Readings for the Feast Day of William White
This reflection was shared at the monthly gathering of Associates and Oblates of the Community of the Transfiguration on July 17, 2026
According to Friedrich Nietzsche (who understood Christianity better than most), “The essential thing ‘in heaven and earth’ is… that there should be long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living.” Today, the average tenure for an Episcopal priest to serve in a parish is 4 to 6 years. Although William White held several offices during his lifetime—including chaplain of the Continental Congress and the US Senate, the first Bishop of Pennsylvania, as well as the first and fourth Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church—Bishop White remained the rector of Christ Church Philadelphia for 64 years. Bishop White certainly understood “long obedience in the same direction.”
Episcopal priest and author Sam Portaro writes, “The secret to [Bishop White’s] longevity is no miracle; the collect for his day describes him as a man endowed with ‘wisdom, patience, and a reconciling temper’ whose ministry and example led his church, in both its local and national manifestations, ‘into ways of stability and peace.’”[1] While his colleague Bishop Samuel Seabury could occasionally be an abrasive firebrand,[2] Bishop White was known for his “reconciling temper,” thus living up to Paul’s high expectations for a bishop to be, among many other things, “not violent but gentle.” The original Greek word for “gentle” is epieikes, which also means patient; and patience is one of the lessons to be gleaned from the Parable of the Mustard Seed, that tiny seed that grows into a great shrub, providing shade and solace for birds. As the author of the Constitution of the Episcopal Church and the architect of its bicameral polity, Bishop White would likely be surprised to learn that the relatively small group of Episcopalians in his day (about 10,000) would eventually become a few million; and that the church he helped found would spark the creation of a global communion of over 80 million members by proving that Anglicanism could successfully adapt, organize, and thrive as an independent church outside the British Empire. This is just one of the fruits of that long obedience in the same direction, which makes life worth living.
[1] Sam Portaro, Brightest and Best: A Companion to the Lesser Feasts and Fasts (Cambridge MA: Cowley, 1998), 115.
[2] See “The Perseverance of Samuel Seabury” (November 14, 2025) here: https://deforest.london/2025/11/14/the-perseverance-of-samuel-seabury/
DANIEL DeFOREST LONDON 