Ash Wednesday Message from Bishop Rob

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

    and put a new and right spirit within me. (Psalm 51:11)

The reason why we celebrate, and not merely observe, Lent, is because it’s the one season of the church year when we are specifically encouraged to imagine being recreated from scratch, as though brought right back to the beginning of time. Lent should not be a season of morbid self-preoccupation, punishing ourselves with comparisons of images or people we assume are more holy, more worthy, more prayerful, more generous or devout than we are. Instead, Lent is a season in which God invites us to become who we are at the core of ourselves. It is a time for us to get ready to live again, as though for the first time, as Jesus would have us live. It is a time to consider who is the person, and what is the church, that God seeks to reshape out of the ashes, out of our distracted and often self-absorbed lives? This is the season of new beginnings, even if — especially if — we’re convinced that we’ve run out of new beginnings. 

The best part of smearing our foreheads in ashes at the beginning of Lent and hearing, “remember you are dust and to dust you shall return” is that in those actions we are asserting: Yes! God is ready to start all over again, taking what is wonderful and not so wonderful about each of us, and reshaping a new creation. A new creation that looks and talks and breathes and sees more how the Beloved Christ looks and talks and breathes and sees and heals and rises.

As a diocese, we too are recommitting ourselves to this work of new creation. New things are being born out of dust even as some things are being returned to dust with the promise of new life to come in God’s time.

In January, we closed the mission of Faith Church, Merrimack. This was a difficult and painful process made graceful by the faithful and courageous members who faced this loss with kindness and the certain hope that God will not abandon them as they begin to worship in neighboring congregations.

Around that same time, I also announced that Christ Church, Portsmouth would cease being a mission and would become a Gospel-oriented Community in order to intentionally explore a new purpose and new vision for that property. A vision that may include housing, childcare and youth ministry, a revised community worship space, and a refreshed way to honor the formerly enslaved black persons who are buried on that property along with the beloved parishioners and family members more recently deceased. This new effort was preceded by the ending of the Seacoast Shared Ministry, a partnership between Christ Church, Portsmouth and Trinity, Hampden that had lived through its lifecycle and needed to end in order for something new to emerge. 

The Spirit urges us to reimagine the ministry of the two parishes in Claremont: Union and Trinity. How could the stated purpose of the Episcopal Church of New Hampshire — to claim the power of God’s love in our worship, learning, and service so that all may know the love and joy of Jesus Christ — inspire these two congregations to coordinate for a more effective mission for God’s sake?  I have no doubt that Jesus is calling us toward some new vibrant creation in Claremont to bring the hope and joy of God to that often-neglected part of our State.

As the church faces a clergy shortage, we are witnessing the end of an era that many of us, including me, never thought we’d see. The experience of church where one priest (or more) served one parish, and that priest did all things spiritual, religious, and administrative while the lay members of the church showed up on Sunday, said their prayers, took communion, paid a pledge and then went home to life as usual...that vision of church, to be blunt, is dust, or will level the church to ashes. Before our eyes, God is creating something new — we can’t see all of it, but we do see some of the contours. The new creation will undoubtedly embrace a more spiritually formed and equipped laity that is ready to preach, teach, offer prayers for healing, advocate in the public sphere for a restored humble relationship with earth, and with each other in the Beloved Community.

The School for Ministry, with the astute and capable leadership of Dean Kelly Sundberg Seaman, has a growing number of lay and ordained students preparing for roles of leadership in all corners of our diocese, and inevitably in all corners of the Episcopal Church. With God, the Commission on Ministry and Standing Committee aligning we will be ordaining four priests by the end of the year, all to serve here in the Granite State and possibly in shared ministries in Maine and Vermont.

Which brings me to the evolution of those collaborations. We have just entered a new agreement with the Diocese of Maine. As of March 1st, Canon Tina Pickering will share her duties and valued gifts with our friend Bishop Thomas Brown, becoming Canon to the Ordinary for both dioceses. Many of the details of this new arrangement will be shaped by experience and the Holy Spirit in the coming months. In broad strokes, Tina will continue to oversee transitions and deployment in New Hampshire (the processes of finding the right clergy for the parish openings), and she will continue to coordinate the staff of Diocesan House. She will also serve as “chief of staff” for the Diocese of Maine and serve as senior advisor to both Maine and New Hampshire bishops. In the meantime, Vermont Bishop Shannon MacVean-Brown and I continue to look for opportunities to share leadership and extend collaboration, not merely for its own sake, but for the sake of furthering the Beloved Community in Northern New England.

There will be some shifting of duties and roles of other members of our staff here on Green Street: the Rev. Louise Howlett’s role to help me provide support for clergy continues to grow, as does the Rev. Kelly Sundberg Seaman’s work to expand opportunities for vocational discernment and formation of ministries, both lay and ordained. Shelli Gay, my executive assistant, the one who keeps me organized and scheduled for visitations will soon devote half of her time to the success of our From Deep Roots, New Life campaign which we hope to bring to completion this year.

Lent has often been described as a journey toward the new life ushered in by the Resurrection. My fervent prayer in the coming weeks and years is that we see all our life together—the beginnings, endings and new beginnings—in the light of the words of Jesus Christ: “Behold, I am doing a new thing!”

Yours faithfully,

Printable version here.

In support of HB 61

This is to voice my support of HB 61, relative to teaching on discrimination in the public schools and discrimination in public workplaces.

There have been reasons offered in support of the legislation that diminishes a teacher’s ability to discuss elements in the history of the United States that could be deemed divisive.  Among them is the notion that to discuss the history of patterns of unequal treatment of people of color by a majority white population--treatment that includes chattel slavery, inequities in education, healthcare, housing, environmental safety, law enforcement and incarceration—would instill shame, guilt, and a sense of unworthiness among white students. The public has been warned that discussion of critical race theory or other concepts are dangerous for young minds (and souls) to be exposed to for fear that they would make us too aware of the inequitable treatment of those who have suffered—and, in fact, continue to suffer from conscious or unconscious biases based on differences of race, gender, class, religion, sexual orientation, or physical or mental capacity.

Shame is a power force, and the concern not to burden our young people with the notion that they are, by reason of their being a human being in whatever category, makes them essentially a bad person. Shame is more debilitating than remorse. Remorse says, “We have made a mistake, and we want to learn how to do better.”  Shame says, “Not only have we made mistakes, we are a mistake and no matter what we do, we cannot make or do good.”  I trust that nobody of good faith, be they conservative or liberal, black, brown, or white, gay or straight, spiritual, religious, (or neither) republican, independent or democrat, wants our citizenry to be shackled with the burden of shame. Shame does not allow us to live free, neither spiritually nor emotionally.

But discouragement-to the point of legally prohibiting- open, honest, often clumsy and awkward conversations about our shared history as a state and a nation is not the way to dissolve shame. In fact, such prohibitions serve only to say to our students and population, “let us be afraid of facing our past because we can never heal from those sins the effects of which we just have to accept.”   That sounds to me like a statement of fear and cowardice.

As a Christian, I see one of the most soul and social liberating scenes is when the crucified Jesus, bearing the wounds of his torture and death, enters a locked fear-filled room to face those who were complicit in his denial and grisly death.  The wounds are not erased, forgotten, or avoided—he actually invites one of the disciples to place his hands into the wounds.  Were the band of disciples feeling remorse, shame, fear? No doubt.  And yet, the Risen Jesus comes not to shame or punish or make them feel anything but that reconciliation is possible.  In other words God gives us back our histories, as complicated as they are—in all their bright successes and abject failures--because in facing our histories is how true learning and growth occur.

For this reason, I urge passage of HB 61, repealing and replacing the 'Banned Concepts Act,' which was passed into law via the state budget in 2021.  

Sincerely and Faithfully,
The Rt. Rev. A. Robert Hirschfeld
Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire

An Advent Message from Bishop Rob

I’ve been thinking much about time of late. It seems such an elastic notion. On the one hand it seems we were just in the middle of summer, so how is it we’re already seeing the tokens of Christmas up on the streets and in the stores? On the other hand, we also feel like time has either slowed to a cold creep, stopped, or even been thrown into reverse. Wars, violent setbacks in what seemed like a steady march for human rights and dignity, the ugly reappearance of symbols of hatred in our streets — even in a state that claims to allow all persons to be free — all can make us question that “long arc of history” and whether we can be so certain of its curve toward justice. The Psalms speak of how brief our life can be and yet there’s the refrain: How long, O Lord, how long?

It’s in just such a mixed experience of time that Advent invites us to find ourselves. When we read the Gospels, we find that’s precisely how the God of eternity entered the human experience in Jesus Christ. God comes to be present, fully present, in Jesus, who holds in his mind and heart joy, hope, agony, anger, and grief, not so much in sequence (as though first this, then this), but all at once. He doesn’t resolve the tension of time in order to love. And Jesus invites those who wish to know him and live the holy life (a life that seeks to mirror God) to keep in mind eternity. I find that when I am most anxious, in doubt, or fearing about what is happening, when I remember to pray, I am led to know God’s peace that passes all understanding in a sense of Presence, which never fails. God just is, in all of our lives and in the world’s turmoil. Right. Now. Always. Praying for God’s Presence, in the present, simply means allowing our minds and hearts to see what is, no matter what it is, with the eyes of Jesus, who never saw anything apart from God’s eternity.

I am drawn to that word presence. We’ve always been taught that Advent means an arrival, a coming. Usually, we think of Advent as the short season that gets us ready for Christmas. But to dwindle it down to just these 30 days deprives it of its deeper purpose. In Advent, we awaken and look for what the ancients called the “Parousia,” which is the Greek word for Presence. 

We have a little sticker on our refrigerator that says:

Yesterday is history.

Tomorrow is a mystery and

Today is a gift.

That’s why they call it the present.

It’s not without its corniness, but is there not some life-giving encouragement in the invitation to awaken and to see the signs of God’s miraculous healing and reconciliation and to feel the sharpness of how God’s kingdom is not yet here? I believe the longing and the striving, the waiting, with both laughter and tears, is just where God wants us to join God. That’s the space where Jesus came to dwell among us and to love us in all our beauty and brokenness. Perhaps that’s why scripture so often speaks of “the fullness of time.”

This Advent, let us be open to the all of it.

Bishop Rob's Op-Ed in the Concord Monitor

I have to confess that in moments of distress at the news, my own convictions are at risk of eroding into a kind of despairing resignation, leaving more airtime for the worse impulses of those of passionate intensity on both far left and the far right to dominate all conversation. It is at those moments that I turn to the tradition of my faith as an Episcopalian.

Access the full article here.

State of New Hampshire Board of Education - Testimony by Bishop Rob

September 8, 2022

Good morning and thank you for this opportunity to share why I, a person of the Christian faith, believe that public education is so necessary for our communities, our state, in fact the world. One might assume that I would rather seek more opportunities for education in religious schools, specifically Christian schools. Though as the Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire, I serve as the president of the board of two boarding schools affiliated with the Church, I am deeply concerned that the state of our public schools warrant attention to the sacred trust, to borrow the language of Commission Edelblut, to tend to every child and youth, not matter what faith or religious affiliation, class, race, orientation, or gender. 

 A brief story of my own upbringing in a public school: I am in the fourth grade, standing in line at the cafeteria.  A boy in line ahead of me, a classmate, has come to school with the symbol of the National Socialist Party, the Nazis, drawn on the back of his hand with a magic marker.  Our teacher, Ms Zoss, who was Jewish, calmly asked him why he had that swastika on his wrist, and asked if he knew what it meant, what was its history.  He was speechless.  She calmly informed him that it was a symbol that represented a hatred that cost the lives of many people and that the symbol causes deep hurt for many people.  There was no shaming.  My friend had no answer about why he drew the symbol, it was something he just heard about and saw at home.  Did he feel uncomfortable?  Probably.  Was I as a bystander uncomfortable?  Yep.  And yet the interaction was a gentle, loving, caring, balanced, true and life changing as any I had in Sunday School. And I’ve had a lot of Sunday School.

I share the grave concern, that the stability of public schools as a place where such interactions, respectful, caring and truthful is in peril.  As more children are invited to abandon public school, healthful and I would say, holy and sacred collisions with others are being less available.  What assurance do we have that they can happen in schools, extended learning opportunities, on-line that are outside systems of training and accountability of the Department of Education? 

Parents, indeed all of us, want what is best for children, our own and others’ and we want children to grow up to be well-equipped for the world. As New Hampshire residents, we hope we want this for all of the schoolchildren in the state. I urge you to encourage, and not to discourage from those difficult conversations like the one I described, but to show us how to have them constructively and healthfully.  I urge you to ensure our public schools are well funded by the state to support our teachers, administrators, and staff to do just that.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Please know of my deep gratitude and my prayers for your presence and service on this essential and vital Commission.

 Photo Credits: Arnie Alpert