Community comes together to craft crozier for new bishop

When the Rev. Glenda Curry was named the first female bishop in the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama, she asked one of her fellow parishioners, Danny Whitsett, if he could make her crozier.

Whitsett had just one question: What is a crozier?

“I didn’t even know what she was talking about, but it’s basically the wooden staff,” Whitsett said. “It looks like a big shepherd's hook.”

Whitsett does specialty paint finishes and woodworking, but he doesn’t do very detailed woodworking, he said.

“So this was a little bit beyond my comfort level,” he said. “But I was so honored, so I said I would basically just figure out how to do this.”

He started his research and noticed that some croziers were very ornate, but Curry told Whitsett she just wanted a simple shepherd’s hook. Whitsett decided he would make it out of wood from places that meant a lot to Curry.

The first place he thought about was Camp McDowell — a camp located outside of Jasper that is a ministry of the Episcopal churches in the Diocese of Alabama. He called his friend who works there and asked if there was any old wood, maybe from a piece of an altar or a cross. Then they thought about a rocking chair.

“Everyone, when they go to Camp McDowell, they rock in these rocking chairs,” Whitsett said. “So there are some really old ones, so I went and got a piece of that.”

Then he thought about Curry’s previous church, which was the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in Leeds. This church didn’t have much old wood for Whitsett to use, he said, because it had recently moved into a new building.

“But they said, ‘Well, in this old building, we have this very generic, thick kind of oak shelf,’” Whitsett said. “And I said, ‘You know what? I’ll figure out how to make this work.’ So I got that.”

A person from a church in Birmingham, St. Mary’s On the Highlands Episcopal Church, reached out to Whitsett and knew he was working on Curry’s crozier. The church was under construction and was getting rid of a long, wooden handrail. So Whitsett took that as well.

Last, Whitsett wanted a piece of All Saints Episcopal, where Curry was a rector until stepping into her role as the bishop. Whitsett knew the church had a dogwood tree on which children loved to climb. The church had to tear down the tree, so he grabbed a piece of that wood, too.

“So I got all of these pieces, and I’ll tell you, I did not know how to really do it,” he said. “I had turned wood before, but not a lot.”

Whitsett went to a friend who is a cabinet woodworker, Aaron Lane. Lane gave Whitsett blank pieces of wood and taught him how to carve. He learned how to turn down pieces of wood he’d collected from Camp McDowell, St. Mary’s and the Epiphany church, and he made them each the same thickness. This made up the majority of the crozier.

For the hook of the crozier, Whitsett reached out to another friend in woodworking, Cliff Spencer. Spencer suggested they cut the dogwood into a thick block and then cut the shepherd’s hook from that block. Whitsett also carved a pilgrim shell on the shepherd’s hook. As a final finishing touch, Becky Stayner from Biscuit Leather Company made a leather case for the crozier.

Whitsett said the entire process was fun.

“It was a nice departure from what I’d been doing day in and day out,” he said. “And knowing what I was making, knowing that this was going to be in the bishop’s hand everywhere she goes. Every church she goes to, she walks in and she’s dressed up in her bishop’s miter, which is her hat, and she’s holding this staff.”

People have told Whitsett that whenever Curry visits a church — which isn’t often right now because of the COVID-19 pandemic — Curry will tell the story of how Whitsett made the crozier and gathered wood from each place.

Curry said she chose Whitsett to make the crozier, despite him not knowing what a crozier was at first, because she knows Whitsett is a great artist who knows her well.

“What I most like about it is the careful, meaningful and loving way it was created to represent my ministry and the people who I served,” Curry said. “In particular, I love the carving of the pilgrim’s shell because it reflects my understanding of the spiritual life.”