Some years ago, Anson Stokes, the Episcopal Bishop of Boston, put the arm on his fellow New Englander, Trevor Hoy, for a substantial donation to his seminary fund.

Trevor was a prominent member of the Episcopal Diocese of California and well-regarded in Berkeley and down the coast for relevant conferences exploring the lineaments of church and culture in the modern world.

Trevor answered Anson: ‘Bishop, when you are interested in what I am doing, I will be interested in what you are doing.’ Anson never developed an interest in what Trevor was doing and did not have his seminary fund enriched from Trevor’s patrimony as a result.

The story was related to me by Trevor when, in 1971, I brought my bride, Germaine Duncan, to meet him. Germaine’s parents were Dyson Duncan and Mildred Stokes Duncan. Anson was her uncle.

Anson presented the Stokes family Bible, an original printing of the King James Version, to Germaine and me as a wedding present. He told me that I was to carry the spiritual escutcheon of the family and of the Church, that this was the significance of the gift. I told him that I would do that, and I have.

Germaine and I were members of the Broadway Congregational United Church of Christ, New York City. We were married there by another New Englander, the Rev. Lawrence Durgin, in the Fall of 1971, just before we traveled to India to see Sathya Sai Baba, Whom I met through Germaine.

Germaine had matriculated to the Master of Religious Education program at the Union Theological Seminary, New York City, some years before I had matriculated to the Bachelor of Divinity (now Master of Divinity) program at the same institution.

Germaine died in 1973. The Stokes family Bible, together with my property, excepting that required for immediate clothing, remained with her family. I became a monastic and received confirmation in the Episcopal Church in the Spring of 1976, after declining to test a vocation as an Anglican Franciscan Primary.

Adwaitha Hermitage was founded in fulfillment of my own nature, my ordination vows, the intent of Germaine Duncan, the charge of Anson Stokes, the approval of Sathya Sai Baba and the skill and loyalty of Mary Graham. The Hermitage is independent of episcopal jurisdiction. Its ancestor is Columban Christianity from Iona. The work of the residents is owned and controlled by themselves.

It is not boastful to say that Adwaitha Hermitage is saturated with talents. And it is not brash to say that St. Thomas Episcopal Church will have benefit of none of it until the leadership sublimates the desire to control what we do. The treatment of our residents by St. Thomas’ leadership has been egregious.

AMDG