The life of a bishop is pulled into different directions at any given moment. We are expected to be balanced talking slowly, intentionally, carefully, and lovingly while being clear, precise, and concise. Good luck, right?
Now I know why I received this one-line response from Bishop Larry Benfield when I wrote to him as a priest in his diocese and did not get a response for things that really didn’t need one. Because he only responded when he needed to and not to every email of “how are you” and “how is your day going”, all of which is sweet and nice but how incredibly time-consuming it is and how a new bishop is overwhelmed by many such small but beautiful sentiments, and even an experienced bishop is lost, especially if you only have one person to help you in all things.
With these thoughts and many more in the back of my mind, I helped my wife some in packing the house and helping the kids to move. Thank God Kimby practically did it all. How regretful I am that she did it all because I was completely overwhelmed by many other things. This is only to say how I neglected my family by responding to emails and phone calls through the packing of our house. Confession is good. Here is mine on this.
So the house was all packed and ready to be loaded. Friends from church and a few others helped us load the truck along with three men I hired. I was too mentally and physically exhausted to do it myself. Yes, the diocese had a budget of $30,000 for the move. We could have hired a moving company. If we hired a company to move us, it would have cost the diocese $33,000 on the top end to $24000 depending on whom we chose. But things won’t get to Boise for 12 weeks to 6 months was too much to handle. So I decided to ask a friend of ours, Jim and Terry Parmenter, to help us move and save the diocese almost $14,000. I am so grateful they did. It also satisfied my Franciscan mind and reduced my wife’s anxiety about things being lost in a truck.
Now here is a stressful moment. The day we finished loading everything Kimby went to get some snacks from Walmart for our trip. As she was checking out she left her phone on the counter and walked away. She got home and realized she lost her phone. (A brand new iPhone). In panic, she called me. I turned on the “find my phone” feature and tracked her phone traveling through the highway. I got into the car with her and our son Gabriel and followed the person who had the phone in his car. After about 30 minutes of us chasing the car, he stopped at a gas station and we stopped right behind him and asked everyone who owned the car. No one showed up or owned the car. I am glad we didn’t get shot. When I turned to look at something the car where we tracked the phone to be in moved. Here we go again after the car for almost 45 minutes. He went back into the Walmart and gave it to customer care, and left the place. He knew we were tracking him and so decided to return the phone. If we didn’t have enough to deal with everything going on around us, we added the icing on the cake by leaving the phone in Walmart.
The next morning, May 29, 2022, we left Springfield, MO. Our house in Boise hadn’t closed. We didn’t know if we will have a house to move into when we got to Boise. We simply trusted all will work out. I was stressed out, to say the least. We rented an Airbnb for a few days until the mortgage company worked out the kinks in the loan process. So after three days of driving, we landed in Boise. We arrived in Boise on the first of June around 4 pm.
I had two meetings waiting for me on June 1st the day we arrived in Boise. There were another four meetings over the next two days. I started visiting with the staff, meeting with Bishop Thom and Bishop Mary Reaves, director of the college for bishops (new baby bishops), and the list goes on without a break or a day off until June 24th. This time also included a trip to Paradise Point Camp, McCall, Diocesan Council at Ascension in Twin Falls, finance committee, visits with the CEO of St. Luke’s and their various department vice-presidents, Boise state archives, visit with Mother Karen in Nampa, meetings with the transition committee, the chair of the standing committee. I can go on and on with the list of people and I often think now, how did I endure them?
The fun time, still part of the work was visiting with deacon Rick Harvey, and dinner with our Dean Sean and Melissa, Bishop Thom, and Ardele. Regardless of how fun it was, still under public scrutiny of someone. While I enjoyed every minute of everything that happened, it was equally exhausting and intense. I wouldn’t trade a minute of it for anything other than a few minutes with my family to watch a movie, go for a walk and play with the dog. But again this is the intense life of a bishop.
None of these are bad or to be counted as negative but rather the world a bishop is moving into is from a simple parish priest with a community of people that supported him or her to an impersonal persona that too with an expectation to live perfectly, work without ceasing and remain pastoral and professional in all he or she does in all manner of things, maintaining a total balance of spirituality, professional perfection, impeccable pastoral presence and completely and insanely put together family life where children are polite, spiritual, biblical scholars attending church every time the bishop showed up.
Life goes on in the midst of all these expectations, hopes, and dreams of people. The line between family and work blurs and eventually consumes you. Recently our Dean Sean Wall said, 24 hours of the day in the life of a dedicated priest is ministry. When you are not in it we can easily require it to be well-defined. But when you live it faithfully, and as a response to God’s call, you will struggle to balance it. Of course, that’s the case with all calls no matter who you are. Ask a doctor or a nurse or a teacher or a factory worker. When you are called to do what you do, your passion to do the best can not be contained in a set number of hours or days.
I have often said when you are called you won’t count your hours of work and if you are not called, counting the hours adds to your workload.
So, I am grateful for the blessing of my call. It gives me purpose, focus, joy, and blessings beyond what I bargained for.
Love and Blessings to you this day
+Jos
