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By Paul Donnelly
Washington Window
Vol. 75, No. 6, May 2006

"I think many of us learned how to pray on the telephone from Father West," recalls the Rev. Carleton Hayden, who teaches at Howard Divinity School.

"His pastoral skills were just legendary," agrees the Rev. Vincent Harris, rector of St. George's on U Street in the District.

A priest for nearly 65 years, the Rev. James O. West, Jr., was 88 years old when he died April 18. Pastor of Calvary Episcopal Church on 6th Street N.E. for nearly half a century, he "baptized, married and even buried people in his time there," Hayden said. "That was more common at the time, to build up trust over generations. It is hard to describe contributions like that."

Gathered informally in the Calvary conference room late last month, parishioners recalled the priest who had helped mark their lives with Christ. "Father West had the most beautiful voice," said MaryRose Chappelle, explaining why she left a Baptist congregation for Calvary. "I heard him chanting the Eucharist, and it was beautiful. One Sunday later, he saw me in the congregation, and he called me by my full name."

"He knew everybody's name," added a chorus of others.

Murhl J. Alexander remembers: "Father West used to walk the neighborhood, and he would talk to the parents of unchurched boys, to bring them to Sunday service."

"When someone would buy a new home, he would bless the house - and not just the house, he would go through the rooms, giving each a blessing," Ozrah Y. Feggans said.

"Modern priests spend their time in their offices or in meetings," Hayden observed.

"When children grew up and went away to college," Chappelle recalled, "he would look up where the nearest Episcopal church was, and he would call to introduce the priest to the child, and then he would call to check up on them."

"He would make a remarkable connection with people," said Thomas C. Bryant, Jr. "It didn't matter if they were sitting there drunk, homeless, if they hadn't had a bath for 20 years. If he saw them on the street, he would take their hands and give them that moment."

"And bring them to church," Feggans broke in. "Hungry people."

"Smelly people," said Audrey Douglas, seated next to her.

"And you could not invite them out," Chappelle said.

Bryant affirmed that: "But he believed, and he lived, so that the Bible was not just a coffee table ornament."

West loved the Episcopal music of his youth, but he brought new music to Calvary: Put a Little Love in Your Heart; Put Your Hand in the Hand; He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother. Lloyd Anderson, Jr., senior warden, laughed with Tommy Bryant about how West actually played records in church.

Yvonne Lee remembered West taking some heat for a sign proclaiming "Jesus is Lord" to the church's neighbors in the District's Northeast neighborhood.

"It was certainly not the Episcopal style," Hayden said.

"But he was not a fiery preacher, the way many of us black preachers have become in recent years," he added. "Episcopal preaching tends to be more calm, to appeal to reason more than passion. Then again, it also tends to be short, and Father West did go on until, as he liked to say, the Spirit moved him to stop."

Ask and recollections just pour out:

There was that domestic disturbance when a woman was cast into the street without clothing, so West was out at 3 a.m., admonished by the police because he made sure she had a blanket to cover her before he let them take over.

There was the time he gave counseling in prison to an arsonist who had tried to burn down the church. And there were the many times he woke Bryant up with that calm, reasonable voice: "The PA system (or the organ, or…) isn't working. Would it be possible for you to …?"

It was always possible.

Murhl Anderson recalled what a praying man he was: "At Bishop Chane's installation, I think it was the first time they met, at the door of the cathedral. He stopped right there, in the middle of all the handshaking, to pray for the success of his ministry."

One morning after West had retired, he appeared in Chappelle's Sunday School class. "So I said: 'Look, children, we have a special visitor,'" she recalled. "'Who can guess, who tell me who it is?' So one of the children looked at him, this kindly man, and asked: 'Is it God?'"

Vincent Harris understands: "You sensed the presence of Jesus in Father West."

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