Father Jerry Kramer of Episcopal Church of the Anunciation has resigned after non-stop work before and after Hurricane Katrina. This faithful priest cared for all who came through the doors of his church and ministry centers and he will be greatly missed.
This article on Father Kramer is very well written and gives a behind-the-scenes look of all that comes with a life in vocational ministry as a priest. Here's a great quote from the article:
Annunciation's admirers often repeat a Harvard University planning consultant's remark that it was "hard to tell where the church stopped and the neighborhood started." "I worked really hard to erase those lines, " [Father] Kramer
said.
Really worth a read here or see below:
http://www.nola.com/hurricane/index.ssf/2009/09/post_3.html----
Episcopal priest who moved mountains after Katrina resigns
By Bruce Nolan, The Times-Picayune
September 27, 2009, 5:50AM
The Rev. Jerry Kramer, a hyper-energetic Episcopal priest who transformed a small neighborhood church into a powerhouse that helped drive the post-Katrina recovery of the entire Broadmoor neighborhood, stunned his parishioners last week with news that, sick and exhausted, he has resigned.
In an accompanying e-mail message, Kramer said that if he recovers after several months on a temporary medical disability, he hopes next year to return to missionary work in Tanzania with his wife and two children.
"But I have to get well to do that, " he said last week. "I need some rest. I absolutely need some rest.
"I haven't been able to put in a full day (of work) in over a year."
In the four years since Katrina, Kramer developed a reputation as a innovative priest who, from the moment he paddled up to his flooded church on South Claiborne Avenue, merged its recovery with the recovery of the surrounding neighborhood.
"I think before he arrived, we were trying to figure out what our mission was, " said Martha McKnight, the head of the vestry at Kramer's Free Church of the Annunciation.
"Boy, did Katrina take care of that."
Finding faith in community
The storm and the flood battered but also recharged the church body, members said.
"At a time like that, all you're left with is your people -- your people and the community, " said Duane Nettles, a parish relief administrator.
"Annunciation very quickly looked out and said, 'We're hurting, but so are all these folks. How can we put ourselves together when they're in such disarray?' "
Intense, pragmatic and unconventional, Kramer found recovery partners, spun off ideas and launched neighborhood initiatives at a rapid clip, Nettles and others said.
"He's a guy who lives at full volume, " said Nettles. "My goal, being around him every day, was just to stay on."
Kramer and his parishioners decided to put off repairing their ruined buildings.
Instead, they funneled incoming donations and relief money into providing food, household supplies, walk-up medical care and day care for all comers, especially Broadmoor homeowners fighting to return.
Annunciation's damaged buildings became warehouses that distributed food and supplies to more than 85,000 walk-ups, said Nettles, who now runs the Annunciation Mission, a parish-based rebuilding nonprofit group.
Kramer and parish leaders trucked in two mobile homes that served several roles. For months, they morphed daily from the congregation's worship space, to offices for case managers assisting local families, to overnight housing for volunteers gutting homes.
A base of operations
Although gutting was finished long ago, Nettles said Annunciation still houses 2,000 volunteers a year, almost all of them working in Broadmoor, a neighborhood of more than 2,200 homes and businesses that took up to 9 feet of water.
The trailers also became a base for the Broadmoor Improvement Association, a neighborhood association that developed into one of the city's most sophisticated planning and recovery entities.
The association is still housed in more permanent offices on church property.
"Jerry's impact on Broadmoor and the city is absolutely huge, " said Hal Roark, the head of the Broadmoor Development Corp., which grew out of the recovery. "He's absolutely one of the five or so top leaders who made the most impact on Broadmoor."
Annunciation's admirers often repeat a Harvard University planning consultant's remark that it was "hard to tell where the church stopped and the neighborhood started."
"I worked really hard to erase those lines, " Kramer said.
'A great gift to us'
Kramer's friends say he seemed to thrive in the chaos after the storm, where problem-solving invited blowing up traditional ways of thinking. "I like to break rules, " Kramer said.
"He used to say, 'Better to be fluid than to be flexible, because flexible is too rigid, " Roark remembered.
"If you believe in Providence or the beneficence of the universe, he was a great gift to us, " said McKnight. "He's great in a crisis, a great manager. An example of living by faith. Having him come just as everything went to hell in a handbasket was so fortunate."
But now, Kramer, 41, said he struggles to control Type 2 diabetes that twice hospitalized him last month. He said doctors found cardiac damage from an undetected heart attack several years ago.
And psychologically, Kramer said he is spent, another of Katrina's post-traumatic stress victims -- much like his own bishop, Charles Jenkins, who will take early retirement in December as another self-described Katrina casualty.
Jenkins, who supported Kramer's leave application, said the terms of the priest's disability status require that he cease work now. Kramer's announcement to his flock last Sunday was his last appearance in the pulpit, with no chance to wind down his presence among the 150 people in Annunciation's congregation.
In the wake of the announcement, "this last week was atrocious" emotionally, he said.
But Kramer considers himself spent. And he believes it is time for him to leave.
"It is so clear that God brought us here for Katrina, " he said last week. "But now that's done. The leader who gets an institution through a crisis has to know when the crisis is over.
"If I keep hanging around, they'll stay in Katrina mode. And they have to move on from that."
And Kramer said he has to find a new future for himself and his family, as well.
"God can't catch you until you've jumped off a cliff, " he said. "So we're jumping off a cliff."
Bruce Nolan can be reached at
bnolan@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3344.
