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Show A priest? Almost. Orthodox? Hardly. I - V l f V ! I V 1.7 X " A ' " young practical joker untied the eggplant from her waist and to his own. When she awoke in the morning, she said, upon seeing the man with the eggplant, "If that is me there, and I'm sure it is, then who am I here?" Neale then goes on to explain the history of the jester, the joker, "the 53rd card." In the earliest deck of cards still in existence, from 14th century Italy, the jester is there, and he is wearing a crown of thorns. Neale concludes it is Christ who steals our eggplants and dumbfounds dumb-founds us and who is the young fool. It is in that context he compares Steve Fox, "one so lacking in maturity, still innocent, irreverent, irrelevant, and occasionally even incompetent," to being a "young fool." Father Fox seems to delight in expressing things in unexpected ways. When asked about challenges he faces in Park City, he speaks with an impish grin of an "incredibly capitalist society" he'd like to see change. "Rent control in town would certainly be a goal." He envisions a world of "liberated zones" based on a Christian expression of revamped Sixties communes: a place where ages and ideologies would blend. Fox's resume reads like that of Big Nurse in "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest." The job he has held the most consistently since 1974 is that of psychiatric attendant in a variety of state hospitals. His love of working with mental patients comes from his mother, who is a psychiatric ' nurse herself. Fox's parents were divorced when he was three years old. His father was an alcoholic and not heard from after the divorce. "I was a wounded child," he says simply. "I want to work with children for a number of reason, but mostly because they are the future." Don't look for traditional views of heaven and hell from this "young fool." "Hell, for me, would be to spend eternity alone, cut off from the possibility of human contact." And heaven? "That's easy. It would be to be in perfect communion with God and the human order." When asked about the ear cuff he often wears. Father Fox shrugs and says it is just for "fashion." He admits that, when worn with his clerical collar, it can startle a little. "Jesus lived and walked in the margins. I have to be willing to do that also." When not preaching sermons at St. Luke's (as a deacon he can't yet celebrate communion until full ordination as a priest, expected sometime after December) Fox is busy on a book of his own. The first three chapters of the book he completed for his Master of Divinity thesis, "Toward a Global Spirituality." Spirit-uality." In the book Fox hopes to propose alternative methods of living in a "new age." He throws out a thought: "What if we had senior citizen homes which doubled as day care centers for the young?" Fox is in Park City because, he says, "this is where my bishop assigned me." He sees his congregation in need of being reminded of its Anglican traditions. And he will soon offer a course entitled "A hitchhiker's guide to the Episcopal Church." It seems like a class non-Episcopalians might also find challenging, startling and perhaps enlightening. Steven Fox ji by Teri Gomes ;x If the thoughtful-looking young man behind the counter at Dolly's bookstore offers you advice about books on comparative religions, listen. He is a deacon of the Episcopal faith working with the congregation at St. Luke's. By his own admission, he is also a "young fool." Steven Fox recently played a tape I of his ordination held last June 6 at I the Union Theological Seminary in New York. In a sermon delivered by is zi long-time friend and teacher, Dr. Robert Neale, Fox was compared to a joker, a jester, a young fool. But in the most eloquent phrases and in the best of company. Neale told the story of a young woman who was traveling with a large group of friends and, so as not to become lost, she tied an eggplant to her waist. She went to sleep at night in a tranquil state, sure that with her eggplant in place she was secure. But in the middle of the night a |
