Spiritual Reflection
The Folks Next Door
New Year’s weekend I was proud to be an Episcopalian.
Especially, I was proud to be an Episcopalian in the diocese of San Diego. Like many people throughout the world, Barnabas and I, thanks to our Tivo, watched as the nation mourned the death of President Gerald Ford. Gerald and Betty Ford are lifelong Episcopalians. In his early political life, the Gerald Ford family attended Grace Episcopal Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. While in Washington, D.C., their family worshipped at an Episcopal Church in Alexandria, Virginia and at St. John's, Lafayette Square. When he retired, they built a home in Rancho Mirage, California and became members of St. Margaret's Episcopal Church in Palm Desert, California where they've attended for the past thirty years. Both Canon Hunt and I served throughout that time as volunteers at the parish. I am a recovering alcoholic and had the privilege of being a volunteer at the Betty Ford Center where I was the Sunday Pastor from 1984 to 1992. Fr. Barnabas, who has a black belt in Alanon, lectured on spirituality in the 1980s in the Family Program at the center.
I was proud to see St. Margaret's Church as the site where President Ford was laid in state before the flight to Washington, D.C. The couple's pastor for the past eight years was the Rev. Dr. Robert Certain, who led a worship service for the family and invited guests. Fr. Certain then flew in the presidential plane to Andrew's Air Force Base in Washington, accompanied the casket on the motorcade to the Capitol Rotunda, and preached the sermon at President Ford's funeral on January 2, 2007 at another Episcopal Church, The National Cathedral, where our own Bishop John Chane met the funeral procession at the Church doors. Finally, the body of President Gerald Ford was laid to rest at the President Ford Library, after a final service at Grace Episcopal Church in Grand Rapids.
The Fords were like the folks next door when we knew them in the desert. Betty Ford took a hands-on role in the Center, lecturing there and visiting with residents. Once, I recall during a Thanksgiving Day service in the “meditation room,” a lovely, intimate non-denominational space set aside for quiet time, I was surprised when Mrs. Ford walked in with the President’s brother who was visiting them during the holiday. Casually dressed, she had taken time out from preparing their Thanksgiving dinner to take him on a tour of the treatment center that bears her name. The residents at the service were delighted to see her and since our theme that morning was gratitude, I asked if she had a word for the group, and she did. Once, Barnabas and I went to visit Maribel Scharbutt, who was dying from cancer. Betty was a longtime friend of Maribel and Del, and met us at the door. She was close to Maribel and had been taking care of her all day. When I helped arrange Betty Ford Day at the 1985 General Convention in Anaheim, I remember how she greeted the House of Bishops. “Hello, my name is Betty and I am… an Episcopalian.”
President Ford was happy to lend his name to special programs at the Parish and in the broader Coachella Valley, which was their western home for many years. Once, Fr. Barnabas was giving Communion at the old St. Margaret’s Church and had to kneel down on bended knee to give the sacrament to three tow headed children. As he stood to communicate the next worshipper, he realized they were Gerald Ford’s grandchildren whom he had brought to church.
Even though he was a former President of the United States and Betty created the best-known alcohol and drug treatment center in the country, when you saw them in church or had the pleasure to work with them, they really were the folks next door. Yes, I’m proud to be an Episcopalian.
Canon Andrew Rank
