Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

So how do you measure a year?

A year ago, in another ‘apolis — Minneapolis — Elder Cynthia (Cindy) Bolbach was elected moderator of the 219^th General Assembly and the Rev. Landon Whitsitt was seated as vice-moderator.

Joined by the members of the Presbyterian Youth Film Crew at Big Tent here, the Presbyterian News Service sat down with Bolbach and Whitsitt to ― in the words of Lewis Carroll ― “talk of many things” (but, alas, not “of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings.”)

For Bolbach, her first year as moderator has been momentous.

“It’s been a substantial year with passage of Amendment 10-A and the adoption of the New Form of Government (NFoG),” she said. “It’s been quite awhile since a General Assembly has put out for adoption items as significant and meaningful as these two.”

Here, Whitsitt piped up.

“I was telling Cindy that we should take our second year off since our first one was so successful.”

Both broke out in laughter, which became heartier when it was suggested that some people might agree with him.

Bolbach recounted a surprising eye-opener early in her tenure. In a denomination that prides itself on working through problems “decently and in order,” and where Robert’s Rules of Order is often considered the third tenet of faith behind the Book of Order and the Book of Confessions, Bolbach was amazed not to find a “Handbook for the Moderator.”

“Nobody tells the moderator what to do,” she said. “We are totally able to decide what we wish to do, where we wish to go.”

Bolbach assembled her itinerary from among the many standing and other invitations traditionally offered to the moderator.

To the surprise of each, during their travels neither has encountered any “road rage.”

“I was prepared ― and fully expecting ― resistance and arguing and nit-picking,” said Whitsitt. “Instead, I learned that we’re pretty much all on the same page about where we need to go … and we’re having some pretty significant discussions about how to get there. There’s no head-in-the-sand here. We all know we need to be creative.”

“I knew people held great respect for the moderator,” Bolbach said, but she didn’t realize how much. “I haven’t received any ‘nasty-grams.’ No one has button-holed me screaming, ‘How could you let the church do this!?’”

It is the simple act of people standing as the moderator enters a room that rings the loudest for Bolbach.

“The act of standing for me ― as a symbol of the General Assembly ― recognizes the affection and respect people have for the General Assembly, and it’s happened for me at some presbytery meetings which voted down 10-A and nFoG, but did so decently and in order.”

A year from now, in Pittsburgh, both will pass their batons of leadership to a new duo. What advice can they provide their successors?

“Go to the bathroom every chance you get,” Whitsitt responded without hesitation. That line, borrowed with due credit from the 218^th General Assembly Moderator Bruce Reyes-Chow, cracked up everyone within earshot.

Yet, Bolbach said, there’s a lot of truth in Whitsitt’s witticism. While she knew what to expect during the General Assembly, it took awhile to figure out the “What will I do today?” aspect of her position.

“I was a bit out to sea (about my duties). I would suggest that anyone interested in ― or considering ― standing for moderator start thinking about what they might like to do in the position,” she said.

When her term ends at the 220^th General Assembly, Bolbach will return to her secular job in Washington, where she admitted that part of her post-moderator life will consist of answering the question, “So tell me, what was it you were doing exactly?”

Whitsitt won’t be returning to his pulpit at First Presbyterian Church in Liberty, Mo.

“Just this week I accepted a call as executive/stated clerk at the Synod of Mid-America,” he said.

While both know where they’re going, both agree life will be much different following their turn in the national spotlight.

For Whitsitt, “I can already see how it’s gonna be a huge relief and a huge grieving process to let something this significant in my life go.”

Bolbach shared parts of a recent conversation she had with former Moderator Pat Brown. “She said, ‘You change. It is more difficult for a Teaching Elder (a minister of the Word and Sacrament) going back to a parish since you’ve had the national exposure.’”

While it may be easier dropping back into secular life, Bolbach agreed, “You have to transition into being a former moderator.”

But, that will be then. This is now.

The Presbyterian Youth Film Crew made the most of this opportunity with the moderator and vice moderator ― they asked them the same questions they were asking everyone else as they built a video diary about the June 30-July 2 Big Tent.  

It is here we discovered that if Bolbach and Whitsitt didn’t already have jobs, they would have made a great comedy duo.

“Do you have any embarrassing stories?” they were asked.

Wryly, the moderator declared, “I don’t anything that embarrasses me,” eliciting a few chuckles.

Whitsitt drew from a recent Sunday at First-Liberty.

“I was promoting Vacation Bible School, discussing the stories we’d be taking a closer look at, stories like Jonah and the whale, Baalam and his talking donkey …  almost immediately from the back of room came ‘Oh, you mean you?’”

Bolbach said nametags help avoid some embarrassment … but not all.

“It’s easier for people to remember me, but, with all my travels, I don’t always necessarily remember you,” she said. “I was having a conversation with a person at lunch today. ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘you’re from North Dakota’ to which this person told me, ‘We had this conversation yesterday.’… ‘Oh, yes we did, didn’t we,’” her voice trailing off into self-deprecating laughter.

Asked about practical jokes, Bolbach admitted that “Nobody’s played a practical joke on me yet,” but allowed as how the film crew still had a whole day left …

The vice-moderator hasn’t been so lucky. “During a recent lock-in for our youth group, they switched-out my water for some really flat 7-Up,” he said. “In the middle of my sermon, I grabbed for what I thought was water ― it was yucky!  I almost spit it out while the congregation laughed.”

The crew scored a big hit with their next question: “How about any crazy sermons have you heard?

Before the innocent question is fully formed, it is drowned out by a great explosion of laughter in the now-crowded Big Tent newsroom.

Diplomatically, both thought for a long moment then answered, “No-o-o.”

However, Bolbach offered that she did find it a bit odd that, during a tornado warning in the midst of a Chicago service, everyone was asked ― counter-intuitively, she thought ― to gather in the center aisle, right under the vaulted ceiling. Happily, the tornado never hit so she never got the chance to find out the effectiveness of that gathering plan.

One other thing that Bolbach hasn’t found during her first year as moderator: a picture of her in the Presbyterian News Service wearing a temporary tattoo of a sheep ― the Sweaty Sheep ministry of Mid-Kentucky Presbytery was handing them out in the Big Tent exhibit hall ― on her forehead. “Not gonna happen,” she said, rejecting the placement suggestion.

Of course, we still have 12 months until Pittsburgh.

Jim Nedelka is a radio news reporter in New York and an elder at West-Park Presbyterian Church in Manhattan.