The Rt. Rev. Chilton R. Knudsen
Bishop of Maine

February 2003
Message from
Bishop Chilton Knudsen

Most of you know I’m a "military brat"…although children of US Navy personnel call ourselves "Navy Juniors," saving the term "brat" for children of other branches of the Armed Forces! One of the graces of post-mid-life is the clarity of old memories, long dormant, which surface with disconcerting intensity. Memories provide deeper opportunities to contemplate the presence of God throughout our years.

I spent formative years living overseas in the Western Pacific. When I read about strategic locations in the Asia-Pacific region, I still see jungle and desert…I can remember playing golf in the Philippines…I feel wistful about the quality of community which exists amongst military families and give thanks for instances of similar community spirit as we share life together in our diocese).

I remember the times I woke from sleep to hear my father answering the telephone as a special "alert" was called, as personnel (people I knew, whose children I sat next to in school) were mobilized to distant locations. I can still smell the dustiness of air-raid shelters. I have sat in military air terminals with people holding babies who had never seen their fathers, as they awaited the return of loved ones who had been in harm’s way.

Not everyone returned. I can see the eyes of grieving survivors whose trembling hands received the folded flag which draped the coffin of their loved one. I have watched as the military community enfolded grieving people with the love which takes form in casseroles, Kleenex and latenight conversations around kitchen tables over coffee. "Taps," played by a lone bugle, always floods me with emotion. I can barely sing one line of the Navy hymn "Eternal Father, Strong to Save" without choking up. For her ordination to the priesthood and Celebration of New Ministry with the people of St. Philip’s, Wiscasset, on March 21st (Day Three of our military action in Iraq), Ann Lovejoy Johnson selected this hymn. The walls throbbed with our singing as we finished sharing the Body and Blood of Christ.

In the 60’s, as a college student, I demonstrated against our action in Vietnam. I lost my government loan as a result, a small price to pay while military action took so many young men and women…took them not only in death but also in the living casualties who are my peers, whose post-combat lives are profoundly scarred emotionally, spiritually, physically. Mine is a generation which buried many of its brightest and best, a generation of searching idealists who yearned to participate in establishing a peaceful world order. Whatever our views may be about the decisions and actions of recent days, our hearts are heavy as military action in Iraq begins. All of us ache  and yearn for a peaceful world for the generations which will follow us. May this passionate hope never become a casualty of these days.

Woven within my years of childhood and young adulthood were frequent occasions when the love of God—which we experience in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ—quite completely overwhelmed me. And it still does. When we allow this persistent love to grasp us, surrendering to Christ becomes our very life, our only hope. Together with St. Paul, I am convinced that

…neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39)

In every circumstance, God wills to draw you closer. Pray—however you can, as often as you can, as generously as you can, depending on God’s grace to stir up your prayer within you. Act—as your prayer leads you: write letters to military personnel and their families. Speak out, always with charity and humility, about your convictions. Attend to the children and young people around you as they experience fear and confusion, often silently. Live baptismally: Proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ…Seek and serve Christ in all persons… Strive for justice and peace among all people…Respect the dignity of every human being.

Living baptismally means that we press beyond political analysis, opinion polling and media coverage into the sacred work of spiritual reflection. We remember that armed conflict means not everyone will come home, wherever their homeland may be.

At this time, and in all times, I give thanks to God for you, members of the Body of Christ in the Diocese of Maine. God bless us, every one.

+CHILTON

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