A Lesson from Father Bill
Many years ago, my wife and I became friends with William Mouser, also known as Father Bill. He pastored an Anglican church. If you're familiar with his name, it's probably because of his teaching on the "Five Aspects" ministry. Bill and his wife Barbara wrote books and study guides on the five aspects of men and the five aspects of women. Pay attention to the footnotes in books on sexuality, whether about manhood, womanhood, or raising boys and girls, and you'll often find their work cited. If you're very familiar with their work, as I am, you'll also notice where it goes uncited. It happens a lot.
Their thinking on sexuality played a major role in shaping where I eventually landed on the subject. Back in those days, I would occasionally call Bill and talk through issues I was wrestling with.
At the time, there was another well-known Mike Foster online, and we kept getting mixed up. Because of that, all my social media was under the name M. Scott Foster. Naturally, Bill assumed that "Scott" was what I went by. It wasn't. But Bill Mouser is the only person who ever addressed me that way, and he did so to the end. It became a funny quirk of our friendship.
About fourteen years ago, I had some real disagreements about the nature of the sacraments. I got pretty fired up in a Facebook argument with Bill and another man. I was overly harsh with him, a man at least thirty years my senior. Not long after, he sent me a message explaining that he had unfriended me and why. It was low-key. It didn't come across as a lecture. A couple of days later, I called him and apologized. He was gracious and forgave me immediately. I told him I'd like to be friends again on Facebook.
He said no.
"It's just Facebook," he told me. "We're friends in real life. You can email or call me whenever you want."
That was good for my soul. It reminded me that online behavior has consequences, something I knew intellectually but had never quite experienced relationally with someone I respected that much. It also reminded me that you can be friends in real life without being friends on Facebook.
It was good discipline. Bill didn't want that kind of stress in his life. He also knew I still had a lot of vinegar in me when it came to online arguments.
He was right. It took me a few more years to level out in that area.
Up until a couple of months before his death, Father Bill and I continued to correspond and talk. Three or four months before he passed, he sent me a message on Marco Polo. He was still calling me Scott. He addressed me the way a father would, warm and wise.
He was a good friend and mentor. I started following his example several years ago. There are some people I think I could really enjoy, just not online.
One of the great lies of our age is that we are all the same in every context. But we're not. You address men and women differently. You address the young and the old differently. You address those in positions of authority differently.
For all my talk about hierarchy, authority, and respect, I had forgotten that in a stupid online exchange with a man I deeply respected. He graciously reminded me.
I thank God for him. And I look forward to our fellowship in heaven.
I am slightly tickled by "Michael Scott"
Thanks for sharing about Father Bill, and your humility regarding online presence. I too, have been overly harsh with loved ones for what I would defended as righteous anger, but it was just pride. I've recently removed social media from my phone and struggle with FOMO sometimes, but I have had more focused time with my family and God, it's the better decision every time.
As a self-described "country boy from Detroit," more than 30 years of living in Arkansas has showed me the delightful Southern way of demonstrating respect to someone older or in authority with whom there is a somewhat intimate relationship. If your long-standing boss named, say, Joe Smith, is almost like family to you, he's never "Joe," but he's "Mr. Joe," thus showing deference but recognizing a close relationship.