Thank God for dad’s collar

Chris Monroe (a/k/a Paradoxology or Desert Pastor) has an interesting post about clerical collars that reminded me of my father.

In the summer of 2000, a pastor friend suggested that dad buy a clerical collar for emergencies. This might not seem noteworthy, except that my father is an inner city pastor that one national magazine described as "Not your grandmother's pastor" because of his earrings and tattoos and preference for Harleys. But because he is first and foremost a "fisher of men," he understood why a collar could be helpful in a crisis, bought one, and never used it. It was hanging in his closet until the morning on 9/11, when the planes hit the WTC and he responded. On his way to Ground Zero from a breakfast appointment in midtown Manhattan, the still small voice of the Holy Spirit reminded him of his collar. To this day I thank God for that collar -- which may well have saved his life -- because he took the detour and, as a result, arrived at Ground Zero 10 minutes after the second tower collapsed. After FDNY chaplain Father Mychal Judge died, my dad was the only identifiable clergyman on site, identifiable in the mayhem and destruction strictly because of his collar. That day, he became for many at Ground Zero the only visible reminder that God was still present, even in the midst of the horror.