Rev. Bob, We Hardly Knew Ye!

Author: Stan Moody November 16, 2011 Sometime in the wee hours of Sunday morning, November 13, 2011, a desperate man threw himself off the Penobscot Narrows Bridge in Bucksport, ME and drowned in the Penobscot River. Under ordinary circumstances, such an event would merit a headline or two in the Bangor Daily News. This was, however, no ordinary circumstance. This was a reflection on the actions and reactions of an adoring community. By crowning this man with glory, we left him with no escape from what is alleged as a secret life buried beneath the patina of public service. This man of the cloth, who three-days previously had been feted by the Katahdin Area Boy Scouts Council with the Distinguished Citizen Award and honored by three of Maines four congressional delegates, had reached the pinnacle of human achievement and therein found himself undone.
Bridget Brown | BDN

Distinguished Citizen Award: There were five-hundred people in attendance at Rev. Bob Carlsons feting at the Bangor Civic Center. I was privileged to be a guest. Having been a chaplain at Maine State Prison, I was intrigued by this pastor/chaplain/humanitarian so beloved by many and, as with all of us in the public eye, not-so-beloved by others, I am told. The dinner was a fundraiser, to the tune of $100,000, for the Penobscot County Health Care Center that he helped found and for which he tirelessly worked. Something was missing. When he rose to accept the award, this stranger to me but apparently to few others in the Maine criminal justice world demonstrated his skill as a gifted speaker and leader, every bit seemingly a worthy recipient of honor. Yet, there was an unsettling tone to his speech. His demeanor suggested that the climb up Mt Olympus had more to do with the journey than the arrival. Missing was the elation of the runner crossing the finish line. Left unanswered was the question hanging in the air, Where does this guy go from here? Compensating for His Humanity: In hindsight, we are painfully reminded by the allegations that Rev. Bob was human, a flawed state in which he spent a lifetime trying to compensate and that his admirers seemed to resist. In hindsight, we recall that, guilty or innocent, he fit the classic profile of a sex offender prominence in church, police and youth work.

His death having arrived in the very week of the Penn State football scandal, history might well be reminding us of the perils of believing in the inherent goodness of mankind, whether of Rev. Bob or Joe Paterno. The old Yankee ethic of what you see is not always what you get seems to have been lost in our scramble for heroes. We are too eager to crown with glory that person or institution that fits our sense of order, forgetting that the marvel of human existence is its symmetry in the face of extreme dissonance. The church, bestowal of sacred trust on those of us engaged as pastors and chaplains, reels under the crumbling of its gods. It is fast losing its relevancy as a safe haven for those exiled from community life victims of poverty, ignorance, crime, racism, sexism and, yes, sex abuse. The Road Ahead: So where do we go from here? We might begin by rejecting the notion that we can add the good things done by Rev. Bob, subtract the alleged bad things and come to some kind of redeeming mathematical difference. The God that Rev. Bob professed to serve is reported to be beyond linear mathematics. Weighed on a scale of divinity, we all come woefully short. Mathematics becomes our accuser; not our salvation. From there, we might move on to recognize the humanity in our own lives, discovering that the evil that may have been buried beneath Rev. Bobs image was not that far removed from the evil buried in our own histories. Sixteenth Century British reformer and martyr, John Bradford, once said so simply, There but for the grace of God go I. Finally, we might restore to Rev. Bob his humanity, reaching out to his family and his alleged victims and their families, continuing with renewed spirit the work into which he considered himself called. It is citizens like Rev. Bob who instill pride and progress within a community. Yet, it is our responsibility to exercise discernment, allow room for failure, learn from our mistakes and press forward.