17 minute read
Out of the Ashes
Out of the Ashes: Church of the Nativity, Northborough navigates redesign of fire-damaged sanctuary
The Rev. Vicki Ix, managing editor of ABUNDANT Times
The Rev. Vicki Ix, managing editor of ABUNDANT Times and diocesan Canon for Communications, interviewed the priest-in-charge and senior warden of Church of the Nativity in Northborough almost five months after an electrical fire that destroyed the nave. This conversation was recorded and redacted for length and clarity.
Editor: I have a couple of dates that I want to talk about. The first is February 1st, when Meghan came on board as deacon-in-charge. Just what was it like at the beginning of your work together as a new deacon-in-charge and a senior warden? Either one of you can start there.
Hesek, senior warden: Well, I was thrilled. Rich Simpson [Canon to the Ordinary], had called and talked to me about someone that he had just had lunch with and was excited about and it just seemed like all the pieces were falling together. We had the facility [rectory] that was going to work for Megan and her family. And then after meeting with her and the junior warden, it was just, you know, wonderful, and seemed like it was going to be a wonderful fit, which turned out it was.
Editor: Meghan, early days, how was that for you?
The Rev. Meghan Mantler: Well, early days of course seemed a bit like a dream come true, that I could walk into a space and it was sort of my own. So it was sort of like, this is my place, these are my people. And it was fun learning everyone’s stories. I just dove right into everyone’s stories and just spending lots of time with people. And then Deb would meet with me on Fridays. We would sort of have a summary of the week and she’d always say, “What can I do for you?”
Editor: Oh, how wonderful. You’ve got a good one, Meghan.
Mantler: I do. I do.
Editor: You had 10 weeks, and then the fire happened in the early morning hours of April 9th. Could you give us a sense of what that night was like for both of you?
Hesek: Well, I got a call at, I can’t remember what, one or two o’clock in the morning from the Northborough Fire Department to come down because they had first gone to the rectory, of course, and nobody was living there yet. The emergency number that they still had on file was for Chad [McCabe, former rector]. So, they called him in Tennessee and he gave them some numbers here. I was close by and so I went down to find the church circled with firefighters and all of that. The fire had been contained by the time that I arrived, but, as Meghan reminded me, I said, “It’s only a little fire,” because at that point it really did look like that. The firefighters believed that the preschool was not affected. Soon we discovered that that was not the case. The water and smoke had gone down and had really affected quite a bit of the rest of the church was still decked out with all our Easter splendor. And so to see all of that destroyed was just kind of poignant.
Editor: So you were first on the scene.
Hesek: I was. I didn’t call anyone in the middle of the night because there was not anything that anyone could do. I’m a very practical kind of person. I’m not going to wake and disturb people when there’s nothing to be done at that point. So, early in the morning I let [Meghan] know.
Editor: What an unselfish thing, to hold all that sadness and tragedy in your own heart and let other people get a few more Z’s. You’re a good woman.
Mantler: Story of Deb Hesek, I’ll tell you that. She holds a lot for a lot of people. I saw that it was Deb calling me at 5:30, 6:30 in the morning, and I thought, “Oh, no. What’s wrong at the church?” I answered and she said, “Meghan, I’m just calling to let you know that there was a little fire in the nave.” And I went, “Oh, how big?” And she said, “Well, you know, there’s a lot of charring in the left side. It started at 1:30” and she went through the whole story. Being a social worker, I’ve gotten really bad news before and had to sort of think about what to do first. I knew Deb was leaving for work and I was actually happy she was going to work because Deb has held this church together for so long. She has had to be the one opening and closing this building for the year that they didn’t have somebody. And now, now I was here. I could take the baton and actually lead through this crisis.
We probably got to the church around 8 o’clock. And at that point I actually had this “women in ministry” moment because I was walking up to the scene with a bunch of firefighters and building department officials, and they were all men. I thought, “Yeah, I’m new. I’m a deacon and I’m a woman, and I can do this.”
The other interesting thing that happened that morning was that I knew that my first call needed to be Rich. He had already texted me, because he had found out in the middle of the night as well, and also waited until the morning to talk to me. And he wrote, “When you wake up, you will have already known about the fire. Give me a call.” So after I talked to Deb, the first call I made was Rich. And he said, “Let me know if you need me.” And luckily he lives in Worcester.
Editor: I know Rich spent a lot of Sundays with you.
Hesek: Yeah, he did spend a lot of Sundays with us and he’s been a great support. But I do have to say that I’ve been senior warden to three priests. And Meghan is by far the most capable watching how she has navigated through all of this and all of the dealings. I can’t say how strongly I feel about this. No one else would have done as well as she’s doing it now. Don’t get me wrong. There’s so much more to be done. We’re really in the thick of it.
Editor: Mm-hmm. Well, how are things? There’s probably been a physical, financial timeline here of how things are going, but there’s also this other level of people’s emotional wellness in the community and how you move people from sadness, shock, and grief—through that whole Paschal Mystery to new life. And that’s where I can say that Meghan just excelled, Deb. I’ve taken workshops in crisis communications as part of my work, but I’ve never seen someone so naturally make that leap as a spiritual leader in a crisis to say, “We are the body of Christ, whether we’re in our building or we’re not in our building, we are God’s own and we will make this journey together from ashes to resurrection.” It was just spot-on communication and I expect it was what your people needed to hear at the time.
Hesek: Right, absolutely. We arranged to have a tent so that we did not even skip a Sunday worshipping together. So, that was a huge thing. We had, you know, people come back that hadn’t been coming as they heard about what was going on. But it’s been an interesting period because not only are we resurrecting from the fire, we’re also celebrating Meghan’s new ministry. And so that is giving a new spark and a new life to the congregation. We’re having new people coming, old people coming. I don’t mean old, I’m old, but former people coming back and revisiting Nativity. So there’s a lot of life that’s happening through the midst of all of this, as well as people who’ve been here and wondering, “Well, is it going to be the same? Is it going to be different? What’s going to happen?” And so we’re deciding how to reconstruct the nave.
Editor: Tell me about that process. What kinds of things do you have to decide at this point in the recovery?
Mantler: Yeah, good question. Nativity’s main priority right now is absolutely to get our preschool back up and running so that we can give access to affordable and flexible child care. That is our number one priority. We can worship and we can still do the work of the people and glorify God without needing our space rebuilt. We need the preschool back together.
We’ve needed to think about are who we are as the people. We’ve had to think about the fact that Nativity has a history of contemporary worship but in a building that was built in 1960. So, how do we embrace or honor the past and embrace who we are now? We’ve thought a lot about that in our space, but we’ve also realized the scope of work that needs to be done. All of the ADA accessibility elements will be part of the repair and that will necessitate a change to our nave, which is a fantastic thing, but it’s also going to be a huge change for everyone because the building was built before any of these laws were in place. So, the whole scope of what the chancel will look like has to change because of ramps, because of accessibility, and we’ve had to make decisions. Do we want chairs? Do we want pews? How do you honor the beautiful, handmade, hand-designed stained-glass windows? They weren’t designed by a company. They were designed by Nativity members and soldered and installed by members. How do we take those colors and actually create the color scheme for the new nave?
Those are all the things that our design committee has been working on, and we have it split between members of our 8:15 and our 10 o’clock so that everyone’s voice is equally heard. We have members of both praise band and organ choir so that everyone’s voice is heard, young and old, as well. That’s one of the miracles in all of this with the fire. Our nave is literally down to the studs. There’s nothing left. The ceilings are wood so they have to be cleaned and restored because there’s smoke damage. But the windows, the stained glass windows are perfect. And so the construction team is only designing things to enhance them—both visually and structurally.
Hesek: Like Meghan said, they were designed and constructed by hand by Nativity members.
Editor: And they survived.
Hesek: And they survived. And it’s a real blessing. But the nave is going to look very different. It’ll have some elements that will be the same. Our altar was destroyed by the water and the smoke, so we have to redesign that as well as, as Meghan was saying, the space all around the altar. We have to be careful to honor everyone’s feelings.
We are [currently] worshiping in our hall, which we had transitioned to at one point, and it was just a year and a half ago that we had gone back to all services back in the nave. So when we went back to worshipping in the hall, some people are happier there. They like it brighter and lighter. It’s a balance. The early service is much more traditional, with organ music. It’s quieter, much simpler. And the 10 o’clock is a service with a praise band. Everyone has a different style of worship, people meet God in different places, in different ways. Everyone has a different feel to how they worship and where they can connect with God. So we’re trying to honor that in all of our decisions and be guided by our design team and so we can please everyone.
Editor: It sounds like your process has been holy. You’ve really been listening and bringing in all the voices that need to be part of a conversation like this, so that when this new sanctuary comes to life, everybody will have a spiritual stake in it.
Mantler: Definitely. I think that the way the smoke and water damage happened, we actually have an opportunity to repaint and redo the hallway of offices.
The Trinity is always working and lifegiving and sustaining and advocating. What we found when we were walking through is it doesn’t need to go back to the same way it was. What do we need now? Do we need more storage? Do we need a workroom versus offices with desks? And we are rearranging the hall of offices to actually make it more functional for ministry. I think that that’s really important because while one of the reasons that I feel at home at Nativity is because the Spirit is so malleable here with everyone, even more so it is allowing those that have that within them to show that during this process. We’ve been able to say, “We don’t need this. Why don’t we do this?”
Deb mentioned that it was Easter 2. The fire was the day after Easter 2, and our lilies and tulips were charred, charred to a crisp, like they were on a barbecue. And all 12 of them are currently in our front yard with brand new blooms, and I’m bringing them in for the first week that we celebrate Creation Season, and they will be our altar flowers.
Editor: Oh my gosh! They survived!
Hesek: It really is amazing. The construction people didn’t throw them into the dumpster. I would have. But they put them out.
Mantler: They put them out on a bench. They’ve just been out there all summer getting the sun and the rain. No one has done anything to them. It’s all what God provided. I think that’s a tangible sign to the congregation that, even though we can’t do much right now because we’re at the beck and call of the insurance company and all these different tasks, that God is moving.
Editor: About 30 days after this crisis, the Holy Spirit was summoned into your community and the Bishop laid hands on you and made you priest. Tell me what that day was like. I mean, it was going to be a great day anyway, but given what you’d all been through together a month before that, tell me what that day was like for all of you.
Mantler: It was touching that so many people from so many different moments in my life were gathered in one place because all of these folks helped form me into who I am today. And it was so overwhelming because just like the church is made up of the people and not the building, you need the consent of the people to be ordained, to be the shepherd of them.
Hesek: It was a wonderful celebration. We had to overcome some obstacles, like having the reception after in the same place and preparation to really spruce up the hall to have this wonderful event. I know that Meghan did kind of mourn her vision of where she would have had her ordination—the sanctuary as opposed to the hall. We did our best to make it a really special place. But the spirit was there and the music was wonderful and it was a new start for Nativity.
Editor: Tell me about the Zeffy™ fundraiser.
Mantler: As we post on social media and give our official updates, there are always folks that ask, “Is there a way we can help?” And I think that there is a point where there will be things that aren’t covered by insurance. Insurance is limited to what they call, “buckets.” And we don’t have unlimited coverage in all of our buckets. Likely no church does. So there will be things that the town of Northborough and the state of Massachusetts will require that will go over our budget. Therefore, the Zeffy fundraiser is really important.
Editor: Is there anything you want to say to other priests and wardens about how God has been with you in this tragedy.
Mantler: There are so many moments. I’ve taken hundreds of walks through the rubble through the different stages. I did this walking through the rubble of my neighborhood and high school after Katrina watching it go from ashes to resurrection. And the only way to get through something is to talk to God as you walk through. Because the answers will be spoken to you as you walk through the space. Whenever I feel overwhelmed, like I can’t do it anymore, or this is too hard, I walk to the nave, and I stand where the altar was, my hands out, and I just wait to feel that peace again. So you sometimes need to go to the place where you feel most scared and wait for God’s answer.
Editor: That’s beautiful. Deb, how have you felt God’s presence and love and support?
Hesek: It’s always just felt like God’s walking with us. God has shown up and trusting in the Lord, trusting that it is not our church, it’s his church, and that he will get the work done. And it might not be in my time, usually not in my time, not the way I want, but I know that his spirit and his hand is in all of it, and it will get done.
Editor: Thank you. Is there anything else the two of you would like our readers to know about how a congregation gets through a tragedy?
Mantler: Oh, many things. I would say for the priests, read your [insurance] policy. Find out what’s covered so that you know before a tragedy strikes. Get a copy of what they call your “deck,” which is the first 11 pages of your policy and make sure you know what’s covered and how much money you have in each of those buckets because that will help you to plan the resurrection. If you don’t know what to ask for, you’re not going to be able to put together a complete plan.
Hesek: Well, one thing that has been a problem is that most of Meghan’s time has been involved in this. And in the beginning of her ministry, she hasn’t been able to be a priest ministering to her congregation. She has been involved in the details of fighting with the insurance company.
Editor: I’m sure it will take some time down the road for both of you to really move from crisis mode into normal life, the normal life of a church again.
Hesek: We have reinstituted our senior socials.
Mantler: And what’s hilarious is everything’s happening in the hall, because it’s the only usable space in the building. So we’re all set up for worship in one part of the hall. We have half of a preschool in the corner. And the seniors are over there having their lunch, and it felt normal.
Editor: I think you all know something about being church now that you didn’t know before. And what is of ultimate value in the life of a community is breaking the bread and telling the stories and loving each other through things. And so in a sense, what is tragic and sad and something to be grieved really has become a living example for you of new life, what God can do with a mess when we give all those pieces to God. So, like I said, this is such a good news story, and there’s been a lot of love and concern for your community since the early days of this, but we want to tell the story of where you are now and how God has companioned you. I want to thank you both, not just for your time, but for being willing to share some difficult things. I think will be a blessing for our readers.
My last question, because they’re going to want to know. Chairs or pews?
Mantler: We’re doing pews. ♦
