. Amid despair, we rejoiced.

What can they be saying about me to cause such laughter to reverberate through this empty hall?

Later in the afternoon, Jude got a long-distance call from Chicago; her brother had received a grenade wound in Vietnam.

And now this debacle tonight.

An endless day. Too many emotions, too many people in too many places defining our fate.

The laughter ended abruptly; I sat in silence. The door opened. The group entered the hall, some eyes on me, some eyes searching the same slick tile. I was called to the rector’s office and given the official decision.

You are to cease your ministry in this parish and this community immediately. You are to vacate the house as soon as possible. You may return to the parish building to move your personal property from the office. Etcetera.

I went home in a deeper despair than I had ever known, to try to explain to Jude what I did not understand; to tell her that our five thousand dollars used to improve the house was apparently down the drain; to tell her that we had to leave very soon; to talk with her about her brother and our new son; to tell her, amidst my own uncertainty, that we would surely find another job somewhere; to tell her that we could go up to our small farm in New York until something came along; to tell her hopes which I didn’t have; to tell her of my deep love for her.

Why on earth were they laughing?

And now we are here. A complicated nine-year trip, full of magnificent roadside rests and ghastly potholes. The last two stops were planned to be about four years each, but things turned out differently.

Now I’m painting walls in a new home in a new town for a new job. And I hope it’s four-year paint.

August 16

Believe it or not, I left the door unlocked last night, and not one thing was stolen! Incredible. No one in Athens has double and triple locks on their doors. People walk on the streets at night and don’t look terrified of each other. Haven’t they experienced Chicago, Washington, Detroit, Manhattan, and all points east and west? Was it simply first-night luck, or is this summery, student-vacant town one of those places you read about in The New York Times, where the crime wave hadn’t broken the dike? I had thought that such places were make-believe.

August 18

A large envelope arrived in the forwarded mail today, containing two complimentary copies of the September issue of The Episcopalian magazine. The lead photo-articles deals with the experimental liturgy we did in the Jersey parish several months ago, before I had even the slightest hint that my days were numbered.

There I stand on the chancel steps, leading the packed house in a celebration of life, looking as nervous and pleased as I felt that day, hoping that the success of that liturgy would motivate the parish into new areas of liturgical expression, but knowing that is probably wouldn’t.

It was a good day, though, and I thought that my relationship with the rector was reciprocally strong. I thought that any disagreements with the more conservative members could be worked out in one way or another. I thought wrong.

I think about the whole thing too much. I’ve got to get this hostility out of my system, and quit portraying myself as some sort of tragic figure in my fantasies. But it was like a huge divorce, and I constantly think of what might have been.

The large picture of me in the magazine was taken just at the moment when I was nervously moistening my lips, and consequently the tip of my tongue protrudes from my mouth. It looks as I’m sticking out my tongue at the whole parish. Good grief.

August 21

The week has been full of busy work at U.C.M. (United Campus Ministry), trying to get my office in order, my head oriented. I’ve had several meetings with Tom Niccolls, the other co-director, and Don Craig, a minister and doctoral candidate in counseling, who is working part-time this year on a special project.

After the experience in Jersey, I have become too sensitive about co-workers: I look them over carefully, trying to find out immediately what they really expect of me, and acting rather paranoid about the working relationships. I’ve got to get over that.

Both men seem to be magnificent human beings.

Tom Niccolls has been here since ‘58, I guess, first as a Presbyterian chaplain to students, working out of this place (then known as the Westminster House) and the local parish. We seem to complement each other in several ways: he is taller, quieter, and older than I. In his late thirties, with a brush cut, he emits a security and trustfulness which alleviate my own suspicions. He seeks my friendship by allowing me to accept his.

I want to hear his stories of these past eleven years, the stories of battles won and lost, the stories which have surely engraved the deep but gentle lines of his gaunt face. I want to be a part of the new stories.

Don Craig is also a Presbyterian minister, but doesn’t emphasize it much, knowing that the minister tag can be a bit of a hangup in the university corridors. His gregariousness and empathy radiate rather than overwhelm, and the animation of his face and laughter put me at ease.

Earlier this week, together with a few other campus ministers, we met with a newly appointed vice-president for Educational Services, considered sort of the number-two man in the administration of the new university president, Claude Sowle. This man, Richard Dorf, came here a couple months ago to be the dean of Engineering, and within a few weeks was appointed to this post. The shelves in his rather swanky office were lined with engineering books today, and he seemed a