An Amesday Update from the Clemmons, on Mission
Names, names, names
Dear friends & family, &c.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Many Christians the world over name their children according to the saint commemorated on the day of their birth. Exempli gratia: a boy born on February 24th would be Matthias. Girl on May 31st? Elizabeth. A newborn on November 1st? Baby All Saints. Okay, there are probably limits on the practice.
Our four children have all, somehow, been born on days without saints assigned on our Anglican calendar of commemoration, meaning that even if we wanted to commit ourselves to this noble practice, we wouldn't have a compulsory name. (Yes, technically, there are always plenty of saints commemorate on every day of the year if you look a little deeper. And yes, technically, Virgil was born on the Commemoration of Lydia, Dorcas, and Phoebe, but, he's a boy.)
All that to say, I like to think (and pray, half-serious) that someday my children's birthdays will be commemorations of their own saintly lives, the whole church over. (Yes, technically, most saints are commemorated on the day of their death rather than their birth, but just let me pray for my children without heaping all these technicalities, okay?)
So for today, November 8th, it's Amesday.
In lo these five years, Ames has only grown a deeper mystery to me. He's a lad of extremes. A profligately creative mind. A relentlessly loving heart. By turns tender and thoughtless. Recently, he looks out and sees the world as composed of heroes and villains, and he's ready to ascribe merit to both (this may be because of a burgeoning moral seriousness, or maybe the bad guys just have cool outfits). He looks out for others, though he sometimes tends toward the solipsistic. He meanders, he sometimes terrorizes. He's determined and willful and then aimless and wandering.
I often forget how young he is, and set my expectations of him several years higher than I should. In part, that's because he's so mature—a complex and idiosyncratic vocabulary, no sense of his own limitations, an ability to see second- and third-order consequences (he may practice that one sparingly). We try often to teach him to use his strength to "protect and help others." It’s a gift that we don’t have to teach him to love; he seems a natural at that one. Happy birthday, son.
As ever, much has happened in the intevening three months since our last newsletter, with a few momentous occasions in particular. Read on, dear reader.
Peace of Christ,
Zack+
Moses Kingfisher Clemmons
Let's start with what's most significant—just over two weeks ago, Erin gave birth to our fourth child, third son: Moses Kingfisher Clemmons.
Many have asked after the reasoning behind his name, at least the first two-thirds of it. In many ways, I think that names mean like poems—that is, they say precisely what they mean, and any extraneous explanation and commentary take away from rather than adds to the effect and clarity of its meaning.
I think of the story (which I can no longer verify, and so may have made up) of T.S. Eliot reading "The Wasteland" to an audience. Some wag stood up after the reading and asked Mr. Eliot "what the poem meant," to which Eliot responded by reading the poem, in its entirety, again.
Here's an explanation all the same:
Moses: when we learned we were expecting a boy (much to our surprise and possibly chagrin), Erin decided we needed to settle on a name quickly, so as to have a ready means by which to bond with the lad. She also decided that it was time for a Bible name. The names of our children thus far weren't un-Biblical, really, it's just that they're nearest referents were more literary, familial, poetical. The prophet Ezekiel and apostle Thomas had made previous appearances, but no Bible name had yet achieved pole position. Based on a recent re-reading of Exodus, Erin was drawn to Moses, particularly his faithfulness to Yahweh during the wilderness rebellion, and so began a months-long process of convincing me. Suffice it to say I was eventually convinced, and happily so.
Kingfisher: For the majority of our marriage now, Erin has been a birder, which means I've been a secondhand birder, which means in this household we appreciate birds. We've long loved kingfishers, since the earliest days of watching our local one hunt the reservoir near our apartment, belting out its dolphinsqueal call and fishing with a gravity-bending deftness of wing. They're extraordinary aeronauts, acrobats of air and water. It's no wonder that Hopkins, in one of the poems dearest to me, found the best way to describe their motion as "catching fire." (There were also a few weeks where I tried earnestly and failed earnestly to convince Erin [and myself] that the perfect name for the new baby would be Halcyon, which is one of my favorite English words and also the fascinating Greek word for, you guessed it, "kingfisher." Alas, we decided the name had an unavoidably feminine ring, and lacked the precise music we were going for.)
The real poetry of the name, to my mind, comes from the interplay of the two names. Moses was borne upon the water, and later led God's people through the parted waters. Kingfishers dance above the water, spirit-like, until they pluck their targets from the deep. Moses was the prophet par excellence. Kingfishers have their royal flourish. Moses was born under God's watchful providence, into the chaos of an oppressed people. Kingfishers were once believed to to breed in a nest floating at sea at the winter solstice, charming the wind and waves into calm (I still believe this, fwiw). I leave the remaining resonances as an exercise for the reader. After all, names, like poems, are irreducible to their constituent parts.
The transition from zero to one child remains the wildest, and we've found one to two and two to three progressively tamer by comparison. I had assumed that the transition from three to four children would continue the trend line, but I've been surprised to find myself more overwhelmed than expected. At three children, you're outnumbered, but you maintain significant enough advantages in size and development that you can keep your edge. Four is the first time I feel genuinely outgunned. But what weapons:
Ordination &c.
Since last newsletter, I was also ordained to the priesthood in Christ's one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. Thanks be to God!
It was a ceremony by turns glorious and overwhelming and humble and fitting. The vesper light poured in through the westward windows. It bounced off the floor and into my eyes as I lay prostrate under the Veni Creator Spiritus. I remain surprised that I did not pass out several times.
I was grateful to have my family and friends old & new present for the ceremony—to look out in a congregation and see dozens and dozens of faces, each of whom I love: a crosscut of the relational strata sedimented into my call to the priesthood. I know even more could not be in attendance, but were present in spirit.
I was especially grateful for the participation of my college pastors: Fr. Ross Guthrie, who preached an exhortation-sermon I'm still reeling from and Fr. Ben Williams, who with characteristic humility served as deacon. Within a decade we've each become Anglican priests by our own winding ways, and so I can't help but be bullish on the prospects of Anglicanism in the 21st century.
People have asked if I feel different, now that I've been permanently appointed, set aside, equipped and charged "to teach, to warn, to feed, and to provide for the Lord’s family, and to seek for Christ’s sheep who are in the midst of this fallen world, that they may be saved through Christ for ever." My default answer has been: "I suppose however I feel is the way a priest feels." It's been one small way of learning to affirm that God has made me a priest in His church, whatever my particular feeling about that in the moment, and that I had better put my entire self into the calling.
I've been "Deacon Zack" for so long at Christ the King that most people have taken at least a month to switch over to addressing me as "Father Zack" without a pause to think it through. I too feel the disorientation of the name change. It's a strange thing, both to have those many years my senior call me Father and to have the youth to whom I am primary minister refer to me as the same. In both cases, it's a challenge and an exhortation—God has given you responsibility for this person’s spiritual welfare and development—how shall you respond today?
It is a privilege of such immensity that even from the inside I can only glimpse a sliver--to serve at the table of the Lord Jesus Christ, to offer him to the world in word and sacrament. I pray I might be made "axios;" I pray I might decrease that He would increase.
Scenes cont
photos from Birmingham, AL | august-november 2023
Status Board
Reading: Dante's Indiana was my paternity leave book—a comic novel about an erstwhile professor who ends up a consultant for a theme park based on Dante's Divine Comedy. Boyogoda bites off a lot, in terms of cultural targets, but the chewing is worthwhile.
I'm now two novellas into George Eliot's three Scenes of Clerical Life. Whether it's Eliot or Trollope, I always find it both pleasantly familiar and foreign-enough-to-be-escapist to wander through rural England and watch Anglican clergy navigate the mundane and the transcendent in the pleasant and not unsympathetic company of an indulgent narrator.Listening: Autumnal vibes are finally peaking in Alabama, so it's once again Vashti Bunyan season. I've also been enjoying the 60s-tinged jangle of Cut Worms eponymous album.
Viewing: New baby means a new iteration of late-night-wakeful-baby film watching. So far Moses & I have watched two parts of Kieslowski's Dekalog and EO, a trippy tour of Eastern Europe with a donkey protagonist.
Food & Drink: Nothing too fancy, but Erin & I have been pleased to discover that CAVA has definitively nailed the fast-casual version of Mediterranean food. If I can find multiple brined and pickled toppings on your assembly line, you're alright by me, and CAVA has now provided both a solid birthday dinner and a clutch pre-induction dinner. Also the kids were big fans of these donuts from Hero:
Prayer Requests
The best way to support us is to join with the Son in remembering us before the Father. If you’d like to pray with and for us, here are some things you can remember:
join us in praising God for the safe arrival of Moses Kingfisher!
that we would quickly adjust to the demands and new rhythms of a family of six
that Erin’s recovery and work in homeschooling the children would both go smoothly
that Zack would establish good foundational habits as a priest
that Zack would be able to build a new chicken coop efficiently and without losing his mind (he is not great at such projecs)
that our children would come to love the Word of God, and that we would be faithful and diligent to teach it to them
We’d also like to pray with and for you! If you’re reading this, you’re probably already in our prayers, but we’d love to know more specifically what we can pray for. You can text us, of course, or you can email us prayer requests at clemmonsonmission@gmail.com
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My mind is blown about "halcyon" in Greek. Ay yi yi, that's amazing.