Eternal Summers encourages you to bring your scissors and make a pledge at the Tea Bazaar on Saturday. Photo Kent Moore.
Roanoke rock trio Eternal Summers (left) joins Raleigh-based The Love Language, offering two distinct takes on pop-rock. While the Summers inject graceful melancholy with nervous energy and infectious ebullience, Love Language swings and swoons, embodying tipsy romanticism. It’s a fun evening of fine tunes, whether for waltzing or pogo-ing. Eternal Summers is also hosting a pledge drive to fund its forthcoming album. The premiums include personalized tour postcards and mix tapes, and you can cut Daniel’s hair (for $2,000). Local polymath John “Mingsley” Lindsey opens with The Mingsleys.
Saturday 8/3 $8, 9pm. Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar, 414 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. 293-9947.
Selena Cozart O’Shaughnessy thought she’d be an educator for life, but had to learn to
forge a new path midcareer—which includes working as a resident services coordinator, and making and selling soap. Photo: Elli Williams
Selena Cozart O’Shaughnessy, Ph.D., is a career learner. But even her extensive education couldn’t save her from losing her job as a public school administrator when the economy tanked in 2008.
Now, the Philadelphia native and UVA alumna puts her experience and love of community to work from 9 to 5 as the resident services coordinator for the Piedmont Housing Alliance, and satisfies her creative and entrepreneurial itch with her own soapmaking company.
“I have reinvented myself in several ways,” O’Shaughnessy said. “But I have always been in the helping fields. I am a catalyst of sorts, not the person to tell people what to do but to help them discover what they need to do.”
Still, it’s all a sharp turn for someone who has been grooming herself to be a fixture in the public education system for as long as she can remember. As a teenager, O’Shaughnessy attended the Philadelphia High School for Girls, an exclusive, multi-cultural prep school, then enrolled at UVA, where she earned a bachelor’s degree, master’s in teaching, and a Ph.D. in education.
“The doctorate was not my goal,” O’Shaughnessy said. “It was the skill set I was after.”
She joined the Charlottesville City School Division, serving as an educational evaluation consultant before going back to UVA as an assistant professor in the Curry School of Education from 2003-2007. During her four years teaching at her alma mater, O’Shaughnessy founded SEEDS for Change, a student organization still in operation today that brings together people from different cultures and communities within Curry and around Charlottesville.
“I don’t even know if she is aware of all the good it has done,” said Curry School Associate Professor Stanley Trent. “Every year, the students pass the baton. It’s wonderful, and it was her brainchild.”
When the grant O’Shaughnessy was working on at UVA expired, she went back to the public school system, this time finding what seemed to be her ideal niche—equity and diversity coordinator for Albemarle County Public Schools. But about a year later, the housing bubble burst. The economy took a nosedive. People in all sorts of industries, with all sorts of high-profile qualifications, began losing their jobs.
“I was kind of the last one hired, first one fired,” O’Shaughnessy said. “The market for diversity experts was dwindling. Resources dried up, and people weren’t hiring.”
Which brought her to PHA. In addition to being program and service coordinator for Friendship Court, O’Shaughnessy is PHA’s fair housing program manager. She also acts as lead diversity consultant for the University Community Action for Racial Equity (UCARE), an organization devoted to changing systemic racism and discrimination at UVA and beyond.
But the thing that most excites O’Shaughnessy these days is “making stuff with her hands” after she goes home to her husband, dog—and kitchen. It’s there that she becomes two parts scientist and one part artist, mixing lye and fatty acids together with fragrances and botanicals to produce the soaps she sells on her website and in markets.
The impetus behind her soapmaking company, Salome’s Creations, was a desire to use only natural products on her body, a habit she says she picked up from her mother.
“I started making my own shampoo, and in researching recipes and techniques, I was always returning to soapmaking websites,” O’Shaughnessy said. “I fell in love with the process.”
Indeed, through all her training in education, one of the people O’Shaughnessy most likes to teach is herself. But five years after being laid off from the job she was all but destined to do, and five years into establishing her boutique business, she is at another crossroads. Salome’s Creations is currently only covering costs. O’Shaughnessy believes she could make the business profitable; the question is how to find the time to push it over the hump.
“I have a lot of balls in the air, so what has to come off the table?” she said. “I kind of do this all or nothing thing. If I can’t do it all now, then forget it.”
That’s something she is learning to correct. In part owing to her recent education in the Community Investment Collaborative, a program for minority entrepreneurs, O’Shaughnessy is trying to grow her business a step at a time. She’s looking to move into new farmers’ markets and is launching a series of soapmaking classes to share her love of craft and teaching.
Of course, there is still the issue of all those balls in the air.
“I’m also training to be a personal coach, which hearkens back to my days as a teacher at Curry, when I did some undergraduate advising,” O’Shaughnessy said. “It’s something I want to weave back into my life.”
It’s a complex pattern she’s weaving, but she wouldn’t have it any other way. O’Shaughnessy recalls that when she was teaching high school, on the first day of school, she would ask the kids to share their names and one defining trait. When she participated in the exercise, she would always say, “I like to try new things.”
“I remember saying in the third grade, ‘I know I am going to college,’ even though I didn’t grow up in a neighborhood where that was the expectation,” she said. “I think the thing that has always been present for me is that love of learning.”
DrFameus is the solo electronic music project of multi-talented musician Allen Aucoin, whose main gig is playing drums for the Philadelphia-based festival favorites Disco Biscuits. Aucoin earned the doctor moniker from a friend who declared him famous for his perpetual tardiness as a student of composition at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. You won’t want to show up late for Aucoin’s set at the Main Street Annex, where the percussionist and mix master will explore the sonic realms between breakbeats, drum-n-bass, dubstep, and house. Lynchburg’s electro hip-hop and folk duo Whoa Bear gets things bumping.
Friday 8/2 $10, 9pm. Main Street Annex, 219 Water St., Downtown Mall. 817-2400.
Military veteran and doctoral student Kiersten Downs has spent the past two months bicycling across the country to raise awareness for Veteran Students of America. She is stopping in Charlottesville this weekend. Photo: Bryce Mosely
Charlottesville prides itself on being a bicycle-friendly town, but can you imagine biking 3,000 miles? Kiersten Downs, a 30-year-old Air Force veteran and doctoral student, has traveled coast to coast on two wheels to advocate for Student Veterans of America (SVA), a program that funds and supports former military members who want to pursue higher education. This weekend, Downs is stopping in Charlottesville to visit friends and ride with a group of local cyclists to Fredericksburg before heading up to Washington, D.C.
Downs joined the military in 2001, and enrolled at Binghamton University in 2005 after leaving active duty. The only veteran on campus at the time, and still a New York Air National Guard reservist, Downs said she struggled with the transition from barracks to dorm rooms. The isolation was heightened halfway through her junior year when she began preparing for deployment to Iraq, and had no resources on campus available.
“I had to process my own education benefits, which was really quite a headache,” Downs said. “Dealing with bureaucracy is awful—no one should have to deal with it themselves.”
Upon returning from her deployment, Downs got involved with SVA, which formed in 2009 and now has more than 600 local chapters on college campuses across all 50 states. Its mission is to provide military veterans with the resources they need to pursue higher education and find employment after graduation, with chapter and individual scholarships and peer-led support groups.
“There’s just such a huge gap between military and civilian culture,” Downs said. “I understand the need for these services, and the culture of current vets that are returning to school.”
The 3,800-mile advocacy ride kicked off on July 1, and Downs plans to arrive at the SVA headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Monday, August 5. As of last week, she had raised $48,000 of her $50,000 goal, which she said will go through the chapter grant program and directly into the hands of student veterans.
As for the ride itself, Downs said the physical toll hasn’t been as challenging as one might think—a personal trainer and spin class instructor, she was already biking at least 200 miles a week before the trip. Most surprising, she said, was the amount of concern people seem to have for her safety as a young female.
“People have said to me, ‘Aren’t you scared out there, as a woman all alone?’ I haven’t felt threatened once,” she said. “It’s just funny to me that people get really focused on the fact that I’m 30 years old, not married, and a woman.”
Unfazed by the new altitude out west and endless hours of pedaling, Downs said the trip became about camaraderie with fellow veterans and cyclists, and finally seeing the country she’s always lived in but never explored.
“There’s no better way to see the world than on a bike,” she said.
Downs and her support team will arrive in Charlottesville on Saturday, August 3. The following day she’ll take off from Elswick Band Instrument Repair on Rio Road to bike to Fredericksburg, then on to her final destination in Washington, D.C. If you’re interested in joining her on your own bike, or you just want to donate and wish her luck, contact Vanessa Elswick at velswick@comcast.net, or visit bikingusa.net for details.
Barboursville Vineyards makes a delightful barbera. It is bright and crisp with a lighter palate than other red wines. Photo: Courtesy Barboursville Vineyards
Virginia is home to many international transplants—residents, tourists, students, laborers, and…vitis vinifera grapes. Every person and every grape planted here has been rooted elsewhere, and many have found a home amongst our mountains, valleys, and ever-changing climate.
Thomas Jefferson planted upwards of 30 European grape varieties at Monticello in the 1770s, which did not yield successful results. Gabriele Rausse tried again in the mid-1970s at what is now Barboursville Vineyards with better results. Now, with hundreds of wineries around the state, it is becoming more apparent which European varietals are better suited for our climate and our tastes than others.
Linden Vineyards was started by Jim Law in the 1980s, and he remains at the industry’s forefront. He makes a red blend called Claret, a compilation of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet Franc, merlot, carmenere, and petit verdot, which, with the exception of carmenere, are all grapes hailing from the Bordeaux region of France. The name Claret derives from the French word clairet, meaning light red wine, a nickname given to the reds of Bordeaux dating back to the 14th and 15th centuries, when the wines were as pale and light as rosé. Linden’s Claret is rich with herbal notes, black currant, blueberries, and a refreshingly crisp acidity (available at Tastings for $24.95).
Another famous French grape grown in our area is viognier. This fine, yet rare grape originated in the Northern Rhône area of France, known for its prestigious whites such as Condrieu, Chateau Grillet, and Côte Rôtie. The viognier grape exploded in popularity in the U.S. in the ’90s, and is widely planted from California to Virginia, with great success. The wines are aromatic and full-bodied, with notes of apricot, tropical fruit, and a lanolin texture. Grace Estates makes a fine example that’s estate-grown and only available in its tasting room for $22.95.
Chardonnay is grown everywhere, and is a malleable grape suited to many growing conditions and winemaking practices. It too thrives in our unpredictable climate, with origins in Burgundy, France, where it is a neutral, lean, crisp, and mineral-driven wine. Our warm climate makes for a fuller bodied style, with hints of apple, stone fruits, and often caramel or vanilla (depending on the use of oak barrels). Ankida Ridge Vineyards makes a stellar Burgundy-esque Chardonnay, with notes of Granny Smith apple, and a chalky minerality, which is available at Market Street Wineshops.
Both Syrah and Grenache hail from the Rhône Valley in France, where syrah rules the north in Côte Rôtie and Hermitage, and grenache reigns in the South. In Spain, this wine is called garnacha, and makes up 50 percent of the country’s total wine production. Syrah is lean and rustic, with undertones of smoked meat, damp earth, and cracked black pepper. Grenache is softer and rounder, with characteristics of ripe blueberries, black cherry, and leather. Syrah cuttings were brought to South Africa (where it was renamed Shiraz, as in Australia) in the 17th century by French Huguenots. Blenheim Vineyards makes an outstanding Syrah from grapes grown in the Shenandoah Valley. It has the classic characteristics of its French counterparts, and does not last long on shelves or in tasting rooms.
Blenheim’s winemaker, Kirsty Harmon, also released a single varietal grenache, which is lighter than traditional Rhône versions, and is lean, versatile, and impressive.
Italian varietals like barbera and nebbiolo are also popping up in vineyards around the state, with Barboursville making a delightful version of the former. It is bright and crisp with a lighter palate than other red wines, making it a diverse culinary partner brimming with acidity and black fruits. It is the most widely planted grape in Piedmont, Italy, and is slowly catching on here.
While nebbiolo is head honcho in its hometown (also Piedmont), where it is responsible for making some of the world’s finest Barolo and Barbaresco, it is still small potatoes in Virginia. However, Italian native Rausse has succeeded in making a fine reproduction. It is reticent of violets and tar, with massive tannins and ageability. The name of the grape is derived from nebbia, the thick fog that envelopes the hills of Piedmont in the fall when grapes are being picked, not unlike the fog over the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Slightly off the beaten path is Lemberger, or as it is known in Austria (by its German name), Blaufrankish. Hungarian growers brought it to the U.S. in the early 20th century, first planting it in British Columbia and then in Washington State in the 1940s. By the mid-1960s, it was considered to be the third best-suited grape for this climate. Ox Eye Vineyards in the Shenandoah Valley produces an excellent bottling (found at Feast! for $19.95), with notes of pepper, cranberry, and spice. It is the perfect pairing wine, while also being tame enough to drink on its own. Go out on a Lemberger and try it for yourself.
Tracey Love is the event coordinator at Blenheim Vineyards, the sales and marketing associate for the Best of What’s Around farm, and proprietress of Hill & Holler.
Dr. Rick Turner, president of the Albemarle-Charlottesville Chapter of the NAACP, addresses the crowd at last week’s rally in remembrance of Trayvon Martin. Photo: Annalee Grant
The cry rang up and down Charlottesville’s rainy Downtown Mall last Wednesday evening, a call-and-answer chant heard at rallies across the country in the weeks since George Zimmerman was acquitted of murder in the February 2012 shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida.
“I am!” “Trayvon Martin!”
But Eden Zekarias, the UVA third-year who organized the local rally and vigil in response to the July 13 verdict, had a reminder for the 200 people who gathered in the rain outside City Hall to make speeches, remember, and march in Martin’s name.
“The truth is that not everybody is Trayvon Martin,” Zekarias said. “If we should gather one thing from this event, it is that if we were all Trayvon, we would not be here today speaking these words.”
Some Americans are subject to discrimination, even criminalization, because of their race, gender, religion, sexuality, or monetary worth, she said, “so if we’re going to have a serious conversation about Trayvon, we must first see that these things exist.”
Zekarias, a double major in public policy and leadership and African-American studies from Fairfax, said she didn’t want a case seen by many as evidence of institutionalized racism—a black kid shot and killed by someone who thought he was up to no good, who was then cleared of wrongdoing—to go unrecognized in Charlottesville.
“I didn’t want there to be no response, for people to have nothing to do,” she said.
She pulled together a number of local groups and organizers to spread the word and speak at the event: Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice board member Bill Anderson, First Baptist Church pastor Hodari Hamilton, local NAACP president Rick Turner, and teacher and youth advocate Wes Bellamy. Their support and the crowds that braved the weather to hear speeches and march the length of the Mall for a vigil outside the federal courthouse at the corner of Ridge and Water streets were proof that the case struck a nerve here, said Zekarias.
Vigil attendee Glenetta Smith-Toliver raised two sons and a stepson in Charlottesville, and said African-American parents’ fear that their boys will be targeted because they’re black is real and justified.
“It could have been my son,” she said. “I want to see justice, not just for black kids, or white kids, or Hispanic kids—for all of them.”
Despite a brief moment of disharmony when conservative talk radio host Joe Thomas was booed for calling on rally attendants to push for gun rights, “because someday, it’s going to be your son or your daughter, God forbid, who has to stand their ground”—a speech bookended by others’ calls for stricter gun control measures—the message coming out of the gathering was unified: To avoid another Trayvon Martin case, the U.S. and its legal system need to change to recognize and correct racial disparities.
It’s a shift that needs to start locally, said Bellamy, who circulated a petition calling for monthly discussions about issues of race at the city level.
“This issue is not one that will go away,” he said. “We will push for this until our kids are 55 and 60 years old. This is a discussion that must always occur until racism is no more.”
Our country was born proud with a guilty conscience. Its patriotism flowed not from the blood, the land, or a shared ancestry, but instead from a common commitment to a set of abstract principles: the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Even as the words were written down, though, our government and citizenry were perpetrating a breathtaking genocide on America’s first peoples and enforcing a system of slavery that violated every principle of human goodness.
Our town’s patron saint, Thomas Jefferson, the author of our scripted virtues, was a slave master whose second marriage was unconsecrated, because it was to a slave woman named Sally Hemings. Their children and children’s children helped build the city we live in. That’s all just to say that our origin story, nationally and locally, contains a paradox: Our pride and shame come from the same place, because through the course of our history we have treated some people as individuals and others as groups.
In the wake of the George Zimmerman verdict, President Obama delivered a kind of State of the Races address, which coming from our first black president, was incredibly brave. If you haven’t read it in its entirety, you should. Responding to the notion that we need to “convene a conversation on race,” he said, “I haven’t seen that be particularly productive when politicians try to organize conversations. They end up being stilted and politicized, and folks are locked into the positions they already have.”
Our city has been involved in a lengthy Dialogue on Race, and some positive things have come from it. But our generation has a different race problem than our parents’ one did. It is no longer legal to enforce racial inequality, but it will always be legal to be a bigot. This week’s feature on the way the Episcopal Church has reacted to gay marriage shows how small communities founded on love and fellowship can evolve, from a place of strength, beloved traditions that contain guilty flaws.
Our country’s genius comes from its ability to deliver a free, if arduous, path to self-fulfillment. Our economic strength is built on self-interest. Our social fabric is knit together by a communal commitment to the individual ideal. If the right to a gun is guaranteed to all citizens, then so is the right to marriage.
The other thing the president said that’s worth remembering is that we are better than we have ever been before on the issues of racial and gender equality. We are the parents of our dreams. When our children fall, the world doesn’t end. When they excel, we celebrate.
Globally renowned Bella Morte make touring a priority. “You cannot have a career and be in this band,” said Andy Deane. “We’ve had to call up previous drummers 10 days before a tour and ask them to come back.” Publicity Photo.
Charlottesville’s Bella Morte is one of the most successful contemporary goth bands in the world. But unless you can name any contemporary goth bands, there’s a good chance you don’t know this. The band has found incredible fame within a devoted subculture, and it’s one that allows touring the world and playing sold out shows, but still requires the members to hold service industry jobs here in town. This is partly due to the current realities of the music industry, but it’s also a result of their commitment to the band.
Bella Morte’s music is almost excruciatingly sincere—there’s none of the winking, joking self-parody of some of its peers. “I like writing songs without a hint of irony in them,” singer Andy Deane said. “Stuff that people might call cheesy—I love that. I love sincere, dark, emotional music.” But despite the all-black wardrobe, skull tattoos, and ludicrously somber, brooding attitude of the album covers and press photos, Deane and guitarist Tony Lechmanski are friendly and funny. Hanging out with them involves a constant stream of jokes at each others’ expense, peppered with references to old horror movies. I know few people who make each other laugh as much as these two.
Bella Morte formed in 1996 as a duo of Deane and Gopal Metro. While the early records were minimal, brooding, and synthesizer-heavy, they began adding band members and taking the music in a heavier, more energetic direction. Lechmanski joined in 2000, and became a permanent member. Metro left the group amicably in 2006.
“We were not getting along well,” Deane said of Metro’s departure. “We added a lot of metal elements to the band, that he was not happy with. At that time the band was growing at an insane rate, and that’s something he wasn’t comfortable with. It’s a weird thing, going from playing for 70 kids to playing for hundreds of people.” Deane and Lechmanski now form the core of the group, amidst a rotating cast of side musicians.
“No two of our albums sound the same,” Deane said. “Whenever a band changes styles you’re going to have people saying, ‘Oh, they sold out.’ Well, we never got the check. That’s one of the main reasons this band has been Tony and I for so long.”
“One tour we couldn’t get anybody, and I stayed up for days programming all the parts into a drum machine. But our luck there has been great. We’ve had several drummers, several bass players, and when people have left, it’s not been a controversial thing, like ‘You’re fired!’ or whatever. It’s more like, ‘Oh, you got a real job? Great!’”
“That’s why me and Andy get along so well,” Lechmanski explains. “We’re both the biggest failures in our group. He works at [Studio Art], and I work at Lucky 7, and that’s all we have, and that sucks. It’s like ‘Would you like to play a show in England for 6,000 people? Or would you rather sell beer to homeless people?’”
Despite Lechmanski’s jokes, both he and Deane do keep busy with a number of other projects. Lechmanski has also played hardcore and punk for years, first with Riot Act and then The 40 Boys, while Deane, who played metal in Nerve No Pain, has authored a number of teen paranormal romance novels, and was recently reunited with Metro in the group Brighter Fires.
“This town, no matter what brand of music you put out, is amazing in terms of support,” Deane said. “I’ve traveled everywhere in the world, and I’ve never seen a more incestuous scene in my life.”
Lechmanski cites stories of running into members of The Hackensaw Boys or Sons of Bill while on the road. “They’re on such a different planet from what we’re doing,” he said. “But any time we see any of them, we feel that Charlottesville family unity.”
In June, Bella Morte released The Best of Bella Morte (1996-2012), and on Saturday, August 3, they’ll host a formal release party at the Jefferson. “It’s a few weeks late, but it’s the CD release,” Deane said. “Gopal is playing the show. It’s been fun having him back at practice. We don’t know what the future of that’s going to be. It feels partially like the old days, but it also feels like a new thing.”
“When you’ve been doing it for 20 years, you’ve got fans who listened all the way through high school, but haven’t heard our last five albums,” Deane said. “From all of our years back at The Dawning at Tokyo Rose, there are all these people who are flying in, we’ve been getting e-mails about which hotels to stay at. On Facebook, I’ve seen people say they’re coming in from Michigan, from Ohio, from New York.”
The concert’s opening acts are Synthetic Division and Lauren Hoffman, both of whom have long associations with the band. Hoffman is making a return to the music industry after a hiatus, and Lechmanski has been involved with co-writing her new material. “Synthetic Division is Shawn Decker,” Lechmanski explained. “We’ve known Shawn forever, we took him on tour, he wrote about us in his book—hell, I played with him in a gay pride festival.”
In addition to the retrospective collection, Bella Morte is also working on a new album. “For all intents and purposes, it’s done,” Deane said. “Without trying to retread the same turf, we did reconnect a lot to our dark wave roots. We have Gopal playing on a few songs.”
Unlike the early efforts, the latest releases have been self-recorded in a home studio. “There’s no reason to go into a [professional] studio anymore,” he said. “I guess for bands with an enormous budget, the equipment is better, but as far as getting our sound, nobody’s going to be better at that than the band.”
They’re also preparing for more live dates, including an appearance on something called the Goth Cruise. “It’s going to be thousands of goths on a boat. I don’t know what they’re going to do about the damn sun,” Deane said. “Hopefully it’ll be dark and stormy the whole time.”
Are you a local goth music fan? Tell us about it in the comments section below…
Christ Episcopal Church, home to one of the largest Episcopal congregations in the state, is Charlottesville’s oldest church. Photo: Christian Hommel
Ten years ago last month, a sharecropper’s son from Kentucky was elected Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire. Because Gene Robinson is gay, his elevation to one of the highest positions of authority within the Episcopal Church rocked and splintered the church to an extent that no other issue in its history ever had—not slavery, not the ordination of women, not the rewriting of ancient liturgy.
Virginia, always an Episcopal stronghold and home to the church’s largest domestic diocese—Haiti is the largest overall—wasn’t spared the effects of the turmoil. Whole congregations seceded from the hierarchy of the church, touching off lawsuits over property ownership that are still being fought today and challenging a notion basic to the denomination’s very existence: That beliefs within the church can differ without disrupting the tradition of common worship.
The theological divide is evident here. Traditional congregations that sprang up in the wake of earlier battles over liturgy and practice have seen some new members join from the ranks of disaffected Episcopalians. But of the 14 Episcopal parishes in Charlottesville and Albemarle, an area with a history deeply enmeshed with the history of the church, not one broke away. As the rest of the country grapples over the right of gays to marry, and the larger religious community that gave rise to the Episcopal Church continues to fight and split, what can the city’s patchwork of Episcopal parishes tell us about a big-tent approach to compromise?
Schism and solidarity
More than 4 percent of Charlottesville and Albemarle residents attend one of 14 Episcopal churches here, making it one of the most parish-to-population dense regions in the Diocese of Virginia.
To the other 96 percent, the Episcopal Church’s history and hierarchy can be confusing. The church is part of the Anglican Communion, an international association of churches with the Church of England at its heart and a symbolic leader in the Archbishop of Canterbury, a “first among equals” in a group of head bishops from 38 provinces. They are Protestant denominations, as they stem from a church that broke from Rome in the 16th century, but they recognize a tradition that is heavily catholic in the broad sense of the word—that is, tied to the early Christian church and the apostolic tradition. Liturgies and internal organization vary, but each wing agrees on the essentials.
At least, that’s the idea. But the concept of unity without unanimity hasn’t always worked. From its birth as a separate offshoot during the American Revolution, the Episcopal Church has been proudly democratic, with a heavy emphasis on the role of laypeople in church governance. And in the last 100 years, Episcopal doctrine has drifted left, following the cultural tide of a country in which liberals—as a recent New York Times article on the legacy of liberal Protestantism asserted—have established “ecumenicalism, cosmopolitanism, and tolerance as the dominant American creed.”
In the process, it has tugged on the ropes that tie it to the traditional catholic elements of Anglicanism, and the tension has sometimes reached breaking points. In the 1970s, many more traditional Episcopal clergy and congregations broke away over changes to the church’s Book of Common Prayer and the ordination of women. The disaffected stepped out of the Episcopal hierarchy, creating new Anglican associations in the U.S. that still looked to Canterbury for leadership. Gene Robinson’s ordination a decade ago sparked a similar schism, and this time, the theological divide rattled the entire Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Church has officially come down on the side of gay inclusion, both in welcoming gay clergy and in allowing churches to bless same-sex unions, putting it sharply at odds with more traditional Anglicans around the world and further splitting the ranks here in the U.S.
Whether the Episcopal Church as a whole will remain within the Communion is still up in the air. But for most Episcopalians, what’s happening in Canterbury matters less than what’s happening at home.
“Trust God with the details”
Christ Episcopal Church was Charlottesville’s first church. Not just its first Episcopal church, Rector Paul Walker explained one recent morning over coffee, but the first church in the city, begun in 1820 by builders on loan from Thomas Jefferson.
The congregation’s current home, completed in the early 1900s and built in a soaring English Gothic style on the same plot, holds one of the larger Episcopal congregations in the state. Some 1,600 people count themselves as members, and 69 were confirmed there last year.
It also has a role in one of the more painful chapters in Charlottesville’s history. In the era of massive resistance, when Senator Harry F. Byrd threw the full weight of the law into preventing desegregation in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education and the city schools chose closure over integration, Christ Church claimed neutrality but opened its doors to house an all-white “emergency school.”
There’s been healing since then—a public apology, racial reconciliation. But the issue contributed to a perception of Christ Church as a more conservative congregation, which was reinforced during the tumultuous years following the ordination of Gene Robinson and the appointment of the gay-friendly Reverend Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori as the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. Christ Church’s clergy publicly opposed the consecration of gay bishops, and, according to news reports at the time, discussed leaving the Episcopal Church altogether to join a dissenting Anglican diocese.
But that didn’t happen. A few years later, in 2008, the Reverend Paul Walker became rector.
Walker never planned to be a priest. In 1986, fresh out of UVA, newly married, his LSATs out of the way, he was set to enroll in the University of Richmond’s law school. But his wife, Christie, convinced him to broaden their horizons first.
“She said, ‘We need to do something outside of this bubble,’” Walker said. They ended up in Haiti for six months, living with a Haitian Episcopal priest. She taught English; he picked up building work. It changed the course of their lives.
One Sunday toward the end of their stay, Walker was taking communion when he felt what he described simply as a powerful calling. He told his wife he wanted to be ordained.
“She thought I was crazy,” he laughed. But there was no going back. Instead of law school in Richmond, it was the Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria. His first appointment after graduation in 1995 brought him back to his college town, to an associate rector position at Christ Church. A few years later, after he had joined the clergy at a Birmingham, Alabama cathedral, he was asked to return to the Charlottesville church to help establish a college ministry to bring students into the fold.
The Reverend Paul Walker has served as Rector at Christ Church since 2008. Photo: Christian Hommel
That was in 2004, and since he arrived, his time at Christ Church has been marked by expansion in more than one sense of the word. There are now four services every Sunday, from a small, early, quiet worship following traditional rites to a huge evening service catering to the hundreds of students who attend the church during the school year, which is followed by a home-cooked meal. Some of those new young arrivals have helped grow the church’s outreach projects, including an active music ministry that oversees The Garage, the tiny independent open-air concert space around the corner on First Street.
“I didn’t like church growing up, and I still don’t like the formality of religion,” Walker said. “I’m an anti-establishment person.” He recognizes the irony in feeling that way even as he leads the most “establishment” Episcopal church in the city. But it helps guide him to the heart of what really matters, he said. Structure and form serve a purpose for him and his church, but he doesn’t want anyone to have to dig deep to find the real message. “The substance is this radical acceptance of the self as we are, rather than as we should be,” he said. “A lot of Christianity becomes moralism, which is, ‘God loves you, but let me tell you how you need to change.’ We just don’t do that.”
That’s part of why he doesn’t talk about the issue of gay inclusion—not from the pulpit, and not to the press. When you walk through the church doors, it shouldn’t matter, he said.
And whatever his own beliefs, he doesn’t want others to classify him and his church one way or the other, because “we’re neither fish nor fowl on the issue.” He knows that there are members of his congregation who are opposed to gay marriage, and plenty who have no problem with it.
“It’s a different issue when it becomes about what happens within the church,” he said.
He’d rather focus on what’s happening in his parish than on the big theological questions. That’s the philosophy of Christ Church as a whole, he said. “If we had a mission statement, it’s preach the gospel,” he said, “and then to love people no matter who they are, no matter what their orientation is, no matter where they come from, and trust God with the details.”
“I want the big tent to be truly that”
In a denomination that puts so much emphasis on hierarchy, the idea that a local parish can think independently may seem like a contradiction. But that’s the Episcopal Church, said Bishop Shannon Johnston, head of the Diocese of Virginia.
“We love it that way,” he said. “We are very proud of that diversity.”
And if it’s more pronounced in Virginia, there are good reasons, he said. From the time of Jamestown, parishes here were technically part of the Church of England, but independently organized and self-supporting. It was rare for the Anglican leadership across the Atlantic to send bishops to the colony. As a result, the vestries—elected bodies made up of laypeople—were largely responsible for running their parishes.
“That became part of our DNA—strong vestries, and a very strong lay leadership,” said Johnston, much more so than in other parts of the country. The shadow side of that, he said, is that it’s produced a diocese full of parishes that are more likely to think locally instead of as parts of a whole.
“It makes a lot of sense when you think about it historically,” he said, but it makes his job as a leader who calls the theological shots tricky. “How to grow out of that tradition is a very sensitive matter, because no one would want to argue that we want to weaken the control of the laity. That’s something we are envied for.”
The diocese was, in part, honoring the independent streak in the Virginia churches when in early 2011, it put forward plans to allow individual parishes to seek permission to offer same-sex blessings.
Johnston said he’s personally in favor of honoring gay unions, but felt it needed to be introduced in a way that allowed churches to preserve their autonomy.
“I want the big tent to be truly that,” he said—and he believes it’s working. “I’ve gotten a lot of support and appreciation from traditional and progressive churches who understand that I’ve got their back, and that I support them in their conscience and I understand that this is an issue that’s changing quickly in the national church, in our country’s civil life.”
Not every parish has appreciated the sea change. Eleven Virginia churches voted to break from the diocese after the church’s governing body of bishops refused to back down from its decision to ordain Robinson. Many joined other Anglican associations, some based in Africa, which has emerged as a conservative stronghold within the greater Communion. The schism lead to protracted battles over who owned parish buildings and other property. Last month, the last of those suits—involving a particularly bitter split in The Falls Church Episcopal parish in Northern Virginia—was essentially settled in favor of the diocese when the Virginia Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by the breakaway church.
But like many of the majority who have remained within the Episcopal hierarchy, Johnston emphasizes what binds the church, not what divides it.
“We feel the responsibility to model what we understand is best about Anglicanism, and that is the ability to hold in tension differing points of view,” he said. And as it happens, the greater Charlottesville area is a particularly representative microcosm. “I’m proud of how broad a range is represented here, and how rich the different practices.”
Owner Jeff Thomas (left) and human resources director Jay Dymek, who’s also a retired colonel, recruit veterans to SHINE and are partnering with Darden to host next week’s
Virginia Values Veterans conference.
The unemployment rate for veterans has been decreasing since this time last year, and as of last month, was at 7.2 percent. Here in Virginia, 9.4 percent of young vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan can’t find jobs, and the number of people in the Commonwealth who have filed for unemployment benefits has more than doubled since 2002. Virginia Values Veterans (V3), a statewide government-funded initiative to incentivize companies to hire and retain men and women retired from the military, has connected 2,555 veterans to employers since the program’s creation last year. Sponsored by locally based company SHINE, V3 will host a conference here in Charlottesville on Wednesday, August 7, at UVA’s Darden School of Business.
“The first incentive is to recapitalize their workforce with the best employees,” said program founder and retired Lieutenant Colonel Joe Barto. “This is an economic development initiative, not a jobs program.”
V3 started out as VetStrong, a program founded by TMG—a small veteran-owned business with a mission to connect clients with employees and improve business performance—in 2002 to serve as a pipeline for veterans to private companies. Rebranded as V3 in 2012, it’s now a public-private partnership between the Virginia Department of Veteran Services and TMG. V3’s goals are to develop economic incentives for Virginia companies to hire vets, and to educate employers on how to do so.
“When we first put this program together, we found that so many vets were unemployed, yet there were so many companies that needed good people,” Barto said. “There was a huge supply and demand, so our question was, what’s the problem?”
Barto described V3 as being fundamentally different from other federal and state veteran employment programs because it focuses on influencing those making the hiring decisions.
“Most of the dollars spent around this problem have been on the vet side, teaching them how to find a job,” Barto said. “Our program is teaching companies how to attract, hire, and retain vets.”
SHINE Systems & Technologies, a Charlottesville-based government contracting company that specializes in identity intelligence, technology integration, intelligence analytics, and consulting services, was the first company to earn a silver certification from V3 last year when it hired more than 20 veterans. Now nearly 50 percent of SHINE’s 125 employees are from the military, the benefits of which owner Jeff Thomas said are two-fold.
“It’s a way for us to give back,” Thomas said. “But we also understand each other well. There’s not a lot of hand-holding when working with vets.”
Brian Kreiter, an Army sergeant major who retired in 1999 and has been working for SHINE since April, said the transition from military life into the civilian world isn’t an easy one. The general public is more supportive of soldiers than when he joined shortly after the Vietnam War, he said—he was spat on during a march in Seattle in the 1970s—but vets today still face discrimination from employers who worry about things like post-traumatic stress disorder.
“I don’t think those are legitimate fears,” Kreiter said. “Sure, some of them are troubled, but no more than others. There’s a certain amount of dedication that I don’t think is developed outside the military in quite the same way.”
Mary North, owner and business manager for Airflow Systems in Charlottesville, said she’ll be attending the training seminar at Darden next week to learn more about the benefits of hiring vets.
“We don’t have any veterans working for us now, but we have in the past,” North said. “We want to hire someone with that type of disciplined background.”
North isn’t a military vet, but her sister and brother-in-law are, so she said she’s seen secondhand the challenges of entering the business world after returning from active duty. They both had to come in at the ground level and take positions they were highly overqualified for, she said, but based on their ability to show up on time and be loyal to their companies, they moved up quickly.
“They’re such hard workers,” she said. “They just wanted the opportunity to show people what they know and have them not worry about them leaving the company.”
North will be representing one of more than 30 local and regional businesses at the training seminar next week. The event begins at 8am on Wednesday, August 7, at the Darden School of Business. It is free of charge, and includes a meal for all registered employers. Registration will remain open until the day before the event. Barto, who will be a keynote speaker, noted that the conference is an opportunity for employers to learn how to attract, find, hire, and retain veterans.
