LadyFather

(If you’re coming from my newsletter, scroll down to the bottom and click on continue reading..)

It’s taken hundreds of years and probably millions of words dancing on the edge of total heresy but finally – he’s done it!  The Pope has gone over the edge with the Vatican’s latest Normae de Gravioribus Delicti document in which the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has put ordaining women or being ordained and being a woman right up on the list with sexual abuse of children and the mentally challenged.

Through my disbelief and rage, I can still manage to ask 3 questions:

1. Who do they think they are?

2. What Bible do they read?

3. Did they ask God about this?

Let’s take the 3rd one first – I know they craft these highly religious documents in an atmosphere of prayer and I am certain that those prayers include asking the Holy Spirit for guidance.  I don’t claim to be God or anything but the God I do know wouldn’t have steered them anywhere near this rocky and treacherous shore.

The God of love whom I worship sent his Son to eradicate this kind of condemnation and I believe that Jesus was following orders when he flew in the face of every discriminatory practice of the day.  He ate meals with women, he talked to them in public, he touched them and let them touch him, no matter what time of the month it was.  He encouraged women to be real and he even entrusted – you got it – women! with the first news of his resurrection.

So that brings us to the Bible – neat huh? – have any of you ever read anything in the words of Jesus or even in the whole Bible about ordination.  Folks, we made that up!  We picked up on the whole anointing and setting apart and raising up from the selection process God put in place from the days of the early kings but there was no Commission on Ministry, no Standing Committee, no elaborate service with incense swinging and multiple holy hands weighing down on one head.

If Jesus didn’t tell his future church leaders how to “ordain” priests, how can anybody read anything he said and conclude that he would exclude women from such a process, which he didn’t set up in the first place.  What Jesus DID set up was a standard for treating women as intelligent and valuable members of society so can you even imagine what he’s thinking now?

The Bishop who ordained me was a very wise man – many of you knew the Rt. Rev. C. Charles Vaché, 7th Bishop of Southern Virginia as a I did – warm, caring, with a gift for storytelling and a clever turn-of-the phrase.  He was known for his gift of understatement with a touch of humor.  One of my favorites was his quick comeback to what I know was an often repeated request every where he went:  “Bishop, can’t you do something about this weather?” His stock answer was:  “Sorry, I’m in sales, not management.”

After his long struggle with the question of the ordination of women, he became very clearly convinced that the ordination of women was “of God.” I remember someone asking him one time, “How do you know that?” And, I had to pick my lower jaw off the floor when I heard him say, “Because God has made effective and faithful female priests for more than 10 years now,” and, with that subtle twinkle in his eye that I had come to really appreciate, he looked at me and said, “And there’s no doubt that Susan Bowman would not have made it through the ordination process without God’s help.

He was so right! I knew from the beginning that I needed God to survive the male-oriented system still present in Southern Virginia in the early 80′s and that, after 13 years away from academia, which I didn’t conquer too strongly during my first assault, I was in serious need of divine inspiration and intervention.

This brings us to the final question:  “Who do they think they are?”  This is one of my favorite responses to the outrageous and it’s close kin to “What were they thinking?”  Of course, it’s a rhetorical question and I’ve no doubt that the literal answer is “God’s Church” or “God’s Servants” as these committed and concerned prelates seem to feel called somehow to serve as “guardians of the faith” in a faithless or at least a “faith-challenged” world. continue reading…

Happy 4th!!

It’s Sunday, July 4th and I’m loving this day!  It’s gorgeous outside – although a little too warm for my tastes – and I have the rest of the day and all day tomorrow to enjoy! So, what am I doing? Working! But, this is working I like.  I’m pretty much done with punching a time clock and taking orders and am SO ready to do just what I’m doing today – working at what I want to do.  Although I really like the work I do at AAA – making TripTiks and helping people find good, cheap hotels and the best way south without going anywhere near the dreaded DC Beltway – my passion is writing and all I want to do is stay right here under my laptop with my feet up doing just that!

I’m getting closer as I have found several options for insurance that will cover me until Medicare kicks in – and I’m looking for one more gig that will bring me enough income to make up for what I would lose if I would just do AAA part-time. Not quite ready for the total break – still feel the need for a cushion – just in case….

As for my book – which I am trying desperately to get time to finish (another reason I need to be at home working) – I have a dynamite editor and she’s helping me a lot and I’m close – the comment below from a woman named Mable has stirred me up to get out there and really do some serious searching for another home job that’s not some scam that I have to pay $37 a month to possibly make $500 a week, but which in reality will only end up costing me $37 a month and make me mad!

Ring Around The Collar

In the meantime, I’m working on a newsletter – Ring Around the Collar - with a special message about the 4th of July and freedom and what it all means to me. So if you haven’t registered – it’s right there on the right – see the red arrows?  Go ahead and sign up – I don’t do this a lot so you won’t get inundated with tons of unwanted email – just a note every once in awhile until I get my book finished – then you’ll get the first word in a publication announcement!  So, have a happy day if  you’re reading this on Sunday, 7/4 – if not, hope you had a happy day – hope you are enjoying a day off – and hope you have spent a little time thinking about how great it is to be free in a world where so many aren’t.

If it’s Sunday and you’re reading this – don’t miss the Boston Pops Concert from the harbor – nothing better out there to enjoy the 4th!  Peace to you all,

Susan

Today at my “day job” with AAA, a man came in for passport photos and I told him I would be right with him and just to hang on for a few minutes.  I really wanted to wait on him because he had on a clerical collar and it was obvious to me that he had a wife, so I knew there was a good chance that he was an Episcopal priest.  Since I didn’t recognize him, I was very curious.  When it was his turn in front of the camera, I asked “innocently” what kind of priest he is and I was right.  “An Episcopalian,” he said.

I told him “So was I,” and we introduced ourselves, shook hands, and he said, “I knew I recognized your name.”  He had that “I’ve heard – you poor thing” look on his face so I knew he really had heard about me and my 2 unfortunate parish experiences.  I found out that he was a trained “interim” (a “specialty priest” who fills in for a parish in the interim between clergy and he had been in the Diocese for several years.

Since I have been seriously “out of touch” with the Diocese, I had not heard of him but by the time he and his wife and left the office with their new passport photos, we were “buds” and they promised to check out my blog and “sign up.”  He and his wife were very gracious and supportive and wanted to know “what happened” – then they commiserated and made all the right noises until I had to get back to work.

It was great to meet new clergy and his wife and I realized how much I miss my clergy friends, especially those I don’t see very often any more since I can’t attend all those mid-day-mid-week clergy events now that I’m a “worker priest.”  I was reminded for the umpteenth time how much I detest being a “worker-priest.”  (That’s a priest who also has a secular job.)  In fact my being a worker priest ranks so high on the “detest-a-meter” for me that it’s really off the scale.

So, I’m writing and writing and writing some more – and I’m posting on this blog hoping to build up my online community that is some day going to free me from worker-priest-prison.  My book is almost ready for buying and distributing  as I am in the hunt for a publisher.  Anybody with a tip (no self-publishing – I’ve decided to go the traditional route) for a publisher who would accept an unsolicited manuscript – send it on!!

Well, I guess I’d better get used to people saying, “I knew I recognized your name,” although my years in the “woman-priest” spotlight made it a daily occurrence for a long time.  Now I hope it will be more like “I knew I’d seen your name on a book at Borders”!!

That’s what we’re doing tonight – my grands are here and they’re playing the Wii while I write this blog post.  I would normally be playing with them but recent shoulder surgery has sidelined me for a few weeks.  Funny I can still type on my laptop – in fact, I found out the day after surgery that I could type without actually moving my shoulder – so the operation was last Tuesday and on Wednesday I started typing on my book and it’s now finished!!  I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I am!  Not only am I just happy to have it done but I have been writing this book for so long that I feel like I have come to the end of a long journey and am finally home!

I actually started this book about 10 years ago when I was a Fellow-in-Residence at Sewanee for 2 weeks.  That’s a great program where the seminary actually pays a stipend and provides a nice room as well as use of all the facilities to do a project.  It’s really a grant and I applied for it to write my book.  It was before the days of my laptop so I used the pc in the the student lounge.  I wrote and wrote , then brought it home on a flash drive and stored it away for awhile.  Then I got the drive out for some other projects and somehow it got bent in the port and everything on it was lost.

I spent $200 trying to get files off – but to no avail.  Everything was lost and I figured I wouldn’t ever write this book.  Then I was encouraged by my mentor who was helping me with this blog to go for it again and the rest is  history.  It’s taken me a long time to actually write it, but it is finished.  Now comes the really hard part – finding a publisher.  I’ve looked at the self-publishing idea and the agency/traditional publisher route and I’ll tell you,  it takes a lot of courage and stamina to get a book on the shelves.

I know I have it in me but it is WAY more work than writing the book!  So if anybody has any suggestions – I’m all ears!!  In the meantime, I have seriously gotten in touch with a lot of the feelings – both good and bad – that I experienced during those years and they were many.  As I have described them, I’ve re-lived them and now I keep thinking about any of you out there who have experienced similar things or are going through it right now.

My goal now is to create a community – a place where anyone who has ever faced discrimination can find a place to talk about it – get support – whatever.  It’s a place where anyone experiencing discrimination in the workplace, in school, anywhere, can come and find a willing ear and maybe even some ways of getting through it, over it, and on to the new life that always awaits us on the other side.  Maybe you have never been through this but you probably know someone who has – pass on the web address, send a link or think about buying my book as a gift.

I don’t know about you, but one of the most helpful things I found in the middle of my journey was someone who had been there.  Unfortunately, they were few and far between, especially after seminary when I was pretty much alone in my agony.  I wished that I had found a blog like this one back then.

So, let’s get at it – post your comments and let’s get a healing community going here.  Looking forward to hearing from you…

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If this is your first visit, just sign up to be on the list for a publication announcement and register so you can post comments.  Susan is an Episcopal Priest of 25 years with a compelling story to tell about the discrimination she suffered in the ordination process of the church in the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia the the Diocese of Albany from 1987 to the present.   Visit her website at http://gettherightwriter.com to read more of her articles and books.

It’s coming!  I’ve been working night and day to finish another book I was under contract for and it’s done.  I’ve also suffered several electronic disasters which have cause some major setbacks but I’m on a roll and looking to be finished in a few weeks.  So watch for a publication announcement soon

Signing My Book Some Day

Some day I’ll be doing this I hope!!

Also, if you’re interested in a Lenten devotional called “Finding the Joy” I’m giving it away because Lent is already 1/6th over – if you want one, just email me.

Joy

On February 23rd (yesterday), I celebrated another big anniversary – 25 years ago, I was ordained a Deacon in the Episcopal Church by a Bishop who was a leading opponent of women’s ordination.  What a miracle!  I’ve told you all about him – Bishop Charles Vaché, 7th Bishop of the Diocese of Southern Virginia, who died on November 1st, 2009.  It was not only an amazing February day in southeastern Virginia – 72 degrees, bright sunshine (we had the windows open in the church it was so hot in there, not only because of the temperature outside, but because it was PACKED! – it was a life-changing experience for a number of people.

Not in any order, these people were:  Bishop Vaché, my mother, two other women in the Diocese who were awaiting the Bishop’s decision on their admission to the ordination process, some people in the parish who were very unhappy about my ordination, and – of course – me.  Let’s start with my mother.

Mom was a cradle Episcopalian (like her mother and her siblings and me and my siblings – not my Dad – he was a Baptist who hated the Baptist church so he became an Episcopalian when he married my Mom), raised in the south (like all those other people above), and very conservative (again like all of the above).  Until I announced that I was going to seminary, I don’t think she had ever entertained the idea of a woman being a priest – I know my Dad hadn’t.  Of course, she would have never used that word – in the Virginia and North Carolina of the 1950′s, 60′s, & 70′s, we called them “Mr.” and they were “ministers,” not priests.  None of us knew that there were Episcopalians who called ordained ministers by such a “Romish” word as “priest” and if we had, we would have been horrified.

So, when I made my big announcement, my Dad said, “OK,” and my Mom looked at me like I had 2 heads and asked, “How are you going to do that?”  She couldn’t fathom the idea of me quitting my great job with the City of Petersburg (after all, I had a badge and a city car and everything) and traipsing off to God-knows-where for 3 years!  After I explained it all, Dad said, “OK, how can we help?” and Mom said, “Well, we sure are proud of you.”  I was blessed with the most wonderful parents in the world, wasn’t I?

I’m not sure that either of them really understood it all, but my mother slaved for months on a beautiful red stole for my ordination (red for Holy Spirit) and, as she tells it, she “nearly lost her religion making this thing for a minister!”  It was a gorgeous material onto which she cross-stitched a silver descending dove with shimmery thread that looked great but was nigh unto impossible to draw through the material!  She blistered the walls of their living room every day for almost 6 months trying to get that stole to look just right.  And she did!

The day of the ordination, she was beaming!!  You’d have thought I had been elected the first woman President of the United States – I don’t think she would have been any prouder.  She cried, of course, and even my Dad teared up – although he’d never admit it – and when it was all over and I was standing with the Bishop (whom she loved!) in the parish hall with my crisp new clergy collar around my neck and greeting old friends and introducing the Bishop to all my family, I saw her over by the window watching.  She had a look on her face that I had never seen before and I knew that she got it!

The people in the parish who were horrified at what was going on in their church that day stayed away, as I’m sure you figured out, but I have to say that they didn’t take too long to come around.  There were two people, a man and a woman, who had refused to received communion from me as a lay person and they just couldn’t believe that our Rector had been so supportive of me before he left for Nags Head NC during my first year.  I think they were glad he was gone because they were so angry at him.  But by the time, my ordination took place, they had mellowed somewhat and when I went back to the church some months later as a visiting clergy, they showed up at my end of the communion rail like nothing had ever been wrong.  Go God!

There was one woman waiting to be ordained (and she was about 3 months later) and several more waiting in the wings to be admitted to the process and they were so happy for me and I know when the Bishop laid his hands on my head, they could feel it as well.  They walked around beaming the rest of the day too.

The Bishop was also changed that day.  Although he had ordained a woman to the priesthood about a year before, I was the first woman he had allowed to go through our process and I know he felt very much like I was “his first.”  Sounds like a date or something, which couldn’t have been further from reality, but there was a connection between us that is very hard to describe.  He had told me when I started seminary that he had been through all the Biblical and theological arguments for and against women’s ordination and he was convinced that there was nothing in the Bible or in the history of the faith that prevented women from being ordained.  That was a long process for him but in 1980, he was still caught in the emotional struggle between his head and his heart and his hands.  He said that at that point he just couldn’t bring himself to lay his hands on a woman’s head and say the words of ordination.  He freely admitted that it was an emotional issue that he just hadn’t resolved yet.  He also said that I was the first woman who had knocked on his door without trying to break it down and that helped him come around.  On February 23rd, 1985, it was resolved and he was free from the tug of war.  Not only was he free, he won!  Actually, I think God won because I’m convinced that God had been working on him for years and his efforts finally bore fruit.

Finally, I’m sure that I was the most blown-away person in the church that day.  I went into the church a lay person who loved my church and supported it and went to church every Sunday, gave a little money, and sang in the choir – and I came out a Deacon – a clergyperson with a collar around my neck that screamed to the world, “be good – this woman is clergy!”  I remember the moment it happened.  It came shortly after my dear friend and most favorite professor Don Armentrout had finished his dynamite ordination sermon.  The Bishop and I had been through the question and answer thing, we had all done the Litany for Ordinations, sung by the Rector of my parents’ parish, and I was kneeling (ouch!) on my bad knee in front of the Bishop (who was well over 6′ tall so my eyes were directly in front of the end of his stole) while he finished the first part of the ordination prayer.  I remember I started to sway a little if I closed my eyes like you’re supposed to during prayer so I concentrated on the end of the Bishop’s stole which had alternating batches of silver and gold trim – I counted them and there were 18 – 9 gold and 9 silver!

Then he put his hands on my head and at that moment God touched me – I know that because I began to burn inside – like I was on fire.  I felt like my face was flaming red and that there was a torch inside of me.  After it was all done and we were passing the peace, I asked the priest who had done the prayers if my face was as red as it felt and he looked shocked and said, “No, you were cool as a cucumber.”  NOT!  Just goes to show you how God works sometimes.  As the Bishop lifted his hands from my head after pronouncing that I was now a Deacon in God’s Church, I knew that my life would never be the same – I knew that I had been transformed into God’s newest servant and it was the happiest I had ever been in my life.

Twenty-five years – it hardly seems possible that it has been that long and then it seems like yesterday.  I can close my eyes and picture the entire day with all the people I loved and still love all around me and my favorite Bishop grinning like the proverbial Cheshire cat and I now that we both became new creatures on that day.  What a blast!

Yikes! It’s been 63 years!

24 Years!! Yikes!

• It means I’m old enough to have been doing the same thing for a quarter of a century!
• Since I didn’t get started until the age of 38, this means I’m over 60!
• Prior to this, the longest I ever did any one thing was 7 years as an employee of the City of Petersburg VA (but I still had 3 different positions), except for being a mother – 14 years.
• It means that, when I add the 10 years I did active lay ministry in the church before being ordained, I’ve been doing this for more than half my life!

Anyone who has been part of an evaluative procedure knows the abject terror that is brought on by the simple word - “Interview.” Whether it’s for a job, admission to an educational program, or even for your child’s school newspaper, even the prospect of an “interview” brings on sweaty palms, a shaky voice, weak knees, and a queasy stomach because it is an experience that puts you “out there” in front of other people in the most vulnerable position – on the “hot seat.”

This is where you sit while another person, or a group of people, grill you about your past, your present, your future, what you know, what you think, what you want, who you are, who you want to be, and even who you have been and don’t want to be anymore.  The feeling of terror is directly proportionate to the number of people doing the grilling, as well as the power those people have over your life. continue reading…

If you read my last post, you’ll remember Emily, my 10-year-old granddaughter (in 3 days) who seems to be a budding writer.  On New Year’s Day, she was sitting on my bed with her new mini-laptop and the next thing I knew she was wanting to read me something she had written – scroll down if you haven’t read them – priceless!  Later on, she sent me this one:

My brother’s addiction to video games

I should explain – my grandson was diagnosed at age 4 with Asperger’s Syndrome, which partly explains the obsessive behavior with video games.  Actually it isn’t just video games he obsesses on – Star Wars, Legos, National Geographics, Discovery Channel.  This boy can tell you every word of I don’t know how many Mythbusters shows.  He watches them and then gets me to watch with him and he repeats every word – before I can hear it on the TV.  So he has not only a photographic memory but also whatever you call a similar memory for things he hears.  He knows things that I have never even thought of or learned in school.

I ask him, “Jared, how do you know that?”  And his answer:  continue reading…