A Visit from Dean John, Part 1: What We Shared and What We Learned
Thank you to everyone who pitched in to warmly welcome Dean John Witcombe to Pullen the week of May 10! Ian McPherson and Heidi Biermann were lovely hosts and chauffeurs, and many of you joined large or small gatherings to talk with him.
As Ian noted as part of the guest introduction during Sunday worship on May 12, the Very Reverend John Witcombe, Dean of Coventry Cathedral, in Coventry, England, “is responsible for the overall leadership of the cathedral’s community and ministry, both locally and internationally, including that global network of reconciliation, peacemaking, and justice-seeking known as the Community of the Cross of Nails” (CCN).
John had been invited to NC to lead a session at Duke Divinity School’s Summer Institute for Reconciliation on May 15, as well as to welcome their Center for Reconciliation into the CCN network with a service and the presentation of a cross of nails (see below). We were delighted that he was also able to come a few days early and visit with us. His first travel to Raleigh and Pullen had been on a weekday in June 2015, and since that time, he had been wanting to attend Pullen on a Sunday, to learn more about who we are and how our community of faith operates in the world.
We offered a mixture of area sightseeing as well as formal and informal time with Pullenites. The Pullen portion of John’s itinerary was bracketed by hikes at Eno River State Park and Occoneechee Mountain in Orange County. In between, on Saturday, Pullenites accompanied John on a tour of the Duke Chapel grounds and Divinity school, introduced him to NC pulled-pork barbecue, toured the Nasher Museum of Art’s exhibition of works by María Magdalena Campos-Pons (a Cuban-American born in Matanzas, Cuba, in 1959), bought him beer on tap at a brewery in downtown Durham, and took him to a Durham Bulls baseball game, complete with hotdogs, popcorn, Cracker Jacks, and a new hat (thank you, Cathy Tamsberg and Felicia Roper!).
On Sunday, John presented about the Community of the Cross of Nails network at a “pop-up” Sunday Group, which about 20 people attended. He also offered a Focus about the CCN during the worship service.
He put the reconciliation ministry of the CCN in context, and explained the role each of us is to play in it:
“…all Christians are called to the ministry and message of reconciliation: [see] 2 Corinthians 5:18–19... But some are more called than others.
“And as I said to the little workshop that we had in the Sunday school group, if you discover a calling within yourself to the ministry and message of reconciliation, it’s probably because your heart has been broken by the brokenness of the world. It may have been broken because you have been a victim. It may have been broken because you have recognized that you are a perpetrator, or stand in the tradition of perpetrators. Or it may be because you have become a witness: a bystander who has been called to bear witness to what you’ve seen.
“Our calling in Coventry to the work of reconciliation emerged, as many of you know, through the experience of our cathedral being destroyed by fire in November 1940, along with the rest of the city of Coventry. But then my extraordinary predecessor, Provost [Dick] Howard, first speaking of resurrection, said, ‘We’ve been crucified with Christ. We will rise again with Christ.’ But then only six weeks later, he spoke of reconciliation: ‘Hard as it may be, we are seeking to banish all thoughts of revenge from our hearts and our minds’—at a point where we still may well have lost the war.
“The message that it is possible to rebuild, by the grace of God, not just physical buildings, but relationships, has kept us on the course of God’s calling to reconciliation, but also has inspired other people across the world.”
John then shared personal experiences of his interactions with new CCN partners and the background that led to the installation of their crosses of nails in Victoria, BC, Canada; Odessa, Ukraine; and Taranaki, New Zealand (or in Maori: Aotearoa). Finally, he summarized as follows:
“Our commitments, which I believe are your [Pullen’s] commitments, too, whether named or not, are to healing the wounds of history, learning to live with difference and celebrate diversity, and building a culture of justice and peace.
“And if you believe that those are your commitments, having a cross of nails is like a cairn on a path. Or if you have Canadian connections, [it is] like an inukshuk, which is an Inuit word for something which is like a cairn, but can look like a person—and is a lovely, rich, contextual rootedness to what this international community means.”
Mat Whitelaw, Arctic Kingdom, Sep 4, 2020, “What Is an Inukshuk?” https://resources.arctickingdom.com/what-is-an-inukshuk
Pullen’s cross of nails received Oct 30, 1977, hanging below the sanctuary cross given to Pullen in Oct 2015 by Primera Iglesia Bautista of Matanzas, Cuba, which became an international CCN partner in Feb 2018.
After the worship service, 10 people joined Dean John for lunch at David’s Dumplings on Hillsborough Street for a rich conversation.
John continued his week by meeting with Chapel of the Cross and St. Paul’s A.M.E. churches on Monday, May 13, finding high energy there among both pastors and parishioners to revitalize their long-dormant CCN connection. He met with Chalice Overy and Brooks Wicker (2007 Coventry pilgrim and 2024 co-chair of Missions and Outreach) on Monday evening, and with Nancy Petty over lunch on Tuesday.
Early Wednesday morning, the presentation and installation of the cross of nails at Duke’s Center for Reconciliation took place at Goodson Chapel, Duke Divinity School. Ian co-officiated as a member of the CCN board, and six other Pullenites made the trip to Durham.
A separate blog, “A Visit from Dean John, Part 2: Potential Next Steps for Pullen,” summarizes the significance of what we learned and describes some opportunities for Pullen’s CCN future.
—Erin Newton (with Ian McPherson)
