Marking Time, Conventionally

What are your preferred ways of marking time? I mean besides clocks for the minutes and hours, and calendars for the weeks and months. What kinds of happenings — events that come around every so often — or tangible things prod you to reflect back on years gone by, and people no longer living?

Remembering a Giant on the Field

This framed photograph was among my brother Sandy’s possessions, some of which I have in a box downstairs. On the back, someone had written: “Polo Grounds/ Chicago Cubs v. New York Giants/ at bat #24, Willie Mays.” Sandy, a lifelong sports enthusiast, had always felt a kind of reverence for Mays. When I shared this shot with my other three brothers, glad for the find and also wondering when they thought this game might have taken place, Steve guessed probably around 1957.

In that year, I was occupied with coming into the world, not even cognizant of the fact that there were three major league baseball teams playing in nearby New York City…just until the next year, ’58.

Hearing the news of the great ball player’s passing, before remembering the photograph, I had already scanned our bookshelves and found this volume, a joint effort between Mays himself and the sportswriter John Shea, which came out in the first year of the pandemic:

I can’t recall buying the book; my brothers must have had others about him as they grew up. Ever since naming our first child “William” and deciding to call him “Willie” partly because of Mays, I’ve always been trying, I suppose, to keep this connection to a storied past — one my siblings experienced firsthand and then told me about — alive.

Louisville Now, and a Dozen Years Ago

Meanwhile, Rob is flying home today from Louisville, where he’s been at General (Episcopal) Convention for almost a week. They gather like this every few years, and each time, it’s a whole lot of work for everyone involved.

Some of you may have already heard that the two “Houses” (Deputies and Bishops) have elected a new Presiding Bishop; he is the Rt. Rev. Sean Rowe, from the Diocese of Western Pennsylvania. If you’d like to learn more about his ideas for leading the Church into the future, this will help. https://episcopalnewsservice.org/2024/06/28/presiding-bishop-elect-calls-the-church-to-think-differently-about-how-it-should-work-for-the-sake-of-sharing-the-gospel/

My goal here is not to describe the business of the Convention itself (you’re welcome) but rather, in keeping with my topic, to show how just the fact of it happening, in this particular city too, stirs up a whole array of memories in me…while I stayed home in New Hampshire.

This is 13 year old Henry, in Louisville, looking out at the Ohio River, in July of 2012. I’m grateful to him now for allowing me to share the photograph, as he’s now 25 and probably barely remembers this. But there’s a General Convention link here: a few days before, he and I had left Rob in a big hotel in Indianapolis, where he was attending the big meeting for the very first time as a bishop. We rented a car to head all the way to Hilton Head, SC, for the 100th birthday party of my Uncle Harold, making some stops to see friends along the way. I look back on that trip as a gleaming treasure — and it came about because of the Convention happening in the first place.

While in Louisville, we visited the Muhammad Ali Center https://alicenter.org/ and were entranced by the exhibits there; you learn so much not only about the man and his achievements but also about American history. Naturally, I urged Rob to head over there whenever he got a break in his schedule, and he managed to do this last Sunday, fortunately. From his descriptions, I could tell that he was taking in much of what I recalled seeing back a dozen years ago; but I also sensed that some aspects might have changed, too. For instance, the way I recall each area being devoted to one of Ali’s core values — identified with a quotation displayed on a large panel as you entered a room. Rob said, “Don’t see those; they might have re-organized the place since you were here.”

And I definitely don’t recall seeing this fabulous photograph when we were there. Rob speculated, “Maybe they added this after he died, in 2016.”

Other Conventions, Different Trips

Being taken back the Ali Center this way then got me thinking about which other Conventions I’d been connected to, in any way. Ah yes, there was Salt Lake City, back in 2015 — the next one after Indianapolis.

Here we are, walking through Temple Square — Mormon territory. This time, our sons (daughter had a camp job back East) and I arrived in town just as the Convention was ending, so we could all push off on a road trip into Wyoming together. Here’s a shot from our visit to the fabulous Buffalo Bill Center of the West, in Cody.

I don’t know why Willie seems to be pointing to an imaginary watch, but as I look at the photograph now, with the mural depicting bison who used to number in the millions across the Plains, I’m definitely thinking about the passage of time: both in centuries, and in decades, too.

Let’s see, then 2018 was Austin, TX and 2022 (after Covid) was Baltimore; Rob went on his own to both of those, but I joined him in August of ’22 for the end of the Lambeth Conference — global bishop fest! — over in England. And now here I am, welcoming him home from the 2024 version, hearing the news from their meetings over the past week, glad for the gift of the T-shirt from the Ali Center, and still reading about Willie Mays, too.

Phoenix has been designated as the location for the 2027 General Convention. Hmm…three years from now. Can you imagine all the changes each of us will experience between now and then?

So, to go back to my original question, what are your favorite ways of marking time? As this summer begins, what have you already been remembering, or most looking forward to, perhaps?