He’s Gone Too Far!
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.
The faith they are called to protect, however, is not theirs. They don’t own it; Faith is a gift from God to fallen humanity and, even as we seem to be constantly struggling with it, questioning it, and in some cases, rejecting it or modifying it to suit our tastes, it is the bedrock foundation for our lives. Everybody has to have faith in SOMETHING.
Our Christian faith is constantly under attack from all quarters, even from within our own denominations so it is clear that we humans need help with such crucial theological concepts as the Trinity, redemption, and the list goes on . . . .” I don’t claim to know everything about God (in fact, I’m not even sure that any of us can really KNOW things about God – I think we “faith” them) and I’m certainly teachable and ready to learn but I learned in seminary to check everything against Scripture and while I’ll certainly admit that there are tons of unclear and even contradictory evidence in the Bible about the role of women, there is no doubt in my mind about three things:
1. The Pope and the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith think that they are the absolute and final authority on “things of the Faith” and that they speak for God in all matters of the Faith. The first time there was an attempt to “play God,” two people got thrown out of the Garden.
2. The Bible that I read speaks loudly of God’s love for every human being, for Jesus’ love and respect for women, and for his fair treatment of every kind of person – even sinners. It speaks loudly of God’s hatred of evil and humans hurting each other and nowhere does the Bible I read equate the most despicable treatment of God’s most vulnerable with a woman’s sincere desire to serve God.
3. If the Pope and his CDF asked God about what to write in this newest piece of religious teachings, they either didn’t listen to the answer or they heard it wrong or they made up the answer they wanted to hear.
I don’t want to stoop to their level and call them unfit or unsuited and I certainly will not call them names or impugn their character as they have done to me and thousands of women like me. I will leave them to God.
===================================================
Susan Bowman, the “LadyFather” has written a book on her experiences in the ordained ministry. Aptly named “Lady Father,” it is available now at Amazon.com and don’t forget to check out Susan’s Facebook page at http://facebook.com/ladyfather.
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!
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
==============================================
Susan Bowman, the “LadyFather” has written a book on her experiences in the ordained ministry. Aptly named “Lady Father,” it is now available for purchase from Amazon.com. Fill out the form below to receive our newsletter and important emails and don’t forget to check out Susan’s Facebook page at http://facebook.com/ladyfather.
“I Knew I Recognized Your Name”
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 had 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 this 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”!!
===================================================
Susan Bowman, the “LadyFather” has written a book on her experiences in the ordained ministry. Aptly named “Lady Father,” it is available now for purchase at Amazon.com. Fill out the form below to receive our newsletter and important emails and don’t forget to check out Susan’s Facebook page at http://facebook.com/ladyfather.
Wii, Wii, Wii – All the Way Home!
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.
==================================================
If this is your first visit, just register below to receive our newsletter and important emails. Lady Father is now available for purchase on Amazon.com. Susan is an Episcopal Priest of 33 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 Facebook page at http://facebook.com/ladyfather to read more of her articles and posts.
Another Anniversary!
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 know that we both became new creatures on that day. What a blast!
============================================
Susan Bowman, the “LadyFather” has written a book on her experiences in the ordained ministry. Aptly named “Lady Father,” it is now available for purchase on Amazon.com. Scroll down and fill out the form below to receive a re-publication announcement and check out Susan’s Facebook page at https://facebook.com/ladyfather.
63 Years Later
Yikes! It’s been 63 years!
That’s right! It’s been 63 years since I made my appearance on this planet! (Actually, it’s now been 72!) It seems that every day I see someone or read or remember something that reminds me that I’ve been here for more half a century and am working on 3/4. I have a picture in my bathroom of my mother and 5 of her friends. They called themselves “the River Rats” because every September they spent a week at a cottage on the James River near Surry, Virginia. They started way back when I was just a little kid and I’m not really sure how they knew each other in the beginning except that Mary Ann Perkins lived across the street from us when we moved to our new home in 1957. Some few years after that, we became charter members in the Battlefield Park Swim Club where my Mother, who was a lifeguard and a Water Safety Instructor, worked every summer from the day it opened. She and a woman named Wesy Chappell worked as lifeguards for the 1st 2 weeks of the season before school was out and the regular lifeguards came to work and for the last 2 weeks after they returned to classes. Louise Fuller worked the gate and I’ll always remember her fingernails! They were so long and perfectly formed and hard as the concrete around the pool. She would sit at the table at the gate and work on those nails for hours. They were bright red and exquisite and I was insanely jealous of her. My nails were and still are like my mother’s – thin and brittle and they still snap off into the quick if you look at them wrong. Mabbot Rideout was a friend of Mary Ann’s and there was one more – Marie Spatig – and I don’t have a clue how she fit into this group. They played bridge together once a month; most of them either swam or worked at the pool; and they decided one summer that they had pretty much had it with kids and husbands so when the pool closed for the summer, they took off for Surry and a friend’s cottage on the river for the day. They left early in the morning and Mom dragged in about 9:00 that night, sunburned and bleary eyed, but beaming from ear to ear. They had thoroughly enjoyed the day and had made a solemn oath to do it again the next year. To make a long story short, they slowly increased their “get-away-from-the-men-and-kids” until by the time I was married, they were spending a whole week at the river. No men and no kids were allowed and they never talked about what they did except for one thing. One of their traditions while at the river was to get dressed to the nines one night and eat dinner at The Surrey House, a very nice restaurant that for some obscure reason was located in a tiny town with a crossroads, a gas station, a church, a hardware store, some houses and this very good restaurant. Every year they would dress the place up even more as they graced it with their presence. They pranced in, got the biggest table in the middle of the room, ordered a glass of wine, and proceeded to talk, laugh, and eat – in that order – until they had driven away all the locals and were watching the waitresses (well, that’s what they were in the 1960’s) trying not to be too obvious about the fact that it was past closing time. They learned to tip well on those nights out, which helped with the waitresses and soon they were a welcome fixture. I don’t know if they ever figured out why they were missing so many sugar bowls and napkin holders and cream pitchers during those years, but we all knew because each family had at least one souvenir – we had a sugar bowl – with the logo of The Surrey House on it – a black “surrey with the fringe on top” that was so distinctive we had to hide it when company came over. I’ll never forget the time we were taking my sister back to school at William and Mary – the route took us right through Surry and right past The Surrey House, which my father said served the most incredible iced tea in the state of Virginia. My brother was about 8 years old at the time – innocent as a lamb – and he had us running for the car when he grabbed the sugar bowl off the counter while we were waiting for our “iced teas to go” and yelled, “Look Mommy, they have a sugar bowl just like ours!” Anyway, one year they decided to really go crazy and they all dressed up like “floozies” for their night on the town in Surry. They had on short dresses with wide stripes, long beads, lots of makeup, high heels, and crazy hair styles. I’m not sure what the style was they were aiming for but they got something between a flapper and a hippy. They caused quite a stir in Surry and Mother told me they were glad they hadn’t told anybody what they were doing because Daddy and all the other men swore they would have been there to drag them out of that restaurant if they had known what they were doing. Now, every day I look at that picture and I can’t believe how many years ago the River Rats were tearing up the banks of the James River in Southside Virginia. I look at them and can’t believe that half of them – Mother, Marie, and Louise are gone now. Louise, God bless her, has been “gone” for more than 40 years as she was struck by something they later thought was Alzheimer’s at 39 years old and spent more than 40 years in a nursing home. She never knew anyone again after the first few years and the River Rats always had a little memorial ceremony every year before taking over The Surrey House for the evening, an event which was dedicated to the memory of Louise “Hard-as-Nails” Fuller. Wesy and Mary Ann and Mabbot are still going strong – when I saw Wesy and Mary Ann at Mother’s funeral more than 3 years ago, they looked almost like they do in my picture. They were sad about Mother but knew she was better off after her long bout with Alzheimer’s. I was sad too and still am some days, but my huge picture on the bathroom wall cheers me up every day as I look at those crazy women and think about how old Marie would be now – she was the oldest – and that Mother would be over 90 had she lived. I also think – gee, I’m older now than they were when that picture was takenI’m 63! Yikes!
====================================================
Susan Bowman, the “LadyFather” has written a book on her experiences in the ordained ministry. Aptly named “Lady Father,” it is now available for purchase on Amazon.com. Register below to receive our newsletter and important emails and don’t forget to check out Susan’s Facebook page at https://facebook.com/ladyfather.
24 Years Later
24 Years!! Yikes!
It’s been 24 years (on January 25th) since the day I was ordained a priest. (Lady Father was written in 2011 so it has now been 33 years.) On February 23rd, I will celebrate the 25th anniversary of my ordination as a Deacon in the Episcopal Church. This is totally amazing to me for several reasons:- 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!
Working Through “The Process”
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.
“The Process” towards ordination is mainly a series of one interview after another and, as I sit here more than 20 years after the final one, I can’t tell you which was the worst one or the most terrifying. I can tell you that one of the most dreaded steps in the ordination process is the final interview by a rather unwieldy but daunting group made up of the Commission on Ministry and the Standing Committee, both of which are charged with examining every Candidate for ordination and making a recommendation to the Bishop regarding a rather nebulous quality known as “readiness for ordination.” I arrived in Norfolk for my “ordination interview” sometime in April of 1984, about a month before graduation, and I was terrified beyond belief.
All interviewees in this process are encouraged to bring their spouses both for moral support and so that their opinions and insights can be considered as well. As a single person, I was alone. There was no one sitting before this august body to face the inquisition but me. I had been a single person for 10 years at that time but I had never felt more alone than I did at that moment. But – I sucked it up as always and looked confidently and expectantly at the Chairman. He greeted me warmly and then opened the floor for questions from any of the Commission members and my nemesis from the last few years immediately spoke up. My heart plummeted as I knew that nothing good was coming out of her mouth. She looked at me with, I swear, a glint in her eyes, and said, “Well, we understand that you aren’t a very good housekeeper.”
What followed wasn’t pretty! I was assailed with ridiculous questions and comments about how prospective employers and church vestries would respond to me with my “messy” tendencies and my weight problem. Anyone listening in would have been convinced that I was being interviewed as a prospective entrant in the Miss America pageant. By the time it was over, I was convinced that these people did not see me as a prospective priest and that the last four years had all been in vain.
“The Process” I refer to is the method whereby a person is evaluated, judged, and admitted as a participant, then is molded into what “The Process” expects. It is difficult but worth the hard work; it is painful, but not “unto death”; and it is destructive and productive at the same time – weeding out the inappropriate behaviors and tendencies and encouraging the development of more acceptable qualities. Actually it’s a lot like squeezing the proverbial square peg into the round hole but, I have to admit, it works.
In many situations, this refining process takes on a life of its own, especially when there are extraneous “issues” involved. The Ordination Process in the Diocese of Southern Virginia in the 1980’s was a “well-oiled machine,” which was managed by very capable clergy and laypeople who had the best interests of the church at heart but many of whom also had “issues” with the admittance of women to the previously all-male priesthood. It was this combination that rendered “The Interview” for my possible ordination as a Deacon almost useless as a tool for measuring my actual readiness for that step. It became instead an evaluation of the image I created as a future priest of the church and whether that image was acceptable. For many of those involved in “the Process” at that time, that image was not what they were looking for nor was it what they believed the church should be encouraging and accepting.
I was caught in a “process” that I quite frankly believed in as a tool for the formation of God’s ministers but which had become more of a tool for proving that women are not appropriate and acceptable candidates for this “process” and which threatened to “process” the first woman right out of the program. You can read all about how close this came to being a reality and how I survived “the Process.”
My memoir, “Lady Father,” is now available on Amazon.com.”
=================================================
Happy New Year!
I don’t know what you’re doing on this first day of the year 2010, but I am having the happiest New Year’s Day possible – my grandchildren are here. We’ve been to eat steak and now we’re all on a computer – Jared is playing Roblox, I’m making a bulletin for Sunday, and Emily is working on her brand new mini laptop. It’s amazing how good she is on it and how much she knows about it already.
A few moments ago, she asked if she could read something to me – this is what she had written – keep in mind, she and her family spent Christmas in Mississippi and they drove without stopping both ways! Read this and see what tree you think she fell from:
DISTANCE
Dear all parents:
I know that driving long distances will save you money, but it is still not a good idea. You can pack a million toys, but it won’t keep your children happy; they will get bored within 3 hours. You’re better off taking a plane. The first hour you’ll be all excited – second hour is fine – by the third hour you are frustrated searching for something to do. If you haven’t turned around by the fourth hour because of the whining and crying, you are crazy.
I wish you the best of luck. If you don’t take my advice, you can’t blame me. Blame your mother-in-law, your sister, or your cousin, but don’t blame me! Emily Bowman
After I stopped howling, she asked me for a subject to write about and I suggested, “how come I can’t ever find anything?” In few minutes, she read this to me:
How to Lose Stuff
If you need to have an expert on losing stuff, talk to Susan Bowman. If you can settle for me, I would be happy – let us start. So, you need to set an item somewhere. Then put one thing on top of it and then a few things around it or – how Susan does it: set it on a desk and come back in an hour. And if someone asks where it is, say the elves took it. If they think you’re crazy – run. If these strategies don’t work, don’t take my advice anymore.
I cracked up again and then suggested she continue with how to find the lost stuff – here:
How to Find the Stuff You Lost
For this subject, you should not talk to Susan; she will not be any help. To find the stuff, you need to go to every room and every pile you see – take it apart. If you followed my directions on how to lose stuff, the item you are looking for should be in one of those piles.
I FOUND IT!!!!
Now, I ask you, does it get any better than this? Happy New Year to all of you out there and I hope you are enjoying the first day of 2010 as much as I am!
============================================
Susan Bowman, the “LadyFather” has written a book on her experiences in the ordained ministry. Aptly named “Lady Father,” it is slated for re-release in the near future. Fill out the form below to receive a publication announcement and check out Susan’s Facebook page at http://facebook.com/ladyfather.
Christmas “Firsts”
Throughout the next few weeks, he and my sister went on a crusade to convince me that I shouldn’t stay “home alone” for Christmas, and indeed, that I should jump in my car and drive to Virginia to spend Christmas with my sister and her family. Well, I don’t “jump in my car” and drive anywhere these days, much less 5-6 hours away. Just the thought of spending that much time sitting in a car makes my knees hurt and I rebelled at the idea of putting that many miles on my leased car. They tried valiantly to convince me that it would take me as long, if not longer, to make the trip by plane (adding up the time it would take to get to the airport at least an hour before flight time, get my bags and a rental car, drive the 2 1/2 hours to Front Royal through Baltimore and DC traffic to the hour and a half flight). I was NOT convinced and I was not yet convinced that I should make yet another flying trip to Virginia. If you have read previous posts, you know that I attended a funeral in Virginia the first week in November and then flew down for Thanksgiving with my sister.
A calm head prevailed and I did my “pro-and-con” list with all the reasons I should just stay home and “veg out” in one column and the advantages of “going home” for Christmas in the other. As I made my list, I was immediately struck with the realization that I had started the process with the assumption that I was going to Virginia as the “pro” column began to be filled with reasons in favor of making the trip, leaving the “con” column for all the negative arguments against it.
To keep this relatively short, the “pro’s” won, (especially after we found out that my brother David and his family could come up the day after Christmas), I made my reservation for a Christmas Eve flight and here I am – 2 days after Christmas – and I have survived my first Christmas without my only son and his family. I have survived waking up alone on Christmas morning without my precious grandchildren pouncing on my sleeping body and I have survived the day with only my imagined thoughts of how they were spending their first Christmas without me.
This morning I am packing to return to New York and to belated preparations for yet another Christmas celebration – I haven’t wrapped a thing! – and I am flooded with my memories of all the Christmases with Scott, Stacey, Jared, and Emily but I am also flooded with the new memories I made in the last few days as my brother and sister and I made our own “Christmas firsts.” We calculated that:
- this is the first Christmas that the 3 of us have been together for 43 years;
- this is the first Christmas that I have ever spent with Joe, my brother-in-law;
- this is the first Christmas that I have ever been with Lou, my sister-in-law;
- this is the first Christmas that I have ever been with Kelly & Will, my niece & nephew;
- this is the first Christmas that my cousin Fran and I have been together for 36 years;
- this is the first Christmas that Fran and my sister have spent together – ever; and
- this is the first Christmas that my sister and I have attended a midnight service together for 43 years.
