Faces of West County: The Reverend Roderick Neil McAulay (aka Rod)

I wanted to end the year/start the year on an upbeat, hopeful note, and I think I found just the right guy to help do that.

Rod McAuley is the former rector of St. Stephen’s Episcopal in Sebastopol

If you don’t already read Nicholas Kristof columns whenever you can, start now. The guy has a knack of getting it right, and in an uplifting way. His end-of-the-year piece is no exception.

Kristof points out how the world may be rotten, but there are many reasons to believe it’s actually getting better, despite the doom and gloom. He points out how “human beings have a cognitive bias toward bad news (keeping us alert and alive)…” which partially explains why many of us are constantly feeling the weight of the world and the downward spiral we sense is in motion. I’m certainly in that camp.

So I too wanted to end the year/start the year on an upbeat, hopeful note, and I think I found just the right guy to help do that.

Rod McAuley has been a neighbor of ours for more than 20 years, but I really didn’t get to know about him until we sat down next to his Christmas tree in the last days of ’22. I wanted to chat with someone who I assumed was thoughtful, learned, introspective, and old enough to have collected more wisdom than me. I found that guy just on the other side of our fence.

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Where and when were you born?

Sacramento, in March of ’44. I’m 78. My dad was pure Scottish, while my mother had English/Dutch roots.

How long have you been here in Sebastopol?

We came here in June of 2001 to take the position at St. Stephen’s church as rector.

So you’re a “rector”?

I’m an ordained priest, which makes me a reverend. In the Episcopal Church, if you’re serving a self-supporting church, like St. Stephen’s, you’re called a rector.

I’m actually on the cusp of the shift away from all male clergy. I would have been called “Father Rod,” and some of our older members do, but I’m happier with Rod.

How did you come to be a religious leader of any sort?

Well, I’ve got a 160-page book upstairs called “On Becoming a Priest” that gives the longer version of the answer. …. I practiced law (Stanford Law School!) for 27 years, starting off doing civil rights law. I did school desegregation litigation for the justice department in Washington, DC. Everyone in our department got assigned two states: one in the south, and one in the north. My southern state was Florida, working in the peanut and catfish part of the state in the panhandle. My northern state was Indiana.

After the second World War, Indiana outlawed separate schools for white and black children, but it was the de facto truth that there were two sorts of schools, and the reality of segregation was sustained, in spite of any laws to the contrary.

So did you win the suit?

We won the suit, and they began undoing what they had begun back in the twenties. But the truth is, they’re still working on it. So we won that battle, but not the war.

How did you get out here?

We were born here!

We didn’t really like living on the east coast and found our way to Seattle, where I practiced law for 20 years. I did mostly commercial law, representing small businesses.

What I really had a passion for was governance, and so I got hired as a senior counsel for the Washington State Senate. That got me out of the courtroom and was much more satisfying.

The problem was that the senate was only in session for two or three months a year, so I didn’t have much to do when the legislators left Olympia.

One day in my office, I was sitting looking at the walls, and I’m thinking that my mother didn’t raise me to do this.

While in Seattle, Mary and I had become active in the Episcopal Church, sitting on boards, teaching, and in the choir. Our parish there, also called St. Stephen’s, had an especially good music department. Music plays a big role in our church services.

Music has always played a big role in my own life as well. I studied piano and clarinet at the San Francisco Music Conservatory.

Music is like the blood veins to the church liturgy. Singing in the choir was the most spiritual experience in my life. That brought the liturgy to life for me.

I also enjoyed teaching at church, and eventually fellow church people encouraged me to become a priest. And so it began. …. I was probably ready for a change.

Where did you study?

We sold our home in Olympia after our daughter graduated from college, and I enrolled in the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, which is the west coast Episcopal seminary in Berkeley. I was there from ’96 to ’99.

When I graduated, I served as an assisting rector in Palo Alto, and then had an opportunity to come to Sebastopol. This was really the sole parish that I served. I was the rector from ’01 to ’11. I’ve never had a minute of regret moving from a career in law to the clergy. They were the most satisfying years of my life.

I’m a Jew, culturally, ethnically, and to my very core. But I’d say I’m a post-Torah Jew. (I made up that status.)  I can’t pretend that scripture, the Bible, informs my behavior or beliefs. … How does scripture guide you? What do you get from the biblical texts?

We Episcopalians are probably closer to you [Jews] than to the fundamentalist churches. We are more like Reformed Jews in how we let scripture influence our lives. I personally get excited digging into the texts, because all of scripture is about being in community, in relationship, with God. It’s always a rich thing for me.

What brings you joy?

Oh, a lot of things. What I preach is that we all have souls made by our creator. God lives in all of us. When we open the portal to our souls, we find joy. Why we were created at all. Music does that for me. I feel that hiking in the Sierras too, but it’s in human relationships, and friendships, that I find the most joy.

You’ve officiated over many funerals, and probably still do. Is there a universal message that you try to relate?

I usually blend the good news of the deceased, with the good news of the gospel. I try to make the lives of the deceased the sermon itself, using their example as a teaching and an inspiration.

What gives you hope?

My hope is that our souls are connected to God. I’ve always avoided trying to answer why Jesus was here at all. But for me, he is God come amongst us, to show us what it means to be fully human. … We all struggle to be fully human, but when we teach, when we heal, when we smile on each other, that’s when I have hope. When our humanity pushes forth.

What might surprise us about you?

I’m not full of surprises. Maybe a Freudian will find something of value here, but I love trains. I always have. At the age of two, I somehow wandered off out of our house. My mother was absolutely frantic. She searched all over for me, and finally found me at some nearby train tracks, just watching trains go by. I still love trains.

Do you have a recent book or movie to suggest?

We just watched A River Runs Through It. It’s a gorgeous film with scenes of Montana, and the story about family relationships is very compelling.

Favorite Mimi’s flavor?

Mimi’s is way beyond my budget. Let’s say Rocky Road at Rite Aid. And, of course, the Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia.

As a hiking enthusiast, what’s your favorite local hike?

Locally I’d say a good loop out at Jenner Headlands.

Farther away, I really loved the South West Coast Path around Cornwall and Devon, below Wales. I’ve gone 100 miles there over six or seven days. You hike for 10 or 12 miles, stay at a B & B, and then head for the pubs and some local ale. … Now that brings me joy!

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Rod’s book, On Becoming a Priest, concludes with these words and this quote:

In closing, I would say to my friends and relatives and to any curious person who has read this far that I sought ordination in the Episcopal Church and have continued in my vocation because first and last, it makes my heart happy. The words of John O’Donohue are appropriate here:

            “The soul needs love as urgently as the body needs air. In the warmth of love, the soul can be itself. All the possibilities of your human destiny are asleep in your soul. You are here to realize and honor the possibilities. When love comes into your life, unrecognized dimensions of your destiny awaken and blossom and grow.”