Every ... single ... day

Every

single

day ...

I serve God as a priest in Christ's, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. Not a call I asked for, mind you, but one born of Christian obedience to the One who claimed me in baptism and shaped me to be a priest for the sake of the people God loves. And in spite of this ...

every

single

day

I hear from at least one person why I my call as a priest is not legitimate because I am a woman.

Every ... single ... day.

Yes, it is born of the culture of patriarchy in which I live that posits the superiority of men over women - to the great damage and detriment of men and women (and all gender expressions in between). The "great" legacy of western civilization is grounded on men having power over women and children. This same culture was inspired by God to write our sacred texts ... with just enough gender bias to make sure the status quo of power was maintained and enshrined within them to make God the "source" of male superiority ... even to the point of being described and spoken of as "He" and "Father" ... never "She" or "Mother."

Every ... single ... day

I am told I cannot be a priest in Christ's Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church because I am a woman.

The message isn't always directed at me personally ... but it is out there. Maybe it was an evangelical pastor of a mega church who claimed women were to be "houses" for a man's penis (oh yeah ... that's my single biggest aspiration in life), or a Facebook troll who excoriates me in a theological exchange in a discussion group and questions if I really am a priest, or the extended family member who quotes Ephesians 5 at me to tell me I am doing harm to my family by going to seminary, or the male clergy colleagues (even within my own tradition) who will trumpet from the mountain tops how supportive they are and blessed by the ministry of ordained women ... but who will, when the chips are down, act in grossly condescending passive aggressive ways which tell me their respect for my ministry and that of my sisters is only cheap talk.

Every

single

day

And sometimes I even get a "two for one" special ... where I have to stand up more than once a day to claim the call of Christ face to face with people I do not know who feel the special need to tell me what the Bible "says." That was my day yesterday ... a two for one special.

The first came at an outreach event to the poor and struggling in our community. A former parishioner, an elderly woman, came over to our church's table and said, "I was a member there for 50 years." Wearing my clerics, I turned and introduced myself as the new priest and extended my hand to shake hers. She gave me a startled look and reluctantly gave me the "dead fish" handshake. She told me her name ... I knew of her and I knew she and her husband left the church over women's ordination. She was quick to tell me, "My son is a priest. He had a call from God." And I spent the next 5 minutes hearing all about her son and his call from God to be a priest before she wandered off.

The second came later that afternoon. I received a phone call that a parishioner had been rushed to the emergency room after having a seizure. I stopped to get a big cup of coffee (I needed it at this point) and fill up my car with gas. Again, I was wearing my collar and a younger man stopped me at the gas pump ...

"Um ... the thing around your neck ... are you a ... uh ... a ... minister?"

"Yes, I am an Episcopal priest."

"I have a question for you, if you don't mind."

"OK ... sure. What is it?"

"What do you make of 1 Timothy 2:12? How do you understand your role in light of that? I'm really curious and not trying to troll you." (Hint: when you have to tell me you are not trolling me ... you are)

For those of  you who don't know "chapter and verse" ... 1 Timothy 2:12 says: "I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent."

"Well ... my own Biblical hermeneutic begins with a historical/critical interpretation to view the Scriptures in light of the culture and place where they were written and the audience to whom they were written. I take the Scriptures to be inspired by God but written by people who understood their experience of the Holy through their own cultural lens. To say that everything from a 2,000 old book, no matter how holy it is, applies 100% to our time, place and culture is not appropriate."

"OK ... but how do you decide what you choose to believe and not believe? Really, I want to know, I'm not trolling here." (Hint: if you have to say that a second time ... you really are trolling here!)

"We don't interpret the Scriptures alone - it is always within the context of a community and grounded in prayer."

"I see your point because we don't apply the passages about slavery anymore. We can read those in a different way today and maybe apply them to employer/employee relationships. But it still doesn't explain how you can be a minister in light of 1 Timothy 2:12."

"This is a bit too complex to stand here and discuss at a gas pump. I am on my way to the hospital because one of our parishioners was rushed to the emergency room. I need to go ... now."

"Oh ... OK ... uh ..."

"God bless you sir."

Every

single

day ...

One day we may come to a place where we regard these passages of female subservience and male domination the same way we do the ones about slavery - as a throwback to a time, place and culture which is no more.

But we are not there yet.

One day, I hope I can just be a priest in Christ's Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church ... without the word "woman" or "female" as an adjective tacked on like I'm some kind of misfit.

One day ... I pray that the gifts and graces of all God's children will be celebrated and allowed to blossom and flourish regardless of the bodily packaging this transitory life has dealt them.

But until then ... I will be questioned, grilled, condescended, ignored and rebuffed. It appears God has given me and my sisters this cross to bear

every

single

day.

How'd you get into the business?

In his book Have a Little Faith: A True Story, Mitch Albom asks his rabbi Albert Lewis this question: "How'd you get into the business?" How indeed? Tweaking this question a bit, how did we get to this point in our life and faith journey?

I don't have some kind of Pauline Damascus Road story of conversion. I was baptized as an infant and I've never known a time when I was not part of the Church - and that's the "capital C" Church universal. I certainly had my time of straying away in late high school and my college years. But in 1988, I moved to Maryland to be with my beloved husband. On the morning when I left my home and my parents, amid many tears, my mother said, "Find yourself a good church when you get to Maryland. The church will be your family when we are far apart." No truer or wiser words could have been said in that moment.

I joined All Saints Episcopal in Frederick when I arrived in Maryland. I'll be honest - the reason I chose them was because of the size of their ad in the Yellow Pages (remember, web sites weren't around then!). Having come from California where the churches are all large, this was the milieu in which I was most comfortable. I had a morbid fear that if I joined a small church, I'd be asked to run for vestry the minute I darkened the door. Yes, an unfounded prejudice, but I was only 24 years old so chalk it up to inexperience.

I spent 13 years at All Saints and in that time my husband was baptized and confirmed, I gave birth to two daughters (both of whom were baptized there), I served as an usher, assisted the altar guild, taught Sunday School (for middle schoolers, no less) and served a three year term on the vestry. But with the arrival of our daughters and a move west of the city, our lives changed and All Saints was no longer a fit with our schedules.

About that time, we started looking at other churches. OK, in fairness, we only looked at one - St. Mark's Lappans. After our second visit, our oldest daughter asked if we were "going to stay here forever." I told her forever was a long time, and she replied, "Well can we at least come back next week? We're in the Sunday School program." I thought that any church which could make room for my kids that quickly was where we needed to be. Case closed!

It was during my time at St. Mark's, a church much smaller than any I had ever attended, that God's call to priestly ministry became unavoidable. I had wrestled off and on with this call since I was 12, back when women could not even serve at the altar, let alone be ordained. In the end, God persisted and I surrendered. I had no idea how God would make this work ... I could not see a way forward.

Well, long story short ... God did make the way. It was the roundabout way which seems to be God's preference (Deuteronomy 2). I was ordained a deacon in June 2007 and a priest in February 2008. But ministry was roundabout too. My first call resulted in shepherding a congregation to a healthy closure, followed by an uncertain period of semi-employment as a supply priest, a short stint as an interim in an inner-city church, a year as a part-time visitation minister at Calvary United Methodist in Frederick, part-time assistant at St. Mark's, Lappans and then almost two years as a hospice chaplain ... before landing in my current call at Grace Episcopal in Brunswick, Maryland.

So, how'd I get into the business? God called and I questioned. God called and I reminded God of my inadequacy. God called and I tried a few lame excuses. God called and I said ... "OK, you got me."

As good as it gets

There's a washing basin in front of every Buddhist temple and everyone washes their hands before entering. The one in front of Kinkaju temple in Kyoto is inscribed with the words of Buddha: "I strive for contentment."

Contentment is being at peace with yourself right where you are at this very moment. It's accepting that right where you are right now is as good as it gets. I struggle with this.

As the three of you who follow this blog know (ok, maybe there's only two of you, but you get the idea), I've been in an eight month long search process in Massachusetts. I entered other searches during the past eight months but the doors closed quickly on all the others while this one up north seemed to stay open. Well, it closed down last week when I received the news that they chose another candidate.

Yes, I can accept (at least academically) that God has a plan and it will all work out, but it doesn't feel like that right now. Don't get me wrong, I am very grateful to the folks at Calvary UMC and St. Mark's in Lappans for the opportunity to be in ministry with them! But I know my limits and trying to keep two part-time positions straight in my head and to function well with a "split life" ... well, I'm not feeling very effective at it. I spend at least a day a week playing "catch up" to try and figure out what I missed during the days I was away working at the other church. I can't keep it all straight and I've just given up trying. Maybe I could have pulled it off better back when I was 25, but I'm 45 juggling two part-time positions and trying to be a wife and mother too. It's like trying to outrun an avalanche!

My spiritual director asked me, "What if this is as good as it gets?" He knows I'm trying to find a full-time position that would have decent pay and benefits. I aspire to earn more than what I can legitimately write off as housing allowance, have full funding on my pension, health insurance, and vacation ... but it isn't happening for me (or for several other priests in our diocese who are under or unemployed).

What if this is as good as it gets? Frankly, I don't know. I know I can't hang on with multiple part-time positions indefinitely ... it's exhausting! Maybe God's trying to close doors to send me in a different direction and I'm really not called to parish ministry. Who knows? I don't, but in the meantime I'll keep praying and plugging along where I am ... and listening for options.

On hold

I feel like I'm living my life "on hold" right now. Back in April, I accepted a temporary (9 month) call to return to my home congregation to help them with evangelism and communications. My big project is getting a new web site created, documented and the web master trained to maintain it. It's getting there ... in pieces! In the meantime, I'm still doing the visitation work at Calvary UMC where I'll be preaching this Sunday because our senior pastor is on a mission trip starting Saturday and going all the way through next week.

I'm thankful for having the work in both of these places, but I am finding that holding down two part-time positions is far more exhausting than working one full-time position. I'm constantly shifting gears and having to reorient myself from one place to the other - sometimes on a daily basis. Like yesterday when I was at staff meeting at Calvary, then a lunch meeting, followed by an afternoon with one of our Calvary shut-ins who is in hospice care actively dying, then a brief pause to get my daughter to swimming lessons, then to Washington County hospital to check on a St. Mark's member ... dinner at 9:00PM ... at home. I'm finding I use my GPS even more because I can't keep where I'm going straight in my head anymore! At least a little screen with a voice tells me where to go (not that others aren't telling me where to go, but you get the idea!).

I'm still in search for a full-time position. I'm in the final stretch of one process in Massachusetts and will be headed up there in July to interview. I'm excited about this but I also know we can get right to the end and I don't get the call. That's the nature of this whole process, so I'm a bit guarded in my enthusiasm. I've also submitted my name to two searches in a neighboring diocese. They are just starting out, so they are at least 6-9 months out on extending a call.

I guess the hardest thing for me is how slow the process is and, when you are actively in a search and one of the final candidates, your whole life seems to be put on hold indefinitely. Don't get me wrong, the folks I've worked with in Massachusetts have been fantastic in communicating with me throughout the process; however, it is just a long drawn out affair that requires you to be open and flexible. The process makes it difficult to plan your life - everything goes "on hold" as you wait for contact to find out if you've made it to the next round. If so, you plan the "next step" and then wait again.

This is especially hard with our girls each going to a different school this fall. Our youngest will head to middle school and the oldest to high school. There's a lot to plan for if we stay right here, but we don't know if we'll be staying right here or not. If we do move, it will be even more hectic than if we stay (which will be hectic enough).

So it's all on hold ... for now ... at least there's no Muzak playing in the background!

Endings ... again

I just learned yesterday that our bishops have called a new priest who will be serving both St. Luke's Carey Street and Holy Nativity, Pimlico. The Reverend Glenna Reed is a young African American woman from Atlanta and I'm sure she will be a splendid pastor for these two congregations. St. Luke's has been yoked before, but this is a new experience for Holy Nativity. They are a yoking of equal partners, so this bodes well for the long term sustainability of the relationship. They are going to be a new inner-city mutual ministry model for our diocese - so that means no roadmaps or "tried and true" methodologies.

This is a lot like God's call to Abram:

Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

Genesis 12:1-4

The LORD did not say, "Hi Abram, it's me ... you know God. Listen, I have an idea I want to pitch to you and see what you think about it." Nope. God said "Go." No introduction, just a command and a promise. Abram went, and "believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness." (Genesis 15:6)

Believing in the LORD is to trust in God. Abram trusted fully and went, even though the roadmap was not given to him. God didn't give him the full plan, just go to a "land that I will show you." He didn't get the Google driving directions to Canaan! He didn't even get a hint that he should head westward ... just go to a land I will show you. It's as if God said, "Just start walking Abram, and I'll reveal it as you go."

Ministry is that way. We are all called to a land that God will show us. That land is the place of possibilities that do not exist right now, but will emerge as we take each step on faith. Just start moving ... God will reveal the possibilities as you trust God enough to take the steps.

I think God did it this way to make sure that Abram's ego didn't get in the way. Let's be honest, don't we all really just want God to write out the whole plan in the sky so we can get the "big picture?" The problem is, if we had the whole "big picture," we'd get our egos involved and wrest control from God to make it happen on our terms. Instead, God doesn't give us the whole picture ... just the next step. The challenge is to trust enough to take the first step, not worrying about where it goes, and trusting it will land where God wants it to land. That's a tall order.

This is true for St. Luke's and Holy Nativity, and for me too. It will be hard to say good-bye to St. Luke's. Honestly, I won't miss the haul down I-70, but I will miss the people, especially the kids. I have a few more weeks there (I think ... still waiting for final instructions on that), but it makes me start thinking about my future.

I was at Fresh Start today (our new call support group) and all this was announced. I told them the "Mercenary Presbyter" was back in the house! I'm keeping my Reverend Mom blog moniker this time though. Beloved Husband and I are opening ourselves to options which, like Abram, may ask us to get up and go to another place. If God wants us here in Maryland, a viable full-time call will open up here. But, sitting around waiting for that to happen isn't showing a lot of trust either. I need to make myself available to any possibility and see if God may be up to something unexpected.

Then again, isn't God always up to something unexpected?

If it's Tuesday, I must be a Methodist...

I'm living my life in two different worlds. For those who follow this blog (all three of you ... ok, maybe four ... maybe!), you know I'm now the Interim Rector at St. Luke's Episcopal in Franklin Square. It's only a 10 hour per week position where I'm in the office on Wednesdays from about 10am to 4pm and Sundays from 8:30am to 12:30pm ... and additional hours of work from home which puts me over 10 hours per week regularly. Here's the truth, there really are no part-time calls, just part-time pay! But that's what they could afford and I do my best to keep my hours near the 10 hour mark. Things are going pretty well there. When I started, the attendance was around 18 on Sundays ... last week it was up to 25 and yesterday it was 26. In percentages, that's a pretty big leap. I'm seeing new faces too and that gives me hope.

BUT, a 10 hour/week call is not enough to pay the bills. Yes, Beloved Husband works, but working at our diocesan retreat/conference center was a huge cut in pay from where he was in the corporate world. So I need a full-time call, but being restricted geographically means I must wait for the right call to open up and hope the congregation will call me to the position. That's a lot of hopes!

So, in the midst of all this, I also was approached by the senior pastor at Calvary United Methodist Church in Frederick to be their half-time minister of visitation. Fortunately, my bishop was gracious enough to let me take this call, with the understanding that I would be open to a full-time call when one becomes available. I began working with Calvary on All Saints Day (11/1).

As Minister of Visitation, I get to visit with our shut-ins and nursing home residents. It's great. I bring Holy Communion to those who want it and get to visit with a whole bunch of wonderful people. I hear stories from them about Frederick county from long ago, when our diocesan retreat center was the Buckingham School for Boys, when most people still used horses and buggies to get out to the farm because the roads were still largely dirt.

I figure that going to a Lutheran seminary and serving both an Episcopal Church and a Methodist Church makes me an Episco-Luthra-Dist. The thing that's really hard is keeping things straight. I'm at Calvary on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays ... and at St. Luke's on Wednesdays and Sundays. I have to keep situations, stories and names straight between the two places and I'm struggling with that. It's complicated, but I do know that if it's Tuesday, I must be a Methodist. ;-)

Call and cure

Lately I've been mulling the difference between call and cure. In the church, we speak of being called by God to ministry. That is true for all people of faith, regardless of whether you are ordained or not. When you are ordained, we speak of being called to a particular congregation to be a priest or pastor. But what happens when this call to serve a particular congregation goes away? What does it mean? This is where I am right now.

With the help of friends, I've come to realize that the Call (that "capital C" Call) is bigger than any one congregation's circumstances. Speaking of being called to a congregation can certainly muddy the waters of definition. Call is bigger than any one community or circumstance. I worked a Cursillo weekend (Maryland 95) last weekend. It was just what I needed to get this question straightened out in my heart and mind. It was clear that my Call to be a priest was still there and strong as ever. My call to Gathered by Christ has finished - but that is only a part of my Call.

One of our fellow spiritual advisers last weekend was the Rev. Eddie Blue from Holy Trinity in Baltimore. It's been a great blessing to get to know Eddie+ through the teaming process and we found ourselves cutting up quite a bit ... nothing like a little clerical stream of semi-consciousness humor to keep things interesting. When I said to Eddie+ that I was "losing my call" to this congregation, he replied, "You haven't lost your call, you've lost your cure." Hmmm ... hadn't thought about it that way.

Webster's dictionary defines cure as a noun in three basic ways:

1. A remedy, healing
2. A means to preserve meat
3. A spiritual or religious charge of the people

I don't think "door number 2" applies here ... but maybe one of my readers will find an interesting way to do so (never underestimate the creativity of the blogosphere!). Definitions one and three have some traction though. Three describes the call to a congregation as a cure. That's the "little c" call. It's a call for a reason and a season. Some cures are long term ... others quite short. I was called to take spiritual charge of the people at Gathered by Christ for the purpose of doing whatever God wanted me to do there for God's glory. It turned out that what God wanted was definition number 1 - a healing.

Today, I returned from Diocesan Convention. This is my last official act as Vicar of Gathered by Christ. I distributed all the letters of transfer this past week to the remaining few members. The last one went to our delegate to convention ... he couldn't leave until after he finished his duties!

So I've completed my work there. Now to write the resignation letter to my bishop to make it all official. It was a cure from God ... in more ways than one.

Lead us not into temptation

This one phrase in the Lord's Prayer is troublesome for many folks - myself included. The Greek phrasing of this part of the Lord's Prayer can also be translated: "Lead us not into a time of testing." It is followed by "and deliver us from evil" or "deliver us from the evil one." It's almost as if we ask God not to bring us into testing but, if God does, to deliver us from Satan's power.

So why would God bring us to a time of testing? Doesn't that seem paradoxical? A God who is good leading us to be tempted by evil?

I was drawn to my library the other day to start some reading. With the looming conclusion of my work at Gathered by Christ, I've found myself with a lot of free time on my hands. I don't handle that terribly well. So, after the Wednesday Eucharist where we remembered Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I went downstairs to my wall of books to see if I had any of Bonhoeffer's writings. My library is largely composed of books given to me by two priests - John Keller+ and Sallie Bailey+. Both of these priests gave me gifts of friendship and care ... the books are representative of those gifts. I was looking, in particular, for the Cost of Discipleship and didn't find it. I did, however, find a small booklet entitled Temptation. I picked it up and read it last night and into this morning.

Bonhoeffer's observations are that the temptation of a Christian is the experience of Satan tempting Christ all over again. Satan failed in his temptations of Christ, even the temptation he experienced in the sense of God's abandonment of him on the cross. God is not the source of temptation; however, there are times when God abandons us to face it alone. God is silent (see II Chronicles 32.31; Psalm 27.9; Proverbs 1.28; Hosea 5.6). In that abandonment we are left only with God's Word and promise.

Temptation causes us to face the sin in ourselves - our pride, self-righteousness, and distorted images of ourselves. Temptation can lead us to either a place of false security in believing that our sins are really not that bad and God will really not judge us for them, or it will lead to despair that our sins will never really be forgiven since Christ only died for the trivial ones, not the ones we've committed.

This all rings very true for me right now. The last thing I ever thought I would face coming out of seminary is the disintegration of the congregation I was called to serve. I know this is not of my doing as the situation was quite grave prior to my arrival; however, it still hurts. I've done my pastoral duty and the members of this congregation are now in the process of finding a safe landing in another congregation. In fact, I've had area clergy contact me to see if the members were planning a visit to their churches! I asked our members how it felt to be so wanted that I'm getting calls and e-mails inquiring about their visits. It felt good for them to be wanted and needed again.

I think that's what's hurting so much for me right now. I know my husband and the girls want me and need me. Don't get me wrong - that's very important. But to not be needed as a priest just ten weeks after ordination is very painful. It is a deep temptation to question my call. Did I just get called to do this and then get dumped? At times I feel like the Israelites in the wilderness ... "Hey, Egypt wasn't so bad. Let's go back. At least we won't starve there." ;-)

The sense of abandonment is very real. Even other clergy don't know quite what to say to me. I'm living their worst nightmare, what can you say to that? Most of them are thankful they aren't facing what I'm facing ... and the loss of a call in a down economy with a geographic limitation and no prospects is truly frightening. I know I'm not the only priest to have lost a call to serve, but without a context to understand how the cycles of calls happen, the patterns that emerge, I don't have any idea what I'll be up against or how long I will have to wait. I know how these things work in the private sector. When you lose your job, you file for unemployment, start cranking out the resumes, and maybe take a temp job to generate some cash flow. But that's not how it works for clergy and I feel very lost in this system.

Bonhoeffer's words were helpful this morning. I realized this temptation has led me to despair. Bonhoeffer wrote, "... I must recognize in all this that I am here thrust by Satan into the highest temptation of Christ on the cross, as he cried: 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' But where God's wrath broke out, there was reconciliation. Where I, smitten by God's wrath, lose everything, there I hear the words: 'My grace is sufficient for thee; for my power is made perfect in weakness' (II Cor. 12.9)."

At some later time, I will be able to minister to others through this trial. For now, I just have to endure it and pray for deliverance from the evil one.

Pilgrimage ... the next chapter

We are going, heaven knows where we are going,
But we know within.
And we'll be there, heaven knows how we will get there,
But we know we will.

It will be hard, we know,
And the road will be muddy and rough,
But we'll get there, heaven knows when we will get there,
But we know we will.

These words are from a song called Woyaya. They capture the essence of being on a pilgrimage.

Our little mission congregation is on a pilgrimage. If you've followed this blog, you know we've been on a discernment journey which began in Lent (and it was very Lent-y!). I came to this congregation in June 2007 after some serious internal crises which caused great injury to the members. We had few in numbers when I began and a couple of families intentionally left after my arrival. Our average Sunday attendance is down to 18 and our current location isn't conducive to attracting new members. So it was time to lay down our agendas and listen to God's call to us.

As we listened, we considered all options and looked at the whole picture of our life together. We could not ignore that illness, age and injuries were part of the constellation of our lives. It became clear that the call of being "church planters" was no longer the call felt by the members. It was time to do something else.

But what? That's where the song comes in. Our members are now embarking on "field trips" to visit other Episcopal Churches in our county and listen for where God may be calling them to be. There is movement ...

We are going, heaven knows where we are going,
But we know within.

On Maundy Thursday, our Hebrew Scripture text was the story of the Passover from Exodus 12. In it, God gives Moses the instructions for the Passover. Part of the instructions are:

"This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly."

This made so much sense to me in light of the fact our regular worship as a congregation was coming to a close (Good Friday was our last scheduled service). We were being told through this Scripture to get ready - be ready to go! For us, it meant the beginning of a pilgrimage to discern where God is calling us next.

Some call this "church shopping" but I don't like that term at all. It plays into our worst consumerist attitudes. It turns Church into a commodity and places the emphasis on what we want rather than where God is calling us. Putting ourselves at the center of this process instead of God isn't faithful.

The Church is not a commodity - it is the Body of Christ. We are called to particular congregations to live fully into our discipleship, not because of some passing want or whim we have. We may be called to congregations we'd never consider if it were up to our own desires. I have no doubt that I was called to work with this congregation, even though I do not generally feel called to work in family sized congregations or as a mission church planter. God had a different idea and needed me to do some particular work here ... and now that work is changing and will likely come to an end within the next month or so.

And so, rather than "church shopping," I told them they were on a pilgrimage. Pilgrimages are intentional journeys and they are on a very intentional journey to seek a community where they can live fully into their call to be God's people. They will get there ... heaven knows when they will get there ... but I don't think it will take very long. With God at the center of this intentional process, they will be just fine.

As for me ... well, my journey may be hard and the road will likely be muddy and rough. Beloved Husband has just accepted his call to be Director of Operations for Bishop Claggett Center and we are both very excited about this new chapter in his life. Making this move will be a financial challenge as he is taking a 50% cut in salary to go there. This makes my having a full-time (or close to full-time) call a necessity. It also places a geographical limitation on any future call ... and right now, there are really no openings in this area. An old friend of ours, Lee Weber, said, "Well you guys are either completely faithful or completely nuts." I'm hoping it's the former and not the latter. I suppose time will tell.

St. Something-Or-Other

It's now official (except I'm still waiting for paperwork to sign), that my first call assignment is to be the new vicar of a mission church in Frederick County, MD! The congregation is known as The Gathering and was launched about 8 years ago in Walkersville, MD. They've been through some huge changes in the past year and have been without a priest since last August. They are restarting the mission in the Buckeystown/Urbana area and worshiping at the Bishop Claggett Center in Buckeystown MD.

So I'm very excited about the future prospects for this mission "reboot" and we have a lot of work to do, but it's good stuff with great people. St. Francis of Assisi said, "God gave me brothers and sisters" and this community is truly a gift from God.

But it's also with a heavy heart that I leave my internship site this Sunday. St. Thomas' Episcopal Church in Hancock MD has been my spiritual home for the past two academic years. Beautiful and caring community with a really amazing rector who trusted me to do things that a lot of clergy might not have. Of course, Allan+ has impeccable taste too - he's married to my dear friend and mentor, Anne+ who is the rector of my home congregation, St. Mark's Episcopal in Lappans, MD. I'll return to St. Mark's for just a few weeks before going to The Gathering. Two farewells in the same month ... I'm buying a stockpile of Kleenex.

My youngest daughter (who according to her grandfather has the "explainer gene") explained how all of this change will work out for me, even if she couldn't remember the name of the new congregation. She said, "Now you belong to three churches Mom." When I asked her what she meant, she replied, "Well, some of you belongs to St. Thomas' and some of you belongs to St. Mark's and now some of you belongs to ... um ... St. Something-Or-Other."

Let's hear it for "St. Something-Or-Other!" God knows who she meant.

The collective sigh of relief

After wrestling with God for 24 years, 2 years of discernment and 3 years of seminary training, the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Maryland gave me their collective "thumbs up" to be ordained in June. I'm soooooo excited to finally get to this point, but there is some trepidation about stepping through that doorway. What will lie beyond it? I'm not sure. I'm in conversation with my bishop and a congregation about a call, but I can't say anything until we have a contract in place (so it's "shhhhhh" for now).

I do have mixed feelings about moving on. I was online yesterday with our interns from LTSG and they were talking about how it will be hard to leave their internship sites, but they are looking forward to coming back to seminary and seeing everyone again. It then became very real to me that these wonderful people I entered seminary with (and struggled through Greek with!) are going back next year ... but I won't be there with them. The reality that I won't be there is sinking in ... and I'm sad about that.

How do you say "good-bye" when you don't get a chance to? Saying "good-bye" is the part of ministry that is necessary ... but it's not easy. How do you do it gracefully?