Holy Women, Wholly Women: Sharing Ministries Through Life Stories and Reciprocal Ethnography [Reprint 2016 ed.] 9781512803846

Table of contents :
Contents
Preface
Introduction
1. Women-Church: Fieldwork and the Group
2. Hearing Into Speech: Reciprocal Ethnography and Women's Life Stories
3. Over-Reading the Texts: The Threads that Bind
4. Key Metaphors: Sub-Texts in Women's Stories
5. Naked in the Pulpit: Sexuality and Holistic Well-Being
6. The Dancer and the Dance: Female Images of God
7. God in Connection: The Message of Women's Ministery
Afterthoughts: The Never-Ending Story, or the Book in Process
Bibliographу
Index

Citation preview

Holу Women, Wholly Women

Publications of the American Folklore Society N e w Series General Editor, Patrick B. Mullen

Holy Women, Wholly Women Sharing Ministries of Wholeness Through Life Stories and Reciprocal Ethnography Elaine J. Lawless

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS Philadelphia

Portions of C h a p t e r Two a p p e a r e d in Elaine J. Lawless, "Women's Life Stories a n d Reciprocal E t h n o g r a p h y as Feminist a n d Emergent," Journal of Folklore Research 28(1991): 3 5 - 6 1 .

Copyright © 1993 by Elaine J. Lawless All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lawless, Elaine J. Holy women, wholly women : sharing ministries of wholeness t h r o u g h life stories a n d reciprocal e t h n o g r a p h y / Elaine J. Lawless. p. cm. — (Publications of the American Folklore Society. New series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8122-8240-X. — ISBN 0-8122-1444-7 1. Women clergy—United States. I. Title. II. Title: Life stories a n d reciprocal ethnography. III. Series. BV676.L393 1993 277.3Ό829Ό82—dc20 93-17873 CIP

For Kathleen Marie Because anything is possible

And to the memory of my niece Angela Mischelle Lawless Whose joy of life and tragic death will haunt us always

holy. A deriv. of the adj. *hailo-, OE. hal, free from injury, whole, hale, or of the deriv. *hailoz-, *hailiz-, in OHG. heil, ON. heill, health, happiness, good luck in ON. also omen, auspice. T h e sense-development from hailo- is not clear, because the primitive pre-Christian meaning is uncertain, although it is with some probability assumed to have been 'inviolate, inviolable, that which must be preserved whole or intact, that cannot be injured with impunity', a sense preserved in ΟΝ.; and with the introduction of Christianity, it would be a ready word to render L. sanctus, sacer. But it might also start from hail- in the sense 'health, good luck, well-being', or be connected with the sense 'good omen, auspice, augury, as if of good augury'. 1. Kept or regarded as inviolate from ordinary use, and appropriated or set apart for religious use or observance; consecrated, dedicated, sacred. Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition, 1989, p. 318

Contents

Preface Introduction 1. Women-Church: Fieldwork and the Group

Flannery Haller Kathleen Miles-Wagner 2. Hearing Into Speech: Reciprocal Ethnography and Women's Life Stories

Marsha Johnston Anne-Marie Cooper Carter Buchanan Amy Seger 3. Over-Reading the Texts: The Threads that Bind

Linda Stewart Maria Rodriegas Constance Colgate Ann Engels

xi 1 11

29 42 57

84 92 100 114 127

155 170 183 191

4. Key Metaphors: Sub-Texts in Women's Stories

201

5. Naked in the Pulpit: Sexuality and Holistic Well-Being

217

6. The Dancer and the Dance: Female Images of God

242

7. God in Connection: The Message of Women's Ministery

267

Afterthoughts Bibliography Index

283 289 295

Preface

Most of my work previous to this book has focused on Pentecostalism, largely as it exists in white congregations in the southernmost reaches o f the midland states, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. It was while I was writing a book on women preachers in the Pentecostal faith that I occasionally met a clergywoman from a mainline denomination. I even met a few women rabbis. My interest was sparked. I knew it would be important to compare the lives and ministry of such mainline women with those of Pentecostals, who are much more marginal and less inclined toward the mainstream. T h e full story o f my field experience can be found in Chapter 1, but suffice it to say here, in the first lines o f this book, that this project has developed into, simply, the most rewarding effort of my career. T h e methodology developed for this work, which I am calling "reciprocal ethnography," served to bring me closer to the women in the study. I am fully aware that our "book work," as it came to be called, has had a deep impact on the women as well and that they appreciate the places our discussions have taken us. I consider the women in this study my friends; acknowledging that has also made it awkward and difficult at times to establish and maintain the appropriate relationship with each of them. Our discussions o f things religious and spiritual have sustained me personally. T h e i r honesty, integrity, sense of humor, inquisitiveness, generosity, diligence, and honor continue to restore my faith in humankind to do and be all that it can. Justice, love, vulnerability, acceptance, and the working of the sacred in human lives have come to have new meaning for me, even though I do not consider myself traditionally religious or claim the denominational faith of any o f the women represented in this study. In an attempt to acknowledge that I bring cultural and religious "baggage" to this endeavor, I might note by way of explanation that my childhood roots were in the Southern Baptist tradition; while that early experience certainly has helped me in my study o f traditional

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preaching, spontaneous prayer and testimony, and other oral traditional aspects of religion, the "hell fire and brimstone" approach, the guilt, and the intolerance of that experience continue to cause me pain and anger. A s an adult I have come to know Judaism through my marriage to a Jewish man; I have studied and become knowledgeable about Pentecostalism as a student, an observer, a scholar, and a teacher; and I have read extensively in Christian history and theology, becoming most recently interested in feminist and liberation theology. A c k n o w l e d g i n g where the ethnographer is, and being honest about how the work has been filtered through my own experience, has become for me the first step toward writing better and more useful ethnographies. I do not dislike religion; I do not dislike ritual or prayer or piety; I do dislike excessive shows of religiosity and piety; I intensely dislike proselytizing and religious argumentation intended f o r conversion; I am suspicious of much religious ritual when it appears to me to be an empty substitute f o r meaning and questioning. I have tried not to let these personal biases influence the way I have written this book; however, I know that they will color some of my descriptions and influence my reactions to certain situations. Personally, I have f o u n d no comfortable " h o m e " in any o f these religions. T h e oppression and subjugation of women I perceive in many of them precludes other responses I might have to religious contexts. T h e closest I come to being "religious" is in acknowledging that I am tuned to feminist spirituality; in this sense I share some of the aspects of the spiritual with the women in this study. Perhaps this was not my position when the study began. I would be the first to say that the study has developed in me a much d e e p e r sense of spirituality—to the point that I can say with Anne-Marie that I can now sense the presence of the divine in the room where we all gather to talk about things religious. I do not explain this point of view to bring attention to myself as the author of this work; however, it has been noted that my own biases and prejudices are constantly filtered through a lens which includes all of what I have just explained. T h e r e f o r e it behooves the reader to take this reality of the writer's life into account while reading this book. I cannot totally discount or eliminate my presence f r o m this work. Nor would I want to. I would like to name the women who have worked closely with me in this endeavor, the women the reader is about to meet; I would love to include photographs of all of them, particularly standing before their congregations in their vestments or blessing the c u p or greeting visitors or sitting together at lunch or in our discussion sessions. However, they have decided that it is safer for me to use pseudonyms for them and for the people they talk about. I want to acknowledge their

Preface

xlll

importance, however, as very real people—to this work and to me as another h u m a n searching for truth and meaning. And I need to acknowledge my own anger that "safety" for them is even an issue in the 1990s in America. T h a t fact astounds me. I thank them all for their time, their support, their honesty and diligence as we have worked o u r way t h r o u g h this project. In addition, I want to acknowledge the loving s u p p o r t of my very dear friends Mary Lago and Win H o r n e r . T h e s e two women, especially, serve as models for me in my endeavors and their encouragement and friendship keep me going. Sincere thanks are also d u e several other people: Tracy LeGrande, who transcribed the tapes f o r this project and who cheerfully and diligently worked for me for years in Columbia while she was a student at the University of Missouri; Marilynn Keil and Sara Jenkins, who were the first to read the d r a f t of the manuscript and talk with me about it; and David H u f f o r d for a critique of the manuscript which most certainly m a d e it a better book. I also want to thank the Research Council at the University of Missouri for council f u n d s in support of some of the field research, the English D e p a r t m e n t for a semester's Research Leave in 1989, and the University for a sabbatical for the spring semester 1990. Finally, I need to acknowledge that I have the world's greatest partner in life, Sandy Rikoon. I want to thank him for the way we have managed the time and endeavors of o u r joint lives in such a way that we can both d o what we want to do—like write books and raise child r e n . I have dedicated this book to Kathleen Marie, who joined o u r family while it was being written. I wish for her, for o u r d a u g h t e r Jesse, and for my son Alex the kind of world envisioned by the women who speak in these pages.

Introduction

When I set out to write this book, I came to the task with some presuppositions based on more than ten years of research on women in religion. I believed at the outset that the story of ordained women in mainline denominations would be a radically different story from that of the women Pentecostal preachers I had previously studied and featured in my book Handmaidens of the Lord; I expected that their experiences would be more positive and less difficult. Yet I also somehow knew that, even though women were seemingly breaking down barriers and were making strides in terms of ordination and placement in positions of church authority, in reality women had not progressed far enough in their pursuit for equality in this male bastion. Some of my early, brief encounters with ordained women, or women who had tried to be ordained and were rejected or frustrated in their attempts, convinced me that opportunities for women in the church still lag behind those for men and that many of these women were still subjected to painful and often crippling experiences. These juxtaposed, nearly opposite points of view serve to illustrate the unsettled questions. Are they or are they not making great strides? Have things changed very much at all? What is life as a clergywoman like? How do they see their lives and their ministry? I also came into this project with an ill-defined but strongly felt notion that women were, by their nature and inclinations, changing the "face" of religion in America today. I believed clergy women shared a common calling. I believed they ministered differently and uniquely because they were females: that they preached differently; saw God, religion, and spirituality differently; and, by their very presence and persistence, could and were changing the focus of religion toward a more process-oriented, liberation-defined, humanistic endeavor. I believe this more than ever; but my beliefs and my understandings have been constantly tempered, modified, and challenged by the women in this study. They resist my inclinations to make this study a crusade.

2

Introduction

T h e y o f t e n resist my g e n d e r e d interpretations, yet they a r e inclined to acknowledge their femaleness a n d their religious inclinations, a n d they d o recognize a d i f f e r e n c e in their a p p r o a c h to religion a n d spirituality. T h e y a r e quick a n d c a r e f u l to point out that they have b e e n j o i n e d in their efforts toward a religion of wholeness, of spiritual growth, of inclusivity, of acceptance, of process a n d reconstructive theology, by m a n y males w h o share their intense concern f o r justice issues in religion. I recognize a n d acknowledge, as m a n y of the w o m e n in this study do, the blatant a n d persistent sexism in "the c h u r c h , " the persistent patriarchal c u l t u r e as it is manifested in most of the religious denominations of this country. I n m a n y ways, we a g r e e that mainline religious institutions, in general, have fallen short of providing equality to w o m e n in their p u r s u i t of ordination a n d j o b placement, security, promotions, salary, a n d respect. Slightly above a n d beyond the law, m a n y c h u r c h e s c o n t i n u e to ignore w o m e n w h o rightly dem a n d equality a n d respect in t h e eyes of t h e religious world. T h e stories of t h e w o m e n in this study a r e filled with trials a n d errors, denial a n d rejection, success a n d f r u s t r a t i o n , c o m m u n i t y a n d sisterh o o d . I have tried in this book to "hear t h e m [all] into being," as Nelle M o r t o n insisted that we must do. With Mary Daly a n d these w o m e n , we conclude that "in t h e b e g i n n i n g was not the word. I n t h e beginn i n g is the hearing." I have a t t e m p t e d to provide a f o r u m f o r the w o m e n w h o a p p e a r o n these pages to speak openly a b o u t their own, real lives. T h u s t h e title of this book must be u n d e r s t o o d in its multiple meanings: It is int e n d e d to be u n d e r s t o o d as both Holy W o m e n a n d Wholly W o m e n — w o m e n seeking to be whole, w h o a r e whole, who advocate (w)holistic ministries, theologies, a n d spiritualities. T h e s e w o m e n characterize their ministry as "an invitation into wholeness," a wholeness that is u n d e r s t o o d as a circle, as a c o n t i n u u m , as the e a r t h herself, as the t h r e a d that binds their diversity b u t that allows f o r the f r e e d o m a n d celebration of diversity a n d d i f f e r e n c e within the community, that allows t h e m to speak a n d be h e a r d . This, then, is "sacred wholiness," t h e Hailo Sanctus, consecrated, dedicated, a n d full of power. I have f o u n d that l e a r n i n g to listen is the equivalent of l e a r n i n g how to be a good scholar. I n my previous research with Pentecostal w o m e n p r e a c h e r s I realized too late that I h a d fallen into a typical kind of t r a p . O n the o n e h a n d , I openly a n d honestly respected the w o m e n I came to know f o r all that they did. I n the first pages of Handmaidens of the Lord I related a typical day in t h e life of A n n a Walters a n d a p p l a u d e d h e r stamina a n d fortitude, h e r patience a n d generosity, a n d in the process I ven-

Introduction

3

erated the "Superwoman" image she must maintain to do and be what she aspires within the Pentecostal religious context. While my examination of her situation certainly pointed to her pain and difficulties, I nevertheless inadvertently contributed to a notion that such a life is to be held up and admired. It has taken me several years to recognize my own contribution to this kind of oppression of women. Open admiration for martyred lives only exacerbates the difficulties women have in making rational choices about their lives and their life work. I have attempted in this study not to honor the "Superwoman" mentality and support the oppression of women by admiring their selfsacrifice. Even though I do admire the women in this study immensely and applaud their courage to be and do who and what they are and want to be, I have tried to deny the trappings of what they ought to be and do as prescribed by social and cultural constructs. No other professional position carries for women the potential for this egregious error in the way that the ordained ministry might. It is so easy for us to put onto this perceived figure of piety and goodness the roles of mother, sister, daughter, nurturer, comforter, lover, wife, do-er—and the list could go on and on. Women pastors could be expected to do and be all these roles, meeting all the different expectations of those in their worlds. Yet, to expect such a performance forces upon such women a stereotype that they neither deserve nor seek. This study is based on field research in one rather broad, but contained, geographical location in the upper midwest. T h e women represented by name (all pseudonyms) are either white or hispanic females, mostly pastors or associate pastors of what we would, generally, refer to as "mainline" congregations. Their denominational affiliations include Episcopalian, Disciples of Christ, Unitarian, Unity, and United Methodist. I recognize that the Unity and Unitarian denominations do not refer to themselves, nor are perceived by others, as "mainline." In fact, the women of these denominations insist to me that they have felt little of the blatant discrimination suffered by the women in many of the others. While they feel women have many rights and privileges in their denominations, they are active members of the lunch group this book is based upon, have been participants in the dialogue sessions, and enthusiastically endorse the conclusions drawn in this study. While my study eventually came to focus on a group of fewer than fifteen participants, the original and larger field study included a total of more than thirty women in a wider geographical area and included Roman Catholic nuns and representatives from General Baptist, American Baptist, and Presbyterian churches. T h e life stories included in this work are the stories of the women who worked most

4

Introduction

closely with m e in dialogue sessions as t h e work progressed. I tape r e c o r d e d a n d transcribed scores of o t h e r life stories a n d interviews with individual w o m e n ; those materials have b e e n p a r t of the b r o a d base of this study even t h o u g h the words of these w o m e n largely did not m a k e it into the book. S o m e of the w o m e n were quite young, were m a r r i e d , a n d h a d small children; several were m a r r i e d to male clergy; several h a d older children; several were single; some were divorced with grown children; some were widowed; some were lesbian (none were "out"). T h e age r a n g e was f r o m early thirties to late sixties o r early seventies. All h a d b e e n seminary trained; most were currently working in churches; most were also involved with ministry in n u r s i n g homes, hospitals, colleges, small affiliated missions, a n d local shelters; several were actively involved in prison ministry, local f o o d bank programs, Planned P a r e n t h o o d , a n d o t h e r h u m a n rights organizations. I n varying degrees, all the w o m e n in t h e study a r e politically conscious a n d actively working o n issues of social awareness a n d responsibility. I n general, I would characterize the geographical locations of their ministries as small town a n d r u r a l ; n o n e of the w o m e n at the time of this study held positions in u r b a n situations. My respect f o r the w o m e n who constitute this study r e p r e s e n t s a recognition of the power, intelligence, knowledge, a n d u n d e r s t a n d ing that is shared by t h e w o m e n in t h e "women in ministry" g r o u p , which ultimately came to be the focus of the study. Along with this respect has c o m e a recognition that they know things that I, as a scholar, d o not necessarily n e e d to " i n t e r p r e t " b u t a m obliged to present. While I have o f f e r e d my own insights about their collective life stories a n d their lives in ministry, this book will o f f e r their voices solo at times, will balance their voices with the author's voice at others, a n d create a n d r e p r e s e n t a dialogue between us at still others. T h e work r e p r e s e n t s s h a r e d a u t h o r s h i p , not of t h e actual w o r d s on the p a g e a n d their r e p r e s e n t a t i o n to a potential r e a d e r , b u t in the d e v e l o p m e n t a n d consensus of o u r evolving discourse. I a d m i t openly at the outset that I d o n o t think I know m o r e t h a n t h e w o m e n I a m currently studying. I feel h o n o r e d to have b e e n accepted into their i n n e r circle a n d allowed to p u r s u e this study. I have not p r e s u m e d to analyze t h e m , their motives, their religions, o r their beliefs without a great deal of discussion, a r g u m e n t , a n d dialogue. Many of my presuppositions at t h e b e g i n n i n g of the study have b e e n vigorously e x a m i n e d a n d challenged by the w o m e n in this g r o u p . A n d that is as it should be. Most of the time I a g r e e with t h e m . T h e y convince me, collectively, that they know themselves f a r better t h a n I can p r e s u m e to know t h e m . T h r o u g h o u t this book, I will p r e s e n t in detail t h e fieldwork techniques I a d o p t e d f o r this study a n d p r e s e n t the implications of what

Introduction

5

I am calling "reciprocal ethnography." This new approach, which I consider to be inherently feminist and humanistic, takes "reflexive anthropology" one step f u r t h e r by foregrounding dialogue as a process in understanding and knowledge retrieval. T h e approach is feminist because it insists on a denial of hierarchical constructs that place the scholar at some apex of knowledge and understanding and her "subjects" in some inferior, less knowledgeable position. This approach seeks to privilege no voice over another and relies on dialogue as the key to understanding and illumination. I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge at least one political mission in this work—the goal of making the reader cognizant of what I continue to recognize as blatant discrimination against women in religious institutions in this country and elsewhere. It is, in fact, a global question, one with a very long history, based on an insupportable misogyny that denies full participation in the "priesthood" (however that term is defined) for over half of the population, controlled by the other half. It seems nearly impossible to comprehend, but females are not allowed, by virtue of their sexual apparatus, total rights to ordained ministry in many denominations. In these denominations, women are prohibited from becoming priests because they are female. This is bold, blatant, and religiously condoned discrimination. This study of clergywomen seeks to evoke an understanding of how women who feel called to the ministry work within discriminatory systems to fulfill their callings; it seeks to allow them a voice to tell their own personal stories; it seeks to present the dialogue among them in their everyday encounters with each other; it seeks to present the emergent dialogue that developed during this study, and it seeks to make evident the religious message that emanates from this group and unites them in their efforts. I am not a member of the clergy, but once, in an anointing ceremony in which I participated, one of the women in this study anointed my hand with oil and spoke of the ministry of my work in the writing of this book, the ministry of giving voice to the women who speak in these pages, for giving voice to their stories. I am aware that to participate this fully in the life of the group and to include that experience in my writing may be considered an unfashionable kind of confessional, subjective textualization in some circles. I hope my work never becomes subject to accusations of excessive reflexivity, where the ethnography becomes the ethnographer's biography, but to deny where I stand within this ethnography would be foolhardy. My voice is certainly in this work. It begins with the title and is foregrounded on every page. On the other hand, my voice will not, I hope, ever presuppose its authority over the voices of the women in the study, how-

6

Introduction

ever, when they begin to speak. As the scholar, as the writer of this book, as the observer who also participates as a learner, I fully acknowledge my role in this re-creation of a dialogic experience, where the strong, contrapuntal voices of the women will be heard along with my own interpretations. It is my hope that this book represents the wholeness potential of all the women who worked so hard with me to make it a reality: f r o m the initial fieldwork, to the hearing of the women's life stories, to our exchange during the interviews, through all the group lunches, into the dialogue sessions where we probed and pondered and disagreed and compromised, to the pages of this book where the process is laid bare. Annie Dillard argues in her delightful long essay, The Writing Life, that good writing is hammered out as the writer recognizes that she must demolish her favorite sentences in favor of the worth of the work: "Process is nothing; erase your tracks. T h e path is not the work. I hope your tracks have grown over; I hope birds ate the crumbs; I hope you will toss it all and not look back." 1 But with ethnography, I would contend, we must not allow the tracks to grow over or the birds to eat the crumbs. T h e path is the work—or at least the process must be evident in order to validate the end product. T h e skeleton of my venture here, then, becomes the key to the reader's insight into a world examined from without and f r o m within. T h e somewhat eclectic presentation that follows should, like the study itself, reflect a feminist way of doing ethnography—reciprocal, balanced, built on exchange and dialogue. T h e r e are seven chapters and ten life stories in this book. Rather than separate these two very different aspects of the study, I have elected to present life stories in groups after the first three chapters. 2 To some extent, the order of presentation of the life stories reflects the chronological sequence in which I collected them. I have invited the reader to read the life stories at a point in the text of my chapters where the reader "meets" a particular woman or "hears" her voice. But the reader also has a choice. If you would rather read all the life stories of the women in this study first, before venturing into the discussion of them, the way they are presented in the book will make it easy to do so. If, on the other hand, you would rather read the ethnographic and analytical material first and then read the life stories, that, too, will be easy to accomplish. Personally, I would like to suggest integrating the material, juxtaposing the women's voices with my own. At the end of this Introduction, I have included for quick reference a list of the women whose life stories appear in these pages and their religious affiliations. In the end, I offer few hard-hitting conclusions. As far as I can tell,

Introduction

7

the story of women in ministry continues to unfold and is itself one in process. What will emerge f r o m this slow web-weaving, cocoonshaping, new-moon rising endeavor only God knows for certain— and she didn't tell it to me straight—but through the women she told it to me true. LIFE STORIES A N D DATES COLLECTED

Carter Buchanan, associate pastor of an Episcopal congregation, J u n e 28, 1989 Constance Colgate, retired Disciples of Christ minister, July 6, 1989 Anne-Marie Cooper, diaconal minister at a United Methodist church, December 7, 1989 Ann Engels, pastor of a Unity congregation, J u n e 26, 1989 Flannery Haller, pastor of a Disciples of Christ congregation, July 5, 1989 Marsha Johnston, pastor of a United Methodist congregation, J u n e 30,1989 Maria Rodriegas, pastor of two small town Disciples of Christ churches, March 22, 1990 Amy Seger, associate pastor of a Disciples of Christ church, September 27,1989 Linda Stewart, pastor of two rural/small town United Methodist churches, July 12, 1989 Kathleen Miles-Wagner, retired Unitarian pastor, November 30, 1989 Notes 1. Annie Dillard, The Writing Life, p. 4. 2. I want to acknowledge a debt I owe to Karen McCarthy Brown and her bravery in the presentation of material in her recently published ethnography, Mama Lola. Brown openly acknowledges her relationship with the voodoo priestess who is the focus of this work; she alternates ethnographic accounts with "fictionalized" family stories she has collected from Mama Lola's family, and she informs the reader that she was initiated as a voodoo priestess during the course of the fieldwork for the book. Brown's openness about friendship and relationship as the basis for ethnography represents an important step for feminist anthropological and folkloric inquiry.

All of my traditional g r a n d m o t h e r s prayed a lot and believed in their religion. To me they were all holy women, living a sacred way of life. But there were special ones a m o n g them who were revered by the rest of the tribe as holy women. . . . Everyone could go before the holy woman . . . to receive some of the blessings sent down f r o m Sun. Beverly H u n g r y Wolf, The Ways of My Grandmothers, pp. 3 1 - 3 2 When I was small, my m o t h e r often told me that animals, insects, and plants are to be treated with respect. . . . "Life is a circle, and everything has its place in it," she would say. That's how I met the sacred hoop. Paula G u n n Allen, The Sacred Hoop, p. 61 My father and his best friend love to spend time sharing grandchildren stories. My father's friend tells how he loves to just listen to his grandchildren, a girl of 11 and a boy of 6, play together. In every play-acting game, the older, more aggressive girl always takes for herself the "better," dominant positions. If they play cops and robbers, she is always the tough cop. If they play hospital, she is always the competent doctor. And so forth. But one day, the girl announced that today they were going to play church. "You," she said to her little brother, "you can be the priest." T h e g r a n d f a t h e r was amazed and bothered that in this religious game the girl insisted that the boy take the role of authority. H e was dismayed, thinking things hadn't changed so much after all, until he heard the little girl declare, "And I'll be God." Related to the author in a car full of the women who fill the pages of this book, sometime in 1991

Chapter 1

Women-Church: Fieldwork and the Group

I met Cora at a group called "women-in-ministry." We laughed together, cried together, prayed together, cared about each other, and shared our special moments. We shared our vision of ministry. Ann Engels

My initial excursions into the field in search of women clergy in mainline denominations, beginning in late 1988, were methodical, sometimes difficult, and not entirely satisfying. To locate such women, one may survey the churches in a specific geographical area by consulting denominational directories, looking through local newspapers, particularly the Saturday edition with the "church news page," browsing the yellow pages of the phone books, asking people in the neighborhoods, and following odd leads. This method, of course, will locate only women who are currently pastors of churches and will only occasionally locate assistant or associate pastors. It will not locate ordained women who may not hold church positions, who are retired, or who, for any reason, might not be listed in public directories. My first several months of field research followed these general lines of inquiry and I found as many as 35 or 40 clergywomen in a general hundred-mile radius. In some ways, the geographical location isolated itself for me. T h e general small town, rural area in which I focused this study lies about 150 miles in opposite directions from two very large urban centers. I first determined to keep the study confined to a smaller general area and not seek to involve clergy (or rabbis) who held positions in urban churches. Later I decided to limit

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Chapter One

the study even f u r t h e r to a smaller "women in ministry" group which was already established and which met on a regular basis at the center of the geographical area in which I was working; eventually, even this group narrowed f u r t h e r as we began to meet for what I was calling our "dialogue" sessions to talk about the book and some of my questions and interpretations. During the first months of field research, beginning in 1988, I collected on tape the "life stories" of nearly thirty clergy women I had met. My strategy was to locate a church with a female pastor or associate pastor; attend that church once or several times; introduce myself and my intentions to her; request an appointment for her to give me her "life story"; collect the life story; make a second appointment or more to conduct an interview which examined varied aspects of her call to preach, her seminary experience, her support f r o m family and friends, and her experiences in the world of institutional ministry. I continued on this path for several months. Because I did not know the women well during these early months and because I could not perceive of them as a "group," my work was sometimes rather like groping in the dark. My initial meetings with them were often awkward. I am certain our lack of intimacy helped to shape the stories they gave me. However, I persisted in my belief that their life stories should be texts of their own choosing, delivered to me without interruption, without probing or questions. I set u p an appointment with each of them individually, usually in her office; went there with the tape recorder; explained that I wanted to collect her life story on tape; told her to just "begin at the beginning and tell me your life story—how you got to where you are today." While this approach seems superficially nondirective, I am fully aware that there are builtin directives in this simple lead-in sentence. Each of the women knew I had sought her out because of her ministry. T h e "how you got to where you are today" part of my directive reveals my interest in how she arrived at that ministry. T h e r e really is no way around this framing for their life stories. I was there because of their ministries; I wanted to see their life stories unfold in terms of the perspective of their calling into those ministries. Simply to seek them out, not explaining that I was interested in them because of their ministries would have been a farce; of course I know they have a "life" which is not necessarily "how they became ministers," yet that is the life story I was seeking. Such is the dilemma of field research. Fairly early in my fieldwork, I contacted Flannery Haller, a Disciples of Christ pastor for a small congregation in the town in which I was working. I knew her church to be fairly liberal; I knew that the

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congregation was often cited in the newspapers for its stand on and involvement in social and justice issues in the community. I had seen an article, I believe, about her in the local newspaper, had checked the telephone book and the church listings, and had attended services at her church. There I met her and introduced myself, telling her why I had come to her church. Eventually I telephoned her. She was cordial, witty, and straightforward, and seemed interested in my project. She agreed to meet with me in her office at the church for our initial meeting; she also agreed to give me her life story on tape. On a very hot July 25, in 1989, Flannery Haller told me her story. I invite the reader to turn now to her life story at the end of this chapter and read what she told me that day. Some weeks later, I followed this recording session with a long interview in which I talked at length with Flannery about her life story and about her ministry. In many ways her story is similar to the others in this book; in many ways it is unique. Now, four years later, I know this woman fairly well. I know some of the gaps in this story, some of the things not told. She herself has modified and illuminated this life story through our many talks, both privately and in the group. How her story parallels and intersects with the stories of the other women will be examined throughout the pages of this book. For now, I ask the reader to let her story mellow in your mind the way it did in mine after I had heard it but before I could begin to understand it. During this time, after I had collected Flannery's story, several of the women I was getting to know mentioned that they regularly met twice a month at a brown-bag lunch meeting of a local group of "women in ministry." This group had no official name or sanction, preferring to call themselves the "women in ministry" group. They met in the basement of the church of one of the women in the group. Rather ofF-handedly, one woman mentioned that I might like to visit this lunch group, meet some of the other women, and observe what their bi-monthly meetings were like. The membership of the group was very loosely constituted, she informed me, but it was restricted to "women in ministry." There appeared to be no agenda for any of these meetings; there was no hierarchical structure in evidence. In fact, because I was quite attracted to the prospect of attending the lunches, I began to ask whom I should call to get permission to join them. This question met with some consternation because there was clearly no single leader who could answer it. Therefore I simply let several of the women know that I wished to attend, and they agreed to bring up my request at an upcoming lunch. I saw this as the perfect opportunity to see the women interacting together in a natural context rather than only meeting with them in a separate one-on-one

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interview setting. Surely the key to understanding these women would be to be a "fly on the wall" and listen to them as they discussed their lives and ministries with each other over lunch. This was not, however, the way my role would evolve. Eventually, it was agreed that I would be allowed to attend one of the lunches. I found it to be delightful, stimulating, and fascinating. I expected a religious framework for the lunch, perhaps a song and a prayer or two before they "broke bread." I envisioned perhaps a Bible study atmosphere, a shared list of the sick and indigent, helpful hints for church school or liturgical tools. I was nervous. I'm not the religious type; prayers can make me uncomfortable; I thought I would feel completely obvious and out of place. In truth, I did feel uncomfortable and out of place, but none of my expectations were realized. As the women arrived in the large, dank basement room of Cora's church, they laughed and greeted one another cheerfully, often punctuated with a big hug. They plopped their McDonald's meals, Pizza Hut slices, yogurts, and diet pop down on the table and joined in the cacophony of voices that explored the week's activities, the idiocy of their various children's misdemeanors, and their pained responses to denominational bureaucracy and idiocy in general. I was quite unprepared for the jovial intercourse, the jokes and joking behavior, the unabashed criticism of the hierarchies that plagued their lives, the candid exchange that comes only from the familiar, the safe, the trusted. I certainly felt out of place. I knew from the first three minutes that I was to be exposed to and entrusted with specific material that could never be a part of this book. That was only my first dilemma. After a while the group that had gathered around the large "dinner on the grounds" table reached about twelve in number and the hour approached 12:30. T h e voices began to lower a bit and someone mentioned that she had a 1:00 commitment and would like to "get going around the circle." Her comment led to the joke that, since she brought it up, she could just lead off. She laughed and agreed and everyone gradually hushed as she began to talk about what had been going on in her life since they last met. Some of her presentation was personal—about her husband, her family, her children—some was about particular problems she was encountering in her church. She offered both joys she wanted to share and conflicts she had not been able to resolve. Often she was interrupted by comments from the others. Sometimes the interjected comments were consoling; sometimes others in the group would make quick and witty jokes in response to her church concerns and gales of laughter would shake the group;

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sometimes someone would offer serious suggestions about how she might deal with one of the problems she mentioned. Very often the end of her speech would generate overlapping verbal comments from everyone at the table: more jokes, more concern, questions and answers offered or another story which paralleled one of her own. With the end of the conversation surrounding the first speaker, she would turn to a woman either to her right or to her left and suggest that she "go next." This general pattern was followed around the circle until every woman at the table had shared her joys and her difficulties, her thoughts and her concerns. I wept several times during that twohour lunch—several times in response to a particularly sad, painful, or angry story and several times from pure, derisive laughter. In fact, I could not recall having ever experienced such a patchwork of emotions. Certainly I had never laughed so hard—and so unexpectedly. Let me repeat: there were no prayers, no Bible verses, no liturgy. Yet I had, I was sure, just experienced the most spiritual interaction of my life. Because I was not the only visitor that day (there was a new pastor who was attending for the first time), each woman introduced herself before she shared her news. This, of course, required that I introduce myself, state for the record that I was not a clergywoman, and give a little speech on why I was visiting that day. In the course of my presentation, it became clear that what I wanted and what the women perceived my request to be were different. As a fieldworker, I knew that visiting this group one time was never going to help my study that much. I wanted to attend on a regular basis; they thought I merely wanted to visit this one time. Therefore, after everyone had shared with the group, my request came up for general discussion. It was clear that the group had always maintained a policy of not including any woman who was not a church minister. This "rule" had been defined in such a way to include the Roman Catholic nuns who regularly attended, but in general it was a rule they steadfastly adhered to. They considered themselves a "women in ministry" lunch group and that was how they wished to keep it. I presented again my reasons for wanting to come on a regular basis and promised the group that I would never tape record any lunch sessions, never include specific material shared at the lunch group in my book, and never break the strict rule of confidentiality which the group insisted upon. I was asked to walk around the block while they discussed my request. As it turned out, they let me come. They were trusting beyond my wildest expectations; they agreed to work with me and allow me, a total outsider and not a clergywoman, to attend all the lunches I wanted. I can only

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hope that I have never broken my promises and made them regret that decision. I began to attend on a regular basis throughout my leave year. This was 1989. Almost immediately I faced what I perceived to be an ethical dilemma about this situation. It was evident to me at that first lunch that these private gatherings provided perhaps the only safe environment for these women to meet and openly express themselves and share their deepest concerns, both personal and professional. I did not want, in any way, to change the nature of these important and therapeutic encounters. I began to wonder whether my presence would alter their sharing, whether the women would be reluctant to express themselves freely as if I were not there. I thought that if my presence kept even one woman from speaking openly or differently from the way she might if I were not there, then I had overstepped the bounds of what a researcher ought to do. However, several of the women continued to encourage me to come, to participate by sharing my own joys and concerns, to help the group become comfortable with my presence and learn to accept me. In time, I believe that happened. The group came to accept my presence and continued to share their experiences as they had before the interruption of my attendance. What I had not counted on was how important the group became to me and how they embraced me as a writer and as a human being. I, too, began to share the various facets of my life with them—difficulties in my department, the stress of juggling a faculty position with family and children, our adoption of a newborn baby. This is an ecumenical group of women serving in a fairly widespread area. Some of them know the particular people the women speak about; others only have a vague notion of the hierarchical structures of the denominations they do not belong to. Several of the denominations have bishops and district or area superintendents of various sorts who wield a great deal of power. All of them have come to understand the position of women in the various denominations. Even though the women's theological backgrounds and ministries can differ radically, their lunch discussions seem completely comfortable and their problems and concerns mutual. If someone does not understand a particular denominational regulation or situation, she simply asks for clarification. The personal presentations varied considerably, in both content and style, during the years I attended the lunches. On one occasion a woman gave a detailed account of several disasters that had all happened the previous week. She then talked openly about how she had determined that, in fact, she had had such a rotten week because of

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her hormones. It had not occurred to her at the time, she said, but the time of the month had definitely affected her week—not the situations themselves but how she had responded to them! This brought on a general discussion of the problems associated with being women in such public positions and how their hormones did in fact affect how they dealt with problems, but also how this could never be discussed openly—that their hormonal realities could never be factored into their public, professional work. They also made jokes about menstrual periods and hormones, and about men who do not have to deal with such cyclical bodily changes in their work. A long, very upbeat report about a growing, thriving, energetic church by one woman was followed by a decidedly depressing assessment of another church by a pastor who was wondering whether churches naturally grow or decline on their own—or whether, in fact, she could do something differently to save her church. These reports sparked discussion of churches in general, how they thrive, where they seek and find their energy, if one can "save" a church or not, and how to go about it. One woman spoke at length about a congregation member, a good friend, who was dying; the others offered comfort and shared their own similar stories. They talked about "snakes in the pew" (people who do not support them), about the way some denominations moved pastors f r o m one church to another regardless of home and family attachments and their own upcoming appointment with the "church lottery," about teenage children who were impossible to figure out, about how difficult it was to have a toddler and be a pastor at the same time. Each woman talked quietly or joyously or matter-of-factly about her week. And the others listened to every word, responding and letting that woman know that they had heard her. One woman, in tears, told of a painful personal situation, saying she had almost not come to lunch that day because it had been so difficult. But then she realized, she said, that, yes, she would come because she knew that this group—it felt so good to know—that with this group she could cry and that the group would cry with her. And we did. In truth, being admitted to the lunch g r o u p came to be the single most important turning point in my research for this book. While I could not actually use the specifics of the lunch group conversations, I learned much by just being there with them, feeling and watching and hearing their interactions with one another. I came to know them better as individuals and as members of this group. T h e continuation of my field research with them individually was enhanced because now they all knew me. They became dedicated to the notion of my book and began to help me envision it. They came to have faith in it and in the need for me to write it. They often arrived with the joke,

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" A r e we famous yet?" Eventually, as I began to write, I determined to show them the book material as it e m e r g e d f r o m my typewriter, and it was in this manner that the dialogue sessions were born. This g r o u p is unique, different f r o m any g r o u p o f like-minded professionals I have ever witnessed. T h e y have no leader. Although two women initiated the g r o u p (I have gotten different stories about how the group began), neither o f them continued to seek or hold a leadership position. W h e n I was in such turmoil about whether or not to attend, it was frustrating because there was no "chair" I could call and square things with. It was impossible to get an official version o f the situation. I would call various members o f the g r o u p who would give me their own views but would never assume they could speak f o r the group. O n e woman in the g r o u p typed up, on her own initiative, a list of names, addresses, and telephone numbers of the clergywomen in the area, most o f whom are regulars at the brown bag lunches. But she is not the leader o f the group; she just made the list and copied it f o r everyone. W h e n it became necessary to change the meeting place, one woman volunteered to host the group in her church, but she is not the leader o f the g r o u p either. Sometimes I have heard various members o f the g r o u p talking about absent members and volunteering to call them to see how things are going or to inform them about a special meeting or a party. But I continue to be amazed that over several years' duration the g r o u p has managed to maintain a completely communal balance of power; there is no identified "leader," no hierarchy, and no need f o r any. A t some point during this time the pastor o f the church where we met f o r the brown bag lunches died. W e were stunned. It seemed as though one day she was there, laughing and talking with us, sharing her trials, her joys, and then we knew she was ill and in the hospital. She had an operation. T h e next thing we knew, she was gone. Someone in the community asked one o f the members o f this lunch group to speak at the funeral service. Cora was a African-American Methodist pastor o f a small local congregation; the woman who spoke, the A n g l o pastor o f a Unity congregation. T h e request was evidence, I think, that the community at large recognizes the bonds that unite these women in ministry, bonds that d e f y denominational differences, doctrines, and creeds. A t the memorial service A n n Engels spoke to the stunned and tearful group gathered in Cora's tiny church. Cora Perkins is a dear friend of mine. She is one of the women in ministry here in town. There are approximately 16 to 20 of us, women in ministry, pastors, chaplains, et cetera. Women in ministry follow an ancient and special

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call. Martha standing in her kitchen, neatly folded her apron of traditional woman, laid it neatly aside on a shelf and walked out to meet Jesus, to declare, "Yeah, Lord, I know thou art the Christ..." Cora Perkins also left the house of traditional woman to declare the presence and power of Christ in her life. There were other women in ministry around Jesus, women vital to his ministry. They were Joanna, Susannah, Mary of Magdala, Mary his Mother, and probably many others. These are the ones w e know about. These were his supporters, teachers, and his friends. In Romans 16:1 Paul told us h o w women in ministry were to be regarded and treated: "I commend to you our sister, Phebe, a deaconess of the church at Cenchrea, that you may receive her in the Lord as befits the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a helper of many, and of myself as well." Paul declares highest esteem for the women w h o ministered and w h o were ministers in his churches in Asia. Priscilla and Phebe were two women in ministry around Paul. There were probably others. Let me read this to you again as it properly applies today: "I commend to you our sister, Cora Perkins, a minister of the Thomas Chapel, that you may receive her in the Lord as befits the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a helper of many." I met Cora at a group called " w o m e n in ministry." We laughed together, cried together, prayed together, cared about each other, and shared our special moments. We shared our vision of ministry. I was amazed at all Cora has done in her ministries, and at the same time. To be a w o m a n in ministry is difficult enough. To be a Black w o m a n in ministry has enormous challenges. To be a Black woman raising 5 children and doing ministry is completely amazing. I can't imagine how she did it. Cora had a special strength, courage and love, and it was an example for us all. Her light is a wonderful legacy for Clarissa, Clenora, Paulette, Anthony, and Jeffrey—for all of her family, friends, and all of us. Cora came out of surgery saying, "Thank you, Jesus, I knew you wouldn't let me down!" I stood by her bed and could sense Jesus saying, "Thank you, Cora Perkins. I knew you wouldn't let me down, and you never did." We will miss her loving presence among us. I know she is only a prayer away. N o one ever goes beyond the reach of prayer and love. We can still share our love because love is as eternal as life itself. Whatever we didn't get a chance to say before she left, can still be shared with her in prayer. Please join me in prayer. To you, my sister Cora, I do not say good-bye.

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Chapter One but good morning! A n d God bless you in your new ministry. We love you and w e are with you always in and through the power of the living, loving Christ. Amen.

Immediately following Cora's death, the group began to meet in a different woman's church, appropriately in a third floor "upper room" where privacy and intimacy were guaranteed. Growing up in the 1960s, as I did, and emerging as a grown female in the 1970s, I know firsthand about the feminist movement as a consciousness-raising movement. I know how critical those early female sharing sessions were in how we formulated who we wanted to be and how we could counter what we did not want to be. I recall the power of so many organized and unorganized all-night sessions with other young women as we raised each other's consciousness to the realities of our lives and the truth and viability of our experiences. It is no accident, I think, that these brown bag lunches first reminded me of those consciousness-raising sessions. Here was a place where women could explore the reality of their everyday experiences; they could examine their responses and question the efficacy of their solutions; they could seek emotional support and concerned counseling. But there is more going on here, in these shared lunches, than first meets the eye—or ear. An assessment of the kinds of questions, concerns, and shared stories that emerge in the lunches I was privileged to share has led me to understand this coming-together in pure, trusting faith as reflective of what Rosemary Radford Ruether has called "women-church." In her book of the same name, Ruether speaks of a "third force" (the first and second being a reactionary Christian force and a liberation theology in third world countries) in the "revival of religion," which consists of women, specifically "feminist women, who ask critical questions about the role of religion in the sanctification of patriarchal societies." These women, according to Ruether, "have begun to take the shaping of the symbolic universe of meaning into their own hands."1 The emerging feminist religion has a much more ambivalent relationship to biblical origins than male liberation theology, although it too rejects the secularist view that religious symbol and ritual are no longer needed. Some feminist religious thinkers would reclaim aspects of the biblical tradition. They see its fundamental protest against oppression and its vision of peace and justice as part of feminist hopes, and they expand it by an explicit critique of patriarchy.2

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Ruether has high hopes for the "feminist religious revolution," which she claims goes "behind the symbolic universe that has been constructed by patriarchal civilization, both in its religious and in its modern secular forms" and "reaches forward to an alternative that can heal the splits between 'masculine' and 'feminine,' between mind and body, between males and females as gender groups, between society and nature, and between races and classes."3 One important aspect of this emerging feminist religion or spirituality, Ruether notes, is the recognition of the need for "intentional communities of faith and worship (emphasis mine)." It is not enough, she says, to hold an ideology of criticism and social analysis as an interpretive base . . . one needs communities of nurture to guide one through death to the old symbolic order of patriarchy to rebirth into a new community of being and living. One needs not only to engage in rational theoretical discourse about this journey; one also needs deep symbols and symbolic actions to guide and interpret the actual experience of the journey from sexism to liberated humanity. 4 Ruether claims that women in contemporary churches are suffering from "linguistic deprivation and eucharistic famine." In order to nurture their souls "they desperately need primary communities that nurture their journey into wholeness, rather than constantly negating and thwarting it." 5 1 recognize in the "women in ministry" group elements of what Ruether is identifying as "women-church." I recognize in the essence of this group a model not only of a "community of nurture" but of the totality of the wholeness theology that binds their collective spiritual journey. Ruether might be describing any Tuesday lunch group when she says: "They begin to experience the gathering of liberated women as a redemptive community rooted in a new being. They empower themselves and are empowered by this liberated spirit upon which they are grounded . . . to celebrate this new community, to commune with it, and to nurture themselves and be nurtured in the collective community of liberated sisterhood." 6 T h e religion these women aspire to, the world they would design, finds its pattern here in the ecumenical threads that bind these women together into a community of peace, nurturance, sustenance, justice, love, support, connection, and friendship. They are "women-church," an ekklesia that according to Rebecca Chopp is a "new movement among women . . . to renew the church as religious community,"7 Here, gathered together, they are all ministers. They minister to each other and to their communities—and beyond. They have developed, experienced, lived, evolved a theological and spiritual framework

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that embodies the very essence of the sacred in their lives. Yet, as Ruether understands "women-church," such women have not left the church but rather have established the basis for feminine critical culture and shared community that has some autonomy from established institutions. Ruether points out that this feminist religious revolution she calls "women-church" is not a revolutionary force in the same vein as that proffered by feminist witches, who seek to revive the old religions of the Goddess and have determined to abandon all aspects of patriarchal Christianity. Here, within "women-church," women continue to hold fast to the significance of symbolic meaning, of ritual, of biblical exegesis—but with a difference. Here women seek to reclaim the feminine aspects of the biblical tradition; they share an explicit critique of patriarchy; they perceive the power in a community of prayer and study as vehicles for liberation from patriarchy; they recognize the need, Ruether says, to "go back behind biblical religion and to transcend it." I have heard the women in the Tuesday group express the opinion that they seek to take religion back to the "simple" teachings of Jesus, back to a biblical tradition that is inclusive, not exclusive, to restore and revive the original tenets of Christian living and faith. In reclaiming aspects of the biblical tradition, Ruether says, women "see its fundamental protest against oppression and its vision of peace and justice as part of feminist hopes." Anne-Marie Cooper spoke once in a group session about how "women in ministry " and men who joined them were "calling the church back" to a spirituality based on wellbeing and wholeness for all persons; later she confirmed that she saw her religion as "reconstructive Christianity," which the others agreed was the closest to what they were advocating. As Rebecca Chopp has described "women-church," the women in this group clearly seek to oppose oppression through discourses of different ways of being and doing, discourses "intent on transforming the system with visions of new ways of being human." 8 This recognition of different ways of being human includes speaking openly of women's desires, of what women know, of women's burdens, and of women's experiences. A new discourse that includes the multiplicity of women's experience will, says Chopp, "transform the meaning of women's experience" 9 and, I would argue, transform the meaning of religion as well. At the group lunches, the women create and perform ritual. Because the group is ecumenical, the ritual is not imbued with denominational meanings, for that would be exclusive. T h e radical theological differences between an Episcopal priest and the pastor of a local Unity congregation, for an extreme example, could paralyze this group; yet in all the lunches and the subsequent dialogue sessions

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I never saw theological differences create a rift such that the community of "women-church" could not continue to do its ministry to each other.10 The group is a model "church"—in the New Testament way of defining what a "church" might be. While there is no eucharistic liturgy, I found myself thinking that the food they bring and eat might, in fact, be seen as the symbolic manifestation of the eucharist. This occurred to me one day when one of the women arrived without her lunch; she made little of the fact, noting simply that she had not had time to grab anything on the way over and would rather come empty-handed than arrive too late to share some time with her sisters. Immediately, without ceremony, all the women at the table began to place in front of her items from their own lunches, until, finally, a feast sat on the table in front of her. There was some talking, a few jokes; she looked slightly embarrassed, swept the room with an appreciative glance, smiled, and ate from the generosity of her loving friends.11 The interactions of the women in this setting are based on inclusiveness, unconditional love, listening into speech the significance and interrelatedness of the wholeness and holiness of every person in the room. It is accepted here that every woman is holy. It is also accepted here and understood that the wholeness of every woman is a complex web of strands that weave the personal with the professional, the private with the political, obligations to family, to church, to those who love her and to those who abuse her. The wholeness of the ministry that binds the women in this group is evident in and revealed through the way in which they minister to each other within their "women-church" community. As each woman speaks and the others hear her into that speech, honoring it and honoring the emotional interplay accompanying each and every life experience, the perception of this as a sacred, shared journey becomes clear. Women touch other women; women care about and care for other women; women speak while other women listen; women offer solace to other women; women offer advice and suggestions to other women; women cry with other women; women laugh with other women. I have mentioned that I expected songs, prayers, and Bible aids at these lunches and discovered none. This is not to suggest that ceremony, ritual, and prayer are absent. I would conclude that these more semiotic and visual aspects of this "women-church" are diffused and are embedded in the speaking and hearing that is shared. Here the wholeness of each person is explored, laid bare, soothed, and healed; the more evident, recognizable, ritualized aspects of mainline denominations have become semiotic manifestations for what is exchanged here in this ekklesia. In these lunches, all aspects of the religious ministry to which these women aspire are in evidence—

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love, faith, prayer, nurturing, forgiveness, support, justice. They are not incognito. As an observer I have perceived the raw spiritual and religious experiences in evidence. Parishioners in ritualized religious contexts both consciously and unconsciously use ritual acts as symbolic for the meaning that underlies them, a process theologians might argue is a necessary way for worshipers to f r a m e religious experience. Recognizing this "women-church" g r o u p also as a model representation of Christian love and connection illuminates the viability of such a spiritual encounter—what Rita Nakashima Brock has understood as a christology "in relationship and community as the whole-making, healing center" that resides in "connectedness and not in single individuals." 12 Of course, such an experience is f r a u g h t with danger. T h e arena must be absolutely safe. Vulnerability and trust become the cornerstones of intimacy and sharing at this level. Ruether speaks of "women-church" as embracing a "liminal religiosity," one that does not lay claim to an original "true" faith or claim to "know the shape of the f u t u r e [but] . . . looking forward to new possibilities whose shape is unclear. 1 3 She points out that women who recognize that they "cannot wait f o r the institutional churches to r e f o r m themselves enough to provide the vehicles of faith and worship that women need in this time" seek "primary communities that n u r t u r e their j o u r ney into wholeness." 14 While it seems clear to me that within this "women-church" g r o u p the experience of connection and healing has been substituted for more formal ritual for the most part, it is also evident that the g r o u p recognizes the need for concretized rituals on occasion, rituals perf o r m e d in ways that are m o r e deliberately symbolic. Yet, as Ruether has pointed out, such deliberate ritual must be contextualized within the particular g r o u p that designs and uses it in o r d e r for it to transcend the routine connotations. O n e such event occurred when Kathleen Miles-Wagner was about to d e p a r t f r o m the area f o r a period of f o u r months to serve as "pastor in residence" at a seminary in Chicago. She had wrestled openly for months at the lunches with the conflicts she felt about this "calling", asking the lunch g r o u p to listen to h e r concerns and misgivings and listening in t u r n to their encouragement and support f o r what they all felt would be an important experience f o r her. Finally, at lunch one day, Kathleen reported h e r resolve to accept the post and announced that she would be gone f r o m the g r o u p f r o m September to December of that year. She lovingly expressed h e r regret f o r having to leave the g r o u p f o r such a long time, telling them how much she would miss their interactions and support. Shortly after h e r decision was made, it was announced

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that following an upcoming lunch there would be an anointing ceremony for Kathleen's departure and her stay at the seminary. On the appointed day, after the regular lunch-time sharing period, we all gathered in the sanctuary. T h e r e Linda Stewart expressed herself with flair on the piano, and the others joined her in singing the songs chosen by the women in the group who had designed the ritual. Bible verses, prayers, responsive readings, and songs were read and sung by all of us, with copies of the words supplied on photocopied sheets. A vial of oil was produced and we all stood together in a circle, there in the sunlight in the empty church building, ringing hollow with the voices of only fifteen women. First we stood holding hands, touching each other, close enough to feel the breath of all within this tight and powerful circle. Kathleen left the circle and knelt at the heart of the center of this sacred hoop and we all touched her head with our hands while Flannery placed a d r o p of oil on her forehead and anointed her for her mission at the seminary, for her time away from the group. T h e n Kathleen stood and took the vial of oil and placed a d r o p in Carter's palm as she held her hand in her own. Slowly she caressed Carter's palm with the oil and anointed her for her work, for her life, and for her ministry. And each woman in turn held the hand of the woman next to her in the circle, anointed her palm, and blessed her work. This writer's work was blessed right along with the ministry of the women in this group. Hot tears swelled in my eyes and dropped into the oil in my hand. I have said I do not think of myself as religious; I have said that prayers and ritual often make me uncomfortable. Yet this ritual by, for, and through this group of women, designed and performed in a way that clearly transcended denominational ties or theological inclinations, affected me deeply. In my application of Ruether's notion of "women-church" to this group of women, I am not suggesting that the women here have actually replaced their own denominational beliefs and allegiances with what this group has to offer them, I am always aware of their denominational differences—as they are, I am sure. I asked them if they were able to discuss their denominational beliefs and practices within the group openly and whether their friendships here and their concern for unity had led them to establish what might be perceived as a kind of false commonality, a polite common ground. I asked them if they were comfortable with my application of the term "womenchurch." T h e discussion that followed was truly informative and illuminating. If pressed, they agreed, they would disagree about how to inter-

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pret certain scriptures. They certainly recognized that they follow different denominational and theological creeds. Yet without exception they persisted in the notion that they claim and honor the very real common ground that they recognize and that they continue to establish within this group. While set forth in traditional religious language, rituals, practices, and creeds, the common ground they have established is, they say, where they find "deepest meaning." Amy Seger put it this way: What we have discovered here is sacred and it is in this sacredness that we find aspects that are more important than some of our more traditional, structured belief systems.

Anne-Marie Cooper agreed: I wouldn't give up my church for just this, but that's not to say that this doesn't work as "church" for me because in some ways it does, as communion, especially.

Carter Buchanan, coming out of an Episcopal tradition, fully acknowledges the importance of ritual and creeds in her church. Yet, she told the group and me: The way I look at the creeds, I look at them as a shorthand; the trinity is a metaphor for God and it is one of several metaphors for God, and the unity is another metaphor for God. Those have to do with belief systems, but they don't have a lot to do with expressing faith. And, by the way, I got creamed this past Sunday for using that terminology by a parishioner who is very creedally oriented. He thought that using the term "metaphor" was to use a human-invoked terminology for God—and he's right, that's what it isl

Anne-Marie continued: It's true, we don't want to talk about specific creedal differences that some of us might hold to. But I don't think it's because we're worried about destroying our unity but because there are deeper experiential truths that we share here.

Carter came back: It's not a question of this experience being "deeper than" or "more important than" what happens in our churches—in fact, that is a hierarchical view.

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As far as I'm concerned, if I'm really plumbing the depths of what I believe, then I'm going to leave the "creed" back there. It doesn't mean I don't think it's important, but I see it as a shorthand description of the faith of the church. It's a shorthand description that I flesh out—and one way in which that is embodied is right here in this room. It doesn't mean I am leaving the creed out of it; it doesn't mean I don't think it's important. I'm a trinitarian Christian, but I find that trinitarian metaphor inadequate in many ways. It's important to know that the traditional terminology, the practices, rituals and creeds are behind what we are doing but that we are going beyond that here. This is important work for me here. Anne-Marie echoed her words: All of Christianity is a metaphor, often inadequate. Our commitment to inclusiveness makes us unwilling to limit ourselves to the structured creeds. We don't want to limit ourselves. Kathleen Miles-Wagner spoke: If we are functioning with a lot of different metaphors, a lot of different stories, a lot of different experiences which we're sharing and we're understanding, the differences in our experiences are creating a rich tapestry, a mosaic of what's really there—that's really in contrast to the notion that we are not recognizing or fully expressing difference. We're actually pulling together all these different strands into a rich and varied whole which we all honor. This chapter on field work and the field situation, on the women who comprise the group that eventually became the focus of this study, and the ethnographer's introduction to and subsequent involvement with the group makes no pretense at distanced objectivity. Ethnographies that seek to be reflexive not only require the ethnographer to document her biases and interactions with the people she studies, but they are predicated on an honest presentation of self at the outset and throughout the field research. Thus reflexivity is not merely about the presentation of data and a recognition of how the ethnographer might have affected the ethnography, it is about how the ethnographer places herself within the context of the field situation and engages with the participants in a common endeavor to write, in the end, an honest and truthful ethnography. There are critical lines I do not cross in my field research in religious settings. I do not receive communion in any church I attend. In my fieldwork, I do not participate in rituals that would suggest that I am a member of any of the denominations examined here. As a researcher, I con-

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sider myself to be a participant-observer. I observe the w o m e n within their h o m e churches; I listen, observe, and participate in the group lunches; I was a participant in the ritual I have described above. As a h u m a n being, as a woman, and as a person in search of meaning, I have come to be a participant in the exploration of religious and spiritual issues that have become the focus of the w o m e n in our dialogue sessions. My participation is first and foremost based on the responsibility I feel to "get it right." Above all, I want to be able to accurately describe and interpret the beliefs and the ministries of the w o m e n in this group I have chosen to study. T h e r e is no other way to come to such an intimate understanding, I believe, than to become intimate. Notes

1. Rosemary Radford Ruether, Women-Church: Theology and Practice of Feminist Liturgical Communities, p. 2. 2. Ruether, p. 2. 3. Ruether, p. 3. 4. Ruether, p. 3. 5. Ruether, p. 5. 6. Ruether, p. 61. 7. Rebecca S. Chopp, The Power to Speak: Feminism, Language, God, p. 76. Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza in her book In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins likewise urges commitment to one ekklesia—assembly of faith—of women. 8. Chopp, p. 11. 9. Chopp, p. 13. 10. My enthusiasm for their cooperative and supportive spirit is not blind to the very natural personality differences that exist within the lunch group. These women are not all attracted to one another in a close, personal way and, obviously, some of the lunch participants frustrate or irritate other women in the group—either by their point of view or by their participatory style. I am aware of the differences and yet feel confident about my presentation of them here as a warm and nurturing group. 11. I must acknowledge that this was my own personal perception of and reaction to this particular incident. The women who read this manuscript and who were involved in the sharing described did not necessarily all agree with my connection of this incident and the eucharist. 12. Rita Nakashima Brock, Journeys by Heart: A Christology of Erotic Power, p. 52. 13. Ruether, p. 4. 14. Ruether, pp. 4, 5.

Flannery Haller

Flannery Haller is a tall, striking, broad-shouldered woman with short, curly, salt and pepper hair and sparkling eyes full of mischief and life. She holds both a law degree and a divinity degree from Yale University. She is close to 40, single, and lives in a small house near the public library with her friendly red dog, Copper. She is the pastor of a liberal, progressive Disciples of Christ church in a town of about 30,000 people. She works hard for social justice in the community and leads her church to be a model for inclusivity for all persons and in the use of religious language throughout her services. When I visited with her in her office at the church, she was a bit bemused, I thought, by my project but seemed quite willing to participate. She startled me with her long, bright, dangling earrings and brilliantly colored blouse. Her manner is striking, as are her eyes and her smile. Her straightforward manner can be disconcerting at first, for she is as likely to ask the ethnographer questions as she is likely to answer those put to her. Her dog joined us in her nice, big office. She sat in a wooden chair and I sat on the nearby sofa. She was as matteras-fact about her story as she seemed to be about her life. In the beginning were my parents. They were married at the beginning of the war, in 1941 I think it was. A n d my dad was in the army and they moved around some as he went to various army bases, and he was overseas and she was here. They were not real young when they got married, I think they were 28 and 30 when they got married. Although he had been overseas in Europe for part of the time, they had been trying to have children for about seven years before I was born. They'd had one miscarriage. So anyway, that's just by way of introduction and to say that when I was born I was the sun, the moon, and the stars, as far as they were concerned, having tried for so long and lost one. They were living in the city, and my dad was out of the army working in sales. He was a salesman basically for a dumpster company, which were a new thing in 1948. M y brother was born two years later, and my sister two years after that. We were an Irish Catholic family, basically, although Haller is a German name, [we were] mostly Irish. M y father's family had been in politics, his father was a mayor in the 30s and his father was a judge w h o died before the war. So w e grew up going to Catholic schools. Both of them were

Life Stories fairly active in the church. So the church was a part of the picture from early on. I was baptized as a baby. As I said, I went to parochial grade school; I was part of the baby boom. There were like 50 or 60 kids in my first grade class. We had Sister Joanna teach us and she managed to teach 60 kids, so her reward was to send her to second grade with us and she managed to survive that so they sent her on to third with us. So I had Sister Joanna for first through third grades and it was a good thing that I liked her and learned from her because I was with her an awful lot. She was a good teacher. I remember thinking, if all this talk about God is true, why do people just ignore it? Why isn't it the most important thing in people's lives—besides a few nuns and priests and so on? And I remember arguing with my father, w h o was a bigot, talking about niggers and stuff like that. I asked him, "Daddy, aren't we all brothers in Christ?" He was kind of caught there 'cause he wanted me to have this Catholic education. He was a practicing Catholic, but he "knew better" somehow about "these people." He'd been in the army with them and that kind of stuff. But that memory to me, tells me about what was going on, that as a seven-yearold I was standing up to him and using a religious argument. So I was very taken with the whole drama of the Christian faith. We lived down the street from the church and I could go by myself. As I got older I would go to the Holy Week services. I loved it. Maundy Thursday they had foot washing and the Last Supper kind of thing and the Good Friday services, which were not my favorite; they were pretty grim. And the best was Easter vigil on Saturday night, which I don't know if you've ever been? They are j u s t — w e l l , this was pre-Vatican II, you understand, but, you know, during Lent the organ had not been played. During Holy Week the statues were draped with purple cloth, all this somberness and just, oh, sadness, on Good Friday. And then Holy Saturday, I just loved that service. You'd go, the church would be darkened. Everybody would have a little candle. The priest would be in the back doing something, and lighting a candle and coming toward the font, singing in Latin, still at that time. "Lumen Christi, Light of Christ," and the people would say "Lumen Christi, Light of Christ." He would say that three times, getting louder each time. And from this paschal candle that he had lit, all the other little candles would be lit, and pass it along and the church gradually getting lighter as the Mass goes on. There was sort of introductory prayers and stuff, then the "Gloria," the organ and the bells would ring, for the first time in a long time. And it just knocked me out, still does. It was just a wonderful, wonderful service, so I would go by myself to these things. I just really, really liked that. And you would renew your baptismal vows, you know, to renounce Satan and all that stuff. So, anyway, through all this time, I would describe myself as religious. I wanted to be a priest. That was the neat stuff, to be a priest. I wanted to be an altarboy, an altar server, but, you know, none of those things were pos-

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sibilities for me. I also wanted to be a major league baseball player, so I was having a tough time figuring this out. I did play baseball until high school, in the boy's league and stuff. I went to a Catholic girls' high school. A n d through this time, my family was having increasing difficulty. M y father was an alcoholic, his drinking got worse, and w e were in real financial straits and I started working to pay my tuition at the girls' school. And as a result of that, I ended up going to a junior college, which was a community college, which was SI00 a semester, which I could really manage. So I started working from the time I was a junior in high school, paying for my education. The switch from a private girls' high school to a community college was an unreal change. And in that process, in addition to the turmoil at home, which had me upset to begin with, and the change of environment in school, and having some teachers w h o were not Catholic and in fact w h o were [atheists]—I remember a philosophy teacher talking about some things and, you know, just getting a different viewpoint on all this. Eventually, I thought, "what a fool I've been!" I just threw it out entirely and I didn't tell my mother about that because, you know, really, she would feel like I had deserted her. She was a good Catholic and she would feel like a failure, you know, if her children were not good Catholics. But I just thought this is reallyjust a bunch of dumb stuff, superstition. In fact, I called myself a "non-theist," rather than an agnostic or an atheist and I don't know where I got this. I don't remember anybody telling me this, but I determined that an a-theist was against and non-just meant there wasn't anything. After college I went to Ireland and I thought maybe I'd like to study in Ireland, but that would not be real practical, but I would love to do it, you know, study Yeats. I just loved Yeats and the whole Irish Renaissance and all that stuff. I'd love to study it but it wasn't do-able because I couldn't get a job there, didn't have the money, and had to look at the future. What am I going to do after this? So, anyway, I did decide to come back home and found a job finally at the YWCA, and some of my mother's friends were concerned about my immortal soul; I don't know why. I was unaware that my immortal soul was in great danger, and it had nothing to do with the Y. But I was real impressed with the Y as a social activist kind of organization. I'd never had any contact with the Y, being a Catholic and the Y really didn't mix (ha). I found out they had the biannual convention, the last one in '70, which was maybe two months before I went and worked for them. They had instituted a doctrine called "The One Imperative," which was "to eliminate racism wherever it exists by any means necessary." It was really powerful to me. There was a lot of consciousness; there was this imperative that all whites were supposed to be following. I was working in the county Y. We didn't have a pool or anything. I was in charge of the youth programs. I guess in the '50s and '60s Y teen

Life Stories clubs were a big deal, you know, social clubs, kind of. But by 1970, you know, the kids weren't going to the Y anymore, but that was my job—teens, oh, greatl But the Ys had changed and were clubs that had survived with some black kids—these were black kids w h o went to white schools. So that the clubs at school were all taken over, basically by whites. They were not really active in the Y anyway. Working for the Y was an interesting experience for me because it was, in effect, putting me back into a kind of Christian milieu because there were a lot of ministers' wives on the board and some Protestants, you know; I'd never been exposed to Protestants before. A n d I do remember at one point in my time there, you know, I had worked with committees and boards—thinking at one point, that this was kind of what ministers do—something like that. Still, I did not have any sense that I could do that. That, you know, just thinking that did not make me think maybe I should be a minister, because I was still pretty much in the mode of being a Roman Catholic or nothing. I knew nothing, nothing at that point about what I might do. So I worked at the Y and learned some things there, including the fact that I didn't want to keep working there. There wasn't much future in that. And by then I began to think that a Ph.D. in English may not be something I want to invest myself in, either—I thought about medical school or architecture or business, but I did not have the math or science for that. So I decided to go to law school. I started at the university, going to night school. I stayed at work at the Y to support myself. I went to law school. I went for two years, at night, taking ten hours a semester, working full time. I still don't know h o w I did that. The Y had become increasingly frustrating to me and consuming my psychic energy while I was going to law school at night. So I took a job with this family, and it was a real change of pace from the Y and all the political struggles that I'd been involved in there. I could take enough hours to finish by the following summer, for the bar exam, and get sworn into the bar in September. All this, without any planning on my part or, you know, desire. Some people thought it made sense because my grandfather was a judge w h o was a real leader, w h o led a political life, and my uncle whose brother was a mayor and he was a judge. So it made sense for me to go to law school. But all that had not occurred to me. I had thought, you know, I can make a difference, going into law. Well, what I did again—it was kind of a pattern—was to reward myself after finishing law school, passing the bar, I'd saved up enough to go to Ireland again for about six weeks this time. That was purely vacation. I guess I needed to do it before I started being a lawyer. I was over there and I visited relatives and I lived with them. When I came back a couple of my friends were opening an office and wanted me to join them. And I said, "Sure." And w e started a law office. About a year of that and I knew that I didn't know anything. You know in law school they teach you a way of thinking, but you really don't learn

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enough in law school to be a lawyer—the real nuts and bolts. I find that in ministry, too. You have to get out and get a job and learn it. You need, I certainly needed somebody to show me h o w to do it. But I really went to work on trying to get a job in a firm, just get some experience, because I was sure that if I found out what I was doing, that I would like it. So I finally began a job in a state prosecutor's office. I went there in 1976, and given my background, I really wanted to be in a defender's office, but I quickly changed my views. I soon found out that prosecutors really represent victims, certainly in the bigger cities—the victims of crime are poor people. The defendants are poor people, poor blacks mostly, but you, you are representing the state. But basically you are trying to find justice for those w h o have been victimized by crime. Although the prison system is awful, I got over my scruples about all that and came to really believe in what I was doing, as a prosecutor. I mean it would be good if the prison systems would work and we could find a way to help people. The important thing I felt was that I was d o w n there every day working to keep people from getting back on the street to go on hurting people. A n d so I tried a lot of cases, and I also found out that prosecutors have a different standard to uphold than the rest of the people in the profession. Most lawyers have the standard of representing "the best interests of their clients." A n d the prosecutor is to uphold "the ends of justice," so that you don't prosecute the case if the guy is not good for it. If I felt a guy really wasn't guilty—that did not happen very much at all—but the idea is not to win cases or to try to get convictions, the idea was to get the right person. That difference is a really important difference. Well, I continued in the prosecutor's office for four years. The last year I was beginning to train new lawyers and be in charge of the division of the office and stuff. I felt, I can remember that I was feeling like I had really learned what I wanted to, that I had gotten out of it what I wanted t o — a lot of experience. I n o w had administrative experience and so, I felt like I needed to go, but I did not know what else to do because I had this great education. I just did not know where to go with it. A n d there were a lot of perks that went with the job, too. A car, they give you a car and good pay and the best was that you got into the baseball games—just show them your badge, and I am a real baseball fan and it was a real perk. So it was a combination of the security of the job and the perks that went along with it. I also knew what I was doing there and I did not know what I wanted to go into. I was kind of in a holding pattern. So, about in '79 sometime, in fact, I was helping to train the w o m a n w h o was the new lawyer in the office and she was going to have her first trial, and I said I would come over and help her on a very hot Sunday afternoon—over at her apartments and she had a p o o l — s o I very graciously agreed to help her get ready with her trial (laughs). W h e n I finally got there the pool was packed with all these kids and so w e went upstairs. When we

Life Stories came back down the pool was empty and this woman came out and we started talking to her and said, "Who are all these kids, anyway? Who was responsible?" She said, "Well, I'm afraid I was." It turned out that she was an Episcopal priest and worked at the local cathedral and well, we started talking and we started to cross-examine her about it—like, whoa, what is this about here? This woman w h o was in the office with me was Jewish and she was real interested in finding out all about this. I remember very clearly feeling right away, " N o w I'm in real trouble." I had read about the Episcopal church ordaining women but I did not know any, certainly, and I was not going to go looking. And this woman did not seem weird or pious or all the ideas I had about religion at that point. So I would ask her questions and she, anyway, endured our cross-examination, which was, between the two of us, really awful. She invited me to come down to the church and, well, about four months later I did g o — d i d n ' t want to rush into it or anything (ha). This was when I was still working in the prosecuting attorney's office. I started to get involved in, well, I had gone to the Jesuit church at the university. They had some great music and good preaching. In the meantime, both my father and mother had died while I was in law school—and, you know, I can't give direct correlation, but those kinds of events makes one think about obvious questions. And I had been coming to church and going away again. Instead of dealing with the status of women in the Catholic church—this was the best church for preaching, music, for liturgy, for social action and all that stuff. But still, you just couldn't get around the fact that women were ruled out as full participants. So then I meet this Episcopalian priest and start going there, gradually started getting involved. I went on this Cursillo. Cursillo is a Thursday through Sunday night renewal kind of thing where people give talks and you talk in groups. I went to that; it was one of those things where everybody cried and all that kind of stuff, and I did not cry. I was very suspicious. I would not let them get to me. I was still at a really ambivalent stage with religion. I was always being very guarded about what was going on here, I really was. But I think it kept me in touch with some old, old feelings o r — i t is hard to explain how, how it affected me, because I felt like it had not affected me. I had gotten through it without crying and kind of not, you know, I just felt like I had come through intact somehow. But within a couple of weeks, I did quit my j o b in the prosecutor's office, because I knew, like I was holding onto it for security, you know. I thought what I was going to do was try and have a law practice and felt like I could be a Christian, caring lawyer, someone—a kind of ministry to practice law. I thought I'd find some guys I had gone to school with w h o shared the same kind of hopes and start a private practice. I really shocked people when I left the prosecuting attorney's office because people usually did not leave unless they had something better to go to.

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But I continued to be involved in the church. I went to another Cursillo in November and was part of the team this time and gave a talk. So I had a few months of this experiment. I really enjoyed being part of the team and what I did there. It finally occurred to me that if, finally, that if this is what ministiy was, that maybe that is what I should do. That felt right to me. It felt right to me. It felt like I was being called to the ministiy and it felt like it wasn't the first time I had got this call, you know. As a kid I had wanted to be a priest but it wasn't possible. It was a terrible time for me because I had a job. I didn't want to go starting over again and I knew enough about the Episcopal church to know they were still having a tough time. And I knew I would have to leave to go to seminaiy and I didn't particularly want to do that. It was embarrassing. The whole thing was embarrassing—even to talk with the priest, the woman at the cathedral about it. It just felt like such an extreme reaction. I just had a really hard time. I finally did talk to her about it and to the other priest down there and they were encouraging. She said she had gone to Yale and really liked it, had great years there. And so, I applied to Yale—well, what I did was I started to apply in January and then the question on the application—why do you want to attend seminary—I could not articulate an answer and so I let it sit in my desk drawer for six months and in June, I remember, the secretary in the office was going on vacation and said, "You should get your application to seminary in." So I sent it away in June and they wrote back and said, "You can come." I thought—Oh, My Godl I did not want to fill in that blank. I just came back and said, "la, la, la," I don't know. It was one of those things that I just wanted to say—oh, what the hell—I don't care about it so much, just write it. But I had always wanted to be perfect. It wasn't so much there was a right answer, but I just wanted to put down—it just got to what I was struggling with. So, I said I felt I had a call to ministry and I really wanted to go to seminary to find out. So I just thought, it is entirely too late and then they just said, "Come." And I said—Oh, My Godl My first reaction to that was to write to them and say, "Are you kidding? You can't expect a person to leave in the middle of all this." Then I realized that I was just putting it off. By this time I knew that I really did not want to be a lawyer, you know, trying this alternative lawyer stuff. I was taking cases from juvenile court where you know the court appoints the representative for the juveniles. And I can think of one particular case was when I was appointed to represent a mother who was accused of abusing her child, and she was. But that wasn't my concern. My concern was to make the state prove their case and if there were loopholes in the kid's story—and that is what I was supposed to do. I just could not believe in my work. And that was an extreme example but it really focused it for me. I did not want to be a hired gun. Just having to do what is in the best interest of this client, not the ends of justice. So I was

Life Stories wanting to quit. I thought doing this for another year was not going to make it any easier. So I farmed out my practice to different folks and flew off to N e w Haven. And I thought—Whoa, what hit mel I was really in shock by the time I got there. I went from a person with a job and a car, et cetera, to living in a dorml I did not know a thing about N e w Haven so I decided to stay in the dorm, which was really what they recommended for the first year anyway. Oh, God, it was just a real adjustment. One of the things that surprised me was that I thought—Yale, I thought, you know, what would Yale be like? Seminary attracts really weird people, you are aware of that? (laughs) Religion attracts a lot of weird people. Seminary attracts, really, a lot of sick people in some ways. It is just a place where you have to have this particular kind of calling and being nice is what a lot of people think of in ministry. So there are a lot of people w h o have trouble being accepted, but in seminary they could be accepted. And I was not real young, either, I was in my early thirties. A n d I did not have a car and they didn't encourage us to get out. So it was a real major adjustment in seminary. But I really loved the work and doing the fieldwork. M y fieldwork was at a nursing home. I really felt like this was, you know, I felt like finally I was in the ministry and it suited me. It just felt like it fit. Something about being a lawyer didn't fit—it was like I had tried on the clothes of a lawyer and they didn't quite fit. But this was real rewarding. So, I went to seminary, went to Yale. In the first summer I came back to my home town and worked at a large teaching hospital. I went back my second year and rented an old house on the beach and that was very good. That cleared my head. I had always wanted to live on the water and the Midwest is not the place for that. But this was right on the water and I just really liked it—you know the beach in the winter time and s n o w and all that—it was great. M y second year I worked at a hospice. Well, all this time I went to seminary and my friends at the cathedral had encouraged me, but they were also saying the bishop was very unpredictable, but go on and take your chances. I had gone and I met with the Commission on Ministry because I had kind of been struggling along with the Episcopal hierarchy and finally met the bishop in January of my second year, spoke with him some, you know, about being ordained. But the thing in the Episcopal church is there are some projections that there will be one priest for every lay person by the year 2000. More and more people are wanting to go to seminary and not enough people wanting to go to church. And so their concern is where are w e going to find churches. What I did not tell him is that when I went to seminary I wasn't sure, exactly, what I wanted to do. But I did not think I wanted to pastor a church or be an associate pastor. I didn't think I'd like church people all that much, all that piety and kind of stuff, but I didn't tell him that because it would be a real red flag. I still felt pretty much like an outsider. I felt like going to seminary

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would help me figure all this out and then this work with the elderly was something that I liked a lot—I liked the work I was doing with the elderly. I said to him I was interested in developing new kinds of ministry, like maybe I could use my legal background—and continue working with the elderly. He thought that was pretty exciting and wished I was ready to go because he had a something that needed something like that.

That summer I then worked in an Episcopal parish in the city. The priest there was on the Commission of Ministry—and he was concerned that I still had not—see, in the Episcopal church you go through all these stages, you have to be a postulant for at least a year and then you have to be a candidate for a year before you can be ordained as a deacon and then as an Episcopal priest. And they were still, you know [saying] "well, come back in six months"—they weren't giving me any answers. And he said I should really press the bishop here, in the Midwest. He talked to the bishop. And so the bishop summoned me down in August—and he said he would not ordain me. And I asked him why. And he said I hadn't been Episcopalian long enough, also, that my ideas were too progressive, like my ideas about the ministry with the elderly, and so forth, that I should go and find a diocese in the east, where they might be more open to these ideas. Well, needless to say that was a real blow. I didn't know what I was going to do. To have this master's of divinity and not to be ordained. I thought what I might do was apply to CPE for a year at a large hospital, but I thought then what? And also that doesn't get me into a diocese. I just really—I think I began to realize that being an Episcopal priest just wasn't for me. And I went back east, and I talked to the Episcopal dean who was real encouraging, and he said 'just hang on we'll find you a bishop." But I didn't know, I thought maybe I need to take some time out here. And I felt real hurt, was part of the reason, but I also thought maybe this just wasn't for me. I was already signed up for work in the Episcopal church on the east coast. And I did that and that was a real good experience, as was the one in the Midwest. The people were fine, it was just the bishops that I had trouble with. They wanted, though, to sponsor me for ordination in the east and I started to think about that and I started the process. The rector has to write a letter—and I started that. But first, in January of that third year at Yale, the chaplain at the nursing home where I worked the first year, called me and said they were going to expand their pastoral care department and how would I like to join as one of their chaplains. Well, talk about a godsend, here's a job with good pay that I knew I liked and I knew the people and all. It did mean staying out there, which I wasn't real keen on, but it did mean that I could explore the ordination thing. So, I took the job and then started the process, but it didn't take too long before I knew—I didn't get too far in the process. I never met the bishop; I never met a committee. It was just, even in the writing of the letter—the rector wrote this letter and then I heard from the bishop's office that

(Jfe Stories I should have the bishop in the Midwest write the bishop out there as to why I was rejected here—but I didn't hear anything about that for some t i m e — and they certainly weren't very concerned about me, not very pastoral, certainly, that this person just gets booted around, you know. So I don't know what the bishop in the Midwest said, but I can't remember then what exactly happened—I started the summer of '84—but it just wasn't going anywhere. I remember that I called an office a couple of times, I was trying to find out, because I was working now as a chaplain and the people would keep saying now are you a minister? Well, I'm working on it. Well, are you ordained? And I wasn't getting any response from the Episcopal church because they had even more people applying than they needed. And I was really getting nowhere and beginning to feel like I need to find a church without bishopsl It finally dawned on me—maybe it was this hierarchy. I had always thought that the Episcopal church was less hierarchical than the Catholic church— and I found out not that much. I was beginning to realize, hey, this is not such a big jump. I need to go looking for a new denomination. So, I looked in the handbook of denominations—well, the other good thing about going to Yale is that it is interdenominational, so, you know, I knew that I didn't want to be a Lutheran—from the Lutherans I knew at Yale and that sort of thing. And I had gotten to know about the Disciples of Christ because of Disciples at Yale. Where I'd grown up, I'd never seen them. I'd been real impressed—I'd only known a handful—but they seemed to be really committed. They really stood apart as far as I was concerned—real committed. And so, as I shopped around—I looked at the various denominations—the Presbyterians, now the Presbyterians are committed to order, order above everything, and to be ordained Presbyterian you have to take Greek and Hebrew—and I thought, naw, I didn't want to do that. UCC was another one, the United Church of Christ, because they're very liberal, but what it came down to was the Disciples—there was an awful lot of things about them—their commitment to social action is very real, their ecumenical vision—it really started as an ecumenical movement. So they are very ecumenical and that's a real plus. Their view of ordination is something like getting your union card, you know, you got to get your union card. The difference between that and the indelible mark on your soul kind of thing—that ordination changes you, makes you different somehow—I thought that was real healthy. There's nothing that an ordained person, Disciples person, can do that a layperson can't do, including communion, because the movement started with people who were fed up with clergy and skeptical of clergy and felt like, you know, a person can take part in the service and can read it and know their relationship with God, you know, and you don't need this clerical intervention. And Disciples celebrate communion every week, the reason being that they started, as I said, as a real ecumenical movement among all the churches on the frontier and they wanted to unite

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all the churches rather than have them all separated—like a Methodist and a Baptist—let's just get together. It was a bunch of Presbyterians who started it. And how are we going to get over different practices? Well, we'll look at the New Testament—we'll be a New Testament church, which is a fine idea. So in the New Testament they celebrate communion every week—you know, they got together and broke bread together—and so, that's what the Disciples do. And that drew me to the Disciples—communion is real important to me, obviously, I come from a real sacramental background in the Catholic church—really important. I would miss it if I didn't do it every week. So the Disciples—I really felt led to the Disciples and I remember writing the bishop and basically telling him what he could do with it— |laughs). And I wrote to the people at the church that had sponsored me thanking them for their support and so on. Well, the other thing—the other thing that kind of convinced me the Holy Spirit was leading me to the Disciples was that when I had worked at the hospice in graduate school I had known a woman there who was the director of the arts program—a kind of bizarre, theatrical kind of woman and I had sort of kept in touch with her a little bit for some reason—and I'm not quite sure how it happened but in, about in November after my graduation and I was working at the nursing home and I was getting nowhere with the Episcopal church and I had begun to think about the Disciples, having looked in the handbook and having talked to a couple of students at Yale—and so I asked Catherine what was the procedure for getting ordained in the Disciples—and she said, "Oh, I'm the new chairperson for the Commission on Ministry and I [practice?] for the Northeastern Region." Well, I thought, that was a sign—take it and run. So the first thing I had to do was find a Disciples church to join and there weren't that many—but she belonged, and several professors at Yale belonged, to a church in New York City. So I started—I'd work every other Sunday at the nursing home—I'd alternate—so I had every other Sunday and I'd take the train and go down into the city. And people were real friendly, real loving, an interesting kind of congregation. So, I decided to move my membership to that church and was to meet with the Commission on Ministry pretty much right away. I remember thinking this was a bit fast—but Catherine was really encouraging. And the difference—the difference between meeting with them and the Commission on Ministry of the Episcopal church that I had met here was really amazing. They were like—"how can we help you in your ministry?" "How can we enable you, empower you, what can we do?" You know, I had written some essays for them and had gotten letters from various people and they just—well, so different. The Episcopal church, in their ordination process, seems to be—"Oh, you want to be ordained? Then you must be sick. We must find out where your sickness lies." I do think Commissions on Ministry should screen out people—you do have some very sick people

Ufe Stories applying to the ministry for one reason or another—but I think that the "think you are sick unless proven otherwise" attitude is a bad approach. But I think it is also a stance they have taken with so many people wanting to be ordained. The Disciples on the other hand, although I've known them to be really hard on some folks, theyjust were very welcoming, very supportive. And then in November of '85 I got ordained at the Marquand Chapel at the Divinity School and it was great. It was a lot of fun. A lot of my friends from Yale were there and w e brought d o w n a couple of busloads of people from the nursing home. So the first couple of rows were these wheelchairs, you know, and then there were people from home that came up. So it was really a kind of weaving together all the threads of my life. Like the women, you know, when I had first started my practice with these two friends, both of them were there. A n d the other w o m a n is n o w a judge and she was one of my presenters—you know, you have these presenters. So that was just a real great service, had bagpipes, this one Masonic guy played bagpipes. I got him to come and play "Amazing Grace"—really blew you out of the chapel. Just wonderful. And so I continued with the nursing home for another year and a half—well, I was there over three years. I liked it but I wanted to get back—I wanted to get back home. I really couldn't see myself staying out there. I was renting a place—a really neat old federalist house, you know, that was a good place to live. But I felt like I ought to be buying something. I looked for a job similar to the one I had; I was still thinking I preferred being a chaplain in a nursing home to being in a church. So I came out here and I met with the regional minister, which is kind of like a bishop of the Disciples—who works in the placement of jobs and so forth and I told him I wanted to come back. He called the associate regional minister and they told me about this little church that was going to be needing a pastor soon—small, very liberal, and probably open to a w o m a n pastor. So it was this church. Then it turned out that this church decided that they didn't want to hire right away; they wanted an experienced interim. Which was actually a good thing but at the time I thought w h o needs them, the hell with them. So I stayed out there for another year; that was my third year in the job up there. And, in the meantime, got this training where you work on interim pastoring. So in June of '86,1 got the papers—somebody sent me the profile on this church. They'd had this interim in the meanwhile. You know, that was in '86 when I came up here and looked at this church and decided I don't want to be the pastor here. I wasn't sold on the idea of a church and certainly not of being a pastor. A n d not really having been a member of a Disciples church, not having been to church all that much. I just wasn't real comfortable with all of this. I just didn't know if I was ready. And I wasn't wrong about that, either, I can tell you.

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So I came out here for the interview and they offered me the job. I had just done a retreat, though, an eight-day retreat, spiritual exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, and that was a real good thing. I had done that with my spiritual director and it was really good. Since my Cursillo I'd had this spiritual director—someone to talk with about your spiritual life—and that was really important. So I accepted this job and agreed to come on November 29, which was thefirstSunday in Advent, seemed like a good time to start on the church calendar in '87. So I went back east, and said good-bye, and I came back here and found a house, couldn't move into it until February, so I lived with Re η ее for a few months—Copper (my dog) and I and Renee and her two cats. And I started then on the 29th and it was just like, you know, again in some ways feeling my way through the dark, you know, just knowing so little about what a pastor really does. You know, I knew I was supposed to preach, lead worship, and, you know, visit people in the hospital and stuff like that—I knew that much. And that much I'd been doing at the nursing home and I was comfortable with that—except the preaching here was a bit more strenuous eveiy Sunday than it had been there. But I wasn't prepared for some things, like church politics, people have strong feelings about what other people are doing and saying, including the pastor—that didn't happen in the nursing home because it was a different kind of institutional setting. Also, I was an associate there and people w h o had really strong feelings went to the minister there; they liked me, but they contacted him, so I was always, you know, the good guy. But when I came here, people tended to see the pastor as some sort of authority figure—and I was it. So coming here was, again, an adjustment. It's a totally new kind of job for me. And some of it—the ministers, the other women in ministiy in town, the other Disciples ministers, they are all very supportive. And I have just little bits of experience, working in a couple of Episcopal churches and not really all that much time as a church member. So I'm sort of inventing the wheel as I g o a l o n g — reinventing it in a lot of respects. I have found that to be very tough.

Kathleen Miles-Wagner

It was a rather bleak, gray November day when I visited Kathleen Miles-Wagner in her home. We spent some time in her greenhouse room admiring the lavish and completely unexpected flowers in bloom only inches from the dark day that loomed outside. We drank tea and sat in comfortable chairs in her living room, next to a grandfather clock that boomed out the hour, and beside her grand piano that threatened to overpower the smallish living area she shares with her relatively new husband. Kathleen is a gracious and truly lovely woman with graying hair that is always neatly up on the back of her head, held there with a wooden pin. Kathleen is candid, thoughtful, straightforward. I could tell from the beginning that she was completely intrigued and enthusiastic about my project; yet I also felt her caution because she did not know me at all. Over the course of this project, I have come to know Kathleen better and turn to her often as a personal and spiritual advisor. She holds that unofficial position within the women's group as well. Kathleen is a "retired" Unitarian minister. She has two grown children and several grandchildren. She is retired in the sense that her most recent position as pastor of a congregation ended on a sour note for her, and she has spent the past several years gardening and contemplating how she should continue her ministry and asking a lot of questions. We sat and drank weak tea as Kathleen told her story. Actually, I don't see my being a clergywoman as being separate from being a person, so I have to start back to where the person starts. My parents were immigrants from Germany. They were hard-working, frugal, very reasonable, no-nonsense kind of people. My childhood memories were not terribly happy because it was not an emotionally rich kind of background. My parents being immigrants, they never really assimilated. They did not move among other Germans. They lived by themselves, not in the German community. And they did not mix with other people; they stayed to themselves. It was not a rich interactive or emotionally full kind of environment. My memories started in Ohio, in rural Ohio. My childhood seemed to always have this sense of yearning for something. I know now that I was

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yearning for that emotional fullness and richness which was not there, but I did not know it as a child. When I was about 12, I decided to go to Sunday school. There was this little Methodist church in town. M y parents were entirely unchurched. I decided that I needed something, that I was missing something, and for some reason or another I decided that I would go to church. So I mentioned to my mother that I wanted to go down,to the little Methodist church on Sunday and it was fine with her. She would not stand in my way, and she took me to the store and bought me a Bible, assuming one had to have a Bible to go to church. I went d o w n there, and it was a very small community with 70 or 80 members something like that. It was sort of like a big family. I continued to go there all the way through my high school years, and I remember it as a warm and welcoming place that I would go to on Sunday. I remember one year particularly that I was in Mrs. Dreffer's class. The church was a tiny little building with no separate rooms, so for Sunday school w e would just collect in little groups scattered around the pews. What I remember to this day is Mrs. Dreffer looking at me with a smile on her face—I think her eyes were blue—and this warmth on her face, asking me h o w I was and putting an arm around me. At one point there was a mother-daughter banquet, and of course my mother would not go, so Mrs. Dreffer decided that for that banquet I would be her daughter. I remember that warmth. So I went all through my high school years and my attendance was so good that it sort of got recognized. I got strokes that way. I don't remember that the theology "took" at all. I learned a bit of the Bible, some stories, but I don't remember that they made any impression on me whatsoever. In fact, I thought the prayers were sort of sappy and saccharine and simplistic. I never entered into that particularly. It was not the church services that meant so much to me, it was being among people and feeling warm and comfortable. Really that was what was keeping me there. But I could not have told you that w h e n I was a teenager. I did not understand that that was what it was. I have always been a piano student, and since I played the piano I got pulled into accompanying the hymns. Then I had a useful role in addition to feeling good. I think a useful role was important because every Sunday there was something for me to do. I really felt needed then, because there was nobody else. You know h o w it is in churches, trying to find somebody to do the music. So I did the hymns every Sunday and enjoyed it. That was just a veiy nice experience. All this time my parents remained entirely unchurched. This was my o w n thing that I did all by myself. Then I went off to college after I graduated, to Oberlin. I had decided to study music—which was not a good field for me to be in—but it happened to be where I was. I had a very unhappy time there. I really was not socially ready to go and make my way and make friends

Life Stories among other people. My family was so emotionally withdrawn that they were withdrawn from the community around them; they did not interact. They did not socialize, they did not teach us, their children, how to socialize and so I was as withdrawn as they were. So when I went to Oberlin, I felt lonely; I did not make friends easily. I never made friends easily and in a different environment it was even harder. I did not do well at the conservatory either, because music really wasn't the field I should be in. Neither did I feel that I could go home and tell my parents that I had made a mistake and needed to go into a different field. In a sense, I did not have anybody to talk to. If you are from a withdrawn background, you keep everything inside of you. You have to salvage yourself, you don't reach out to anyone. I am sure there were resources around if I had only known how to reach out for them. I did get through Oberlin all right, and got my degree in music. I married in my junior year. My husband was from Germany. That was a sort of coincidence that I happened to marry a German. I don't think it had anything to do with the culture or family background. My family was not very keen on the young man I married. They reluctantly accepted it. He graduated first and went to do graduate work thirty miles away. W e spent another year as students and then a year in the city where I was doing secretarial work while he was finishing. Then w e went to Canada as immigrants because he could get a Canadian visa. So w e settled in a large city there, found ourselves an apartment and set up housekeeping, and I took on some piano students. One of thefirstthings I did was to buy a piano. W e had no furniture and we were using an ironing board for a table. W e had a bed and one chair and one home-made tea table and I bought a piano. Can you imagine? I bought a grand pianol And I started teaching. What happened was that I looked at uprights, but I could not bear to buy one. I got a real one, a good one. So, w e stayed in the city, and my husband changed jobs. W e bought our first house in the suburbs and had a couple of children. Now all of this was not an easy time for me. Because of the withdrawn and loner kind of style I was brought up with, things were still emotionally impoverished for me. I was lonely and unhappy, and I did not know what was bothering me. I finally got psychiatric help shortly after the first child was born. That was the beginning of a long climb out of that background, into being more connected with the rest of the world, with people. So w e bought our first house and w e had a second child, a boy this time. The first one was a girl, the second a boy. Sort of settled in the house. I continued to have piano students, a larger number than before. And my husband left. The marriage had never been terribly good. I guess given time, it may have developed, but tensions got worse and finally he left. So then I was alone supporting two children. I was absolutely petrified of being by myself. I was supporting two children when I had never in my

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life been self-supporting. I had married straight out of college and had never been self-supporting. I was petrified. I did not know whether that was even a possibility—that I could do that. I had visions of us being poverty-stricken, but, you know, it did not turn out that bad. I just took on a lot more piano students and we lived very nicely. We stayed there in that suburban house, and I got a babysitter to come in the afternoons when the children came home from school so there was someone to look after them when I was teaching. We stayed there for several years and I found out I could make it all right; that was the essential thing. I began to cast around for what I should do in the long run in terms of income. Did it make sense, for instance, to go ahead and get some more music training and a regular teaching j o b in the public schools? I looked at various other things and I really could not figure out what I wanted to do. A couple of years earlier w e had started—this is while my husband was still at h o m e — we had started going to the Unitarian church. I had been unchurched all these years. No, wait a minute, let me fill in something that I left out. When I went to Oberlin, I had remembered how nice it was going to the little Methodist church. So when I got to Oberlin, one of the things I did was to try out the different churches to see which one seemed like the one I wanted to settle into. Well, of course, none of them felt like the home church, because none of them had the familiar faces with the familiar people and all that stuff, so I stopped going to church. I was completely unchurched again. Besides that I had been through four years of college. My family had all been scientists and engineers and my husband was an engineer. I came from this very secular background that did not have anything to do with this "religious nonsense"—myths and that sort of stuff had no role. Methodist theology had just never taken, anyway. In terms of rational belief, I did not believe any of that stuff. It was the warmth of the setting that had been the attraction. So when our children were small, for some reason or another, we looked up the Unitarian church, which is a non-mythical religion, or so they see themselves, how they define themselves. My husband's mother was a Unitarian, which we knew about, and so we looked up the local Unitarian church and that was really the right place for us because people talked our kind of secular, humanist language and there were congenial friends and we had a social group we belonged to. For the first time in my life I was consciously part of a community. The first time and I was by this time 25 years oldl It was just marvelous being part of a community. I loved it. I had friends. I had a social circle. I had people to be with. I had useful roles. I served on every committee that church had, and the children went to Sunday School. When my husband left, I continued to be very active in the church. That really was my emotional salvation in the crisis of the divorce. I was teaching piano and we were doing all right financially, but I was bored. I found I was looking at the clock every afternoon during the lessons, just waiting for them

Life Stories to get over. I knew that I did not want to do this the rest of my life. There was another woman who was a piano teacher in the area. She was the best known and I did not want to be her, at age sixty.

So what did I want to do? I had a handful of adult students, and I was really enjoying my work with those. These women had husbands who were off at their jobs, and they were looking for things to do, trying to find themselves. So these adult students were all women who were finding themselves. And here I was part of the finding process myself. I realized at that point that there were two things wrong with being a music teacher. One was that music was not my field, but the other was that I wanted to work with adults and not with children. And it was the aspect by which people found themselves. You know, music is a very emotional kind of thing, that end of it. Youfindyourself and your feelings in music. You find your mode to express yourself. That was the part that turned me on. I knew I wanted to do something with adults and something to express myself. I could not figure out how this all came together. I finally looked up a psychologist who specialized in vocational counseling, which was a very new field in those days. They did not have sophisticated instruments and it was veiy limited, the techniques he had to work with. I explained my situation to him, telling him to just give me the works and tell me what he came up with. And he did. He put me through two days of testing, and he showed me all the results of the interests profiles and the temperament profiles and all that stuff. He said, "I am not going to tell you what you ought to do, but from all this information, you really ought to be able to figure out what you want to do." I went and consulted with him periodically but I could not fasten on what I wanted to do. I had been climbing the walls for six weeks trying tofigureit out and in the course of the six weeks this psychologist had noted how active I was in the church. He had said, "Does that suggest to you that you would like to go on into ministry?" And I had said, "No, I would not like the dull detail of a minister's job. That is not the kind of thing I want to do." Then, in the middle of this, I went on a vacation one summer. The minister and his family in our church were some of my closest friends. He was going off to the annual general assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association And I decided to go to it as a way of having a vacation. It promised to be a very interesting kind of place with lots of people and all that. So I went. And since my minister was there, he got me into some events that I might not have otherwise had gotten into. He took me to a meeting of the ministers' group. I got in that room and was introduced to a few people, made a little conversation, heard the lecture, and I felt, "These are my people. This is where I belong." It was an utter and complete realization. That was it. I got in that room of people and I knew that was where I belonged. Besides this recognition in terms of commitment and interest, I had also done a lot of

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socializing amongst the Unitarian groups and at the parties they have after the meetings are over when the ministers would sort of let their hair down. You would see them warts and all, and I had a reaction to that: these folks with all these foibles and all these shortcomings—if they can do it, I can do it, too. I went to the representative of the department of ministry, who was there at the meeting, and I said, "I want to do it." And he said, "Well, you have to think of this and think of that, and after all women don't usually do these kinds of things." It was true, we did not have many women in the ministiy in those days. But he was like, "Now, now, little girl." That kind of stuff. But no sooner had I left the conference than he looked up the minister from my church and said, "This woman from your church, does she know what she is doing?" My minister, said, "Yes, sure, she knows." He was very supportive. I went back and talked to the guy from the department again a day or two later. I had gone back to my room and thought it over like he told me to do. And I said, "Yes, I want to." He gave me forms and said you will have to apply to a school and here is the information. So I looked at all the different schools and I decided which one was the best for me. I got all my plans together and went down to the school for a interview, to get accepted. We were living in Canada at the time. I went to the school. They were warm and friendly and I liked the way they responded to things. And they were doing some new innovative curriculum where life experience and other such things could be counted toward your prerequisites. I had looked at another university which had a theological school. It was an old-style, rigid school and I would have had to take Greek and Hebrew and all that stuff, that was just not relevant for the ministry I wanted to do. The school I chose would take me and they would welcome me, and scholarship money was available from the UUA and so it was clear to go. I had stopped at my folks' house on my way down to Boston to ask my father for a rather smallish loan just to help me go to school. He hit the roof. He thought that was the most damn fool idea I could possibly have invented, and why did I want to do such a crazy thing? Who the heck did I think I was, asking for money when they needed it for their old age? He just sort of pulled out every stop, any way of hitting under the belt that he could possibly think of, absolutely reduced me to tears. So I had gone off to the interview after that encounter with my father, and the school was very accepting and helpful, and the representatives from the department of ministiy were very helpful and it was very clear to me that I wanted to do it. I thought, the heck with my father, I am going to do this. And, I had two little kids. Yes, I could see why he was upset. Religion for him was a bunch of superstition. Here was this crazy job with all this superstition in it. Why did I want to go off and throw off this perfectly safe substantial home and occupation and take my two kids and move off on this

Life Stories wild goose chase? I figured I did not need his money, I could handle it on my own. I went back to the city and my teaching schedule, and I made plans to put the house on the market and to move and go to school. Then I got cold feet when I thought about what I was doing, so I wrote them and asked could I postpone it for a year? They said, sure, and they would hold my application. They did not give me any hassle about that, and I took the intervening year to get my head together and to get my house sold and to get myself psyched up to take that enormous risk. I went to school, and I had three good years at that school. I need to add a couple of other things. I am giving you the stoiy in sort of a succession of things that turned up. During all this that was going on, I was getting intermittent help from a therapist. Because I was still terribly lonely. I was after all a single woman. And while I economically had my head together, emotionally I was really still very needy. And—as I look back on it now with hindsight—the need for emotional sustenance probably had to do with my decision to go into ministiy. Besides that, these were the kinds of people I wanted to be with, and there was also that wanting to be part of a community, wanting to be connected to other people in ways that I wasn't. So I went to school, had a good time, did well in my courses, had good connections with professors and staff, and wrote a paper on women in the ministry. It was just sort of a new thing in those days, not really being done, at least not in mainline denominations. I got rave reviews from the professor. He marked in the margins that it was one of the best papers he had ever received. I thought this was real affirmation for what I was doing. My six-yearold son—I had explained to him that I wanted to go into ministry and he understood what ministry was because w e had a friend who was a minister at the local church—he looked up at me with his big blue eyes, and he said, "But mommy, women don't usually do that." So, yes, a six-year-old had the message already. I enjoyed my time at school, had some good friendships, some good interactions with other people. I was coming out of my shell some, and there was kind of a crucial turning point for me. It had been building, but I can sort of pinpoint the turning point. When I did the New Testament studies, one assignment was to read the four gospels. Being Unitarian, which was not Bible centered, I had never sat down and read the Bible, let alone the gospels. I had been to the Methodist Sunday school, and w e had learned stories about Jesus and they were a lot of little separate pieces: turned the water to wine and other things Jesus did—it was little separate stories. I sat down and the assignment was to read the four gospels, and so I started with the shortest one, which was Mark, because I could read it the most quickly and get the assignment done. I read the story and I got absolutely caught up by it. This mysterious person who comes amongst human beings and says these profound kinds of things and gets crucified for it. Nobody can figure out what

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he is doing or what is going on or why, and then when they go to the tomb, the body is gone. That is the end of the story in Mark. I got absolutely caught up by the story about somebody w h o cared so much about other people that he was willing to go that last mile, to give up everything for the sake of all these people, this suffering mass of humanity. He was willing to do that. His love would take him that far. That was a turning point for me because the world had seemed—from the intellectual perspective of scientists and engineers—to be a kind of empty place of atoms clashing and material forces. That story was a way of saying, life gives us existential questions and religion gives us the answer. That story gave to me the answer to the empty world—the non-connectiveness, the isolation. This story was the answer to that. It was that w e are not alone, and there is a presence there. So that was a real turning point. I put it together for myself, intellectually, rather gradually, but I got very much more interested in the N e w Testament story, in the Christian witness. I tended to interpret all of this in the very nonliteral way that Unitarian theologians do. It was for me not a literal thing, it was a metaphorical kind of thing. It was a Unitarian kind of Christianity, but it brought me more and more to recognizing the need for that connectedness, that presence, that non-isolation. At that point I was really moving away from my scientific background, my scientific family. I was at that point probably still a humanist, but I was moving away from it and looking at it from an emotional dimension, of religious witness—the internal sustenance that religious images can give. So I finished school. At that time, it was 1968, women were not very well accepted in Unitarian churches. There were no rules against it; it was just simply that people were not used to it. But several of the district executives really went to work to find me a placement. Our situation is that you interview in churches, and they call you or not. It is really a sort of open market. You g o through denominational channels where they tell you which churches are open, and they give the names out, but you do your o w n interviewing. Several of the district executives really went to bat for me because they knew it was going to be difficult to place a woman. I had been told by them before that it was going to be hard to find a job. What happened was that I immediately got offered jobs in religious education. Ministers from big churches would say, "I would love to have you for my director of religious education." I did not want to work with children. M y whole reason for going back to school was to work with adults. But I knew a little bit about religious education, about working with children. I had taken a basic course in religious education. I could have had four full-time jobs in education with no hassle at all. But I held out for being a parish minister. I got offered little part-time rural jobs that I could not have supported my two kids on. I held out for a full-time job and finally found one in N e w England. It was not a very big salary, most

Ute Stories of the male graduates were turning down the low salaiy jobs. But it was enough that w e could live on it. So for me, it was what I needed. W e went to that rural church and I stayed there for five years. It was a good place to be bringing up children, because that was in '68 and that was when things were crazy in the cities with protest movements and drugs and so on. Children were being exposed to a lot of veiy chaotic stuff. As a single parent who is not home much it would have been difficult to have children in the middle of that. Conservative, rural New England was a good, safe, nice place. I was lonely, though. There was no place for a single, divorced preacher in a rural town. My children and I, as family, belonged with other families, but there were not any other similar single women, and there were not men around of similar interests, so the social contacts were veiy limited. I think that had more to do with my deciding I needed to move on. I think now I could go back—now that I am married again and am at a different place emotionally—I think I could go back and have a ball having a ministiy there. In those days it was not a place I could stay. So I looked for a church home—I think it worked both ways—I think the church knew I was not happy there, too. There were things they wanted that a settled person could have been able to give, so in a sense, both of us were ready to part ways. I found another situation in a large city church as the associate. Unfortunately, I had to do religious education work along with other things—but I was the associate minister not the director of religious education. So I was helping with weddings and preaching occasionally and doing general church work. I had received responsibility for the education program and I took that on as a challenge, that I could learn about it, as I did it. I stayed in this midwestern city church for seven years. It was one of the happiest periods of my life. It was a very congenial community to me. There were lots of people who had similar interests and it was a big stable church. You did not have to worry all the time if they have enough to pay your salary, that kind of thing. I did not have to run the whole show, there were other people doing that. So I spent seven years there. I finally decided to move on, to a parish of my own. I could not see staying there and doing that much education work when it was not of that much interest to me. There was not any future in the sense that I could not move from the associate job into the senior job in that church. That is not the way things are done in terms of growth steps, so, that just was not a possibility. Staying there would have meant being an education worker at least half the time on a permanent basis, and I did not want to do that. So I started looking for my own parish, still really restless and lonely. Still single. I came to the church here. My two children had both graduated from high school and gone on to their own lives. This was the kind of parish I had been looking for. This was similar to the church w e had been in when the

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children were tiny—this group was similar, the kind of church that had always been in the back of my mind. I did not want a large church, and this was a small one. It was a fellowship, they had never had a minister before. I was the first minister. They were very informal, and they did not go for a lot of ministers going around in long robes being authoritarian. They wanted someone who was a facilitator, w h o would help them define and find w h o they were and what they were doing in this small community. So I moved here and worked with that church—just loved being the minister in a parish and doing church work, not education work. I preached every other Sunday; they had lay people doing alternate Sundays. I became acquainted with all these people and was part of a community. Always, I had wanted to be part of a community. Here I was in the center of this large community. All these people were my community, my children, my friends. The work was very challenging—a fellowship that has run under lay leadership for many years has ideas of its own. It is like marrying a middle-aged bachelor. So it was very challenging. But I was quite confident of my skills as a group facilitator, as a counselor, and I was quite confident of my spiritual grounding. Let me see—let me go back—I left something out. While I was in New England, I was in a very conservative rural community. Unitarian churches are on the whole not conservative, but that one was a federated church and it was half Congregational and half Universalist. So it was more traditional and orthodox, and more traditional in its religious language, than most Unitarian congregations are. So while I was in New England I had learned how to use traditional religious language quite comfortably because that was the language I had had to use. Of course, all of that had helped to develop the Christian imagery in my o w n mind. I was seeing how it worked in other people's worlds, the kind of sustaining images it was providing for people. I had appropriated a lot of that for myself, very effectively. When I was 40 I went through a change in myself. I suppose that if you wanted to write this up for yourself, you would say it was a conversion experience. I guess I don't really like that "conversion" language now, but the loneliness again was bothering me. I sort of got to the end of my rope emotionally and let go all the intellectual trying to understand and explain, and put myself in the hands of whatever powers there might be. I decided that whatever goes on in my life now, goes on, and if I go crazy I go crazy. I am putting it in God's hands—that kind of thing. I think things percolate in the subconscious until they are ready to happen. I am not saying it happened all of a sudden, but my awareness of it did. That was a major turning point and from then on, that sustaining sense of God's presence was central in the way I portrayed myself to the world. I carried this with me all during the time I was in the large city church. I adapted my language to the nonsupernatural kind of language needed, and I did not have any real problem with that there. Then I came to the midwest

Ufe Stories and found the same thing. I was accustomed to translating from traditional language. You can translate emotional stuff from different language systems and that is not hard to do and I did it without thinking about it. I had a marvelous time working with these people here and particularly doing personal religious journeys with people. W e had a class called "Building Your Own Theology," in which people look at their own background and their own origins, how they put themselves in the world, what kinds of symbol systems keep them going, and what kind of beliefs are in these symbol systems. Unitarians come from a whole variety of backgrounds, and so w e help people find their own religious frames of reference. Spiritual journeys are the heart of my ministry. I love doing that, although there was a lot of administrative work, too. I can see the ways in which the church needed to do certain things in order to get itself together and grow and so I did a variety of administrative things that the lay leadership did not particularly want to do. I would pick up tasks and do them and model how they needed to be done. Some things were successful and some were not. W e started getting new people coming to the church who were looking for spiritual sustenance. Religious journeys were where my heart and head were. The congregation had a long history of being basically a university oriented group. The lay-led Sundays tended to have something that was like a lecture and then they would have a discussion of it. It would be on various religious topics or topics of social concern. But I kept bringing into it my dimension of personal witness. Well, that changes the nature of things. After five years, the changes were beginning to stick. The new people who were coming in were doing spiritual stuff, instead of just intellectual stuff. And tension grew. There was a small group of people—and one person who became sort of a catalyst and I still don't understand exactly how this happened—who formed a dissident group and who caused so much trouble that nobody knew what was going on. And a church gets very unhappy when that happens—even the most substantial members. When the dissent gets real bad and the infighting gets bad, theyjust want that pain to go away. They'll do anything to get it to go away. And so it was that the people—even the people who would have been supportive under better circumstances— were agreeing with the dissidents, "Well, Kathleen is the problem. Get rid of Kathleen and the problem will go away." It just got worse and worse. I was looking for ways to cope. I had not been too worried when it first started because I knew that sort of eruption in a church is part of the growth process and expected and that you have to ride it out. You keep your feet on the ground with your belief in what you are doing and what your values are, what you are representing to the community, and you don't let it shake you and you don't play politics or set groups against each other or try to tear people down. I was working on this very hard. And it was hard on my commitment to

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the sustaining presence that had kept me going all through difficult times—the thing I could always refer back to, that would always give me my sense of direction again. I was trying in that whole frame of reference in which I had worked so successfully for so many years—trying to find ways to meet this tremendous confusion and unhappiness in the church without tearing other people down. The people who were creating all the trouble were refusing to speak to me, which made it more difficult. I guess if I had been more aggressive, I could have been more confrontive. But I am not very confrontive. I was trying not to tear other people down and say "so and so is doing this" because after all, they loved the church, too, in their way, which I think now was destructive. Anyway, I thought that my role was to speak for the unity of the community, not to set members against each other. So I was trying very hard to not tear other people down, and I suppose in the course of that I managed (long pause) not to defend myself. If you defend yourself, you have to define yourself against an enemy, you have to define yourself and an enemyl I did not want to define anyone as an enemy. W e were all in that church together. One of the phrases I used in talking to them was, "We are all in this thing together." But the forces of dissension were such that I just could not work anymore, it was impossible. There was no way I could function anymore. They got things so confused that the membership did not know what was going on. The troublemakers got themselves into all the key board positions so that they could, if they chose, say, "No salary, no money." It was just a terror. I could not figure out how to move anymore, short of actually doing a power struggle sort of thing—which I did not want to dol That was not mel So I finally decided that the only thing that I could do, both to keep my own sanity and so that the church could sort out what they wanted to do, was to resign, get myself out of the picture, and then they could find out whether I was indeed the problem. Then they would have to sit down and talk to each other about what they wanted the church to be and what they wanted the church to do, and they could not fight about me anymore. So I resigned. That has got to be the hardest thing I ever did in my life. My sense of the sustaining presence was still intact at that point. I was convinced that this was the best thing to do for that church and for myself. I gave them three months' notice, which is the usual thing, and I used that time to try to get some dialogue going in these different segments. I was so stressed out after having gone through all this, I decided to take some time off, for starters. And I had looked at all the options and I knew there were a lot of professional options if I wanted to take them. At first, it was such a relief not to have the tension and responsibility and not to worry about it all. But I was veiy depressed that first year because I had lost my job. I had lost my community, that was the harder part, my circle of friends. I figured that it would pass when I figured out what I was going to do next.

Life Stories But the changes were more massive and deeper than I had bargained for. I had gone into that time off as a sabbatical. I say to people now that it was my monastic period. I had gone into that fully expecting that—because I always listen to what goes on inside of me, in my guts, I make my decisions in my guts instead of in my h e a d — I had gone into that fairly certain that things would sort out and I would get some clear ideas of what I wanted to do and I would get going and get doing it. But I guess that transition was much deeper and much more major than I thought, because it has been three years and I still have not sorted that out. What has happened is that I have learned things about myself that I could not have learned while I was busy being a minister. I did a lot of physical labor. I got busy in the garden with an enormous digging project, building a terrace out there. I got rid of a lot of anger digging hard. We did a lot more with the farm and the garden than we had before. We spent a lot of time in the sun and we loved it. Always the sense of the sustaining presence, for me, mediated through all the living things around. I felt physically better than I had ever felt in my life, because I was getting exercise I had never gotten. But I slowed down. I stopped living by the clock, by the appointment schedule. I still do appointments now and then, but basically I don't look at my appointment schedule anymore. I was doing things, reading, contemplating— thinking—reading—and not looking at the clock. Doing things in the zen sense of knowing that when you make tea, you make tea. You don't think about something else. I had been part of a community, I had been doing spiritual journeys with others. I began to find out that all this interest in other people, which I had taken to be an automatic part of myself and part of my connection with the whole of the Divine—with the sustaining presence—the connection with it had to do with the connection to other people. We are all linked up together. Because I had lost my community, somehow, along with losing my community, the desire to connect with other people and wanting to reach out and do things for them—listen to them for long hours, to participate—that was not there in the same sense. I still think the ministry is the place I want to be. I had that reaction when I was at the ministers' study group recently, that these are my people, this is where I need to be. But I know that when I go back into it, I am going to go into it differently. That in the meantime, I have to let go. For a long time, it felt to me like I had lost it. I was grieving for a long time over this. I had let go of a kind of working at connecting with other people—doing things for them, rescuing them, listening to them. All of that, which I had been doing intensively as a minister and enjoying doing. I had to let go of that, when it was becoming clear that I was still working at trying to connect as I had been as a child in an emotionally withdrawn kind of background. That I had been doing all that by visibly connecting with other people. Connecting

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with my parents, doing it intensively, full time in a theological framework that made sense. I think I am finally ready to let go of that. Now I am saying that when I go back into the ministry, I am going to do it differently. It is going to be something where I don't have to be connected, to meet this loneliness in myself, but where I am doing it because I want to do it. So that is the transition that has been precipitated, that has taken a long time. But I still see it as that spiritual journey—learning to love in a different and better way. The sense of presence that was part of what was sustaining me was one of the things I lost along with these other things. I lost it in one sense. I lost it in the sense that I could not go back to it the way that it was. Because I had invested in it—not just in those people. I had invested in the way I was connecting with those people. It did not depend only on other people, it depended on the way I was working with them, and the way I was feeling toward them. And I was letting go of that whole thing. I could not keep it the way it was. So the cosmic imagery, the divine imagery went with that. I could not hang on to that the way it was, either. I had to let go of that, too. There were times in this process where I began to say to myself, "Oh, my gosh, have I actually turned into an atheist?" I actually had gone up to that step. But I know that I cannot do that. It is like I walked right up to the edge of the abyss.

Elaine: What kept you from taking that step? There is still something in me that still wants to—how do I put it? I was going to say wants to believe, but that is too literal a kind of language. I am stuck with language. I can feel it inside myself, I can see the imagery in there, but I am stuck for language.

Elaine: I am not supposed to be asking questions. You are supposed to ask questions, that is how I know you have heard what I have said. If you did not say anything, I would not know that you heard I

Elaine: So you did not tell me how you met your husband and how you remarried! I was by myself for twenty years. I brought my kids up alone, and those were twenty lonely years in terms of emotional connectedness. I think that was the energy that I put into my work here, connecting with all those people. That was such a personal fulfillment. I had been here a year or so and he came to church one morning, not when I was preaching but when a friend of his was doing the lay sermon.

Ufe Stories So we met that morning and our paths crossed once or twice after that and he invited me out to lunch and I guess we just sort of clicked. Our paths crossed once or twice over the next two months. In August he invited me out to lunch and inside of two months we were living together. This is an interesting kind of a story, too. He moved in with me here. There is always the question, can a minister get by with that kind of thing? We were not married yet, we were just starting a relationship, but it was a serious one. From the veiy beginning, the church did not give me any hassle over it. I think that maybe I was known as someone who did not play around. I did not always have a man on the string. I was not perceived as someone who led a loose kind of life. We were careful and discreet, and we did not rub it in to anyone that we were living together. Some of the older folk in the church probably would rather have not noticed, but we were perfectly open for the other ones. They all knew and no one gave us any hassle over it. After about four months from the time that we had first gotten serious, we said we planned to get married in the spring. We had a marvelous wedding in the church and the whole communily was there. It was a great time.

Chapter 2

Hearing into Speech: Reciprocal Ethnography and Women's Life Stories1

I must say, I don't know what a woman's story sounds like, and that does not have a great deal of validity. I'm sitting here saying I can't believe I told my story that way. On the other hand, I'm glad I was asked to. Anne-Marie Cooper

"Ethnography," according to the American Heritage Dictionary, is "descriptive anthropology of technologically primitive societies." This dictionary also gives a second definition of ethnography which equates it with "ethnology." Neither of these definitions serves us well as folklorists and anthropologists doing ethnography in the 1990s—and what do I mean by "doing ethnography"? In their important work, Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, James Clifford and George Marcus begin with a discussion of a photograph of Stephen Tyler, an ethnographer, "absorbed in writing." 2 It appears, at first, that the authors of this volume will assume their readers know what they mean by ethnography and by ethnographer. However, on page two, they explain their use of these terms. The photograph of Tyler, bent over his notebook, is an appropriate place to begin, they claim, because "writing has emerged as central to what anthropologists do both in the field and thereafter." They are rejecting a view of anthropology as "writing reduced to method: keeping good field notes, making accurate maps, 'writing up' results." Instead, the essays in their book "assert that this ideology has crumbled." In its place, the authors of the various essays see culture as composed of seriously contested codes and representations; they assume that the poetic and the

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political are inseparable, that science is in, not above, historical and linguistic processes. They assume that academic and literary genres interpenetrate and that the writing of cultural descriptions is properly experimental and ethical. T h e i r focus on text making and rhetoric serves to highlight the constructed, artificial n a t u r e of cultural accounts. It undermines overly transparent modes of authority, and it draws attention to the historical predicament of ethnography, the fact that it is always caught u p in the invention, not the representation, of cultures. For the authors represented in Writing Culture, then, ethnography assumes several dimensions: It looks obliquely at all collective arrangements, distant or nearby. It makes the familiar strange, the exotic quotidian. Ethnography cultivates an engaged clarity like that urged by Virginia Woolf: "Let us never cease f r o m thinking—what is this 'civilization' in which we find ourselves?" Ethnography is actively situated between powerful systems of meaning. It poses its questions at the boundaries of civilizations, cultures, classes, races, and genders. Ethnography decodes and recodes, telling the grounds of collective o r d e r and diversity, inclusion and exclusion. It describes processes of innovation and structuration, and is itself part of these processes. Ethnography is an emergent interdisciplinary p h e n o m e n o n . 3 In the past decade, anthropological and folkloristic inquiry, at least f r o m some perspectives, has addressed a most critical question: how do we write ethnography and how does the e t h n o g r a p h e r acknowledge her/his role in the field situation? While several important works have emerged on this topic, some anthropologists calling for "reflexive anthropology" (that is, acknowledging the role of the ethnograp h e r in the study) seem to be theorizing about it m o r e than they are actually doing it, and, as Frances Mascia-Lees, Patricia Sharpe, and Colleen Cohen argue, 4 many anthropologists have managed to be so reflexive that they have successfully directed the spotlight onto themselves once again. But the fact of the matter is, however, that we must first be conscious of the issue before we can tackle it, and, certainly, Clifford and Marcus in their book quoted above, Writing Culture, Clifford's The Predicament of Culture,5 Jay Ruby's A Crack in the Mirror,6 and others have called o u r attention to the concern and sounded the cry of the challenge for work that is more reflexive. Stephen Tyler, in his book The Unspeakable: Discourse, Dialogue, and Rhetoric in the Postmodern World, laments that ethnographic thinking has gone awry and fears the e t h n o g r a p h e r has missed the true import of discourse for, he says, the point of discourse is not how to make a better representation but

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how to avoid representation and seek "evocation." Tyler suggests that ethnography should be—at the methodological, the theoretical, and at the presentational levels—dialogic, emergent, evocative, aesthetic through the natural integration of the texts involved, and potentially therapeutic, closely connected with the idea of restorative harmony in its original sense of "ritual substitute." 7 This ethnography seeks to humanize the ethnographic endeavor. It seeks true discourse, both among the participants and between the participants and the ethnographer. In its experimental approach it stands as a postmodern ethnography, although it is not genreless or formless. Tyler suggests he has seen no postmodern ethnographies, although he believes that some recent writing "has the right spirit" and names, as examples, the work of Vincent Crapanzano 8 and Dennis Tedlock. 9 This ethnography of one group of women and their ministries seeks this "right spirit" and in doing so has taken on the form that Tyler predicted for true postmodern ethnographies—it may seem fragmented at times, the authorial voice will not be readily identified in the ethnographer's text, and it seeks and presents polyphony and perspectival relativity, illustrating Tyler's "writing at the limit" and "writing within the limit" at the same time. Although postmodern ethnographies will remain incomplete, insufficient, lacking in some way, Tyler assures us "this is not a defect since it is the means that enables transcendence." 10 Trained as a folklorist, I come to field research with many of the genres, key concepts, and tropological conventions Tyler claims may falsely order actual experience. 11 Yet to set out to do field research without generic or conceptual frameworks would render the experience too amorphous. Although I did, in fact, set out to collect particular oral genres from the women in this study (life stories, sermons, call to preach narratives, and so on), the emergent quality of the research eventually evolved into meaningful dialogue and a (w)holistic approach that transcends any study of life stories or women's sermons I might have originally planned. Recognizing this study as postmodern opens the door for me to represent the emergent quality of the field research as the emerging frame of the ethnographic text itself. Indeed, this study will look and read differently from other ethnographies, and it should. T h e reader will be asked to progress with the ethnographer and the participants of the study as they worked through and toward an understanding of their own experience(s). It is, in fact, an experiment in postmodern ethnography and will not, I hope, be seen as an "evasion of authorial responsibility nor a guilty excess of democracy." 12 Rather, I seek the connection Tyler is making between evocation and ethnography, the

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kind of evocation that will lead to an understanding of the ethos of the community: A postmodern ethnography is a cooperatively evolved text consisting of fragments of discourse intended to evoke in the minds of both reader and writer an emergent fantasy of a possible world of commonplace reality, and thus to provoke an aesthetic integration that will have a therapeutic effect. . . . It is [like] poetry . . . in that it evoked memories of the ethos of the community and thereby provoked hearers to act ethically. 13 In doing the field research for this book, I have attempted to put into practice what I am calling "reciprocal ethnography"—an approach that I hope will take ethnographic studies into a new and more multilayered, polyphonic dimension of dialogue and exchange. My current interest in women in mainline ministry is a natural evolution of my work in Handmaidens of the Lord, which focused entirely on Pentecostal women preachers (this study includes no Pentecostal women). I should comment on my selection of contemporary clergywomen as a focus for study. As I explained earlier, the group I have been working with represents mostly Anglo women f r o m the Episcopal, United Methodist, Christian Church-Disciples of Christ, Unity, Unitarian, and General Baptist denominations. Two nuns and an African American Disciples pastor in the lunch group chose not to participate in the dialogue group. All these women are highly educated and trained at respected seminaries, including Yale Divinity School, Brite Divinity School, Vanderbilt, Union Theological Seminary, Texas Christian Seminary, and Crane Theological School; they range in age f r o m 30 to 65; some are single, some are married, some have children, some are lesbian. They are reflective about their ministry, their lives, their beliefs, every single day; I simply provided a f o r u m for a focused discussion of these concerns. As outlined in Chapter 1, I recorded life stories, interviews, and sermons of women in one specific region in the u p p e r Mississippi Valley.14 In the most fortunate way, their naturally formed lunch group of about twenty area clergywomen eventually formed the basis for an even smaller g r o u p that began to meet with me on a regular basis to do what we began to call "book work." I based the selection of participants in this smaller "working" g r o u p to women interested in taking the time to work on this project with me. As I wrote various chapters and sections of the book, we began a series of discussions where I could bring my thoughts, ideas, questions, and writing to them as a group, seeking their response to what I was perceiving in their life

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stories, our interviews, their sermons, and beyond. In these sessions, which we conducted separately f r o m the regular lunches, we spent entire mornings or afternoons together and explored areas including the content of their life stories, the structure of their stories, what they left out of their life stories and why, their concepts and images of God, the problems and issues for women in the ordained ministry, sermonmaking, and sexuality and the ministry. These sessions and interviews, along with the life stories, form the basis for this chapter. My work with these women is reflexive in that I readily acknowledge my presence in the research and the possible and very real effects my presence has on the field experience. 15 And my work is "reciprocal" in that we, the women and I, have established a working dialogue about the material, a reciprocal give and take. This process is not to be understood as reciprocity, where obligation or payment is the motivating factor—but reciprocal, in the (I hope) best sense of sharing and building knowledge based on dialogue and shared/examined/re-examined knowledge. 16 In this sense, I also perceive the ethnography to be a feminist ethnography, 1 7 growing out of an understanding of how women come to know what they know; 18 here I include myself, as a knower who is constantly learning new knowledge, as well as the women in the study who were able to examine and articulate what they know in dialogue with each other and with me. Their knowledge and mine are presented as a collaborative multivoiced ethnography. While I fully acknowledge that I am writing this book, I am committed to presenting the work as collaborative, as dialogue, and as emergent, not fixed. Given that my criticism of the "reflexive" anthropologists is that they are talking about ethnography more than they are doing it, and given that I have suggested an improvement on, or at least an evolution from, "reflexive anthropology" with my "reciprocal ethnography," I will attempt to present, f r o m the transcripts of our dialogue sessions, what exactly has been the advantage of this approach. Is there an epistemology that emerges f r o m the women talking about their lives, their ministries, their preaching? What have I, as a scholar, learned in the process? Have the dialogue sessions taken me f u r t h e r in my own knowledge and understanding or have they actually served only to validate and authenticate what I already knew or suspected? My theory was, of course, that "reciprocal ethnography" would serve to deepen the hermeneutical epistemology, to improve on what I had seen as dangerous flaws in my own earlier work and the work of others. This chapter will demonstrate how reciprocal ethnography served, in this case, to illuminate a new understanding of what life stories are for professional women who, in contemporary times, find

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that their lives and their ministries segment, and fragment, their narrated experiences. This collective examination will, in the end, further our understanding o f women's life stories in that it demonstrates the importance o f a multilayered story, one that balances text and interpretation. My work calls into question the efficacy of a "life story," as well as pointing to the critical nature of our field inquiry. T h e first thing I did in this field research was collect on tape the life stories of the women identified for this study. T h e initial fieldwork included a good many more women than the number in the lunch group, and I examined all the life stories I had collected for this analysis, attempting to discern patterns, determine content, and find structural frameworks, language, and other aspects of the life stories. I did not know the women well when I first met them, and basically asked only that they "tell me your life story." "Begin at the beginning," I said, "and tell me how you came to this point in your life, as a woman minister." I explained that, trained as I am in folklore, anthropology, and literature, I am committed to the efficacy of their story as story, that I felt the text of their life story as they delivered it to me would be valuable and provide insight into their individual life pattern and the collective patterns of other women in the group. I wanted them to talk without interruption, deciding solely on their own what would be included. I transcribed these life stories verbatim. 19 Only later, in individual interviews with each of them, did I ask specific questions. In the dialogue sessions when we met together, I chose to talk with the g r o u p about the structure, content, style, and form of women's life stories in general and about their life stories in particular. All the women in the g r o u p had received transcripts of their own life stories. They were upset by what they read; they were frustrated with the content of their stories; they were confused about how fragmented their stories seemed in cold print on the page. T h e y came to the lunch g r o u p disgusted, returning them to me with remarks such as, "I hate this!" "This is ridiculous." "This makes me look very stupid; I don't like looking stupid." "I'm horrified; I cannot even read this." This chapter will explore some of the reasons for their responses to their own stories. B e f o r e I proceed with the analysis of the life stories, I invite the reader to read the life stories of three of the women who were particularly horrified with their stories, Marsha Johnston, Anne-Marie Cooper, and Carter Buchanan. Their stories a p p e a r at the end of this chapter. T h e s e women were especially unhappy with their life stories for a variety of reasons, most of which will be discussed in this chapter. Carter's story was, in fact, the longest one I r e c o r d e d — a n d the

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one that subsequently had to be edited the most for readability. Marsha's and Anne-Marie's, in contrast, were quite short, yet both revealed in the discussions their concern with how they represented their lives, particularly in terms of what they did not or could not include. In our group sessions I presented to them some of the current thinking about women's and men's life stories and autobiographies, and sought their responses to their own stories and to the scholarly opinions about women's life stories. My presentation to them included a discussion of the works of Sidonie Smith, who writes about a "poetics of women's autobiography"; 2 0 of Carolyn Heilbrun, who suggests new ways to approach "writing a woman's life"; 21 of Bella Brodzki and Celeste Schenck, who theorize about women's "life/lines" and who, in their collection of essays, include articles by Nancy Miller and Mary Mason; 22 of Domna Stanton's notion of "the female autograph"; 2 3 of Joy Barbre and the Minnesota Women's Group, who have been "interpreting women's lives";24 and of James Olney, 25 William Runyan, 2 6 and Lawrence Watson and Maria Barbara Watson-Franke, 27 who write about both female and male life stories and life histories and autobiography. 28 T h e broad conclusions the reader can draw f r o m these various approaches can be summarized in a comment by Sidonie Smith, drawing on the work of Wilhelm Dilthey, Georg Misch, and Karl Weintraub, that autobiographies (read "male autobiographies") are seen "as texts of 'individuality' and the pursuit of the typical and the model," while women's texts are seen (by Elaine Showalter and others) as "wild—they lie outside the dominant culture's boundaries in a spatial, experiential, and metaphysical 'no-man's-land'." 29 In general, male autobiographies have been characterized as logical, linear, objective, goal-oriented, fixed firmly in ideal notions of selfhood, and structured in accordance with the dominant order, while female autobiographies tend to be characterized as nonlinear, even chaotic, subjective, experiential, interpersonal/relationally oriented, connected to the world and its inhabitants, less individualistic and more spontaneous. Of course, it must be acknowledged that one of the difficulties with this kind of material is the unavoidable fact that what we are reading is an orally delivered account rendered into print. T h e women in this study knew, as I did, that their first response to the typed material was based on the linguistic markers—that is, the false starts, the "you knows" dotting the pages, the pauses and "uhs" that abounded. Eventually we agreed that we understood that these were a function of the oral style of story delivery and ought not to be the focus of our discussion about the oral life stories in general. It is a given that written autobiographies would have been quite different.

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This, of course, also points to the difficulty of utilizing the scholarship on autobiography as literary scholars approach the subject; working with oral texts is always different, but not different enough f o r us to ignore the identifiable corollaries between these oral and written genres. In response to the paradigm suggesting that men's stories are linear and logical and women's fragmented and loosely f o r m e d , the women in the discussion g r o u p had some pointed objections. A t the outset, Kathleen, raised Methodist and now Unitarian, observed how valueladen those terms were and said that linear was, in fact, quite onedimensional and that she p r e f e r r e d to think o f women's stories, and lives, as multi-dimensional: If there's anything that w e are, that I am, it's multi-dimensional, or threedimensional, or fully rounded out—and that's not formless The difference between linear and multi-dimensional is more acceptable than linear versus formless. I pointed out to the w o m e n that I f o u n d their life stories to be, by and large, long and detailed, often lingering a long time on one segment o f their life and only after considerable attention to that moving on to another lengthy segment. I o f f e r e d the observation that perhaps a better way to look at their stories would be to conceive o f them as "blocks" rather than as either linear or fragmented. I thought they were relating their stories to me in completed, deeply explored, blocks o f experience. A t the end o f each block, it seemed, they would declare that whatever they had been exploring during that segment was not working, was not what they ought to be doing, and then move on (after much pain and consideration) to a new segment. I saw the blocks as segments o f searching, o f trying things out, a "reading" of the stories that corresponds to Gillian Bennett's notion o f "superblocks" in women's storytelling, blocks that she f o u n d created a "manylayered, multi-textured structure." 30 I quoted f r o m one woman who used a different metaphor. Flannery, raised Catholic and now a Disciples o f Christ minister, said she just kept trying on the clothes o f first one thing and then another, but the clothes just never seemed to fit. Finally, she put on clergy vestments and they felt right. T h e y agreed with my theory about blocks, but they took it further than I ever would have on my own. What e m e r g e d f r o m the dialogue was new knowledge f o r the women there, as well as f o r me. Kathleen continued: I really respond to your theoiy about blocks. I have often thought of my life as a series of doing something until I had sort of taken it to its limit. I had

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mined a segment of experience, taken it to its logical extreme, done it thoroughly, until I realized that it wasn't what I am looking for somehow.... But I've always thought—nobody else's life is like that. They responded eagerly to the idea of women not having early in their lives one set goal from which they never wavered (a characteristic noted about men's lives and stories). But my metaphor of "blocks" was reinterpreted by them in interesting and challenging ways. Amy Seger, a young Disciples of Christ pastor, responded: I was thinking when you were talking about blocks of time—I was trying to draw blocks. I was starting with building blocks and that wasn't helpful because every time I kept thinking about building blocks I kept thinking about pyramids and hierarchies, and I kept yanking them down. But as Kathleen started talking, I've seen more of a train. But I haven't decided whether the train is adding cars or taking them away. |laughter) Flannery asked: Is this train coming or going? (laughter) Amy responded: Well, actually, it's a sort of continuum. Kathleen interjected: Yes, there's something that has to get done which I think represents "spiritual journey," which it seems like is being done with each of these blocks and each one is taken to its conclusion and then you start over, and it's always the same thing I'm trying to do. Amy continued: And the block itself—because you have the edge, and then the turn, and then you have another direction, and it gives shape in a whole and you have a wholeness there, but in the forming of that you are really going in different directions—taking different turns. Carter, an Episcopal priest, was reflective: Then, too, there's the multi-dimensional box—it's a cube, a kind of a puzzle, but it's a round puzzle that's made of rectangle pieces of wood that all fit together. And that's what happens, you get to the end of one block and

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Chapter Two y o u look at what y o u thought it w a s — a t least that's what happened to m e — i t was something quite different.

I offered to the group the suggestion that, because they had few real-life models or written life scripts to follow for their own stories, they were basically making up their own scripts as they went along.31 At this point in my work I did not believe that the women in mainline denominations were participants in a strong oral tradition that included stories about becoming a "female minister." As it turns out, this is not actually the case, but how the stories exist is different. There is an oral tradition of particular stories, such as the "called into ministry" stories; these may also be written down in the personal autobiographies that are often required at some point during the ordination process. Significantly, I had to learn to stop asking for "call to preach" stories, which is a recognizable genre in Pentecostal circles but does not exist in the same form for this group of women. Here belief determines genre. For Pentecostals, conversion and the "call to preach" are both perceived as "bolt of lightening" kinds of religious experiences, which are easily convertible into "conversion narratives" and "call to preach" narratives, concretized genres recognizable by believers and researchers alike. I collected no "conversion" stories in this study because crisis conversions are not a part of any of the denominations represented; similarly, almost none of the women in this group perceived their "call to preach" as an instantaneous event easily crystalized into a well-formed narrative (Linda Stewart's is the one exception). Rather, their "call into ministry" came gradually and was perceived as a process that lasted over a long period of time and, thus, is perceivable to the researcher (and to other women who might hear their stories) as a long term, gradual "calling"—a pulling, a tugging, a drawing. These women think of themselves not as "called to preach" but as drawn into their ministry. Hence their stories must embed this process—the stories are interconnected, discernible only as parts of the whole. It is important to note that when I asked the women in the group they could not recall having heard many stories from other women. The truth seems to be that there is an unperceived (and perhaps unexpected) oral tradition, one that is verifiable only by looking at the collective style, content, and structure of their life stories and, in essence, working backwards. The class, station, and context of the lives and ministries of these well-educated, sophisticated, professional women who seem to live every moment in the literate world deceives us into a static, class-oriented approach to oral traditions—try as we may to avoid thinking that only certain cultural groups are likely to share a strong oral tradition.

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What appear, then, as long diversions or excessive detail may in fact be part of the difficult task of representing these women's process of being drawn to their ministries while they were actually involved in different kinds of life work or college programs. Because the reader has heard Amy Seger's voice in this dialogue, this might be a good time to read her story at the end of this chapter. Amy is one of the youngest participants in the study. She is an associate pastor of a large Disciples of Christ church and her story is representative of this kind of gradual realization of her calling. While Amy certainly grew up confident about her abilities and strength as a woman, we find in her story, as well as in others, misgivings about entering the male domain of the clergy. Brodzki and Schenck, I recalled, had talked about the female self being mediated, her invisibility resulting from her lack of a tradition. I remembered their characterization of a male autobiography that might be "an objective and disinterested occupation in a work of personal justification," and their caution that the decision to "go public" is particularly charged for a woman, especially one who has defied the culturally determined expectations for women: "To justify an unorthodox life by writing about it is to reinscribe the original violation, to reviolate masculine turf." 32 Because they have chosen a profession perceived by the culture as male, I felt their stories were often masking or justifying their choices, their positions. It seemed that the long diversions in their stories might be serving as ritual disclaimers of sorts—saying, "Look, I tried all this other stuff I was expected to do and it just didn't fit!" Carter responded to Flannery's metaphor of the clothes she kept trying on: I remember when I was talking, I went on and on and on (general laughter), but it was very much like that—like trying on clothes. But there was a role for that [school teaching]—there's an appropriate "teacher role" and you can tag it: a high school teacher does these things. And I did keep trying to do them and I couldn't do them. Oddly, it was very much like: here, now I'm doing something for which there are no particular models and it feels so much more right than it did to try to do something for which there were generations of models, of a variety of which you would think that I could have fit, but I didn't.

But Kathleen questioned her: And it's the lack of models that makes the clothing feel so good? Well, I don't know, see I'm not willing quite to say that, but it is a fact that here you can do. I've really felt that the ministry was a place where I could do, do what seemed to be the right thing to do. I could form myself... without having to

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Chapter Two conform to a lot of structures. But even that didn't work. It turns out that there are a lot of expectations and structures. The question was, was I going to fit into them or not?

Anne-Marie, a Methodist diaconal minister, 33 revealed that she had given this a good deal of thought: You know I am in a denomination where one of my real concerns is about the models of the ministry that I know are in place, and the hierarchical structures of which I am considered a part, are rigid enough that I'm concerned about what it's going to do to me.

Amy interjected: There's not a model for a woman minister. Yes, there are similarities among us, but there is also a diversity among us and that's something that I hope we will lift up as well. Because of the very fact that we don't have those models and we don't have those scripts, we are writing our own scripts and they're coming out differently. There are some parallels, but there's also that openness and freedom and flexibility for something new.

Kathleen responded: And I don't sense that we are coercing each other to try to find the one "right" script.

Finally, in the group sessions, I presented to the women some of the scholarship on women's stories, including works by Carol Gilligan and others, which indicates that women are likely to relate their life stories in terms of "relationships" with others—primarily fathers, mothers, siblings, husbands, companions, and children. I then shared with them my observation that in their life stories they had not, in general, told "relational" stories—stories that revolved around key figures in their lives and their relationships with those key figures. Gilligan has suggested that if there is anything we can note about women, it is that they are relational. 34 However, I pointed out, most of the women in the group who were married and had children had definitely glossed over those aspects of their lives—made great leaps, in fact, over these relationships. Others, particularly those who were lesbian, had left out all references to the "significant others" in their lives. The responses from the women were varied and quite heated, and certainly illuminated further the ambivalence that makes the lives of these clergywomen seem fragmented and complex.

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At the beginning Kathleen suggested that for pastors the "community" becomes the "significant other" and that she would suppose that if I looked for relation in that perspective it would emerge in terms of the congregation as community. Most of the other women rejected this notion outright. Even those who did feel comfortable calling their church an "extended family" did not want this to substitute for the actual relationships in their more private lives. The initial response of most of the women in the group seemed defensive to me at first. Several declared with vehemence their "right" to present themselves as women first and as wives and mothers later. At first, they seemed proud that they had "come through" as professionals. Amy, married and with a small child, spoke clearly, but emotionally: 35 I have tried in the last few years to get away from identifying myself as Gary's wife, mother of Kevin, because this was the way I identified myself for so long. Even after I was a professional person, I still thought of myself that way and identified myself that way. So if I came through that way, that would be wonderful. I'm happy about that.

Linda Stewart, married to a clergyman and the mother of a small boy, serves two small rural/small town churches, while her husband is downtown in one of the largest churches in the larger town. She responded directly to me: Vou said you were writing a book about women in ministry. My guess is that I filtered that to say "I'm going to deal with the professional stuff." I'm very conscious right now of how I am perceived—as the mother of a toddler, not a professional. If we see the bishop, he says, "Hi there, little Momma. How's that big boy?" and to John he says, "Well, hello there, John, how are things down at the First Methodist?"

It became clear to me during this exchange that there is a basic problem with relationships—how to have them, what kind they can be, how questions of ministry and family get resolved—in the lives of these women. If, in fact, the life stories related to me were not "relational," there had to be a good reason. Was it because the women were not "relational" in the way they saw themselves in relation to other humans in their lives? Brodzki and Schenck have proposed that "women tend to present their stories as a delineation of identity by alterity . . . self-definition in relation to significant others is the most pervasive characteristic of the female autobiography." 36 Did the lives of these women ministers not pivot around relations the way women's

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lives have been depicted? Or had the life stories become a negotiation, an alternate strategy for presentation of self? What could the life stories tell us, then, about this critical issue? Is there embedded in them what Brodzki and Schenck suggest is "a compelling subtext. . . which defies socially constructed definitions of appropriate female behavior?"37 The women themselves began to answer these important questions. Kathleen's response reminded me of Nancy Miller's comment that "to the extent that autobiography requires a shaping of the past, a making sense of a life, it tends to cast out the parts that don't add up."38 Relationships have always been problematic in my life. They are filled with pain, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for bad reasons. The possibility is that the ministiy is my way of trying to find solutions to the relational ambiguities and paradoxes and confusions of life. They're left out because they're too confusing. I'm unable to resolve them. What's put in there is what I could resolve about my life, which is the sort of intentional structure working with community or trying to work within the community. Others agreed with her and went on to vent the frustrations that can actually wreck their relationships and damage how they perceive themselves. Amy, who had defiantly told us at the beginning of this session that if she had presented only herself then she was "happy about that," suddenly began to realize that she felt she had been cornered. She began to verbalize how limiting she felt the expectations and perceptions of others could be and began to re-examine her presentation of self and her dissatisfaction with that image. She also began to express her anger about the restrictions she felt were in place to prevent her from revealing her whole self in terms of her significant relations. Can I say one more thing on that "significant other" stuff? Because this is really on my mind. I think I may be the only one in this group [and, of course, she wasn't]—but I feel that it's really—I don't know what it is—but that it's a real 'no, no' to talk about my husband, even in this group, but it's not the first time in a women's group. Even in seminary, somehow, I felt that—you're supposed to be a person by yourself and if you start talking about your husband, it sounds like you're not being real any more.... I find that I don't feel I'm allowed. I don't allow myself to claim that significant relationship and its worth and its value in terms of who I am. If I'm not at my best because the three-year-old has kept me up for the last three nights in a row—that is then a part of who I am at that particular moment. If a male colleague says the same thing, folks will ask, "Oh, is the wife out of town?" |laughter)

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Brodzki and Schenck ask the critical question: H o w d o women "find ways to challenge inscription into conventional feminine identity" and autobiographical representations o f selfhood, and at the same time "exploit the textual ambiguity o f their partnership with significant others?" 39 T h e dialogue that e m e r g e d in this g r o u p session directly answers this question. T h e women revealed that being "relational" was, in fact, a terribly important part o f the way they perceived themselves; they were also explaining that to be "relational" was obviously perceived by others as being "female," and carried, then, a less than serious value. T h e y had learned, therefore, to couch their presentations, as well as their stories to me, in terms o f this expected, isolated, professional image. As Gail Reimer has pointed out, mothers can write, but they cannot write as mothers—mothers must be absent and silent.40 Miller speaks o f "the writer who gave birth to a child." 41 H e r e we have "the priest who gave birth to a child" and the impact is even greater. Because the hierarchy devalues them as women and devalues the "wholeness" o f their lives, women in the ministry defined by the hierarchy are forced to be ambivalent about and to deny some o f the most significant aspects o f their lives. T h e y have, in fact, shuttled between what Brodzki and Schenck suggest is an "objective representation o f a Significant Other . . . and prescriptions f o r ideal femininity." 4 2 W o m e n inhabit the space between these two poles, they posit, refusing inscription into either by employing d e f t evasions and purposive self-contradictions because a fixed/named identity is too dangerous. T h e y make displacement work f o r t h e m — a "double displacement"— or what Smith calls a double helix of the imagination—a double dialogue o f two, three, or f o u r stories. T h e female narrator "gets caught in a duplicitous process: she exists in the text under circumstances o f alienated communication because the text is the locus o f her dialogue with a tradition she tacitly aims at subverting." 43 Talking about these issues in the g r o u p context, and in direct relation to the life stories they had given to me, allowed many o f the women to come to a new realization o f the anger they felt about this yoke which they agreed came f r o m outside sources but the wearing o f which they had participated—and revealed, in the process, that they had, in fact, been speaking f r o m this space between poles, refusing inscription into either. Marsha, a United Methodist pastor, married to a clergyman, mother o f two children, brought the margins back to the center: If, in my life story, I gave you the impression that that part wasn't at the heart of my life and that the professional side was everything, I misinformed

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Chapter Two you. I think I was responding like, what does it mean to be a professional minister. If you've got to leave out anything, for me, don't leave out my children. Leave out my professional church work. But I just get so angry . . . because, I told you, this first district supervisor I ever met in Iowa said to me, "don't try to become ordained, as a woman—you're a womanl Why should you be ordained? That's like bashing your head against a wall." Then, the clincher was, he said, "Have you ever seen a pregnant bishop?" He just sat there and just laughed and laughed .. . and I'm sitting there, thinking, why is this man laughing? It just made me furious. So, I'm still acting out my fury, I guess. I don't like people telling me what I can't have.

The juxtaposition here of this woman's intense feelings about the importance of her family and the anger she feels about the district supervisor's comments about women in ministry mark the nexus of relation and ministry for all the women in this group. It also marks the derailment of what the women perceive to be their right to talk openly about the importance of their relationships and their lives— they feel "un-representable." Like Amy, Marsha feels cheated because she has not been allowed to speak about her family; clearly, she does not allow herself the luxury of revealing all the parts of her life. To do so would only feed the ugly misogyny of the supervisors in her denomination. But her denial of family is obviously not without cost. Ultimately, I heard the women articulate their own emerging theory about women's stories. Carter began: Our worry about what we've done here is that they [our stories] don't sound like men's stories, but that we are applying men's criteria, I guess, to how to tell our stories. So, then, if I turn it around and say, well, o.k., I want to tell a woman's story, then I don't know what that is.

Anne-Marie picked up on Carter's train of thought: If I think more the way men do, and then I try to make myself say, oh, my goodness, I ought to be a woman, o.k., but then the other part of that is that because these are the accepted categories, that's how we're supposed to do it. Then I must say, I don't know what a woman's story sounds like, and that does not have a great deal of validity. I'm sitting here saying I can't believe I told my story that way. On the other hand, I'm glad I was asked to.

And Carter continued: I look at what I said, that's written down on paper, and at the categories

that have been taught us by primarily male people—male methods of look-

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ing at the world and I mean I'm embarrassed because I look so stupid. Because we have said that if you're intelligent, you think this way. And then if we turn around and then we're saying also that our stories aren't as important as male constructed stories would be, because they're not coherent and they're not this and they're not that, then we can't even tell them, {emphases mine)

What does this dialogue tell us about the life stories I collected from these women ministers? It tells us a great deal. Mostly, it tells us how, as Miller suggests, to "over-read" them—both in terms of what is there and what is missing: "How do we look for the 'unsaid things'? [over-reading] is a double reading—an intratextual practice of interpretation and a 'gendered over-reading' which does not privilege either the autobiography or the fiction."44 Such a reading suggests that they are suspect in terms of what we can actually learn about certain aspects of women's lives from them. It warns about taking theoretical postulates and trying to apply them to raw data. T h e dialogue helps us to answer the question of why Gilligan's "relational" aspects were obscured or missing, and leads us to understand that as women change their roles in society, they are learning how to change their public presentation to fit a prescribed and largely male image— realizing the futility of that effort early on but having no alternative as a substitute. Women have learned how necessary it is to cloak their relations, their inclinations, their values, their sexuality, themselves. Reading these stories, as Miller suggests, is "rather like shaking hands with one's gloves on"; their stories become "deliberate fictions of self representation, rearranged fragments of emotional life." 45 The pain and anger in these group exchanges revealed a level of negotiation not even hinted at in the life stories given to me. Originally, I was stymied by the stories, by the ways in which they did not, in fact, follow the expected patterns and content I'd been led to believe would characterize the way women live their lives and tell stories about them. In this way, the life stories are not at all "accurate"; instead, they represent a working out of a woman's identity. But, as Kathleen points out, "what's there is what I've been able to resolve." Which leaves me dissatisfied, then, because the looming question is, of course, what have they not resolved? That seems to be the key to understanding where a "woman in ministry" finds herself today. What she has resolved and presents is significant on the one hand, but the cauldron containing all the anger, fear, guilt, hurt, ambivalence, denial, joy, growth, and setbacks is a vital arena for our continued exploration. These autobiographies belong to what Miller calls "a defense and illustration, at once a treatise on overcoming received

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notions of femininity and a poetics calling for another, freer text." She quotes Elaine Showalter in A Literature of Their Own, who calls women's stories feminist in that they represent a "protest against the standards of art and its views of social roles and as advocacy of minority rights and values, including a demand for autonomy." 46 During the time we were discussing the women's life stories and trying to determine whether the stories were legitimate texts representing their actual lives, I heard a talk by Norman Denzin on postmodern approaches to sociology.47 Denzin seemed to be saying that the postmodern obsession with representation and simulation had so invaded our existence that there were no longer pure lived experiences, only texts. This, of course, bothered many in the audience, who clung to the notion that they had indeed had some "real" experiences, alone or with their most intimate friends, and were offended by Denzin's doubts. Denzin's is the postultimate, radical postmodern point of view, suggesting that even our conversations are fed by the representations of what conversations in our society ought to sound like and be, that even the way our kitchens are set up or the way we cook our meals, talking all the while, is but a mirror image of television, movies, and advertising. This kind of thinking makes me as uncomfortable as it did the audience that day. It seems to me that a more reasonable approach, based squarely on an understanding of how the media world affects our lives, our very being, would be instead first to acknowledge that there is pure experience—we cross the street, we converse, we feel the rain. As long as that experience remains a phenomenological essence—a lived experience—it is not a text, but the moment that act, whatever it is, is framed in some way it becomes a text. The moment we reflect on the event, re-imagine a conversation, analyze how we crossed the street correctly or incorrectly, rewind the tape, so to speak (the essence of a postmodern metaphor!), and look at the event— then it is a text. Denzin and others may argue that our media-saturated world is so reflexive, so representational, so oriented to intertextuality that the original text can never be retrieved for all the layers of super- and sub-text; that is their privilege. For me, however, it is more useful to conceive of the text as the framed event, framed in order to perceive it, comprehend it, analyze it, reflect on it. Certainly, Denzin would argue, probably correctly, that we are so tuned to what we are doing that we barely act before we analyze our actions, reflecting on what we just did or said; we rewind the tape and review our actions as quickly as we move toward the next act, the next event. And it is this approach to experience and text that best informs how I have come to "over-read" the women's life stories in this study.

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W h a t does this have to d o with e t h n o g r a p h y ? E t h n o g r a p h y is t h e f r a m i n g of cultural events. It is first, of course, a description of people's lives within a certain context. But once the events have b e e n described it is the e t h n o g r a p h e r ' s t a s k — h e r e , along with the subjects themselves—to i n t e r p r e t , to analyze, to reflect, to c o n j e c t u r e a b o u t what makes that f r a m e d event m e a n i n g f u l , to the persons involved in the event a n d finally to the e t h n o g r a p h e r a n d h e r audience. A n d what events a r e profitable f o r study? Folklore guides us to a n u n d e r standing of the i m p o r t a n c e of events already f r a m e d by the participants as "set-aside" time, f r a m e d f o r a p u r p o s e o t h e r t h a n everyday, o r d i n a r y life: festival, storytelling, ritual, dance, a r t f u l r e p r e s e n tations in material f o r m , song. Even in a media-blitzed, overtextualized world, the oral a n d the traditional prevail. Denzin's work with t h e stories of alcoholics a n d his fascination with film suggest that these f o r m s are really n o d i f f e r e n t f r o m those recognized by the folklorist as the oral a n d traditional f o r m s that persist in the face of lite r a c y — t h e film becomes the myth a n d t h e folktale; the d r u n k ' s story, told a n d retold, f o r m u l a r i z e d , a d a p t e d , a n d accepted, is like o t h e r conversion stories held as a p p r o p r i a t e by g r o u p s in m a n y contexts, sacred a n d secular; commercials a n d advertising share the fanciful, otherworldly qualities of t h e fairytale. We come to believe in the efficacy of the perceived genre, the notion of a life story as an entity—a legitimate text. With Clifford a n d Marcus we ask questions. How d o we write culture? O n what events, acts, d o we focus? Which f r a m e d texts will enrich o u r u n d e r s t a n d i n g ? A n d how d o we f r a m e what is so elusive as lived experience? Of course, it is still beneficial to t u r n to the people we study to ask how they f r a m e their experiences. T h i s emic (native) point of view must be the first step in u n d e r s t a n d i n g how they have conceptualized what they do. Beyond that, however, o u r etic (outsider) configurations a r e difficult a n d always b e a r the responsibility of accuracy. How t r u e to the lived experiences are the f r a m e s we, scholars a n d outsiders, place on t h e m ? In the Pentecostal world I studied f o r Handmaidens of the Lord, I f o u n d an oral tradition of sharing life stories that was vibrant a n d persisted in the face of the p o s t m o d e r n world, which s u r r o u n d e d b u t largely did not touch this religious context. Within the Pentecostal c h u r c h a n d community, the personal stories were told a n d re-told, h o n e d to a p p r o p r i a t e acceptability, s h a r e d in testimonies, witnessing, a n d sermons. T h e stories, as texts, h a d lives of their own. I n d e e d , they were recognized as texts, a n d I was able as an outsider/scholar to employ both the native emic considerations of these stories a n d the etic extensions I was able to place o n t h e m f o r my work. T h e women's sermons, as oral texts, served as a n o t h e r rec-

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ognizable genre, already framed within the religious service as a text, one that both the participant and the observer analyzed and contemplated as text within the event of the religious service, within the essence of all that constituted the context of "lived experience." In my current research with contemporary women pastors in a postmodern context, it is more difficult to maintain the clarity of genres, the definitive approach, for the oral genres are not prevalent or very obvious, the life story not developed. Like Mary Catherine Bateson, I came to realize how the lives of contemporary professional women are improvisations, "works in progress." 4 8 So simple a fieldwork question as "tell me your life story" suddenly becomes problematic. Often, to direct their reply, to urge them in their telling, I would invite them to "tell me your life story—that is, tell me how you came to be a woman in ministry" or "tell me how you came to be where you are today." Innocent questions on the surface, straightforward, not leading, geared to produce a text of a life—the life, in particular, of "a woman who is a minister." But through the course of our dialogue sessions it became increasingly clear to me just how loaded those simple first questions of mine actually were for professional women trying to balance these separate yet integrated public and private lives. In fact, one woman became quite upset because she felt she had revealed far too much. She claimed that the other women had understood the "rules" but she had not. Her concerns had arisen when she read the life stories of all the women in the group and realized that she had been much more candid in the telling of her story than most of the other women. We talked at length about the difference between the request for a "life story" and the request "tell me how you came to be a woman minister." When I listen to the recordings of the life stories, I realize that I generally said both, but that different women heard different requests and interpreted the requests in different ways. Most heard "tell me your life story in terms of how you came to be a woman minister," which colored the way they told their "life story" to me, and which, of course, is defensible in some ways because I had come to record their life stories precisely because they are "women ministers." Not framing my question in this m a n n e r seemed inappropriate because I did in fact want them to include that information within the context of their larger life story. T h e woman who felt she had told far more than anyone else argued that she had only heard me say "tell me your life story"—and she did—revealing much more than the other women had. 49 Looking back, I realize that I probably sought both stories in my initial thinking about the fieldwork and the life stories I wanted to

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record. I wanted the women's life stories—the whole story (which is a misperception, I think, of this genre), where they were born, where and how they grew up, their family life, their schooling, the significant influences on their lives, and so on. I also very much sought to take down their life stories in terms of how they had come to their ministries. I hoped that I would be able to discern parallel patterns in these important decisions, the call to preach, the execution of the will to preach, the integration of the professional elements of their ministries and other life choices. What is apparent now, and certainly was not at the outset, is that we perceive our "life stories" in different ways, from different angles, with different emphases depending on the context of the telling. For these women, the critical part of this telling was determined by what they heard me say. Those who heard "tell me your life story" delivered one text; those who heard "tell me how you came to be a woman minister" delivered a different text. The separation of these texts reveals the segmentation of experience they live with every day. Because they often cannot integrate these aspects of their lives, it is difficult for them to relate a text that integrates them. It was only as we explored these various aspects of their lives and their stories that the women and I were better able to synthesize the various strains of their stories and their lives. This mutual exchange of information, of creativity, this moving back and forth that I am calling reciprocal ethnography, is clearly a cousin to symbolic interactionism, to Denzin's interpretive interactionism, but I hope it will take us further because it includes the input of the participants. 50 I determined to follow the natural extension of this exploration. Does a life story accurately portray a lived experience? T h e women first agreed that their stories did not represent a full "life story" that had been told and retold, honed over time, reflected on, presented/ performed for a critical audience. They did, however, agree that they told portions of their story to different audiences. Anne-Marie perceived that one problem was telling the life story to the researcher. There cannot be a life story in a vacuum, she argued; a life story requires an audience. I think that most of the telling of a life story is one of those textual, aesthetic things that you tell with an audience in mind. We have stories we tell to different audiences. I have one I tell my family, one I tell to my personnel committee, the staff parish committee. Our problem with this one was we didn't know who our audience was. And that's why the story is so chaotic, so sort of "unformed." All of our aesthetic principles couldn't be brought to bear on this; we didn't know who the audience was.

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Carter agreed with this and continued: We just had one question—which is, tell your life story. . . . I think what I was doing anyway, and maybe the rest of us, too, I was telling a story to you and interpreting it at the same time, which is partly why the diversions are there. I was thinking about experience—I think we do have experiences and then we begin immediately to interpret them. . . . What I was doing was hearing myself tell a story and then interpreting it at the same time and saying, "Well, this is important because of this and this and this." But I still have a very hard time reading it. See, I had to do a piece of this [life story], anyone who has gone through a seminary process had to do a piece of this, over and over again. But the main thing was, there were two questions. In my case, "How did you arrive at the assumption you have a call for the ordained ministry?" And "What can you do as a priest that you cannot do as a lay person."

Some of the women wanted to go back to previous notion of men's and women's constructs as different. Kathleen wanted to present the notion that the life stories they gave me were closer to "truth" than goal-oriented, linear constructs might be: The stories we gave you were not constructs. They're sort of selections from reality that focus around some point real clearly. We're giving you the chaotic nature of reality. And I think that's a plus. It may make your work more difficult, b u t . . .

Anne-Marie felt it was important not to focus too much on the notion of the life story as "the" truth. She preferred to think in terms of "multiple" truths. I would still want to talk about truths. Because I told it, this is true. This is all true. But there's a lot of other stories I could tell that would also be true, which would also trace all the way through my life. I could take people, for instance, and just talk about people and how relationships have led me through my life.... I think that's one of the things that bothers me more than the grammar and the fragmentation—that reading back through mine, I'd say these things and there was all this under them. It's like an iceberg and I'm only giving you the tip here and I could have, and I wish that I had, on important issues, said—and then this means this and this is important because of this—I wish I had said more what they mean.

When a woman dares to put on clerical robes and take on the role and the authority invested in those robes, she is consciously calling

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into question all the standard stereotypes of both females and males. When her story is so clearly a redefinition, a questioning, a reconstructing of female rights and roles, then her story can no longer be unselfconscious. Because these women are not men, male constructs of "life story" do not work. Yet, because they have been raised and trained in a culture that privileges male constructs, they are aware that they have internalized and accepted male notions of what is a good, intelligent, respectable story. When asked to relate their own life stories, the women tried to maintain the perimeters of this notion of "good story" as they told theirs, but because they are not men, they often diverged from the "appropriate script" and, in the end, found the result frustrating and unacceptable. The women in this study recognized that their rejection or frustration of their own stories went beyond their failure to adhere to the male construct of a "good story." They felt uncomfortable about their stories because they recognized the stories as only skeletal representations of their actual lives. They regretted that they deleted important figures in their lives from their stories; they were frustrated that they did not communicate what they believed to be the meaning of what they did relate; they were dismayed by the "professional image" that prevailed, one that, in the end, they felt did not capture them as people at all. Most importantly, our group discussions revealed something Carter articulated well. Professional women do not know what a woman's story is—"we don't know what a woman's story sounds like because we've never heard one." And, because we've never been asked to tell our stories and don't know what they sound like, women can become paralyzed; as Carter says, "we can't even tell them." A note of hope prevails here, however. They did tell their stories to me; they shared them and discussed them; and they had a chance to amend or clarify what they had said and why—and their stories and emendations appear in this book. They can and they have told their stories, and they and I insist that their stories and the way they tell them are legitimate and real. In our dialogue sessions, the women have called into question the application of male constructs to their own stories. They have pointed to the difficulties inherent in telling a "woman's story," when the expectations for them, as women in the professional ministry, are different. They explored the critical need for models and scripts that would provide a construct for their stories, one that would allow for validation and respect from others but remain true to the "truth" of the wholeness, the complexity of their lives as they see them and experience them. And, perhaps most importantly, they have articulated a theory about women's life stories which suggests that, for women, tex-

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tual constructs alone are ultimately too confining: texts without interpretation are invalid and a linear progression without digression and reflection fails to tell their stories. They reject the stories they had told me as their life stories because they perceive their lives, and their narratives about those lives, as multi-layered texts with interpretation. When their stories fail to balance both, they feel estranged f r o m them. T h e stories of these women are indeed raw. They are what emerged in unrehearsed sessions where I asked them what appeared to be simple and connected questions. Neither they nor I knew then how complex this undertaking would actually be, nor where it would take us. Feminist ethnography, here designed as reciprocal, multilayered, and polyvocal, mirrors the text and sub-text of the women's stories, which are equally multi-layered and polyvocal. T h e spoken voices of the women interplay with other aspects of their own unspoken or muted sub-voices, with internalized male constructs of text and story, and with the stereotyped and misogynist demands of their cultural context. They reveal in the end a rich harmony of experience and interpretation, of personal depth and political savy, but a story that cannot and should not be understood on one level alone. Clearly the women in this study could have given me a standard, linear construction of their lives or related the unselfconscious "woman's story" that would have reflected the relational aspects of their lives; instead, they gave me something else—stories that confounded and confused, stories that attempted to do both, by inclusion or by exclusion, by inversion and diversion. They related stories that incorporated selfinterpretation but d e m a n d e d f u r t h e r collaborative interpretation, stories we came to understand together only through discussion and dialogue. In my work with clergywomen, I have adopted what I am calling "reciprocal ethnography." As I attempt to paint a descriptive portrait of these women, I have come to rely on a methodology that provides a way for the women to be involved in the collaborative process of gaining knowledge. At the beginning of this chapter I posed the question about what reciprocal ethnography would provide for the scholar that she could not ascertain on her own; this chapter demonstrates the value of the methodology for expanding our understanding of how women construct a life story and why. In turn, the methodology provides not only a new f r a m e for searching for meaning and collaborative interpretation but also access to new theoretical perspectives about how social constructs of both lives and texts influence creativity and impulse, device and rhetoric. T h e metanarrational information provided through the dialogue sessions creates a lens through which to read and understand the stories the women actually told. T h e r e is

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not, at present, a perceived tradition of what a complete professional woman's life story sounds like—at least as evidenced by these contemporary clergywomen. They continue to seek the story script that fully and accurately allows for all the different aspects of their lives. The integration and connection they seek in their lives has been represented here in their discussions of their stories. Notes 1. I have taken the phrase "hearing into speech" from Nelle Morton's book, The Journey Is Home, in which she invites women to listen to other women's stories and "hear them into speech." 2. James Clifford and George E. Marcus, eds., Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, p. 1. 3. Clifford and Marcus, pp. 2, 3. 4. Frances E. Mascia-Lees, Patricia Sharpe, and Colleen Ballerino Cohen, "The Postmodernist Turn in Anthropology: Cautions from a Feminist Perspective," pp. 7 - 3 3 . 5. James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art. 6. Jay Ruby, ed., A Crack in the Mirror: Reflexive Perspectives in Anthropology. 7. Stephen A. Tyler, The Unspeakable: Discourse, Dialogue, arid Rhetoric in the Postmodern World, p. 209. 8. Vincent Crapanzano, Tuhami: Portrait of a Moroccan. 9. Dennis Tedlock, The Spoken Word and the Work of Interpretation. 10. Tyler, p. 203. 11. Tyler, p. 93. 12. Tyler, p. 204. 13. Tyler, p. 202. 14. In order to protect the lives and positions of the women included in this study, the geographical location will be referred to only as "the upper Mississippi Valley." All specific names of persons, places, and churches have been changed to insure the privacy of individuals; this has been done at their request. In most cases references to actual denominations and seminaries have been retained, as they may have an actual bearing on the women's denominational experiences. 15. T h e longer I work with this group, the more they acknowledge the importance of my presence and the effect the discussion sessions have had on their group. They tell me that my work has drawn them closer together, has forced them to address issues on a much deeper level than they had ever attempted before. They were genuinely dismayed when the group sessions had to end so that I could go back to teaching and begin to write my book; instead, they opted to continue the sessions and discuss areas of interest they shared, as well as embark on some group work on spiritual journeys. On more infrequent occasions, I have taken final drafts of papers and chapters to them, or mailed them to them, for their continued input. 16. In 1990, when I presented a version of this paper at the American Folklore Society, people seemed eager to discuss my ideas. I was amazed, however, that, even though I made it very clear that I was using the term

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"reciprocal ethnography," listeners heard and continued to refer to it as "reciprocity," which implies a connotation I specifically intended to avoid. 17. Lila Abu-Lughod asks the question "Can There Be a Feminist Ethnography?" in her article with that title in Women and Performance. Abu-Lughod suggests that "feminist ethnography can contribute to anthropology an unsettling of the boundaries that have been central to its identity as a discipline of the self studying other" (p. 26). "Feminist ethnographies try to bring to life what it means to be a woman" (p. 27). 18. Mary Field Belenky, Blythe McVicker Clinchy, Nancy Rule Goldberger, and Jill Mattuck Tarule, Women's Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice, and Mind. 19. As explained in the Introduction, the life stories of the ten women who worked most closely with me on this project are included in the "Life Stories" sections of this book. In truth, as much as I argued stubbornly for keeping the stories absolutely verbatim, they have been edited by me and by their owners. While I continue to argue for the efficacy of the text of the life story as presented by the women, and while the divergent and wandering quality of the life stories as they were orally presented provided the basis for much of our discussion and eventual understanding of these stories, we had to acknowledge that the presentation of oral texts in a written form like this book places demands on the material that simply cannot be ignored. I tried. Life stories exceeding seventy typewritten pages were too long (and often too detailed) to be included in their entirety. T h e oral texture of the life stories worked against their essence, so editing was utilized to render them more "literary." This book has two kinds of sections: texts and text(s) interpretation. I first resisted this presentation of materials because I wanted to interweave the voices of the women with my voice as I talked about their stories and about their ministries. This did not work, however, and I have bowed to the realities of book writing and book reading; the juxtaposition of stories within the text became too unwieldy and detracted from both presentations. I hope that the approach offered here will yield, in the end, a completed whole—that the reader will come to know what I have come to know about the women in the process of writing this book. 20. Sidonie Smith, A Poetics of Women's Autobiography: Marginality and the Fictions of Self-Representation. 21. Carolyn G. Heilbrun, Writing a Woman's Life. 22. Bella Brodzki and Celeste Schenck, eds., Life/Lines: Theorizing Women's Autobiography. 23. Domna Stanton, ed., The Female Autograph: Theory and Practice of Autobiography from the Tenth to the Twentieth Century. 24. Joy Webster Barbre et al. [The Personal Narrative Group], Interpreting Women's Lives: Feminist Theory and Personal Narratives. 25. James Olney, Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical and Studies in Autobiography. 26. William McKinley Runyan, Life Histories and Psychobiography: Explorations in Theory and Method. 27. Lawrence C. Watson and Marie Barbara Watson-Franke, Interpreting Life Histories: An Anthropological Inquiry. 28. Compare the work in Estelle С. Jelinek, ed., Women's Autobiography,

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and L. L. Langness and Gelya Frank, Lives: An Anthropological Approach to Biography. 29. Smith, p. 9. 30. Gillian Bennett, '"And I T u r n e d to Her and Said ...': A Preliminary Analysis of Shape and Structure in Women's Storytelling." 31. I have taken this notion of "scripting" women's lives f r o m Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Writing Beyond the Ending: Narrative Strategies of Twentieth-Century Women Writers. I explored how Pentecostal women develop and tell oral narratives about their call to preach and about their lives in ministry in order to provide appropriate scripts both for themselves and for young women who may wish to follow in my book Handmaidens of the Lord and expanded that argument in an article, "Rescripting Their Lives and Narratives: Spiritual Life Stories of Pentecostal Women Preachers." 32. In Brodzki and Schenck, p. 50. 33. A diaconal minister in the United Methodist church can preach and teach but cannot officiate at communion services or weddings. This particular woman serves as education director of a large Methodist church and preaches on a regular basis. While others question her choice because it is often seen as "less than" an "official" ordained minister, Anne-Marie justifies her choice by pointing out that as a diaconal minister she is a free agent in the employment world of the United Methodist church. "Regular ministers" in that denomination are moved by the church on a regular basis; she, on the other hand, can interview for jobs and keep them as long as she pleases. 34. Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development. 35. Since this discussion, Amy and Linda have each given birth to another baby boy. 36. Brodzki and Schenck, p. 8. 37. Ibid. 38. Nancy Miller, in Brodzki and Schenck, p. 56. 39. Brodzki and Schenck, p. 11. 40. Gail Twersky Reimer, in Brodzki and Schenck, p. 208. 41. Miller, in Brodzki and Schenck, p. 33 42. Brodzki and Schenck, p. 9. 43. Smith, p. 51. 44. Miller, in Brodzki and Schenck, p. 58. 45. Miller, p. 57. 46. Miller, p. 50. 47. See Norman K. Denzin, Interpretive Interactionism. 48. Mary Catherine Bateson, Composing a Life. 49. This life story, in the event, was not included in the book. This woman felt she had, in fact, said too much. 50. T h e sociologist Howard Becker was present at Denzin's talk. At one point I described my response to reflexive anthropology and my thoughts about "reciprocal ethnography." This met with some guarded enthusiasm from both men, but Becker summed u p their attitude when he commented that it sounded great but would take too much time. He was right about its taking a great deal of time; he was wrong to reject it because it was timeconsuming.

Marsha Johnston

Marsha Johnston is a neat, quiet-spoken, dark-haired woman who carries her authority well. She seems to be a shy woman; she is proper in her speech and careful in her demeanor, with short hair and white blouses. She has a lovely smile and laughs with delight when given a good reason. She is the pastor of a rather rural Methodist congregation whose church sits like a picture postcard in a town of maybe twenty residents and draws its members from the rolling green fields that stretch around it in all directions. Marsha is married to a Methodist clergyman, working with one of the large, well-established churches in the large town nearby. They have two children, a boy and a girl; both have graduated from high school and are in college. I met with Marsha in her office at the church. The building was undergoing massive reconstruction and she assured me that her postage-stamp office would soon be larger. I remember it was very hot and the window air conditioner threatened to drown out the efforts of my tape recorder. Marsha's polite and careful take on the world was in evidence as she sat in her swivel chair and gave me the story that I had requested—her story. Well, I was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1944. I don't remember living there, though, because we left w h e n I was about 6 weeks old. We moved and I spent most of my growing up years in a suburb of Chicago. The occasion for our moving was my parents were divorced when I was two and my mother and I lived near Chicago until I was 15, when w e moved to California, to a suburb of San Diego. I can remember being part of a small community and an interdenominational church. Eveiyone except the Episcopalians went to the same church, our church. My mother was a Sunday school superintendent and I remember very early on being aware that my parents were divorced. I did not have a father, but God was my Father. And that really meant a lot to me. That was really very comforting when everyone else I knew had a father. Also the church was very much a family-oriented church and you knew everybody's mothers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, that sort of thing. I remember the minister was scary because he would sometimes yell and the little children would kind of stiffen up. So it was not so much the minister as the caring and nurturing of the congregation that influenced me, plus the singing.

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The children's choir and the singing of wonderful songs as a child were very important—and this idea I had that God was my Father. My mother was very influential in helping me with my faith. She still has very much of a deep faith and commitment that God—that God loves all people. I grew up in that, so now still when we talk and share ideas, I think, "well, I think exactly that way, or I think pretty much like that," and she maybe never said that out loud but I can see that that's how she felt. Anyway, we left Kenilworth when I was fifteen, moved to La Jolla, California. The occasion for our moving, again, was my grandparents. This time my grandfather had had a stroke and really suffered in the Chicago winters, so we moved where it was warm. We moved and left everything I had ever known, and I remember thinking, driving in the car to San Diego, I remember thinking, they are going to turn around and find me dead in the backseat. I was 15 and very emotional at that time. I thought I could not survive living somewhere else. This had been my home, my friends, my pets, my school, my church, my whole life and we were just leaving. How could I live somewhere else? And I remember thinking that I was going to die. I didn't know how I was going to do it, but I was going to die in the backseat. Anyway, w e got to La Jolla and it was a very chaotic time. And in the midst of that, I started going to a Presbyterian church there. It was a very large church, about 2,000 members. But they had a minister there w h o was as close to an angelic person as any I've ever met—in that he could focus on one person in the midst of all this congregation, that's the ability that he had. He took me under his wing. I was new to the church, new to San Diego. And he said, "We're so glad you're here, Marsha, let me introduce you to the youth group," and just took that kind of personal care and interest. And I just loved the man. He was sort of like a father. Actually, when I look back at all the wonderful father figures in my life, they have mostly have been connected with the church, which is another reason I have found the church to be so wonderful in my life. He helped me feel very much at home there, and I loved the church. I sang in the youth choir and got very active in the youth group there. It turned out to be a kind of a home base for me. So it turned out it was a real blessing because it really helped my world experience. I ended up loving California; I thought, "this is the place to be!" It was just great and a lot of this was because of the church and because of my own faith increasing. I think because things at home were so unstable, as far as my grandfather's health went, the church was very stable and helped me a great deal at that time. Then I came to the time to go to college and I was planning to go to Stanford because my uncle had moved up there and had invited me to come look at it. And my minister said, "On your trip up to Stanford, why don't you check out Occidental," which was a Presbyterian college and very good academically. And so just to please him, after going to Stanford, I stopped to look

Life Stories at Occidental and there again was that community of people w h o were caring, w h o would take a personal interest in me. It was a much different atmosphere than at Stanford. This school's enrollment was 1,500 people, and it was a very good school. So I applied to both of them. I got on the waiting list at Stanford but was accepted immediately at Occidental, with a National Presbyterian College Scholarship, of which there are only 50 in the country. It was a tremendous honor, so I did not wait to see if I really got into Stanford. I just said, "goodbye." I went to Occidental and loved it. It was a wonderful experience there. It is a small liberal arts college. I got into a lot of community service kinds of things like tutoring inner city children. W e had a really good young adult group there, Occidental Christian Fellowship. I was also in the choir under a very inspirational teacher w h o took a lot of personal interest in me. And I had a religion professor w h o kind of picked up where my minister left off. He took me under his wing a little bit. It was just phenomenal the people that God sent to shepherd me along. I became a teaching assistant for him. I was trying to decide at the end of college whether to go on in English, or sociology, or go to seminary for Christian education, and I loved all three of those. I thought—God, what do you want me to d o ? And I just gradually had a growing feeling toward going to seminary in Christian education. M y teacher had gone to Union Theological Seminary, so when I started looking at seminaries he suggested I go there. But I thought there's no way I could get into Union; that's the best school in the country, academically. I applied, I got in, I got a scholarship, and so I went. I can remember, again—talking about these trips across the country—wondering what is going on? I remember being in an airplane halfway between San Diego and N e w York City, where I had never been in my life, and thinking, " What am I doing here in the middle of the sky flying to N e w York, all by myself?" Well, I wasn't by myself, but I remember this feeling of, "What have I gotten myself into?" But I also had the feeling, the pretty strong feeling, that this was what God wanted me to do. Oh, I thought of one thing I just need to backtrack to, which was at age 14, listening to a Billy Graham crusade on television in my home back in Kenilworth. At that point I decided that Billy Graham was a servant of our Lord and I determined one night during the televised crusade, that I, too, was going to devote my life to being a servant of the Lord. Now, even though I have major differences with Billy Graham, that crusade did lead me to a point of decision as a teenager. Always, with seminary and with college and all, whenever I come to a place where I don't know what to do, I have tried to just turn it over to God and gradually I come to see people and circumstances in a way that opens up the direction I should go. So that is why I went to N e w York, and I loved Union. It was just wonderful—all these different denominations, all these

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different people from different countries, Africa, Asia, and different denominations, Protestants, Catholics, you name it, except the more conservative. But it was a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful community, and just exciting. Working in New York City was wonderful, I loved it. W e had a seminaiy community. Now that I look back I think—good grief,

if I had just lived there, in New York, in an apartment or something, it would have been just horrible, but Union was a family again, people who cared about each other and were there to figure out things and trying to figure out what God wanted them to do. I would not trade that for anything. I was taking courses and I went to Riverside Church, a huge downtown church that had every kind of ministry you can think of from student teaching, to tutoring, you name it, just everything. I was teaching a Sunday school class. I had children in my class from slum neighborhoods and Columbia University professors' children all blended into my Sunday school class. These little rough kids who were coming in saying, "Somebody died in the elevator, and got shot" to these professors' children who had never been in the slum; it was really amazing to be in that kind of a world. I was there for a year and the next year my field work was at Central Presbyterian Church downtown, which is as far from Harlem as you can get. Very upper, upper crust, where you go visit homes and apartments with doormen before you can get up there, and then the next two years were in New Jersey, which was just all kinds of exposure. It was wonderful, wonderfull Meanwhile, I had changed out of the two-year Christian education program—I thought two years was so great, I wanted threel I would have taken ten if I could have afforded it. I also thought, why be a Christian education director when I could be a minister? Why have to take someone else's direction when I could be in charge and do it myself? Anyway, I got married the summer after my second year, graduated the next year but took more courses while he was in seminaiy. He was Methodist and I was Presbyterian, and w e had many long talks about are w e going to stay in separate denominations—is he going to switch, am I going to switch? In the end, the reason I decided to become Methodist was because in the Methodist church there are two levels of ordination. Matt had already been ordained a deacon, and I was not nearly so far along and I thought, I do not want to be a two denomination family. They were similar enough and w e wanted children, so I became United Methodist, but at heart I am Presbyterian tool

W e left New York intending to go to the California Conference, but then the Iowa recruiters asked what would it take to get Matt to come to Iowa? So he gave them this list that would be almost a dream job and sure enough they came back in a couple of weeks and said, "We have a job for you." They gave him everything on the list. They wanted him back that badly, and I felt like "No way do I want to go to Iowa. I grew up in Illinois, which was

Life Stories fine—I'm an urban suburban. What am I going to do in Iowa? I am going to diel Nobody will understand me, it is all farming people, what do I know about farm people? They won't like me." Anyway, I went through all that. We prayed about it and it seemed like what w e should do, temporarily, at least. So w e rented a U-Haul and moved to Des Moines, Iowa, which was at least a city. Matt was the associate at one of the larger churches there. He loved his job. I was told—when I said, "How about me coming to Iowa?"— the district superintendent said, "Oh, no problem, there are lots of jobs." I got there and I was not ordained, I had purposely waited because w e wanted to have children and I did not want to be ordained and be under the pressure of having to take a job every year. But I felt like I could work in Christian education, that was a different thing. I got there and he said, "Why do you want to go into the ministry? You're a woman." I said, "Yes." And he said, "That is like bloodying your head against the w a l l . . . a woman trying to be a man is like taking your head and butting it against the wall." I said, "Nol" He said, "Have you ever seen a pregnant bishop?" and started laughing. I just looked at him until he stopped laughing. He said, "Well, I don't know of anything around here for you to do right now." So he was totally unsupportive. I had come to Iowa under false pretenses. Eventually I did get a job with a church member's organization which was helping low income people. I would counsel the families. My job was helping them budget, get off welfare, and become homeowners. So that was wonderful. I actually loved that job. I kept it until our first child was born. Shortly after she was born we moved. W e had been in this church for two years. But the senior pastor was to be moved and the whole church got up a petition that said, " W e do not want Matt to move. He has helped us so much, he has done great work with the youth, please let him stay." But no, he got moved, too, because the rule in the Methodist church then was that if the senior pastor moved, everybody did. So we left and went to another part of Iowa, where Matt was the associate at one church for two years. While we were there our son was born. I was doing volunteer work in the church, doing hospital visitation. In fact, the senior pastor had a heart attack, which made Matt the pastor of the church, and I became the hospital caller in the church. All this time w e were still trying to transfer to California, because w e had not given that up. After we had been there two years, we did get a call that Matt was being considered for a position in Honolulu, which is part of the California Conference. So we sold almost everything w e had, all of our furniture. W e stored the rest of it that we wanted to save. W e were told that the conference would pay for our moving expenses from California to Hawaii, but to get from Iowa to Hawaii was another thing so we just sold most of our belongings. I don't really know how w e did it, but w e did. W e got to California and they paid

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our way, and Matt became the assistant minister in that church and was there three years, then he became minister of his own church. And we ended up loving being in Hawaii. The children just loved it. When we moved, our son Scott was six months old and Kathleen was three, and so that is basically what they think of as home. In fact, it was a real shock to them when we left, not having the ocean, and everyone being Caucasian here, it was a really different thing. I felt so blessed to have been able to raise them in a multicultural setting. W e loved being there. I taught pre-school there for two years, as soon as our son started kindergarten. I taught in a Baptist church, which was interesting. Then my husband decided that what he really liked about the ministry was counseling and he did not like all the administrative work that he had to do. The counseling role was really working with people, and he felt more and more that he belonged in the chaplaincy. Originally he and I had planned to co-pastor a church, but just as the children begin to get old enough, what does he do? He says, "How about if I go into chaplancy?" And there again we had no way of doing that because we had no money. So we thought, how can we do this? And we prayed about that a lot, and he started trying different places for the training which is a two year program. He was accepted at Rochester Methodist Hospital in Minnesota. They offered him a scholarship. I'm still not sure how it all happened. We left Honolulu to go to Rochester. We stayed two months with my mom in San Diego because we had no money and we had a great time staying with her. W e bought a car and drove to Rochester. I had to learn to drive a stick shift on that trip. We arrived in Minnesota almost broke. He started looking for work, and we rented a house. Within the first or second day, we had a phone call from a Presbyterian minister who was going to school there, too. This man was going to take the same courses as Matt, but he was going to keep his two churches and he could not keep them by himself. He wondered if we would consider taking two-thirds of the job, helping him during the time he would take the courses, and we would be paid two-thirds of his salary if we would do that. Now, we had not even looked for jobs yet and this man calls and offers us work, which was God calling, saying, "You are doing what I asked you to do and I am going to help you here." Even thinking about it still thrills us. Anyway, we took the job with the two of them splitting the preaching, and with me doing everything else. I did the education and the pastoral care, the calling. I did two-thirds of the job, and between the two of them, they split one-third. I loved it. It was wonderful. Two little churches, just thriving, with all these adults coming to classes, and the education program just took off. It was this situation that pushed me into thinking that maybe God wants me to go into the ministry now, to be ordained a minister. Actually, I had really always thought of myself as being in ministry. To me, every Christian is

Life Stories in the ministry, and there is a wide variety of ways to be in ministry. I felt very much that my husband, and especially my children, were definitely who God wanted me to be in ministry with and for. To me, being a mother is still probably the highest calling, taking care of our children, teaching them to trust in God. But it seemed we were always short of money, could we handle my staying home when the children were young? Anyway, I had thought that when the children got older, like high school age, that was when I should be ordained to the ministry. But the experience of working in these two churches was so great. I felt God was saying, "Go," but I kept saying, "But I need to be home for the children. Are you sure I can be a good mother and a minister at the same time? If you want me to do that, I will do it. I don't know how I can do that, are you sure?" I just kept feeling that way, but finally I came to trust God and said, "Okay, I don't know how I am going to do that, but if you say so, I'll try it. But, maybe I am not hearing you right." So I started the process toward ordination. Matt finished his training and began applying for a job. We spent six months without his income or job because there were no jobs open. Finally, he interviewed for the job here, then he was offered the jobl We felt ambivalent about the Midwest, but the town sounded fine, and so we thought, okay, we'll go. So we moved and I went ahead toward ordination. Oh, that was interesting! I had barely started the ordination process, when the district superintendent called and said, "Do you think you would be interested in this job?" I was not even looking yet, which again I think is God providing for me. So I took that first job and was ordained. But almost immediately, the senior minister was moved so I was moved. I did not want to move. I wasn't ready to be pastor of a church. I said, "God, what are you doing? I only wanted to be on the staff and do Christian education. I am scared to death of preaching. I cannot be in charge of a church. You have got to be kiddingl" I did not want to come here. And now when I leave here, I do not know how I am going to live! I just love it here, it is wonderful. I am starting my sixth year, but God obviously knows better than I do what I can do and what I can't do and what is good and what is not good. Because this has been just a wonderful blessing. My daughter had major back surgery some years ago. Our church basically carried us through what turned out to be a hellish thing. The pain was just awful, and then trying to get her back in high school was very hard. She has had a lot of emotional setbacks and has been emotionally fragile. But our church has really been our family and continues to be and to help us feel welcome and supported. I think that being in this church has been so great and they keep saying, "Oh, we want Marsha to stay." So here we are. Matt is loving his job, and I am hoping that I do not get moved. In the Methodist church you are appointed from one year to the next year. As they explain it to me, even if you do not want to move and the

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church does not want you to move, maybe somebody else down the line needs to move, so sometimes you need to move for the sake of someone else. So far it has gone well. But I am getting to be a long term person. At least we hope to get our son through high school before moving. Plus we are starting, hopefully, a building program. So I am hoping that will work out well and I can stay to see that through.

Anne-Marie Cooper

Anne-Marie Cooper has a fresh, glowing face and short strawberry blonde hair; she is as at home in bermuda shorts as she is in vestments. She seems at first to be "all business." She certainly appears to know what she's doing, who she is, and where she's going. During the course of the research for this book, Anne-Marie received her Ed.D. from a prestigious southern university. She is a Methodist diaconal minister, which is "virtually the same," she says, as an ordained minister in terms of what she is able to do in the church—except officiate at communion services and weddings. She prefers being a diaconal minister because she can operate as a free agent; that is, she is hired by a church in a particular position for any length of time. Regularly ordained ministers in her denomination, on the other hand, are subject to the dictates of the regional conference in being moved from one church to another, usually on a five-year rotating basis. Getting to know Anne-Marie has been a treat, because beneath her allbusiness exterior lies a warm and gentle person who is quite willing to show and express her vulnerability with people she trusts. During the dialogue sessions for this book, Anne-Marie came to express herself more openly about how most of her life she had actually preferred the company of men, but that during our sessions together she had come to appreciate and really feel comfortable with the interchanges with the other women in the group. Anne-Marie is an associate minister at a rather large church in a town of about 30,000. She preaches about once a month and is in charge of much of the Christian education. On occasion she talks about wanting to leave the ministry and teach in a seminary, but she has not acted on that. At the time of the study, she was married and was quite busy with two teenage girls, one at college and the other trying to find her way after graduating from high school. On the cold December day I visited Anne-Marie, we sat in her office at the church. She was candid, straightforward, and seemed to enjoy the exercise of giving me her story. I was born in 1943 to a young college professor and his wife w h o were living on the east coast. M y parents were both midwestemers and were both college educated. They were in college during the depression years, and as

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usual I think that had a tremendous impact on them. My dad was teaching English at the time, and they decided to have a child, which they had put off for eons. They waited four years to get married and they waited five years to have a child. They still did not have a car at that point so it was different from folks nowadays. Two years later my dad went back to the midwest to work on his Ph.D. We stayed there for ten years. I went to the university laboratory school, which I think was very important in terms of learning skills and research and so forth, compared to what a normal elementary school could have offered. And then we moved to California, where I finished high school. And I went to a university out of state because I wanted to go out of state. I wanted to go to a big state university and I wanted to major in theater. I stayed there only two years. The second year I found myself getting very depressed, I think primarily because of the weather—dark and rainy all the time. My sophomore year we had ninety days without seeing the sun, and I got to the point where I was bursting into tears as I walked down the street. Anyway, I went back to California and finished college where my dad was on the faculty. I met my husband; married him; and we both wanted to go on to grad school. I was thinking that I was preparing to be a good faculty wife, and that he was preparing to be a good faculty person. So we both went to graduate school. We went to the very finest theater program at that time. It was the golden age. There were probably sixty Ph.D. candidates there at that point and they had a super program, but Ifinishedmy master's quicker than he did. Oh, I need to say that Graham and I were both strong students. We both did well in criticism classes and literature classes, but I made the decision at college to go into costume design because it seemed appropriate for a "girl." And I was good at sewing and I enjoyed it. I was uncomfortable with the design aspect, because I am lousy at drawing; I was then and still am. But I learned to get around that. I could design nice costumes and build them and I was good at organizing a shop. I worked down in the shop to get the costumes ready for thefirstdress rehearsal. So I specialized in that area, and left behind the theory, criticism, and literature to a great extent. When we went to Iowa, my degree was to be in costuming and his was to be in theory and criticism and literature. Which was okay. I finished my master's in two years. It took him three, so I had tofigureout what to do that third year. So I said okay, I will start my Ph.D. because the comps I had written for my master's had been very strong and they strongly encouraged me to go on. So I did, but by the end of the third year, I could not stay in that program. One, I was terrified of the idea of an oral exam. Two, which is funny, now—it's a whole other storyl—but at that time, the other thing was, I kept saying that I don't know why I am doing all this when I going to be a faculty wife? Why should I put myself through this much agony and pain? I will just be an

Life Stories overeducated faculty wife. So they started an MFA program in design and I said okay, I will go into that, but I knew that I could not finish it because it was a set three year deal, and we knew at that point that we would only be there two more years. So I started another kind of a degree, knowing I would not finish it but wanting to stay in school so I could keep my graduate assistantship. We had a nice living, living on the two of them. Whereupon, in 1970, Graham had passed his comps and got started on his dissertation, and he was offered a nice job at a good university, and I had a baby and that happened when we moved to where I could be the faculty wife that I had been so well prepared to bei And in the mail, the very first week, came an invitation to the president's reception—to the faculty—and there were name tags in there for Professor Graham Cooper and Mrs. Graham Cooper. And I said, "Whoa\" Suddenly, I had lost my name! (laughing). It was just a bolt of lightning that I was just going to be a nobody. All this time I had marched along beside him. I was very active in everything in graduate school, and I felt like I was a peer and colleague of all those folks there, even though I did not finish my degree—but lots of them did not either, gobs of them. It was a real amazing thing. Then I joined a couple of faculty wives' groups, and some of my friends from those have told me that I am famous because when we got together to organize, one of them said something about what will we do with the children and I said, "We will certainly get a babysitter," and they were shocked that I was so willing to leave my baby with a sitter. But I was! (laughing) It was clear that this was not the way it was going to be. And then, the book discussion group I was in began to read Sexual Politics, one of those first really good consciousness-raising books, and it raised mine. I really became aware in a lot of ways that the issues were ones that I was fighting against. But I did not do anything about it when I was there. I ran the box office for the theater and I had another baby, and Graham finished his degree and I typed his dissertation for him. We both stayed up all night for two solid weeks with this thing. That was very important, we needed to get that done. We ended up here. We had just barely been here a few days when a good friend called and asked if I wanted to teach English; I did, so I came over and taught one section that first fall and in the spring I did three. From then on I worked at least half time and sometimes full time—four courses—for the next three or four years. But the money to hire non-regular teaching staff was really drying up, and people were getting real nervous about it. About that time, the pastor of the church we belonged to, which was a United Methodist church down here, called me up and said, "Could you come down and talk to me a bit?" I went down and he said, "What do you think we ought to do about our education for adults and youths here?" So I

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proceeded, of course, to tell him all the things I thought w e ought to do. He called me up half an hour later and said, " W o u l d you like a j o b ? It will be half-time/temporary until w e can get a seminary student but w e w o u l d like you to work for us." Well, I was crazy about him and I thought, all this is very exciting and wonderful. Now, I need to backtrack a little bit and say that, first of all, I was raised in the Methodist church—parents and their parents, everybody Methodist. But w h e n w e w e n t to graduate school, w e were not really going to church at all. Then after Kristy was born, Graham said to me one day, "Don't you think w e ought to go to church?" I said, "Oh, do w e have to?" But w e did, and Kristy, w h o was like a year and half old, loved the nursery. She loved it. We could take her in the nursery and w e could go in the sanctuary and have this hour of adult time and did not have to pay for a babysitter. It was wonderful; I loved it. I was strongly agnostic at that point, but there were a lot of things about worship that I really liked and enjoyed. I loved the music. We joined the choir and I really got pretty deeply involved in that church. When w e came here, w e joined as well. At the point where they called me in and asked me to take this job, I was a volunteer working with the senior high youth fellowship group every Sunday night. Also I was coordinator of adult education. I was also real active in the women's group, just really deeply involved, but I still felt very agnostic. In fact, not long before that I had a conversation w i t h one of the associate pastors where I said, " H o w do y o u k n o w there is a God? H o w am I ever going to k n o w there is a God?" I distinctly remember asking him that. He says, "I don't know." (laughing) Which I appreciated—that

answer—

because any pat or simplistic stuff I w o u l d have automatically rejected. I had struggled w i t h that question since, well, as long as I could remember. As a high school student, I was president of my youth fellowship. I w e n t to a leadership training camp for presidents from all over the place, and that week culminated w i t h one of the things where in the night you go on a candlelit procession up a hill and by candlelight you write letters to God and all these people were crying and carrying on and, you know, they were so moved. I was so la la la—(laughing). Again, I remember walking w i t h a pastor w h o was there and saying to him, "What is w r o n g w i t h me? I don't feel what these people are feeling. I cannot get into this." He said, "Nothing is w r o n g w i t h you; it is just the w a y you are." So I wrote a letter. M y letter to God was, "Are you there?" (laughing) It was a lot of introspection about w h y am I so different than all these people, w h y can I not surrender, w h y can I not let this wash over me, cariy me along? W h y do I have to be so intellectual about it? So as I accepted this temporary, part-time position I said to the pastor, "You have to understand, I don't even k n o w if I believe in God." He said, "I w o u l d rather have someone w h o says that on my staff than someone

Life Stories

who thinks they have all the answers to all the questions." Again, the perfect thing for someone to have said to me. He said, "I think this is a good place to look for those answers." Which it was. It was a great place. I continued to be very open with the pastoral staff—not with the parishioners I worked with so much, but I was mostly a managerial type person, at that point. If anything theological needed to be said, I was extremely insecure with that and would have one of the pastors look at it before I would have it printed anywhere, because I just did not know much about it and did not want to say anything heretical. But I loved it. I started working and I loved it. It was so interesting—after teaching all those years. At that point I had been teaching six years and this included the teaching but it also had a lot of administrative/managerial things to do and it was fun and I enjoyed interacting with all the different sorts of people who were at the church. Many leaders of this community were there and getting to know them was exciting and fun. There was lots of variety in the day and quite a bit offlexibilityas far as when I needed to be there and when I did not. I liked all that. So, along in that spring, I said to one of the pastors, "I like this, I want to know more about it, what should I do?" He suggested I go to a lay training program. So I did and I met so many people therel It was at the jurisdictional level, which means there are five jurisdictions for the whole U.S., so there were people there from all over the place—Texas and Louisiana, New Mexico, Nebraska—and they were just super people. They just blew me away. They were so knowledgeable and so charismatic—I don't mean charismatic theologically, but I mean just attractive people, exciting people to be around. "Wow! This is great," I thought. "I like thisl" And so I repeated that the next year and was eventually certified as a laboratory school leader, which was another sort of para-academic thing—the United Methodist church is full of certifications. (laughing) But I got to go teach at the lab schools. Again, I was using my gift for teaching and applying it in a different content area than communications; I liked that. Somehow, I was never replaced in that temporal job. Somehow, where it had been half time, my salaiy was raised, and my time increased also. So I sought out other training. The next thing that was suggested to me was that I take certification courses for Christian education. During this time, I had gone to a Christian Educators' fellowship meeting, which was a statewide group of people, and sat down next to this woman. I barely knew any of these people, but this woman said to me, "Julie Young called me last night to say to tell you that she thinks you would make a good diaconal minister." Well, I knew who Julie Young was, but I did not know her well. She had moved out of the state and she was retired. She barely knew me and the fact that she had thought of me and had called this other woman to say this to me—it was a bolt out of the blue. It was like the voice of God calling me. I thought, "How—how could this be that this person

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would say that?" And I said back to the woman, "What?" And then I said, "Well, what should I do?" She said, "Well, I started it because I needed a new challenge; I needed something else." And I thought, "Well, that is sure mel" And it was always in the back of my mind—that phone call from Julie Young. There is a lot of talking at those kinds of events about "calling," about vocation. I have never had one of those "deep voice on the mountaintop" kinds of things, but God has spoken to me through people. The more I began to realize that, I was able to count those times, to see that as active in my life. One of the times was certainly Julie Young calling that other woman—and her speaking to me at that meeting. And then in the Methodist church we talk about fruits, gifts of the spirit, and do those gifts bear fruits? I felt like there were a lot of fruits, that I had had a lot of strokes or feedback, whatever you want to call it, materialistic language, secular language, saying that somehow God was able to speak through me, imperfect vessel though I am, to other people, a great deal. And that again was more affirmation to me that God was somehow calling me into this. The more I looked at all the things I had been and done in term of English and public speaking and theater—theater was very closely related to worship, certainly, my experience working with youth in the church, just all those things. It was like all the pieces fit together and filled up the puzzle and the puzzle picture became diaconal ministry as a vocation. Which is when Graham said to me, "Are you sure you want to be an Μ FA person in a Ph.D. world?" Because diaconal ministry is a very strange and new thing and there are very few of us. At this point we are still classified as lay people, rather than ordained, and that puts us in a category—as far as the politics·—where we are really disenfranchised, in a sense. In our annual conference, when lay people vote on something there are six or seven hundred lay votes, eight of which are diaconal ministers. That does not give you enough of a power block to do anything. And they're trying to elect women there. Our chances of ever electing a diaconal on the lay side are practically nil because the lay people see us as professionals, like clergy are. And they think we ought to be over in that camp. But the clergy don't necessarily accept us either, because a lot of us don't necessarily have a seminary degree. They think somehow that we have not gone through whatever kind of a trial that is. I would maintain that I have a master's in myfieldplus all that theological training. I was at the point of my third certification course when I felt terrible pressure to make up my mind. Ordination has never really been a choice because I don't see myself as having the gifts that would be needed to go out and pastor a local or rural church, for instance. I think that I need to always be in larger churches in educated, literate congregations, in congregations that value intellectual quality. How else can I put it? I really think that my greatest gift, or my more unusual gift, is the gift for teaching. I need to say, I am an

Life Stories educator, primarily. If I were to be ordained, I would have no guarantee of

being able to stay in the kind of church that I think I need to be in with the

gifts that I have. And I like excellence and I have to be where that is. So I

never really thought that ordination was a possibility, that the choice for me

was to be consecrated or not, because I felt that if I chose diaconal ministry

and was consecrated, well, it would not change particularly where I might

be employed. It would change my commitment to it. It would change it from

a job and a set of things to be managed to ministry and to a lifelong commitment to it. I have made a commitment to diaconal ministry. I have made

a commitment to the denomination. I have made a commitment to God. And where I may be forced into a situation where I would have to leave some-

day—it is possible—it will not be just a whim or my choice, it will be because of circumstance.

And that was a hard decision to make for me because I am a feminist. I

don't believe in a lot of hierarchical laws which limit people and what their

possibilities are. I think each individual should be able to explore their potential to its fullest and to develop oneself to one's fullest and then to use

those gifts and graces and knowledges or whatever. And so to put myself in this lower status spot was a hard decision.

I had one night where I was up absolutely all night just wrestling with it. I

would keep thinking of Jacob wrestling with the angel and maybe indeed I

was wounded, but so far it seems to have been a good choice. Diaconal ministers are always in very dangerous waters because w e have to find our

own employment, and yet w e are so limited as far as places where you can be employed. Here, when I started, there was only one church that was hiring anyone. It was just incredible luck or divine providence, or something,

that the year I needed to move, I really needed to leave there, a position opened there.

So my growth was just kind of a slow, growing certainty. I can't say that I

am one hundred percent certain now [about God]. I don't think I ever will be,

it's just my nature. It is very hard for me to commit completely to anything.

But I did have one experience in the night where I woke up and went in the

living room and rea\ly just felt that God was there and that was quite strong. Plus I had all these affirmations from people that God was speaking through me to them and that I could not attribute that to my own powers of anything.

I had to feel that some greater power was working through me. The more I

was around the church and people and had more time to think about it and explore it, that helped me a lot, too. I was able to answer a lot of questions and at least narrow the range of what the questions are that I am still asking.

I had a chance to think about it, talk to people about it, that was very helpful.

There could not be a better place for an agnostic than to be employed on a

church staff, I am telling youl You have to teach this stuff to peoplel John

Wesley was once told—or he said something about—what if you don't be-

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lieve it? I don't remember exactly what the question was, but anyway the answer was, well, you preach it until you believe it. I think there is a lot of truth in that. That the more I preach it or teach it or whatever, the more I believe it. I've never said anything that I could not stand behind, and I will not profess to any belief I don't have. A lot of my teaching will be more like, "there are people who believe this and there are people who believe that and these are the issues that they are disagreeing on. A lot of times there is a whole continuum of places you can be on that." I will say sometimes that I may be over here or over here. I talk about my theology—I believe very strongly that people need to find their own way, that I am not there to dictate to them what they should believe. It will come to them. Faith is indeed a gift of God and that is not for me to do. However, at the same time, the interesting thing is that people hear God speaking through me. You just learn to sit back and say, "Oh, really?" Somebody called me the other day and said, "Your prayer the other night was exactly what I needed." I did not even remember what I had said in that prayer but it was extremely important for her in her life. Since I have become a diaconal minister, I have found myself well accepted in pretty much any situation I have gone into in the church. I just assume I am going to be accepted. I just assume that I can be a peer and be a part. I think maybe I really believe in dialogue. I am always a co-learner, and I try to teach that way and be a co-learner with the people who are in the class—that I learn from that as much and maybe more than they will ever learn from me. If you approach a conversation that way, or a committee meeting or whatever, you can get along all right. By some fluke, or for some good reason, I was asked to be the coordinator of continuing education for the district. I think before it has been always been an ordained person who decided who got continuing education money. But I had different ideas. I said, "Well, if I am continuing education chair then I think we should have some continuing education, so—I" I just proposed we do this special book study for instance and they all agreed; they all come and listen to what I have to say; they participate and they are appreciative. I think that is kind of amazing in a way, although it never occurred to me that it couldn't be, or wouldn't be possible. I just do it.

Carter Buchanan

Carter Buchanan is a young Episcopal priest, the associate pastor in a medium sized church in a medium sized town. She is married and wants very much to have children. An energetic, busy woman, Carter also drives thirty miles to a small town Episcopal mission parish to preach every third Sunday. She wears a clerical collar and dark skirt most of the time and is noticeable in the community—heads turn when she enters a restaurant or walks down the street. Watching her preside at the sacraments in her full vestments is a powerful experience. Her manner is soft-spoken, warm, and friendly. I visited with her in her office at the church to collect her life story. Her story took two sessions, in fact, and what follows is a shortened version of it. In many ways, Carter's story is representative of women's stories which are long, detailed, convoluted, explanatory, diversive, full, rich, and complicated. I hesitated to shorten any of the stories, especially Carter's, but the realities of the book's format and the reader's patience finally won out. The reader can still, I hope, gather the essence of her story from what follows here. I was born in San Francisco, California, on January 3, 1953, and my name is a result of some short stories, actually a book, about a western heroine that my parents were reading. In my father's family, I was the first child in the fourth generation to be born in the state of California, and so he wanted me to have a name out of California history. And my middle name is Elizabeth, which is my mother's name and a family name in her family. I have a sister who is not quite 22 months younger than I am. My mother has a history of psychiatric illnesses and was hospitalized when I was three and again when I was four and a half. In between those hospitalizations, she sued my father for divorce and so my parents were officially divorced, I think it was final, in April the year I was five. But it took a year for a divorce to be finalized at that time. My mother initially had custody of us, but in that year she had a nervous breakdown and my father got custody of us, and we lived with my father and grandparents for the next six years and my father from then on. So when I started kindergarten, I was living with my father and grandparents in San Francisco and that I guess was another aspect of my life—I started kindergarten three weeks after everyone else because we had to move across the city. I guess the most important characteristic besides

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moving a lot and going to lots of schools in the middle of the year remains the fact of my mother's illness. She's never been able to function. That she functions periodically is apparent to us, but not on a consistent basis. My sister and I were discussing last night that when we ever really, really need her, she doesn't come through. My parents were living in San Francisco when I was born. They moved to the suburbs, which was the thing to do in the fifties, when I was about, well, just before my sister was born, so just before I was two. Then when my father had custody of us he moved us back to the city. I went through the fourth grade, as much as I had it, in San Francisco. My grandfather got a job in Redwood City and since we were living with him and my grandmother, we moved with them. And then my father got a job in Sacramento, so we moved to Sacramento and my grandparents moved back to San Francisco. The next year, my father remarried, we were still in Sacramento. And then halfway through the next year, we moved to the midwest. So that was one characteristic of my childhood, moving a lot. The two people who gave my sister and me the stability that I think otherwise we would have just been completely out to lunch most of our lives, are my father and his mother, my grandmother. Even my mother is just crazy about my father's mother. My parents have been divorced thirty-one years and my mother still calls my grandmother up and talks to her. When my grandparents had their sixty-fifth wedding anniversary, they invited my mother and she came. So that's been a good connection. And Grandmother is wonderful, she's the one person in my family that I wanted to be like. I hope someday I will be like her. She's still around—she's ninety-two now. She still keeps her own house, she still lives in San Francisco. So I still get to see her and talk to her, which is real important to me. My mother's father died a year ago in April. He was this person with just an incredible mind. I remember fifteen years ago when my mother's mother died, we spent two weeks with him on the Oregon coast, where he owned a house. I was in graduate school at the time, and he was asking me about Old English—I didn't even know at that time that he had a master's degree in English, but he did. He grew up speaking German and English at the same time. His grandparents were from Germany, and he grew up in Minnesota and he lived with his grandparents for most of the time. Anyway, we had this conversation. He was an attorney, that is what he did for 63 years of his life, was practice law. So we were having this walk on the beach, and he asked me about Old English and Romantic poetry, and he was quoting one of the Romantic poets, Wordsworth, I think. The next thing I know he was talking about the specific gravity of rocks. I was just going nuts—he was brilliant. In terms of my elementary-high school career, moving to the midwest was sort of the big dividing line, let me put it that way. We did not want to move. We definitely did not want to move to some place we considered southern.

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Life Stories W e were very proud of being fourth generation Californians. And were not at all happy with this move. And it was compounded with a custody hearing that my parents had, because they were changing the terms of the custody

agreement because w e were leaving the state, that was truly an awful experience. Because although w e were under the age, for California at that time

would always ask the child, fourteen and above, they would ask where they

wanted to go. W e got asked at twelve and ten. W e both said w e wanted to

go live with our grandparents. The judge said that was not one of our options. He then decided to let my father retain custody of us.

That was horrible. I didn't even talk to anybody about it for five years, until

I was in undergraduate school in the honors English class. W e were supposed to write about a personal experience that could be set in an expository framework. And so that is what I wrote about, and that was the first time I

put any of that together. I had just ignored it for five years. Anyway, w e moved to the midwest. W e did not sound or act like people from here, and to make it worse, w e came in the middle of the year. I was in the eighth

grade. W e arrived at the "city" airport; it wasn't even finished when w e

moved there and the plane landed out on the tarmac and w e walked off the plane and it was pouring rain. It was miserable because w e had to stay in a

motel for about a week until the house w e were moving into was ready. And it was in the forties, so it was chilly but not really cold.

On the first day of school, I had it all picked out—what I was going to

wear to school—which in eighth grade was terribly important. Well, my step-

mother saw me getting dressed and told me I couldn't wear what I was going to wear, because she didn't think it was warm enough. It was a wool

jumper, but I was wearing a cotton blouse. And she made me wear this awful sweater. I had a temper tantrum, which was still the way I expressed myself—in the motel room. I'm sure I was heard for two rooms on either

side. I did not win that argument and I had to wear her sweater and it looked

stupid. I have never forgotten that (laughs)—I don't think I have quite forgiven her that. So I was sure, even if she hadn't ruined my first day of school, my perception of it was that she did.

So I had, for the first time, a really hard time making friends. I didn't make

any until halfway through my ninth grade year, and I had been there a whole

year. I had come from a school in California where w e had every imaginable sort of facility. W e moved to the midwest, and there was nothing really

wrong with the school, but it was just an old building. It smelled like an old school, and there was a really rigid system of classes. Nobody sounded" like

us. There was a tornado in Februaiy. That whole year was horrible. I left

California with straight As in my classes. I don't remember exactly, but my

grades weren't anything like that the first year I came here; then they went back up. W e were miserable. My sister had a horrible year in the sixth grade.

W e spent the next seven or eight years spending the summer in California.

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So we were always gone at least six weeks and sometimes ten. We used to fly on TWA and they had a half price standby fare. We thought that was really fun—the world travelers. Kind of smugly wandering through airports, a lot of times at midnight because standby flights, you can often get a seat at midnight. When we traveled together, we always managed to be together and our luggage was never lost—it was always waiting for us or got there with us. My husband says we still spend a lot of time talking about how we were from California. I remember I was in college and I took a class on the structure of American English and the professor handed out a four or five page thing to fill out—what w e called different words, whether a bag or a sack, or a tote or a poke. He got it back and he was doing some individual conversation stuff, too, and collecting accents and that kind of the thing. He did part of that in class as a learning experience and part of it in his office. When I saw him in his office, he said, "You know, I can't use yours at all." In class he had seen my piece of paper and he had me talk and said, "This is interesting, you have primarily a West Coast accent, but you have some, a few, other sounds. You also have some Minnesota, where did that come from?" And I told him that my mother's family, her parents, were both from Minnesota and her two first cousins w h o lived in California were from Minnesota and I had grown up listening to Minnesota dialect. I was amazed that he could do that. He said if he were really good he would have been able to place me in the San Francisco Bay area. I remember his telling us that really good linguistics experts can place people for the most part within thirty miles of where they are from. I remember, also, a lot about what he said about what influences our language and how comfortable we are. He said, "You must not have liked it here because you have almost nothing of an accent, and when you moved here you were certainly young enough to pick it up." He said, "You must have made a deliberate choice not to pick it up." It's amazing and it's true. I have a half sister w h o is twelve and a half years younger than I. She was born shortly before we moved here. She has something of an accent and so does my stepmother. She is from California, but she really picked up a midwestern accent. My sister and I both find it very irritating. It's just kind of funny that part of our irritation with our stepmother is with her accent. But I have other friends and that doesn't bother me at all. I went through junior high and high school in St. Louis county, and I really wanted to go to Stanford. My grandmother, my great uncle, my great aunt and my uncles, well, my grandmother and great aunt and great uncle—they are all Stanford graduates from 1919, 1920, and 1921. My father is a graduate of UC Berkeley. My mother is a graduate of Bryn Mawr. I didn't apply to Berkeley. I applied to Biyn Mawr and Stanford and a couple of other places. But I was coming from a high school from which no one had ever applied to those schools before. My SAT scores, they were high enough to get in, but

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Ufe Stories they weren't outstanding. Stanford held my application for a long time and then wrote me a letter and said, " W e had 14,000 applications for a class of 1,400 and we held you because you are academically capable of getting in but w e — . " Bryn Mawr didn't accept me either. It's probably just as well that I went none of those places and went instead to a large public institution in the Midwest. I got my undergraduate degree when I was twenty and I applied for graduate school basically immediately and got a teaching assistantship in the English department. When I graduated, I didn't look for a teaching job until—well, you're supposed to look in February the year you want to teach in September. M y excuse was that I couldn't really look because I had to study for comps. So I took the comps and passed. Then I couldn't look because I was busy writing my last papers for my graduate degree, and then I wrote letters applying for teaching jobs in July. A n d I got two job offers, one in Kansas and one in Nebraska. I took the wrong one. I took the one in Kansas. I took the job in Kansas, where they did not have board-paid insurance, which I didn't even think to check. They did not tell me what the extra duty was until I got there. It was the junior play, the senior play, and a one-act play for competition and co-sponsor of the pep club and co-advisor to the cheerleaders in a school with ten faculty members and 90 students. I was the English department. It was horrible—it was basically a horrible experience. It was so bad every day in my classroom that I would go home and forget what happened so I could go back the next day. M y method of discipline was to ignore and ignore and ignore or not see, because I didn't see it. I didn't know it at the time, but I really was a wreck. A friend of mine told me later some of the things I would do. M y telephone bill averaged $90 a month. I only made S490 a month. Most of the calls were to one friend. She said every time I called her, she'd end up having a nightmare the next night because what I was telling her was just awful. I went to stay with her at the end of that year—I do not remember this—but she tells me that as it got dark I would shut her windows and close the curtains and would just get up and do it, without asking permission or anything. I don't remember doing any of that stuff. The only good things about that year were that I know I was really a creative teacher, I know I was able to do that and that I lasted through it. And that I found out something about recognizing h o w strong my intuitions were and doing something about it. I kept knowing that I really was in the wrong place and that I really should not have been there. I also probably learned some other things. I don't think much worse could have gone wrong in a classroom than went on in mine. So there was very little a student could ever do again to surprise me. Which was useful. [But another school] asked me to come for a interview and so I did. A n d I left that place knowing I had that job

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if I wanted it. And I took it. It was better than the year before had been. And the principal was able to help me be a good teacher. I was there five years; the third year that I was there was the fourth year I was teaching. By that time I had gotten to the point where I was really quite comfortable in the classroom. I had gotten a reputation as a teacher w h o really liked her students, w h o really knew her subjects. In thinking about it [whether or not to stay], I had made a list of why I should stay and why I should leave. Everything about why I should stay was the church. I did like the school faculty with whom I taught very much. So I had written down that I liked the teachers and most of the students. But everything else had to do with the church. I had become very involved. There was no question of not going on a regular basis. When I was in college, in graduate school, I had gone to the Episcopal church as a freshman and I hated that church. I hated it because at that time they were about as friendly to college students as they were to cockroaches. They really thought the students should be seen and not heard—preferably, not seen. [But in this town] there was an Episcopal mission and it had about forty people and I went there and I was really ready to be involved in whatever I could do. And they were really ready to have somebody new do something. So I got to be a delegate to a diocesan convention, a lay reader, and a chalice bearer, which meant that one Sunday a month, I conducted services of morning prayer. We had four lay readers and we had morning prayer eveiy Sunday because the nearest priest was 65 miles away. He came on Sunday afternoons twice a month for communion. So I got to be that kind of leader. For the diocese I sat on a board of the ecumenical ministry. So when I made my list it involved the church. I remember reading it and thinking, "This is odd." Because [on the side of my list o f ] "why I should leave" that I couldn't teach, discipline was impossible, I should look into book publishing companies, or teaching at a junior college, or go back for a Ph.D.—I had that all on there as to "why I should go." So I set that all aside and stayed. I signed my contract and then the next fall I had really wonderful classes; I mean all my kids were great. School went really well, but I got sick. I had some kind of a viral infection that started out—well, I was out twelve or fourteen days all together between September and February. First, I had severe headaches and nausea and all that. They thought maybe I had meningitis, but I didn't. The next thing that happened a few weeks later was my ankle started swelling and my knees and my fingers, and they thought I had rheumatoid arthritis. And I did have it; they tested me weak positive for that so the doctor sent me to a rheumatologist and I had some other symptoms, I was anemic and I was losing weight. I never had understood what arthritis was like for people until I had that—to where the sheets on the end of the bed would bother me to move my toes, enough to bother my ankles. Just

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Life Stories getting in and out of a shower was hard. One of the students came up to me one day, as I was limping around and said, "What kind of arthritis do you have?" I told her that w e didn't know for sure but maybe rheumatoid arthritis and she said, "I've had that since I was five." When I got the arthritis, I stopped going to [my Bible Study group] because the other part of that was prayer, and I didn't want to tell these people what was going on and I didn't want to ask to be prayed for and I didn't want to be prayed over and I just didn't want to deal with it that way. I was going to go deal with it, by myself. But the Bible group was praying the whole time, and I never knew that because I had quit going. The power of that for me was that so many people cared that much about me. Because I really had, I mean, I had friends and all that, but I really looked at any kind of pain as something I had to deal with by myself. Sometime in that year a friend of mine had sent me some books—she sent me a book out of the blue about a w o m a n priest; it was about one of the eleven women in the Episcopal church w h o were irregularly ordained in Philadelphia in 1974.1 was in graduate school then; I was in California. I had read about them in the newspaper and I remember thinking, "Oh, this is wonderful, but they shouldn't have done it. They broke all the church rules." I remember thinking that I was having an odd reaction to the article. I came back to graduate school for my second year and my roommate said something like, "Well, are you going to be one of those people?" I said no. Another graduate student asked me, too. I said, "No, I'm too young; I'm too political; I'm not interested in being ordained, and besides which, women can't officially do that yet anyway." So then in 1976 our General Convention voted to approve the possibility of regular ordination of women starting in 1977. By that time I was teaching, and I remember thinking that was really intriguing, but not for me. I also remember the priest, this priest gave the only hell-fire and damnation sermon I've ever heard in an Episcopal church on the subject of the ordination of w o m e n and h o w wrong it was. So I put it out of my mind. So then this year I had the arthritis, I got this book as a present from a friend w h o is Jewish, she sent me this book at Christmas. I had been thinking about ordination anyway for some reason and there is this book. Then, the next spring, I was thinking about it again, because I knew I was going to have to sign my teaching contract. I knew it was going to be offered, and I knew I was going to be offered tenure, so there was no question that I was going to accept it. But I still had this feeling I should be doing something else. I had pretty much eliminated book publishing companies and teaching in junior colleges and going on for a Ph.D. And the fact that I made the list the year before with the church being the main thing was just sort of there. I decided that unless G o d hit me over the head, I wasn't doing it. So the principal came to me in April that year and he said, "You know, the

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Presbyterian minister is going to have a youth worker here this summer and she is looking for an apartment to sublease or share. Since Martha's moved, I know you have an extra bedroom, and I know you'll be gone at least five or six weeks this summer. Would you be willing to do this?" I said sure and called up the minister and arranged it and signed my contract. The youth minister came and it turns out she wasn't a youth minister at all, she was in her summer intern ministry and she was a seminarian at Yale. About the first day she was there she asked me if I was interested in seminary. And I thought, well, this is weird, I'm going to ignore this again. That summer I went to California and came back, and I had done a lot of reading and reflecting and prayer, which hadn't occurred to me at all until shortly before that time. Maybe I really did have a call to be an ordained minister, maybe I had to pursue it. I wasn't inventing it. It was coming up from people. Ifinallythought, well, I've got to talk to the priest. That will cure me. Because he was opposed to the whole idea. I went to talk to him, made an appointment, and then he had to cancel and he made an appointment with me and I had to cancel it. Finally, I invited him and his wife to dinner on one of the Sundays that they were there. I had done that several times, but I always had other people from the parish there. This time I didn't. So we are about halfway through dinner and he says, "Well, what is it that you wanted to talk to us about. Carter?" I said, "What makes you think I want to talk about anything?" He said, "Well, we've between us, canceled two appointments; we're here for dinner with no one else. Now, what is it you wanted to discuss?" I had decided that I was sure he would start screaming; he has the same kind of temper I do, so I thought, well, I'd approach this in a gingerly manner. I said that I wanted to talk to him about whether he would do a supervised study for me in church history and liturgies. I said I really don't think it would just improve me as a lay reader, I think maybe I have a call to be an ordained minister. So I'm waiting for him to scream, not looking at him. Finally, I look at him and he's smiling, in fact, he's starting to laugh. I asked him why and he kept laughing. Finally he said, "I'm so glad you told me." I said, "I thought you were opposed to the ordination of women." He said, "I am. If you were a man, I would have asked you six months ago to consider holy orders because of the leadership you show in the parish. I've been praying about this for the last year and the only thing I can see is that you are supposed to be a priest. And who am I to argue with the Holy Spirit?" I'm just going "Huh?" So then I was scared to death. He said, "You've done the hard part; you talked to me. The process will be tedious, but it won't be harder than talking to me was. The only thing I need to tell you right now, I need to give you two pieces of advice. One thing is that from now on, until you are ordained a priest, when the bishop says jump' you say 'how high' on the way up. That is just a fact of life for seminarians, postulants, and candidates for Holy Orders. The sooner you understand that, the easier your

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Life Stories life will be. It does not matter who the bishop is, it's always like that. The

second thing is that with our particular bishop, anytime you have a conver-

sation with him, you need to go home and write him a letter and say 'Dear

bishop, I understand that you said this and this and I said this and this and

this is how we've left this subject.'" He said, "You must do that with this particular bishop, it's good policy with any bishop anyway, but ours in particular. Keep a copy of the letter."

Because of those two pieces of advice, when I got to seminary, I did have

a much easier time, in terms of the process aspect of all this. I did do what the bishop told me to do. Also, I kept it straight, what he'd said. So he couldn't tell me to do something else the week after he told me do it. That's what he

does. He gets these enthusiastic ideas, and he has them one week and then forgets about them. You get in real trouble if you don't have it written down.

So the priest wrote a wonderful letter, which I have never actually seen a

copy of, but I heard about it. Apparently, every time our bishop has ordained

a woman, this priest had written a letter to object. He had told the bishop, among other things, that he was sure he was going to go to hell for ordaining

women. Now, if someone in this parish wants to enter the process for ordi-

nation, the rector has to write the bishop, it's just automatic. He was writing his required letter, but apparently started it out with, "Now, I've said to you

at least six or seven times that I d o n ' t . . . " and he went into his usual song and dance in the first paragraph. In the beginning of the second paragraph

he wrote: "but I have decided that if you are going to be in hell, I might as

well join you and therefore . . . "

The process involves this letter to the bishop and a meeting with the bishop,

a meeting with the chair of the Commission on Ministry for the diocese. It involves this thing called a social history form, which a sociologist fills out.

There was a battery of psychological tests, too. A three day interview,

which at that time was in Chicago with a whole group of people. It was a

group gathered from all over. What they do in that is they observe group

process. I didn't even realize that then, which was fine. I did it not knowing

w e were observed. They see who takes leadership roles and how that person

operates as a leader. In that group of people, all of them went to me. You are interviewed by a lay person, because that person is supposed to have the

perspective, "Would I want this person as my minister?" You are interviewed

by a psychologist who is just sort of double-checking what has already been

done and writing his own assessment—in this case it was a "he." You are

interviewed by an academic who may be a lay person or may be a priest, but

their job is to see if you can do the work of seminary, which is graduate

school. You are interviewed by a priest from the perspective of "Would I want this person as my colleague?"

For my first training, I was interviewed by someone I liked to work with.

He is very thoughtful, reflective, but he has a great sense of humor, a real

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handle on himself. Anyway, I went to preach at his church and I fell in love with it. There are old people and young people and black people and white people, and this is the only church in town. But it was just this incredible obvious mix of people. There was a woman in a sari and a black man with a gold watch and a cane, and it turned out he was a former professor, he used to teach music. The organist is the director of the college choir. He's been an organist thirty years. So it was this well-established congregation. And I expected it to be horribly conservative. I was going to do the sermon but it was the most alive congregation I had been in in a long time. Well, the bishop, not knowing I had even been there, called my friend up the next month and said, "You know, I'm going to reinstitute the deacon-in-training program, and I was wondering if you would like a deacon and I was wondering if you would like Carter Buchanan, after she is ordained." So I had to go for an interview, and I already was in love with the place and it was just like, obviously, I want to go here. The rector really had thought out, not only how to incorporate an assistant, but he let his parish stew for the whole summer before I came about the fact that his assistant was going to be fem3le. One very opinionated woman said terrible things about me. And she made all the women in the parish so mad—even the women who weren't at all excited about having a female assistant. So, most of the women decided they were going to make me as welcome as possible. They were at least going to give me the benefit of the doubt, because she was being so ridiculous. At the first reception, they wanted to know about a woman going to seminary, and one said, "You know, I was really opposed to your coming, but I have realized in listening to you that you weren't necessarily trying to prove something, you have proved something. But you didn't go into this to fight about it." And that crabby woman was at this meeting and she said, "Well, if you were interested in the church, why didn't you just become a nun?" She made everybody in the room mad at her again, and I just said, "Well, frankly, it never crossed my mind. It never occurred to me as an option." (laughs) The rector really worked at incorporating me there. He had thought about the different things a deacon can do in a service. You can put the deacon off to the side for the most part, or you can get the deacon front and center for the most part, and he had had me basically next to him behind the altar anytime there was an opportunity to do that. He told me that he did that on purpose, because when I was ordained a priest, people would not then find it odd that all of a sudden I was behind the altar. And he did not schedule chalice bearers for the first few weeks that I was there, and that meant everybody w h o was going to get wine was going to have to take it from me or they were not getting any. There were people w h o did not come to the altar rail, but I didn't know that because I didn't know any of them so I couldn't tell that. They finally gave up when they figured out that if they didn't come.

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they weren't going to get communion, you know, they were stuck with me. He did that for at least three weeks. He is a smart guy. They were really nice to my husband. The fact that he is Roman Catholic is another thing that that woman complained about that summer. But of course again, she complained so much she had everybody on our side. And he came whenever I preached and they were all vety nice to him, he came to all the parties and all that kind of stuff. So we both really were incorporated into that parish. It was just an excellent two years. But the bishop was paying a third of my salary and at the end of two years, the hope was they would be able to pick it up. They couldn't do it. They could easily still support the two-thirds of a person but they can't pay a second full-time person. They were going to go into their reserve funds to keep me through December and this was April. And this rector at this parish had been asking me for a year to come to this place. Except that I was really am bivalent. My intuition had been working so well up to this point, but here was this person, asking me to interview, and essentially offering me a job. I just wasn't sure. I knew I hated the parish fifteen years before as a graduate student in the town. Finally, I talked to him several times and I talked to my rector, and moaned and groaned and prayed, even. I remember that might be an option. I'm really terrible about remembering certain options, (laughs) I could not decide. Finally [I said to myself], "Now, Carter, it is going to be a hard place to go to. They are a difficult congregation. It's just a very, very picky place. You do need to recognize that and that part of what you are concerned about is true. The other thing is that a three person staff is going to be really hard. The other thing is that you cannot expect every decision that you are going to make for the rest of your life is going to be handed to you on a silver platter." I finally decided to move and I set it for September. The rector also did not anticipate any problems since this parish thinks of itself as a liberal congregation—it's got a great number of university and college faculty; it does a lot of outreach in the community; it supports controversial things; it prides itself on being an open congregation. So I think that before I came, the summer they yelled and screamed on the ordination issue, they didn't do that here. So the rector did not perceive that the ordination of women issue would be that much of a problem here, because actually the first full time chaplain at the local college had been a female Episcopal priest. She had had some connection with the parish, but I was pretty sure that she had never been allowed to do a service. It turns out she was allowed to do services on Wednesday nights, like I'm doing tonight. So, there was a lot of under-thesurface objection to my being here; it was kind of like being at the seminary again. In terms of—I mean I can feel it—plus the people didn't come to the altar rail. I don't know if I was more in tune here or whether they were far more obvious about it, but it was very clear that there were people who were

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avoiding my side of the rail or avoiding me if I had been the celebrant. There are still about four people that I know of who do not receive communion if I'm the one who celebrated the Eucharist. Now, they will receive it from me, if the others were celebrant, but if I have, theyjust don't come to the altar rail at all. That was kind of hard to take. I have been here three years and it's really only in the last eight or nine months that I've felt like I actually had a niche. I know our personalities don't always mesh. One of my colleagues is veiy enthusiastic and very bright and full of energy. And he likes to be in charge. One thing about all clergy, and I think we all might as well admit it, is we do like to be front and center. There is something of the ham in all of us, even those of us who consider ourselves shy. If we didn't like to be front and center and get lots of attention, we wouldn't do what we do. (laughs) I'm to the point where I really don't know how long I will be here or where I will go. And it involves more than just what else do I want to do. I do want to be a rector of a parish someday, although there are days when I tell the rector "I'm glad it's your job, and not mine. You get to answer this irate letter that I don't want to deal with and I don't have to even know about." There is some of that I'm still not ready for; I'm not really sure if I want to take that on now. On the other hand, if the right opportunity came up I would. I have been asked to apply for two missions that are connected. The priest there has just retired. And they are going to go through a search process and two of the diocesan staff people have recommended that I put my name in there. I've been really ambivalent about that. I've thought about it a lot, as to why I am ambivalent and I'm concerned that I was saying that I didn't want to go to a small church. You know, I'm at a large church now, and I'm going to bigger places. But I've thought about it a lot, and I've realized that it really is not that. I don't want to stay here for the rest of my life, and I think those two places deserve someone who is going to stay there for a while and someone who is going to at least make a commitment to stay there for awhile. If they were in California, I would jump at the chance to apply for that job. And I talked to the rector about this so I went ahead. I know I want to be a choice. And that would be a position of vicar; if you are in charge of a mission, you are a vicar, officially, the bishop is the rector. I know I want to be in charge of a congregation some day. I've said I'm interested in a small church and I am. I wouldn't want to be rector of something this size. I'm not certain, either, how the smaller churches will feel about a woman. That's another issue. I think the one church might be able to take it, and the other would have a fit. And I'm basing that on the fact that I think the second church prevented a woman from getting ordained three years ago. Some of the difficulties appear in the discomfort evidenced in titles. For example, they refer to "Father Barnes" and "Carter." And that doesn't work real well. So what I've told people lately is if you call the rector "Mr." then call me "Miss." If you call the rector Herman, call me Carter. If you call him father.

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Life Stories then call me mother. Luckily that hasn't caught on, and I don't really want to be called mother. I think parental terms for clergy are a mistake. I think, in a way, that is one thing that women can change, as the numbers increase; that is going to become an inappropriate kind of address. When I say "call me mother," people are always horrified. It took me four years so I could even say it. This was horrifying me, too. It just—that is one of the on-going issues. What do w e call a female priest? I bet I've been asked that a hundred times. In seminary, w e talked about how it would be nice if the Episcopal church chose the same title for clergy which the Lutheran church uses, which is "pastor." The Episcopal church walks this fine line of trying not to be really Protestant or really Catholic, and so w e have this confusion. If they call the rector by his first name, then I'm perfectly happy being Carter, because that is an equivalent thing. But they more often introduce themself as "Father"; there is definitely a group of people who want the title. They absolutely have to have it. That ties in for me as their not seeing clergy as entirely human. They want that title so much. It is for those people that I finally said what I told you about "call me mother." Because, if I don't let them call me a title, even if they are horrified by it, then I don't have the same status in their eyes. I'm not a real person for them. On the one hand clergy are sort of superhuman and on the other hand, I'm not one of those people. There is this whole idea of a pedestal which I don't approve of. I do like being front and center, but don't think I have to be up above everybody. So you have to either knock your own pedestal down or let it get knocked down. It's not much fun up there, for one thing. And it isn't any fun to fall off, so you might as well not get on it, to begin with. That is one issue, and it ties in with "are clergy superhuman?" There are people who really do believe that w e should never get angry, and that w e should always be organized, never miss an appointment. If w e do those things, it's worse than someone else doing them. What I have learned, what I have had to remember, is that I am not the only example of female clergy, certainly not even in town, though I happen to be the only female Episcopal cleric. My job is to be human and to be open and to take as much of that as I can, but not to let people either get away with putting me on a pedestal or in a comer or whatever it is they want to do. One of my friends here who is on the vestry said that what she sees me doing sometimes is putting myself directly in the middle of a conflict that I don't have to be in just so I'm not running away from it. Her telling me that is really helpful, (pause) I'm probably going to cry— maybe I won't. Two years ago I had a miscarriage, (pause) But when I was pregnant, I wanted to make sure that the rector knew first because I'd only been here not quite a year. He had actually raised that possibility when I first came, anyway, how unique he thought that would be, you know, if w e were interested in that. But I was so busy dealing with the whole female ordained issue—I was really excited about being pregnant, but I didn't know what

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these people were going to do about it, especially the ones who already didn't think women should be clergy. So I wanted to tell him first. I didn't even tell this friend of mine I mentioned above. My husband and I knew, and then the rector. I still didn't tell anybody in the parish. Then I started having problems, and I was supposed to have lunch with that friend of mine, but I was late to lunch because I had gone to see the doctor. So I told her then, and she ended up being our main support—well, she and her husband were wonderful to both of us during that whole thing. It went on for ten days, from the time it looked like I might miscarry until I did, all this kind of up and down stuff. But she told me a couple of months after that, she said, "You know, if you get pregnant again, unless you don't want to tell anybody till after the third month, just because you don't want to deal with a miscarriage issue again, you don't need to keep all that to yourself. It's too bad if some people in the parish don't like it. You had thought that whole thing out, how you were going to make sure that the rector knewfirst,so that he and you together could figure out how to deal with the rest of the congregation. You kind of prevented yourself from really enjoying something that you were really excited about. Of course you left me out of it, too." I said, "I know—and it was all tied up in this worrying so much about being [perfect]"—I mean, that didn't cause the miscarriage, it just was a miscarriage. But the way in which I approached the pregnancy was all tied up with that. Now, though, we've been trying for a couple of years and I haven't been pregnant again. It's not really a couple of years, maybe eighteen months but still—it's a long time. Now, I would certainly tell the group of people to whom I'm close, but again I wouldn't say anything to the congregation. This time it wouldn't be because I was afraid of what they thought, because at this point, I really don't care what they think anymore. It would be because of the fear of another miscarriage—that is what it would be. At least that is a more reasonable reason. The people who are my friends would know.

Amy Seger

A m y Seger is a tiny woman with an endearing, soft-spoken southern accent; she has blond hair in a contemporary short hair-cut and dresses exquisitely in pink linen suits. She wears heels with the greatest of ease; I've also had lunch with her downtown where she wore a cotton plaid shirt and bluejeans. She is friendly and honest, she feels very strongly about things that matter to her, and she speaks with strength and conviction. She feels deeply about her ministry and has come to feel deeply about my project. She insists that all the voices in this study be represented—including her own. She knows who she is and she is comfortable with that position, although she constantly checks herself and others about what they are saying and doing. She gets things done. A m y is married to a man who is also trained as a pastor; in fact, they co-pastored a church, as the reader will hear about in the account that follows. H e r husband is currently working as a counselor. T h e y have two boys, ages four and one. I met with A m y in the office of her church. T h e r e , in a freezing cold air-conditioned room, we sat at an enormous conference table with the tape recorder between us while A m y warmed the air with her tender story. I was born in Amarillo, Texas, and that is where I grew up and lived until I was in college. I lived there all my life. My mom and my dad were not going to church after they got married, but when I was born they felt it was time to go to church. My father was raised Pentecostal, but when he was a very young boy, he made the decision that it was not for him to go to that church. So he went to the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, in the town where he grew up. My mom grew up Baptist, and she still can really spill out that Baptist guilt. I mean she is not hard-core in it, but she carries the guilt around wherever she goes and she is sure she is not good enough to get into heaven, (laughs) They started going to church when I was very small. I grew up in the same church my whole life—Disciples of Christ. I was very involved in the church as a child. As a junior high and high school person, I was involved in the youth groups. They were an extremely important part of my life. Church was the place where I learned leadership. In my fairly large junior high and high school, where I had areas of involvement, I was not in "the"

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crowd of junior high and high school. I made my o w n crowd and gained some confidence. But the church community was a place where I was loved and accepted and encouraged. So by the time I was in high school, I was in a leadership position with my youth group on a local level and also on an area level. I participated in regional and state kinds of activities. That is where my leadership was affirmed. At home it was never a matter of "she is a girl, she can't be like that." That was never an issue for me as a young person growing up. For me it was, well, of course I can do that. I am an only child—I grew up being told that I could do anything a boy could do. Not "boys might not like girls w h o make good grades"—that was their problem! I did not have to be less than w h o I was. The encouragement that I had from my parents was to be the very best I could be, in whatever that was. That was good, especially from my father. My mother was good, too, but there are certain things that fathers can do to have successful daughters. My dad did those things. I think that the other ingredient for me was that I grew up with affirmation. The real bonus of that is that I owe my parents tremendously. I have a solid sense of w h o I am; I have a positive self-image, and self-esteem. And I am finding out every day how incredibly important that is. In high school I decided that I wanted to be an art therapist and work with children, with emotionally disturbed children. I love children. So I started on my undergraduate degree work, preparing myself to do master's work in art therapy because at that time there were not any undergraduate degrees in it. I went to a junior college for a year and then I went to school at Texas Tech and actually ended up creating my o w n degree program. In the midst of that I was in a Christian Church- Disciples of Christ, where I became very involved and was even hired to be a part time college coordinating person. I had an office and worked with the church and the ministers, and just had a wonderful time doing that. Probably that experience was pivotal for me. I want to back up to one place because this is really important. There was a really important woman in my life during this period. She is in the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ. She is not an ordained minister, but she has been a leader in this church for years and years and years. W h e n I was in high school, she came to a youth weekend event that w e had, and she was the main speaker. At the last address that she gave, she had gotten acquainted with some of us, especially those in leadership positions. So in her last address she talked about ministry and our callings to ministry—not in a specific ministry sense, but she used the verse from J o h n where Jesus asked Peter, "Do you love me? Then feed my sheep." And she added names to that question—she looked out on this crowd of high school kids, and she said, "John, do you love me? Then feed my sheep." And "Amy, do you love me? Then feed my sheep." Telling this is going to make me cry.

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Life Stories This was a very moving experience for me. I had always felt a strong sense of commitment to God and to being a Christian. I do not remember a time w h e n I did not believe in God as a child. It was a growing into faith. But for me that was an experience w h e n I felt the call. It was there and I heard it. As I said, that was in high school and I w e n t on to college, very committed to my Christian faith, really into being a Christian and w h a t that meant in my life. And feeling very strongly that I could do that in whatever I did, but that w a s — i t was just a powerful

experience. She is a very powerful and wonder-

ful w o m a n . So I w e n t through college and worked in the church. Then on a trip, a college trip, I was sitting with the associate minister, he and I worked very closely. He was w h o I connected with, w i t h my work at the church. We were sitting there and I was talking about " w h a t am I going to do, it is getting close to graduation time and . . . oh, boy . . . " It was probably my junior year and I had begun to think, w h a t am I going to be doing w i t h the rest of my life? And Larry says to me, "Well, have you ever thought about ministry?" I just laughed. I said, "Well, no, of course not." Again, there were no models. At that point in time, w o m e n were not even elders in my congregation. There might be a w o m a n w h o preached on Mother's Day, but the imagery was not there. So I just laughed and I said, "Oh, yeah, sure, right." But, it started me t h i n k i n g — C a n I do that, given my strong sense of commitment and Christian faith and the difference I think it makes in our lives? I thought, well, I couldl I started talking with the people I was close to. I talked with the other minister I worked with, the senior minister, w h o was tremendous. Interestingly enough, he was real encouraging. There was another minister friend. He was encouraging in the sense that, if I wanted to go into Christian education, I could write my o w n ticket. It sounded okay to me, because I did not want to preach. I didn't like the thought of preaching, and so I visited Brite Divinity School, the seminary, and talked w i t h people in terms of art therapy; I still had this real strong interest. I asked if there was a possibility of working that in. They thought there might be, but that was all pretty sketchy. So I was really ready to make a major decision. I struggled w i t h that the last semester of my senior year in college. I just agonized over it. I need to back up again. When I was in junior college my family moved to Florida. I w e n t w i t h my family and at that point, I had to make a decision, should I go back to Texas to go to Texas Tech? Or, I thought about going into Young Life, because I had been very involved in Young Life in high school and had finally made the decision not to do that because at that time w o m e n were not given positions of leadership in Young Life. I do not k n o w h o w much they are now. It tends to have a more conservative bent, and the w o m e n tend to be in more traditional roles in that situation. I think even n o w they are struggling w i t h the ministry issue, because Young Life is a ministry.

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But I rejected that because I think that intuitively I knew that if I pursued that I would still not be given an opportunity to minister. I think back on that, I don't know h o w I knew that, but I did. So I struggled with that decision my senior year in college and decided, yes, I wanted to go into ministry and got the notice a week later that the art therapy master's degree program that I had applied to was being discontinued. I have always been so glad that my decision came before I got that information. Because I made the decision and it was not because the other option was not there. That summer I worked at a Lions' camp for handicapped children for three months. It was probably the most meaningful experience in my life. I had not worked with handicapped children but had gone that direction still intending to go into art therapy. I applied to that camp, wanting to work in the art department, but they did not have an opening there and so I ended up being a cabin leader. I was scared to death. W e had children from kindergarten age up to senior high school age kids. And it was just a wonderful experience. I learned so much from these children. Just talking to them, just being with them. And one little girl w h o was in a wheelchair, had been all of her life, had a bad bladder problem and was hooked up to bags. One afternoon w e were just sitting on the bed talking, and this is an older girl, she was in high school, she said, "You know, I'm glad my handicap shows." I asked her what she meant and she said, "Well, everybody has a handicap, but mine shows on the outside, so I don't have to tiy to pretend or try to cover it.up." A n d it was just that whole experience of being with those children, their minds and their spirits and their faith. That was tremendous. Going from that experience into seminary, I think that experience probably impacted h o w I saw the world. I had grown up in a middle class family, an only child, and I was, actually, I was spoiled. But it was just a whole other experience of life for me. It really changed the way I saw what was important. So I went to seminary in 1980, and started out in a class that probably had more women than there ever had been before. There might have been ten before, but I bet there were twenty of us, starting in that year at Brite. The faculty there were very encouraging of women. I never felt any kind of a distinction made between men and women. However, I only had one w o m a n teacher there, an Old Testament teacher. She was tremendous. She was very, very gentle and very defiantly supportive of those of us w h o were women. She was in a tough position, being the only female in an all-male faculty. I think she had issues that she was dealing with that we probably did not know about at all. I started to apply under the degree program of a master's of Christian education, not as a master's of divinity. But within the first semester, I decided that I did not want only a master's of religious education. Christian education was still a priority and it still is and I get very angry because I think it is treated as a second-class position. I think that is incredibly biased and unfair. Part of

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the mess that many of the denominations are in is because Christian education has been sloughed off as less important and that ministers have not embraced it as a priority and look to other places as to who is going to do Christian education. So I still am very committed to it and even when I changed my master's to divinity, I still did not want to preach. That is just something I was not going to do. I worked in a church two years as a youth minister with a pastor who was very good to work with. He was in his early forties, a young man, veiy bright, somewhat of a "daddy." So he and I got along real well, because I was used to a daddy. I remember he would even call me, and in fact this is appalling to me now, he would even call me "little girl" and at the time, I did not take offense to that because he was also very supportive to me as a woman in ministry. It was an interesting combination and dynamic. I worked with him for two years and have seen him since then, and we both know that it would never work for us to work together again. I think he knows I have grown up. I am not a little girl anymore, and I could not fit into that kind of relationship. But he was very supportive and he preached my ordination sermon because he was just a very important person in my progression—of seeing myself as a minister. Part of saying "I'm not going to preach" was that I definitely saw myself in Christian education. I could work with the youth, but could I preach? I mean, the person who preaches is the minister, talk about images! So I preached. In that two years I think I preached maybe three or four times, but I got a lot of affirmation for that. I began to think, well, I guess I could preach. My husband and I met the second semester of seminary. Mike was a divinity student, too. He grew up in a minister's family. I previously had, perhaps, four serious dating relationships—I didn't date around a lot. When I was dating a person, that was a serious relationship. One thing that was real painful is that I think I was threatening; I was pretty clear about who I was and I knew where I wanted to go. I was pretty direct about what I wanted to do. I think I thought some of them were boys. I had always kind of felt that I could not be myself. If I was myself, in those previous relationships, then I felt I was threatening, that I was intimidating. So I met Mike, and here was this man who thought that my being smart was wonderful. He thought my being a woman with directions and ambitions was wonderful. He had a mother who was also a very bright, exciting, and intelligent woman. His mom is tremendous. She went back to seminary in her forties, and she is an ordained minister and is just a really neat person. He had a mother who was a model, an image of "woman" that I think was unusual. Therefore, I did not threaten him in that way. He just sort of accepted that as the way women were supposed to be. We were both in other relationships when we met. But, over a period of about two or three months, we were drawn to one another. He had worked in a camp for handicapped

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children, so w e had that in common. We had many classes together, and I was jogging then and so he asked if he could j o g with me. We dated about a year and a half before w e got married. I'm not sure what to say about the relationship other than I think he is a unique kind of man w h o can be veiy supportive. My experience with other classmates while w e were in seminary—there were many women, older women w h o had come back to school and were divorced—another interesting dimension of being at seminary was that there were women there w h o were definitely more hostile feminists—the "I am going to do this and by damn, you better not tell me to do that" kind. Then, (here were some of us in seminary w h o — w e understood the issues and were not against the issues—but our personal style of that was not hostility. It was, "We are people w h o want to be ministers." We may have been given the opportunity to do that because there were women w h o went before us and had to be hostile. We did not fight the same kind of fight. But I would say that there was an undercurrent of conflict at the seminary that wasn't so much from the men, but it was within the community of women. And for those of us w h o were not expressing ourselves in hostile ways, I think w e were considered less t h a n — n o t as committed. The fact that I married a man w h o was a minister was real taboo kind of stuff. But there was another core of women, and the relationship and the support of those women in seminary and what was shared together was/is cement. There were four of us w h o I feel, four or five that I feel, shared real intimately the experience of seminary. I can pick up the phone and it is like it's always been. I see some of them once a year, some of them I do not see that often, it does not matter, because the relationship is there. And it is the kind of intimacy that I do not know that men have, or if they do experience it. But is extremely valuable and important. I had a positive seminary experience. Then I worked, after Mike and I got married, at a regional office for a woman w h o was doing a development campaign. I learned from her h o w you work an office—and that you do not have to be hierarchal in the way you assert authority. I was a college student and this woman treated me like I was a colleague. She got twice the work out of me. I would work part time, I would work hours that were beyond expectations, because of the relationship that I had with her. She was a bright, very intelligent woman and had to have a strong sense of self-esteem or she could not have been doing what she was doing. But she set a pattern for me of h o w you relate to other people you work with. And I had not really been in a situation like that. I learned a lot from her, worked there for one year and that was really valuable. So I am telling about the women w h o were actually in administrative positions but w h o were very significant in modeling h o w I am professionally, those were there, in my past. Especially this one woman was good to work with. Then when I graduated, with Mike and I both being in ministry, it was kind

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LHe Stories of a quandary in terms of what we were going to do. Churches that would interview both of us would ask the question, well, what if one of you gets the position and one of you does not? We honestly felt like, that was okay, that was not going to be a problem. We felt like there are enough other possibilities in the ministry that the other one will find something. Once a church wanted Mike to come and make a decision on a trip to Denver. He said, "We don't anticipate it will be a problem, but she still needs the opportunity to come. We can't make a decision without her being present." He is really a remarkable person. Shortly after that, w e got a call from a church in the midwest. At first it was not large enough that it looked like there would be something for the other person and w e could not consider that. But they called us back and asked if we would both be interested. We had gotten married saying that w e would never work together, but the situation looked challenging, it looked good; they treated me with respect, and so w e went on the interview. We were young, and w e did not know what w e were doing (laughing) and w e said yes. We insisted on t w o separate salaries—equal. We were not going to share a salary, which technically is what w e did, because the amount they paid u s — a b o u t a salary and a half for t w o full-time positions—and that is the curse of couple ministry. I would say up front, don't do /f! There may be people w h o can make it work but I think it is incredibly dangerous. In the years that we were there, in one year, two clergy couples divorced within our region. That is not uncommon. I went into that move scared out of my mind. The congregation was large, had 450 active membership. If w e had known then what w e know now w e would never have done it. It was just j u m p in and swim. We moved ourselves, and w e stepped off the van and this lady that w e did not even know comes running d o w n the street saying "Mr. So-and-So died yesterday and you have the funeral on Monday!" (laughing) Oh, my gosh! The funny thing about this was that I called home to tell my folks w e had gotten there and told my dad about this. And my father says—the man w h o had told me all my life that I could do anything a boy could do—says, "Now, don't worry, Mikey knows how to handle that." I said, "Daddy, / know how to handle that!!!" I think he realized, you know, he still, even though he has given me this sense of what I can do and what I can be, I am still his little girl and I still need some protecting and [he] thinks don't worry, honey, and someone is going to take care of this for you. So I teased him about that a number of times. That may have not been a smart thing to do, but in another way it may have been a smart thing to do because I was so scared and when he said that, everything within me said, "Well, I can do this, I don't have to depend on Mike. I can do this, too." It sort of made me get pulled up to think, I can take care of this.

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We were there for five years. We did some real intentional things. Like I had the senior minister's office. My name was first on the letterhead. Because I think the assumption when we came was, well, he is going to be the senior minister and she is the assistant and somebody has to be in charge and it is going to be a man. The idea of co-equal sharing ministry was very much held in suspect. I have no misgivings; the only reason, well, I probably should not say the only reason, but a major part of what got me in the door was Mike, because he was a man. I know that. In fact, one of the most heartbreaking things for me right now is that since we have left, their search committee has not even considered a woman. After five years of my ministry there. There are people on the search committee who have brought it up and others on the committee don't think the congregation will go for it. That is painful. They had a good experience with me, but now my hope is that fifteen years from now, when their children sit on church committees they will remember me and they will have an image that these people still don't have. It was a very traditional community, very. A woman told me, after about the first six months, she said, "You know, we really did not know what to do or think about you and so we watched Mike to see how we should treat you." And Mike treats me with equality and respect and that is how they knew. When we started out, I preached every other Sunday because we felt like the person who is in the pulpit is seen as the minister and we did that intentionally. We divided the responsibilities, and he had his and I had mine and we did not interfere with one another's. If someone would ask, "Who is in charge?" We would respond, "Well, which area are you talking about?" It was hell on our relationship, just awful, but I think we did our job well. The people there felt like we did a good job. We were young, and I think that was more of a problem than my sex. Because we were so young and some people did not want to talk to someone who was younger than their children when they had something important they needed to talk about. But then, after two years—I preached three Sundays and Mike would preach o n e nobody complained. Mike was teaching an intense Bible study. He could not do that and prepare a sermon, too. So we went in different directions. And now he really does not like to preach and I love it. (laughing) Yeah, I love it now. The other issue for us was when our little boy was born. He is two and a half now, and so we had been there two and a half years when we started expecting. On the one hand, my pregnancy and my having a baby broke down barriers with other women in the church. They really did not know what kind of animal I was because I was a professional woman and most of them were not. So somehow my being pregnant and having this child linked me with these other women and took down some of the barriers. My other

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experience in church has been that the real problems, the resistance is not so much from men, as it is from women. It is real hard for them not to see a man in the position of ministry, harder than it seems to be for men, some men. When I was pregnant, I worked all through my pregnancy up through full term, until, well, I was at the church when my labor pains started. I had just cleaned my office; I had to get my office clean before this baby came! I finished it. My labor pains were starting. In my contract, when I came to this church, I had bargained for three months maternity leave. Maximum. What we found out was that that had not been well communicated to the congregation. We had thought it was settled long before we ever came. It was not. Some people were saying, "Three months!!? Most women only get six weeks—why does she get so much?" The other assumption that went with that was that I might be off three months and Mike was going to do my job and his, too, which was really unfair, and there was real resistance to looking for anyone else, to having a replacement. With any minister that was away, you would have a interim minister come. The main thing we were asking was that we could have, during those three months I would be out, a minister who would come and preach once a month and ask one of the elders to preach once a month as well. One or two people—but that is enough—two men in the congregation came to Mike and in effect, said, "Now is your chance to take control." It was just sickening. The other thing,—in looking at that ministry—was when we came we were so scared and we poured our whole lives into what we were doing. We probably were working 60, 70, 80 hours a week. Our child was born and we could not do that any more, so we worked 50 a week. There was a perception that we were taking advantage of the church—by a few people— which was really painful. When we asked that our four weeks of vacation, we had had three together and one separately, so we asked that we have four weeks together because it was difficult not to vacation together—that was perceived as trying to take advantage of the church. That is not so much a problem of women in ministry, but clergy couples. Either the church suffers, or the marriage of the couple suffers. And our marriage suffered. We made the decision for our family to not be in a couple ministry situation. We knew we had to do it for us. That is how we decided to make a move. But before I leave the subject of my experience in that church, I do want to say that that congregation was very loving and very accepting of me. Granted, that may in part have been by their watching Mike in how they were supposed to treat me. But I was treated with respect, I cannot name one incident where I feel the doors were slammed in my face—to my being a minister. They accepted me, loved me, were proud of me. They weren't out there apologizing for me. There were people in the community who definitely felt like—what was I doing being a minister, women are supposed to be at

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home. They defended me, in the community. So that was a real positive experience for me. I have five years of experience that prepared me well. I would not have had that kind of experience, probably in other situations, like had I gone into an associate position right out of seminaiy. In that particular church, I did everything. Here people would say, "Well, have you done a funeral before?" Oh, my gosh, I have done 200 funerals, you know. I have had that kind of incredible breadth of experience which that church offered and gave me, opened their doors for me, I had that. I am real disappointed they are not considering looking for a woman. I think it is more the community tradition, as much as it is anything else. I think still, a fearfulness. The other factor is that the regional office is only sending them resumes of women in a clergy couple situation. But w e left telling them not to get a clergy couple again. Don't do that to the couple. That is a whole other i s s u e — h o w women get placed and h o w dependent w e are on our particular systems. We need a regional minister w h o says, "Yes, I hear you saying that you don't want a woman and I understand you don't like the idea of it, but look at this woman . . . " — p u s h i n g just a little—"look at this one." They are going to have to push. And they are probably not going to do that until, in our denomination, until in the next ten years they need to replace a mass retirement of older male ministers. Then they are going to have to [hire women] because there will not be enough men to fill those positions. It is too bad, but that is the way it is. When Mike and I made the decision to look elsewhere for different positions—we started out feeling that we needed to get out of that situation and that the easiest way to do that was to find him a position, because he would be placed more quickly and he w o u l d make more money. We lived with that a month and w e were just miserable. I thought, that is what I need to do. Maybe I am not being a good, supportive wife. I can do that for a few years; I can work at a Dairy Queen, (laughing) You know, it was okay, sure, this is love, this is sacrifice, this is what I am going to do. We went through with that kind a model, he was going to look for a position and I was going to do whatever I could find to do. We were so incredibly unhappy. We started going to counseling to help in the transition and the decision making, and she was great, and the most important thing that she said, particularly to Mike, was to listen to his heart. His heart was telling him that he did not want to be a pastoral minister. He was miserable in pastoral ministry. It is all tied up with him having grown up in a minister's family and some of that baggage. So we revised our plan. We would find me a position and find it in a place where he can do something else and have a time where he can decide what he wants to do. It was like night and day. That is what w e needed to do. That was what was right for us, and in the midst of that w e heard about this position here. This just happens to be Mike's favorite place in the whole

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Life Stories world. There is no place he would rather be than here I W e just thought isn't that funny—ha, ha.

W e did not hear anything for several months and after Christmas I got a call saying, "Amy, you are one of two w e want to interview, are you interested?" I was really interested, because of the job description, especially the emphasis on outreach and community involvement. Most of the time, jobs are Christian education, youth ministiy, or maybe evangelism—whatever the senior minister does not particularly want to do. But this was a position that came out of years of planning and looking at what this church wants to do. They wanted an associate minister who spends most of her time in outreach and community involvement and helping that develop—a wonderful position. So I came for the interview and the real hitch on that depended upon the pastor and how I felt about him, and how he felt about me. In an associate position, the key is the senior minister and the working relationship. I have women friends who are in associate positions and they are miserable because of that relationship. But our senior minister is greatl I work with him, I do not work for him. That is good—it is a collegial relationship.

Of course, there are some of those other issues that I have to deal with here, like being called to be associate minister. When the lay people talk about the minister they do not particularly include me yet, although I think that will happen in time. The other person that they were interviewing was a man. So I feel like they looked at us as persons. The male and female thing may have been an issue, but I don't think it was paramount. The issues for women being considered—probably the strongest hindrance is the women of the congregation, because the women on the search committee say, "What is she going to do when she has a baby?" We ran into this in our first church, too. It takes re-education because it does take a husband like I have, who is as involved in my child's care as I am. The child doesn't care. He does not care if his mommy or his daddy is there, he does not have that preference. He does not know that daddies don't cook and change diapers. In fact, w e had a phone conversation with Mike's mom the other day, and w e were eating supper and my son says, "Grandma, I'm eating a burrito."And she says, "Oh, you are?" And he says, "Yeah, my daddy made it. Mom did not make it." I haven't cooked in three monthslll The congregation will learn. They certainly will learn here. The senior minister and I both have had a sick child this week. W e were both home yesterday morning with our sick children. It was not just me; he was home, too. There are women who would want to slap me in the face for saying this, but we still have to have supportive men to make our ministries possible, or livable. They may be possible, but for them to be livable and workable, it has to be a joint commitment—to gain from it. I was shocked. I went to our general assembly in August and the assumption was, since Mike was not with me (he was at home here and took сare of our son), the assumption

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was that we were divorced. People had read in our denominational magazine that I had moved here and his name was not mentioned because he did not move into a ministry situation. So the assumption was that we were divorced. Now, if that had been the other way around, if Mike's name had been mentioned, that would not have been the assumption at all I As for me, right now this is where I want to be. Of course, the next question is where do you see yourself going? I do not have the vision of thinking I'm just here for a few years and then I am going to be somewhere else. If things continue, as they appear to be, I can see me being here for a long time, barring unforeseen circumstances. And even though my job has to do with "outreach," I do not always have to preach outreach because the gospel is much broader than that. There also is the message of nurturing and caring for the people who need it—that needs to be our message, too. I think women do those kinds of sermons very well. There's another thing I'd like to tell you, which was very surprising to me—after I was ordained and in fact it was probably a year ago, I was talking with my dad. He has had several heart attacks, and so we had those kinds of talks where you know that death is a part of what you live with, so you talk about it. But he told me that when I was very small and he was trying to make career decisions, he really wanted to be a minister, (whispers) I never knew that. It was such a strange thing to hear him say that, and for me to be there, doing that very thing. Because there was never pressure like, this is what you need to do. It was totally my decision. Whatever I wanted to do, they would support it. If anything, I think he is fearful, because he has worked enough in the church that he has seen what churches can do to ministers. I bet there, again, he is the daddy worrying about his little girl. So he is concerned in that respect. Generally there have not been any models for women in the ministry. Most women in ministiy may be thefirstwoman people have encountered. I think that after a generation, it is going to be different. For most of us, of my generation, we don't have those models and those images and so it is creating new images. Women and church and ministry, and that is why I think that the idea creates ambivalence, but when people get acquainted with a person oftentimes that changes. The story I was going to tell you was that at ourfirstchurch, my husband and I served as co-ministers in that congregation. On every third Tuesday, we would go to one of the nursing homes in town and one of us would do the devotional service at these nursing homes. W e never particularly knew which one of us was going to go, it depended on our schedules. But this particular time, I was going to go, one of the women who was in our church worked in the nursing home. She asked an older gentleman if he was going to go to the devotional and that the minister from the church was going to be there. He said, "No, I'm not going. The last time that young man came here, he

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Life Stories and I got into an argument." And she said, "Oh, really, w h y ? " and he said,

"Well, w e don't agree about women in ministry." The woman said, "Well, as

a matter of fact, it is a woman. Amy is the minister who is coming today." He

says, "Oh, I like her, I am going to go." Every time it's just a matter of getting over a hurdle, and some people are more open to that. You are kind of on trial. Fortunately I have learned that I can be myself and recognize that it is a

part of what is happening. I don't have to be put off by that. I do not have to be afraid of that.

I came here in June. N o w the dynamic here is different because I came

here in an associate position. My first position as a minister was more of a

senior position and it was a co-senior position. So coming here I am the associate minister. That is a whole other ball game. I am not, I do not see

myself as, a hostile feminist. I am a feminist, but I am not a hostile one. I do

cringe when I am introduced as the assistant minister in the church. Call me the associate, call me one of the ministers, but don't call me the assistant.

That really bothers me. I don't say that to people, I do not say, "Excuse

me . . . " But that really bothers me. I am still—and I don't think this is just for

women—I think it is for men or women who are in associate ministry, some-

how you are seen as second string. You are on your way up the ladder and

you are biding your time to get to that place. When w e were looking to make

a change, this situation came up and I had people who said, "Oh, you don't

want to do that, you want to be a senior minister and that is what you need to look for." I thought that was silly, because this is the position I am so

excited about. And the possibility of living out ministry where my heart is, in

the area of outreach and community involvement—which is the primary em-

phasis of my job description here—I mean, that was so exciting, that was

really thrilling. I thought, why do I have to hold out for being a senior minister because women need to do that and to be in the pastorate? That is one issue

that really bothers me, that I am considered "less than" because I am an

associate minister. That one needs a lot of attention.

Chapter 3

Over-Reading the Texts The Threads That Bind

I was sitting in church one Sunday morning, thinking I should have married a minister, and something in my head said loud and clear, "Don't marry it—be it!" Ann Engels

T h e r e is no common story that neatly summarizes all clergywomen and certainly there is none for the women in this study. In fact, as the thesis for this book has slowly and dramatically emerged, I am increasingly disinclined to offer any kind of summary and have to be continually on guard against drawing generalizations. Doing so would go against the grain of what I am trying to present in this work and would r u n the d a n g e r of diluting the integrity and richness of each individual story. Yet there are, in fact, some similarities in these women's stories, and I can draw out the threads which r u n t h r o u g h their stories and bind them. I remain committed, even here, to honoring the multivocality in this study, the multiplicity of points of view to the truth that can reside in diversity and difference. This study has been t h r o u g h o u t a work in process. Reciprocal ethnography d e m a n d s the acknowledgment that a neatly packaged product is not the goal. Annie Dillard's admonitions about "covering o u r tracks" may apply when writing fiction, essays, or autobiography, but in ethnography, where the interior dialogue must give way to the external dialogue, the dialogue itself must become a part of the presentation and the process laid bare. O u r goal is understanding, but attaining one level of understanding is only to acknowledge that yet another level of u n d e r s t a n d i n g lies just beyond o u r ken. T h r o u g h

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reading, thinking, and dialogue, then, we aspire to that next level of understanding. Understanding is not realized here as generalized fact or conclusion but rather as a celebration of the multiplicity of experiences and points of view that are present in the group. Viewed together with individual strands kept clearly in focus, the myriad stories, images, patterns, beliefs, and opinions offer a total, larger picture. Of course, as e t h n o g r a p h e r I include my strand a m o n g those of the individual women and acknowledge my place, my role, and my biases as I perceive them and my h a n d in presenting this interwoven and overlapping picture. I do not intend, however, actually to take the woven piece off the loom, for I d o not believe it is ever finished. Like Penelope, as I learn more I shall simply unravel the portions that are crudely woven and full of mistakes, and tomorrow weave some m o r e — n o t to avoid unwanted suitors but to strive for the cloth that is worth more because it is woven with care. T h e women in this study all attended seminary. It is, after all, a study of mainline denominations, and all the denominations represented here require that clergy be seminary trained and ordained into the denomination in carefully regulated ways. I was interested first in learning how the women determined that they wanted to be clergy. I asked whether they had had what they would consider dramatic "call to preach" experiences. I also asked t h e m whether there had been women, perhaps even clergywomen, whose influence had been significant in t u r n i n g them toward that possible vocation and who served as models f o r their own inspiration. Most of the women did not relate dramatic call to preach narratives. This seemed o d d to me at first because in my research with Pentecostalism such narratives played a vital role in any minister's repertoire of stories, particularly because seminary training was not required and, thus, proof of "God's calling" became critical to the authenticity of a person's call to preach. I recall the comment that emerged in several discussions in this field research with clergy of mainline denominations that a dramatic "call to preach" story actually would be regarded as suspect by many ordination boards. A story of hearing voices in the night might work against ordination in most mainline denominations. T h e r e f o r e very few dramatic "call to preach" stories emerged in the study. However, there is a recognizable pattern, a consistent g r o u p of components and characteristics, in what might be better labeled their "calling into ministry " stories, a pattern that is significant, if not initially recognized as "dramatic." T h e stories are, on closer view, quite dramatic, although not generally as supernatural or paranormal as many Pentecostal women's stories might be. What is important is that the stories told by these women reveal that

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the "call f r o m God" came t h r o u g h their connection with and support f r o m other people. While at first this does not strike one as connected to a theological premise, it becomes intrinsically linked with the threads of religious and spiritual meaning that bind this g r o u p of women-church together. Given their views on God, reality, and the thrust of their ministries, it is critical to note how God has "called t h e m " t h r o u g h their connections with other people. T h e full impact of this notion will be explored in this chapter and will be fully discussed later in the chapters on theology and spirituality. What follows is an attempt to highlight certain aspects of the women's lives, focusing on their first inclinations toward their vocations, what they felt their early influences were in that direction, and f o r e g r o u n d i n g what they pointed to as the pivotal experiences that m a d e them decide to attend seminary and enter the professional ministry. I have recounted h e r e what they had to say about the reaction f r o m family and friends to their decision; what their seminary experiences were; and what their first experiences in the actual world were—how they obtained their first positions and what their ministry, in general, has been like. *

*

*

Many of the women's stories revealed that the decision toward ordained ministry was slow to develop and often revolved a r o u n d an influential person in their youth. Some of those influential people were women while others were their h o m e pastors or, often, a clergy couple. Anne-Marie Cooper relates that for years she was strongly agnostic but that there were many things about the church and about worship that she really liked and enjoyed. As a young person she was a youth leader. She recalls the ambivalent feelings she had d u r i n g the candlelight processions when other people a r o u n d h e r were crying "because they were so moved," but she was not and could not experience that kind of emotional response. When the other young people could take seriously the exercise of writing letters to God, she simply wrote, "Are you there?" She became deeply involved with the church only after her children were born. Later, when she was asked to take a part-time position in the Methodist church she was attending, she was quite honest with the pastor and explained her questioning nature. He pleased her by commenting that the church was "a good place to look for those answers." She enjoyed her position so much that after a year or so she went to him and asked his advice about where to go f r o m there, what kind of training to get. H e suggested she attend a lay training p r o g r a m called the "laboratory schools." She

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did that and eventually was qualified as a certified leader. She proceeded cautiously from there into Christian education. She says she started thinking about "going into it" because a woman, a retired woman from this conference, called another woman to say I should think about it. It came out of the clear blue sky for me and turned me around in the sense that it suggested something that never occurred to me before and offered a possibility that I did not know I had. It was a bolt out of the blue. It was like the voice of God calling m e . . . . I have never had one of those deep voice on the mountaintops kinds of things, but God has spoken to me through people. The more I began to realize that, I was able to count those times, to see that as active in my life.

When I asked her why she thought the one woman had called the other about her—what qualities the woman saw in her—she replied: "[I have] not a clue. I saw her for a few minutes in a meeting. [Later] I wrote her a letter and thanked her for it. I don't think she [even] knew me." While this story could never be characterized as supernatural, it is, in fact, rather dramatic. T h e effect on Anne-Marie was certainly dramatic. She tells the story with awe and conviction; this was a call from God through a woman who hardly knew her—it came just like "a bolt out of the blue!" *

*

*

Carter Buchanan recalled that she was intrigued by the story about the eleven women who had been irregularly ordained in the Episcopal church in Philadelphia in 1974. She was in graduate school and had read about them in the newspapers. She remembers thinking, "Oh, this is wonderful, but they shouldn't have done it. They broke all the church rules." She remembers that when her roommate asked her, "Well, are you going to be one of those people?" she thought the question odd, for she had never given any thought to (or had never talked about) that ministry. But events kept occurring that would not allow her to completely forget the topic. In 1976 the Episcopal General Convention voted to approve the possibility of regular ordination of women starting in 1977. By that time Carter was teaching high school (and hating it). In the small midwestern town where she felt herself stuck, she heard "the only hell-fire and damnation sermon I've ever heard in an Episcopal church on the subject of the ordination of women and how wrong it was." That sermon, she says, "put it out of my mind." She disliked teaching so intensely that she nearly quit, but instead

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d r e w u p a list of reasons to go a n d reasons to stay. "Everything a b o u t why I should stay," she related, "was t h e c h u r c h . I h a d become very involved. . . . I r e m e m b e r looking at that list and thinking, 'This is o d d . ' " C a r t e r became a lay r e a d e r . She sat o n the diocesan ecumenical ministry b o a r d . D u r i n g the following year, however, she became quite ill a n d a Jewish f r i e n d sent h e r a book o n the ordination of w o m e n . T h a t , again, seemed o d d . I'd been thinking about ordination anyway for some reason and there is this book. Then, the next spring, I was thinking about it again, because I knew I was going to have to sign my teaching contract But I still had this feeling I should be doing something else.

T h e n the principal of h e r school asked if she would r e n t h e r e x t r a b e d r o o m to a s u m m e r youth worker. She a g r e e d , b u t when the "youth minister" arrived it t u r n e d out she was not a youth minister at all b u t a seminary s t u d e n t at Yale Divinity School who was d o i n g h e r s u m m e r intern ministry. T h e first day she was there, she asked C a r t e r if she was interested in seminary. "And I t h o u g h t , " C a r t e r r e m e m bers, "this is weird. I'm going to ignore this again." T h a t s u m m e r she did a "lot of r e a d i n g a n d reflecting a n d prayer, which hadn't o c c u r r e d to m e at all until shortly b e f o r e that time." She laughs at this point a n d mentions that prayer is still o f t e n the last thing she r e m e m b e r s to do! "Maybe I really did have a call to be an o r d a i n e d minister; maybe I h a d to p u r s u e it. I wasn't inventing it. It was coming from other people." So C a r t e r resolved to talk to h e r priest, w h o m she knew was openly opposed to the ordination of w o m e n . " T h a t will c u r e me," she t h o u g h t . A f t e r several canceled a p p o i n t m e n t s a n d some trepidation on h e r part, she finally invited him a n d his wife f o r d i n n e r . H e was ready f o r h e r questions a n d seemed to sense that she h a d s o m e t h i n g i m p o r t a n t to discuss with him. Knowing his opinion on the subject, she app r o a c h e d it gingerly, asking him, first, if h e would d o a supervised study f o r h e r in c h u r c h history a n d liturgies, because, she hesitated— "I think maybe I have a call to be an o r d a i n e d minister." So I'm waiting for him to scream, not looking at him. I look at him and he's smiling, in fact, he's starting to laugh. I asked him why and he kept laughing. Finally, he said, "I'm so glad you told me." I said, "I thought you were opposed to the ordination of women." He said, "I am. If you were a man, I would have asked you six months ago to consider holy orders because of the leadership you show in the parish. I've been praying about this for the last year and the only thing I can see is that you are supposed to be a priest. And who am I to argue with the Holy Spirit?"

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Understandably, Carter was stunned. Then she says, she was "scared to death." Carter has kept in touch with this man over the years, and he has recommended her for various positions along the way. She acknowledges that she learned much from him about "that kind of spirituality—about being willing to acknowledge that human beings have a relationship with God, because he is so straightforward about it." He had not expected God to call Carter, but once he was convinced, he became her solid supporter and accepted that the appointment, even as unusual as it was, had been initiated and endorsed by God. *

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Amy Seger recalled majoring in psychology in college, with two minors, one in art and one in child development. But, she notes, her commitment always remained with the church. "I became very involved and was even hired to be a part-time college coordinating person. I had an office and worked with the church and the ministers, and just had a wonderful time doing that." She traces her first thoughts about her ministry back to a "really important woman in my life during this period." The woman was not an ordained minister, but Amy had heard her speak many times growing up and during high school. Once, during a youth weekend event, she delivered the final address and spoke directly to some of the youth leaders in the audience, calling them by name. Her topic was ministry and the call to ministry. . . . she used the verse from John where Jesus asked Peter, "Do you love me? Then feed my sheep." And she added names to that question—she looked out on this crowd of high school kids, and she said, "John, do you love me? Then feed my sheep." And "Amy, do you love me? Then feed my sheep." Telling this is going to make me cry. This was a very moving experience for me. I had always felt a strong sense of commitment to God and to being a Christian. I do not remember a time when I did not believe in God as a child. It was a growing into faith. But for me that was an experience where I felt the call. It was there and I heard it.

Amy, like Anne-Marie and Carter, did not act on this calling immediately. This experience occurred during her high school years and she went on to college, continuing her interests in psychology, art, and child development. Then, years later, sitting on a bus traveling to a church event, she recalls wanting, but hesitating, to discuss her future life with her associate pastor. When she posed the question,

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"What am I going to do with the rest of my life?", he turned to her in the bus and quietly asked, "Well, have you ever thought about ministry?" "I just laughed," Amy recalls now, "Well, no, of course not." Her response, she quickly explained, was because there were no models, no way to take that question seriously. Women were not even elders in her home church, she told me. "There might be a woman who preached on Mother's Day, but the imagery was not there. So I just laughed and said, 'Oh, yeah, sure, right.'" But, she acknowledges, "it started me thinking. Can I do that, given my strong sense of commitment and Christian faith and the difference I think it makes in our lives? I thought, well, I could!" She began to talk with the people she was close to and with other clergy, including her senior pastor—"Interestingly enough, he was real encouraging." Eventually, she went to seminary. But she did not pursue the divinity degree right away. She was guided by several friends and clergy into Christian education. Only later did she determine that what she actually wanted was the divinity degree and the profession. *

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A significant number of the women traced their first thoughts of the ordained ministry to positive and reinforcing experiences as leaders in church situations. Much like the women discussed above, Flannery Haller, who was a practicing lawyer at the time, had "continued to be involved in the church." At a very young age, Flannery told me, she had wanted to be a Catholic priest. She was, by her own account, "very taken with the whole drama of the Christian faith." She lived just down the street from the church and would go by herself. She loved it—the Maundy Thursday foot washings, the Good Friday services, the Easter vigil all held a magical lure for her. "It just knocked me out, still does." Of course, just as quickly as she decided she wanted to be an altar boy, a baseball player, and then, a priest, she learned how impossible those dreams were. She worked for a time at the local YWCA and had some interactions with the Protestant clergy and their wives and their work there; at one point, in fact, she remembers thinking that "this [the work at the Y] was kind of what ministers do—something like that. Still, I did not have any sense that I could do that. That, you know, just thinking that did not make me think maybe I should be a minister. . . . I knew nothing at that point about what I might do." She reviewed her options, which included a Ph.D. in English, perhaps medical school, architecture, or business, but rejected them all. Then she went to law school and for a time practiced law. However, she quickly became disillusioned with the law and was

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frustrated that she had all this education and experience but still felt "like I needed to go, but I did not know what else to do. . . . I just did not know where to go with it. . . . I was kind of in a holding pattern." For a time she switched offices and attempted to join some other lawyers in a caring, Christian law concern, but that, too, failed to live up to her expectations. It was during this period in her life that she had a face-to-face encounter with a woman who was to remain a constant and affirming influence in her life. She met a female Episcopal priest in 1979 at the swimming pool at a friend's apartment. They both had a lot of questions for this unexpected visitor. . . . w e started talking and w e started to cross-examine her about it—like, whoa, what is this about here? This woman [her friend] w h o was in the office with me was Jewish and she was real interested in finding out all about this. I remember very clearly feeling right away, " N o w I'm in real trouble." I had read about the Episcopal church ordaining women but I did not know any, certainly, and I was not going to go looking. And this woman did not seem weird or pious or all the ideas I had about religion at that point.

Flannery told me later just how clearly she remembers the experience of meeting this female priest. She remembers she would ask her very direct and pointed questions, then rather rudely swimming to the other end of the pool as she thought about it, then return with another set of questions. T h e priest invited Flannery to her church and about four months later, she said, she did go. She "didn't want to rush into it or anything, ha." She began to get involved in church-related events and attended a Cursillo—"a renewal kind of thing where people give talks and you talk in groups." Like Anne-Marie, she remained skeptical, noting how other people became quite emotional at these retreats and openly cried, but not her! "I would not let them get to me," she remembers now with a chuckle. She soon quit her job in the prosecutor's office but continued to be involved in the church. She took on a leadership role at another Cursillo. She realized how much she enjoyed being a member of the team and giving inspirational and spiritual talks. Slowly, the notion of being a professional minister began to take form. It finally occurred to me that if, finally, that if this is what the ministry was, that maybe that is what I should do. That felt right to me. It felt right to me. It felt like I was being called to the ministry and it felt like it wasn't the first time I had gotten this call, you know. As a kid I had wanted to be a priest but it wasn't possible.

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Flannery says she felt embarrassed that after going to law school and practicing law she was now contemplating yet another career change. She was reluctant to talk with the female priest she had met earlier, but she did, and this woman was encouraging and hardly even surprised to hear her plans. She encouraged her to go to seminary at Yale, where she had gone. Flannery agonized over the application blank, feeling unable to articulate a reasonable answer to the question, "Why do you want to attend seminary?" It sat on her desk for six months. Finally, the deadline arrived; she mailed it in. They wrote back and said, "You can come." And she was terrified: I said—Oh, My Godl My first reaction to that was to write to them and say, "Are you kidding? You can't expect a person to leave in the middle of all this." Then I realized that I was just putting it o f f . . . . So I farmed out my practice to different folks and flew off to New Haven. And I thought—Whoa, what hit me! I was really in shock by the time I got there. *

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Flannery's story reminds me of Marsha Johnston's even though the two women are really not alike at all. Marsha remembers as a child watching a Billy Graham crusade on television and deciding to "devote my life to being a servant of the Lord." Initially, however, this thought did not lead her to a specific action. Like so many of the others, Marsha found herself in college "trying to decide at the end of college whether to go on in English, or sociology, or go to seminary for Christian education, and I loved all three of those. I thought— God, what do you want me to do?" In the end, Marsha went to Union Theological Seminary and majored in Christian education, although much later she was ordained and is now a Methodist minister. She remembers thinking, "Why be a Christian education director when I could be a minister? Why have to take someone else's direction when I could be in charge and do it myself?" At first, she told me, she couldn't even bring herself to apply to Union, for she knew it to be one of the finest seminaries. I thought there's no way I could get into Union —that's the best school in the country, academically. I applied . . . I got in, I got a scholarship, and so I went. I can remember wondering what is going on? I remember being in an airplane halfway between San Diego and New York City, where I had never been in my life, and thinking, "What am I doing here in the middle of the sky flying to New York, all by myself?" Well, I wasn't by myself, but I remember

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Chapter Three this feeling of, "What have I gotten myself into?" But I also had the feeling, the pretty strong feeling, that this was what God wanted me to do.

While at seminary, Marsha married a man who was also training to be an ordained minister. For several years, she followed him as he took first one position, then another, and while she bore their two children. When her husband received a very good offer from a large church in the midwest, they asked about job possibilities for Marsha. "Oh, no problem, there are lots of jobs," replied the enthusiastic district superintendent. But when they arrived, it was a different story. Now, the regional supervisor was asking her, "Why do you want to go into the ministry? You're a woman. . . . That is like bloodying your head against the wall . . . a woman trying to be a man is like taking your head and butting it against the wall." And Marsha was not amused when he asked, laughing, "Have you ever seen a pregnant bishop?" Discouraged, she eventually went to the Presbyterian headquarters and found them quite ready and willing to offer her the pastorate of two small rural churches. Although in the end she did accept these small charges, 1 it became clear to her that if she wanted to be a pastor, she could. She began to work in several churches in different capacities, still thinking that she would be ordained when the children were older and in high school. But, she soon concluded, God had different plans for her. . . . the experience of working in these two churches was so great. I felt God was saying, "go," but I kept saying, "but I need to be home for the children. Are you sure I can be a good mother and a minister at the same time? If you want me to do that, I will do it. I don't know how I can do that, are you sure?"

Gradually, she said, she learned to trust that this was, indeed, what God wanted her to do and she proceeded toward ordination. Soon a job "was provided" and she no longer questioned that she had done the right thing. But suddenly the senior minister was moved and she had to be moved as well, which meant she might get her own church. She felt deeply apprehensive about the prospect of becoming a fulltime pastor. I said, "God, what are you doing? I only wanted to be on the staff and do Christian education. I am scared to death of preaching. I cannot be in charge of a church. You have got to be kidding I"

But, of course, she was moved to her current position as the senior pastor of a mid-sized Methodist church and now says she can hardly

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think a b o u t leaving it: "I j u s t love it h e r e . It is w o n d e r f u l . . . . G o d obviously knows better t h a n I d o what I can d o a n d what I can't d o a n d what is good a n d what is n o t good." * * *

While most of t h e w o m e n did not relate what we may have c o m e to expect as d r a m a t i c "call to p r e a c h " stories, Linda Stewart did relate a story a b o u t a voice in the night, o n e she insists was not "audible." ( T h e r e a d e r is invited to t u r n now to Linda Stewart's life story at the e n d of this chapter.) W h e n Linda told m e about h e r "call," she was o n e w h o n o t e d : "it's the kind of t h i n g that you don't want to tell boards of ministry very m u c h because they'll think you're crazy." At t h e time of this experience, L i n d a was finishing h e r u n d e r g r a d u a t e d e g r e e a n d h e r s t u d e n t teaching. Like C a r t e r , she h a d f o u n d o u t quickly that teaching was not t h e profession f o r her. "God spoke to me in the middle of the night." As I said, you don't tell too many people that because they think you are crazy. I sat up straight up in bed and looked over at my roommate who was sound asleep and snoring and went, "What?" [I heard] a voice as though it were another person there in the room. I could not tell you to this day whether it was male or female. It was just—it wasn't audible. It was inside, but I could hear it. It asked if I had ever considered going into the ministry. I said, "no" and it said, "Will you think about it?" I said, "Yeah, sure, right." A few nights later, the same thing: "Have you been thinking about it?" I said, "Nooo, actually, I thought the whole thing was a dream." It said, "What are you worried about? What are you concerned with?"

Disconcerted, Linda related a long list of reasons in h e r m i n d a b o u t why it was impossible that G o d was i n t e n d i n g h e r to go into the professional ministry. T h e first was that w o m e n d o not go into the ministry. Like Amy's, h e r first reaction was based o n t h e fact that she h a d n o models f o r such a n o t i o n — " e v e r y o n e I h a d known in the big academic robes with the felt d o w n the f r o n t (which is why I don't wear them) were m e n . " She laughed, then, as she related that n o t two days later, while the choir was r e h e a r s i n g in the c h u r c h , t h e new Wesley Foundation director walked into the r o o m . " H e r n a m e was Rose H e n son." A n d within the next t h r e e weeks, Linda m e t " f o u r w o m e n in t h e ministry! I had never met o n e b e f o r e ! So I went, 'Okay, you got me. O n e d o w n . ' " T h e next concern she a p p a r e n t l y related to the internal voice that continued to d i s r u p t h e r sleep was that she did not have the money to go to seminary. H e r parents, w h o w e r e paying f o r college,

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were not likely to support her in seminary. The very next night an elderly woman who was an active member of the Eastern Star remarked to her that her unit of the organization had a scholarship to give away but had not been able to locate any student who might benefit from it. She asked for Linda's assistance in finding a worthy recipient. She laughed as she told the story, then added that about three days later, while she was talking with her parents on the telephone, they offered to pay for her work toward a master's degree. Over the course of the next few weeks and months, all her concerns were similarly dispatched. Her conversations with the nightly visitor continued and Linda expressed the observation that music majors, which she was, generally did not become ordained ministers. About a month later, she attended an ecumenical conference at a local Lutheran college. There she stumbled on a workshop devoted to the intersections of music and ministry. There were eighteen clergypersons in attendance and, she discovered as she listened to their discussion, "all of them had been music majors before they went into the ministry." She was nearly convinced, but she set u p one final test. "God, one last thing," I said. "All right, here, you think this is such a good idea. You have given me all of these possibilities. I am going to tell somebody that this is going on in my head, that I am thinking about this. And if they laugh, then I will know that it's nuts." So I went to the student pastor who was at my parents' church back t h e n . . . . We were standing there in line for this d i n n e r . . . . And he says, "What are you going to do with the rest of your life?" I said, "I'm thinking about going into the ministry." He says, "I was wondering when you were going to get around to deciding that." He had seen it for months. So I was serious. I went in and talked to my pastor a few months later. Well, he was new—he and I didn't see eye to eye. We still *

don't. I went in to talk to him and he laughedl But by that time it was too late. * *

Maria Rodriegas, a young Hispanic Disciples of Christ clergywoman who lives in a tiny midwestern town of about 200 Anglos, thought she might like to be a missionary. (Maria's story is included at the end of this chapter.) She was a mathematics major in college. She, too, had not enjoyed her experiences in teaching and was looking for an alternative. A young married couple served as the co-pastors of a local Disciples of Christ church where Maria became involved after a painful family split with the Catholic church; they encouraged her to go to seminary, telling her to get a "little more grounding in the Disciples Church and gain a sense of my spiritual self." This couple

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" t u r n e d o u t to be sort of m e n t o r s as well as very good f r i e n d s to me." She recalls going t h r o u g h a n identity crisis, asking " W h o am I? Part of the question f o r m e was w h o a m I in relationship with God." Like several of the o t h e r w o m e n , h e r involvement with the c h u r c h a n d t h e local c o m m u n i t y center became vital to her, providing h e r with m u c h n e e d e d stability a n d s u p p o r t . So Maria applied to Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, Texas. W h e n she called h e r folks to tell t h e m what she h a d d o n e , they were "really disappointed a n d a little bit h u r t . " T h e y t h o u g h t Maria was going to take a teaching assistantship in mathematics: " T h e r e was a lot of family h o p e in my going o n to college a n d becoming the o n e w h o succeeds f o r all of t h e m . T h e y were real h a p p y that I was going to be in m a t h , because you use m a t h in the business world; you use m a t h everywhere a n d you can go a long way." Seminary was a financial struggle f o r Maria; she h a d to leave twice a n d r e t u r n b e f o r e receiving h e r d e g r e e . She was n e e d e d at h o m e , but she persevered until she completed the course. D u r i n g the time when she h a d to leave seminary, she tells a story strikingly similar to Amy's. In the meantime, one of the other students, who was my neighbor, had asked me—it was his turn to preach in chapel that week—he asked me to be worship leader. The scripture he was reading was the end of John when Jesus asks Peter three times, "Do you love me?" and Peter says, "Yes." And Jesus says, "Feed my sheep." I just about cried as I read that passage in chapel that day because I was struggling with that. The question I was struggling with was "Could I say yes?" I felt like I could not. . . . Then I decided—reading that gave me the strength to say, I can't say yes right now. So I am not going to say yes halfheartedly. . . . I was in an incredible depression. I felt like I had let God down and I had not lived up to what I had been called to do.

D u r i n g this period, o n e of Maria's i m p o r t a n t m e n t o r s c o m m i t t e d suicide. T h i s m a d e h e r difficulties seem even worse. She recalls thinking, "If that m a n can't hold it together, how a m I s u p p o s e d to?" But gradually she began to r e t u r n to c h u r c h a n d eventually tried teaching on an I n d i a n reservation in South Dakota. But she, like so m a n y of the o t h e r women, was clearly not cut o u t to be a teacher a n d f o u n d herself taking a course in New T e s t a m e n t f r o m a p r o f e s s o r w h o was also a Disciples of Christ minister. His course a n d his e n c o u r a g e m e n t t u r n e d Maria toward seminary again: " H e is the o n e w h o really introd u c e d m e to inclusive language a n d challenged m e in a n u m b e r of ways." She r e t u r n e d to seminary a n d took a j o b as youth minister in a small Methodist c h u r c h j u s t n o r t h of the seminary, a j o b

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Chapter Three that worked out real well. . . . it was a good congregation in terms of learning. They were a little bit restrictive in terms of what they would let me do, partially because of the Methodist system and partially because they are conservative about women. . . . they sort of allowed me to preach because the seminary required that I preach twice a year. . . . Things just seemed to click then for me.

Unfortunately, when she finished seminary, her introduction to the world of seeking her own church was not a pleasant one: I wanted to work in a small church as a pastor, but our field education director said, "I can't place you in a church right now. You are a woman and you have a Hispanic name and there is not a small church around here that would look at y o u . " . . . He just flat out told me that.

Eventually, however, she learned to be more aggressive with regional supervisors who insisted that her Hispanic surname prevented her papers from being sent out to prospective churches. The problem, she learned, was that congregations feared that she could not "speak the language." Finally, it took me a long time and I was to the point where I was ready to give up and I finally started to say to them, "Butyou know I can speak English, tell them I can." It took me a while to get to that point of assertion. I was in the search process for two years before I was called to a church.

Eventually, a district minister helped her obtain interviews at two small churches in Iowa. She suspected that this man wanted to claim he had placed the first Hispanic minister in the region, but by this point the reason he helped her hardly mattered to Maria. She wanted a church. One position was as an associate pastor and the other was a "yoked ministry," serving two small rural churches as a "traveling" pastor. They called within a day of each other and suddenly Maria had choices to make. She chose the two small churches because she realized that she wanted to be the full-time pastor, not an associate. Her career was off and running. *

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It is not surprising that so many of the women began as teachers— certainly a condoned occupation for women who wanted a career. Kathleen Miles-Wagner was a divorced woman with two children when she became a piano teacher. She was not happy. She knew,

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somehow, that she wanted to be doing something else and she knew that she wanted to work with adults. She went to a psychologist to help her determine the right career for her. She suffered through days of testing—battery upon battery of tests designed to help her decide what her calling in life was, but she could not yet determine it. But when she went to the general assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association with her pastor and his family she attended many of the exclusive clergy sessions. Not only did the dialogue and the exchanges excite her, she felt privileged to see these clergy there "with their hair down." She noted their "foibles and their shortcomings" and felt it made them and their ministry more human, more reasonable. "If they can do it," she thought, "I can do it, too." It changed her life. Suddenly she knew what the answer to all her questioning was. I had been climbing the walls for six weeks trying to figure it out and in the course of the six weeks this psychologist had noted how active I was in the church. He had said, "Does that suggest to you that you would like to go on into ministry?" And I had said, "No, I would not like the dull detail of a minister's job. That is not the kind of thing I want to do." . . . He took me to a meeting of the ministers' group. I got in that room and was introduced to a few people, made a little conversation, heard the lecture, and I felt, "These are my people. This is where I belong." It was an utter and complete realization. That was it. . . . I got in that room of people and I knew that was where I belonged.

Not everyone shared her enthusiasm. She immediately sought out the representative of the department of ministry and announced that she wanted to be a Unitarian minister. His response was guarded; as Kathleen recalls, he muttered something about, "Well, you have to think of this and think of that, and after all women don't usually do these kinds of things." It was true, she recalled, in those days there were not very many women in the ordained ministry. She thought he was condescending to her. "He was like, 'Now, now, little girl.'" But she was not a little girl, and she was not easily dissuaded from this important decision. She went home and sought the support of her home pastor. She got it and proceeded to explore the approaches of the various seminaries. Finally, she settled on one in Boston. But she had two children and needed financial assistance. She approached her father about a small loan to help her. He hit the roof. He thought that was the most damn fool idea I could possibly have invented, and why did I want to do such a crazy thing? Who the heck did I think I was, asking for money when they needed it for their

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Chapter Three old age? He just sort of pulled out every stop, any way of hitting under the belt that he could possibly think of; absolutely reduced me to tears. So I had gone off to the interview [at the seminary] after that encounter with my father, and the school was very accepting and helpful, and the representatives from the department of ministry were veiy helpful and it was very clear to me that I wanted to do it. I thought, the heck with my father, I am going to do this.

Despite her firm determination, however, Kathleen had to work for a year and postpone seminary. She took the risk then and managed to work and go to school for three years to finish her degree. Some of her professors remarked that she was the best student in the seminary; she received top marks. But she knew all was not won when her six-year-old son expressed his concern with her new direction and remarked, "But mommy, women don't usually do that." She recalls how important her seminary time was in terms of her spiritual development and how she came to believe strongly in the power of a "sustaining presence" in her life. She was going to need it. When she finished seminary in 1968, women were not very well accepted, she told me, even in Unitarian churches. "There were no rules against it; it was just simply that people were not used to it. . . . I had been told . . . before that it was going to be hard to find a job." She received several job offers in religious education. But she did not want to work with children and she did not want to be a director of religious education. She held out for being a "parish minister." She was offered "little part-time rural jobs that I could not have supported my two kids on." She held out for a full-time job and eventually found one in a small rural church, but her salary was very small, much smaller than the salaries her male peers were receiving. They were, in fact, turning down all the lower-paying jobs. She stayed in this church for five years and managed to support her two children. In retrospect, she says, New England was a good place for her and her children to be during these years of the late 1960s. But she became restless and lonely, and decided to move. She went to a large urban church as the associate pastor and stayed there for seven years before moving on to a smaller midwestern town to become pastor of a Unitarian congregation in a fairly liberal college town. *

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Several other women in the group found their way into the professional ministry over a longer and more gradual route. They talked less about a call to preach and more about how their lives and their

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ministry evolved over time until they were finally ordained. Constance Colgate, a lovely and vivacious 71-year-old woman who looks not a day over 60, recalled how important church was for her in her early years. (Her life story, that of a woman who spent nearly a lifetime "becoming" an ordained minister, appears at the end of this chapter.) Even as a child, Constance remembered a female director of Christian education in the Christian church, who was an important influence on her: "I admired her. It looked to me that what she did would really be fun to do. We laughed in later years when I told her I used to think I would really like to do what Lucille does, imagine doing it and getting paid for it! I had a model there that was really interesting." Like several of the other women, Constance benefited from the support of her local pastor and his wife. They had no children of their own and helped her go to Hiram College, which is a Disciples college. Later she attended Chicago Theological College, but only stayed one year. She married a fellow student, and when her husband was called into service during World War II as a chaplain the church asked Constance to be their pastor. She did not accept the post but followed her husband. After the war he returned to teaching and they raised four children. While her children were still young, however, she began to take on more and more leadership roles in the church. Eventually, Constance became the pastor of a small church, about sixty miles from where they lived. At the time she was licensed but not ordained. She recalls this experience fondly, saying the congregation was very supportive. There, she says, she learned how broad the scope of ministry was. She had been there only one Sunday when a call came from the local funeral director—a man had committed suicide and she would have to conduct the funeral. She panicked at first, but then preached at the funeral. "So I was initiated in a hurry into the various aspects of the ministry," she muses. When she and her husband moved to a different city, she took the job of director of Christian education at the First Christian church. She continued in this work for over nine years, becoming more involved and taking on more of the load. Her children were still young and it was difficult to make ends meet, but she said she would "think about other things and I just could not think of anything that I really wanted to spend my time doing, other than the church." In 1968 she moved on to the position of minister of education at a large Baptist church, increasing her involvement until the minister approached her: After my husband's death in 1976, the minister said to me, "I think it's time you were ordained. You have been doing everything that an ordained person does, and I think it is time." I said, "I agree, it is time."

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Constance was ordained in November, 1977 by the Christian Church, the General Baptist Church, and the Southern Baptist Church. She used some of the same hymns and prayers that h e r husband had used at his ordination in 1942, and she was pleased to have her children and her mother there to share the day with her. It was really a very memorable experience for me and for lots of people. There were many people w h o had never seen an ordination. And there were certainly many who had never seen a woman ordained.

In general, Constance has felt support f r o m the congregations with whom she has worked, and f r o m the ministry itself, especially since h e r husband's death.

*

Oh, there have been some funny things. One time in the offering of the Baptist church it said, "You should not have a woman preacher" in this anonymous note, and the pastor laughed as he handed it to me. A lot of funny little episodes like that. But, for the most part, the people in the congregation are just so supportive. * *

While some of the women in this g r o u p are associate pastors and have chosen this path, others, when they determined to be an ordained minister, also emphatically decided that this meant they wanted to be the pastor and rejected any suggestions that they become education directors or associate ministers. Karen Mayfield says she knew when she was six that she wanted to be a missionary in Korea. She cannot be certain when or how the notion of the parish ministry actually occurred to her. But I do have to say that that love for the church was always there. We went to church and my mother taught Sunday school and I loved it. But being the minister never occurred to me. There was no way for that to occur to me, that came later.

She went to seminary, she says, "because I wanted to deal with ultimate issues." She had no thought, then, of being ordained. She went because she needed the education. It was not until someone asked her about her plans and insinuated that she could probably only be a "sort o f " minister that she rankled and said, emphatically, "No, I am going to be a minister!" Recognizing this came slowly, however. It was, she says, "a process." Long before seminary, Karen worked in s u m m e r camps with black children in the inner city and determined to major

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in education in college. She planned to teach in the inner city. She dedicated her life to "full-time Christian service" in the Methodist church and recalls with fondness that night and her white dress with big orange flowers. She was 17. She finished her degree in education and took a teaching j o b in California. She hated it. Like so many of the women in this study, she realized that teaching was not for her. She returned to the city and to the programs that were so personally satisfying. Eventually, Karen found herself attending seminary, because, she told me, "I really do love the church." She was still thinking about missionary work and inner-city programs, but certainly had no clear idea at that point what she might do with a seminary degree. She was first ordained as a deacon and worked as a chaplain in a prison and in community organizations. After her marriage to a clergyman she met at seminary, she found an appointment to a little three-point charge (three small rural churches). But she continued to be uneasy about ordination in the Methodist church. "I had trouble with the whole episcopacy—bishops and hierarchy." And she knew she did not want to be the pastor of a local church. In time she learned more about her husband's church, the Christian Church-Disciples of Christ, and "fell in love with it. It suits me—there are no creeds; it was perfect." In July of 1979, she was ordained in the Christian Church and served alongside her husband as co-pastor. That, in the end, did not prove successful. But the one thing he would not split with me was preaching. He wanted me to be in charge of all other parts of worship. So I did the prayers and everything. I really did spend a lot of time with the people and they responded very positively. That was wonderful. I preached once a month, but he was, you know, he was the preacher. And, you know, I as so adaptable, I did not see the connections between those kinds of choices that I agreed to and the depression I had. I could not see it. Karen's depression was not a new thing. She had suffered a deep depression on the death of her mother and later during bleak periods of her life. Now, the depression had returned and did not seem to dissipate. She took a j o b as director of a d r u g and alcohol abuse project and stayed there for four years. By 1985 she was divorced. Her daughter was seven. Her depression got worse. She took care of her daughter, but mostly she just sat, not doing anything. Knowing it was not healthy, she sought professional counseling, and determined that she would return to graduate school and forget the church. However, she had no sooner settled on that when a call came about a position—

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the chaplaincy at a small women's college. Karen feels she has healed a great deal, but the journey has been long and hard. Six years ago I was in a workshop and w e did this imaginary treasure chest and see what was in it. And there were several things in my chest and there was a bunch of eggs and they were all smashed—very disconcerting. Then, w e were supposed to imagine something, and Jesus came up to me and handed me an egg and I could not believe it because here was this symbol and symbols were not that important to me at that point in my life and I did not want the egg. I would not take it. The whole transformation has been in some way related to that and the egg has become real and the egg has become whole. So there you are. At one point I had a dream where the egg broke. It was cracking and I was just really upset. But the egg cracked and a little chick came out. In the dream it was bad, because the egg was so important to me—just the wholeness of it. But when the little chick came out, you know, it was okay. *

*

*

Ann Engels's life story (included at the end of this chapter) traces a long journey to the pulpit. Her early religious experiences were not positive; she had turned away from religion for years. But then, divorced with two children, Ann found herself intrigued and fascinated by some of the new-age religious thinking and the Science of Mind church. On her own, taking secretarial positions one after the other, she had begun to think she was not "getting anywhere" in life. She was beginning to question, she said, "What should my life be? Where do I go?" But these new and different approaches to the old questions opened new doors for her. It was like, oh, my God, all of a sudden, my whole belief system just flipped over like a pancake, and I thought, I have got to be a part of this. . . . I was told I was not a victim, that I had control over my life through my mind. All of a sudden, it was making so much sense . . . I saw h o w my whole mindset affected my life.

She began to work in the church and conduct outreach programs with two close friends, loving every minute of it. I was sitting in church one Sunday morning, thinking I should have married a minister, and something in my head said loud and clear, "Don't marry it—Be i t l " . . . I did ask that particular minister about women ministers in that

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church. He gave me this condescending look and said, "Well, my dear, there are women ministers and they do have churches, but they are very small."

Like so many of the other women, Ann did not act on her instinct right away. It was, in fact, after her third marriage and a master's degree in counseling that she found herself still dissatisfied with her career. In her counseling sessions, Ann found that her clients needed something more than she could give them in her capacity as a professional counselor. We need to grow spiritually. I wanted to tell her [the client] that, but I was in one of these counseling rooms with the two-way windows, and students and professors were plugged in and observing. . . . I thought I've got to go on, I've got to be able to talk about what I believe. I can't stop here. That is when I decided that I had to do something more. I needed to be a minister.

Even though Ann started late and the road was difficult, she learned at seminary that everything she had ever done helped her in some way in her ministry. She told her father, who lamented about how late she decided, "Everything I have ever done has fed into what I'm doing now, and I couldn't be doing this if I hadn't. It seems like it was a zigzag path, but it wasn't. I've used absolutely everything I was ever involved in." Now in a successful full-time position for a Unity congregation, Ann told me, "Seminary was the nicest thing I ever did for myself." *

*

*

Whether they knew as young girls, as young women, or as adults divorced and supporting children, all the women in this group speak of knowing, at some point, that they had been called to their particular ministry. A surprising number of them tried teaching and found it not to their liking. Most recount the importance of the church in their lives from a very early age, and many found their leadership strengths in the various positions they held in the religious context. As they moved through the tasks and positions in their respective churches, and particularly as they took the podium to speak to various groups, they gained a sense of competence, of direction, of motivation, and of excitement for such things. Several spoke directly about a pivotal point when it became obvious that they did not need to help someone else be the "minister" but that they could, in fact, be it themselves. Because the stories seem so inherently different at first glance, the

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patterns in them remain subtle and difficult to perceive. While I am committed, on the one h a n d , to acknowledging the integrity and uniqueness of each of these individual stories, I am struck, as well, by the storytelling qualities that are evident in a close reading of all of them together. Although it is clear that a dramatic "call to preach" narrative is not appropriate within the religious context of the denominations represented by the women in this study, there does emerge, nevertheless, a core "calling into ministry" narrative, one whose parts are recognizable and fairly consistent f r o m one narrative to another, particularly in terms of the sequence of related events. Like the Pentecostal women, who developed a complex and fairly standard "call to preach" narrative that was important for their acceptance within the Pentecostal faith as ministers, these women relate stories that may very well be sending similar messages. Even though most of the denominations represented in this study officially have a policy for the ordination of women, it is still a fact—and one in evidence in these particular stories—that many women have encountered and continue to encounter difficulties being accepted as clergy at all levels, f r o m family to friends, to seminaries, ordination boards, denominational hierarchies, and local congregations. T h e a r g u m e n t that the "calling into ministry" narrative would be carefully couched, articulated, and delivered becomes valid if we acknowledge that in many ways the women delivering them have entered foreign and often unfriendly territory. T h e characteristics that a p p e a r and r e a p p e a r in the narratives serve to guide us toward an u n d e r s t a n d i n g of how these characteristics serve as markers for the sensitive points in the lived lives. Before proceeding to this discussion of the patterns discernible in the stories, it is important to note that most but not all the stories exhibit all the characteristics. Some deviate, either dramatically, or simply by omission, f r o m the pattern outlined. T h e patterns are, nevertheless, discernible and worthy of o u r scrutiny. Most of the stories of the women in this study point to the women's early affinity for religion a n d the church. Several, if not all, make a point of how significant the church was f o r them, even as little child r e n . Marsha tells us that even as a child she felt that God was the Father she had never had. Amy says she had "always felt a strong sense of commitment to God and to being a Christian. I do not r e m e m b e r a time when I did not believe in God as a child. It was a growing into faith." Flannery's story is similar: "I was very taken with the whole d r a m a of the Christian faith. We lived down the street f r o m the church and I could go by myself. As I got older I would go to the Holy Week services. I loved it. T h r o u g h all that time I would describe myself as religious. I wanted to be a priest." Constance, too, "espe-

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dally, more than my brother and sister, became very interested in the church. I enjoyed going, I enjoyed the people, I enjoyed the activities." These sentiments are expressed in nearly all the stories. Not only is it clear that the church was significant in the early lives of these women who eventually became ordained ministers, but this ingredient of the "calling into ministry" narrative is also important—not only in how the women perceive and recall their early years, but also in terms of how the listener perceives the speaker. They are and always have been religious women. While most of them would never use the language of a dramatic "call to preach," largely because that is not the accepted language or perception of the call appropriate in these contexts, several of the stories might, in fact, be considered quite dramatic. In addition to Linda's voices in the night story, several of the accounts are also quite striking in their similarity. Amy's emotional rendering of the "feed my sheep" story has become for her a clear "call" from God for her to commit her life to Christian ministry, even though she did not act on that call immediately. Maria's story about the same passage and the same directive from God is equally dramatic and poignant. Most of the women resisted the initial idea of the ordained ministry as a profession for them for several reasons. While they often recount a significant event that, looking back, they now might recognize as "the call," the move was a slowly evolving one for them and their resistance and questioning becomes an integral component of the narrative itself. An idea was set in motion, a seed was sown, and for a long time, sometimes years, the idea percolated until, finally, something happened that nudged them into seminary and toward a commitment to the ordained ministry as a profession. Friends hinted; they received newspaper accounts about the irregularly ordained women in the Episcopal church; someone sent a book on the subject of the ordination of women. They found themselves "doing ministerial work," found they liked it, and discovered they relished the idea of "being it," not just watching others from the sidelines. Initially, as they pondered the feasibility of this idea, they mulled over the difficulties inherent in the proposition. They pointed to the lack of female models, and most of their stories include this as a thread that binds them together. They and the people around them—family, friends, and even clergy—often put the notion into a larger socio-religious context and concluded that it was an unlikely choice, given the dearth of women in that position. Amy, who steadfastly claims she has met with no resistance in her career, from family or from the denomination, nevertheless reports that her first response to the question, "Have you ever thought about the ministry?"

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was "I just laughed. I said, 'Well, no, of course not.' Again, there were no models." Some of the memories are not pleasant ones. Marsha's encounter with a sexist district superintendent who told h e r she was just "bloodying your head against a wall" still angers her. While she had simply accepted h e r role as a clergywoman, she quickly learned that not everyone would share her enthusiasm. T h e women's resistance often takes the f o r m of "testing" God to see if the "call" is real. Linda's response to the voice in the night was to present "this big long list of reasons why it was impossible that God was intending me to go into the ministry." Not only is h e r faith buoyed and her reluctance dispelled when one after the other of h e r "tests" are met with encouragement, her account of "saying something" to someone in the final test of observing their reaction is now recognizable as an expected component of the genre. Amy's associate pastor mentions the ministry to Amy before she has focused on it as a personal choice; Linda's student pastor is not nonplussed with her bold "I'm thinking about going into the ministry" and responds, "I was wondering when you were going to get a r o u n d to deciding that." Recognizing this as a motif of the narrative, we immediately note the similarity to Carter's account of testing God in a nearly identical fashion. She resolves to talk to her pastor about her decision, knowing his opposition to women in the ministry: " T h a t will cure me," she thought. "So, I'm waiting f o r him to scream, not looking at him. I look at him and he's smiling, in fact, he's starting to laugh: 'If you were a man, I would have asked you six months ago to consider holy orders . . . the only thing I can see is that you are supposed to be a priest.'" T h e s e encounters with other people, and in particular with people who hold the power and authority to decree their decisions valid and appropriate, have been crystalized as an important feature in the "calling into ministry" narratives of female clergy. Like the voice f r o m God that slays Pentecostal women, h e r e God speaks t h r o u g h the authority of these other h u m a n beings. T h e women's decisions are validated, authenticated, blessed, and approved in these obligatory segments of the narratives. By this point in most of the women's stories, they have begun to accept the possibility that their calling is authentic and that they ought to think about acting on it. It is, I think, highly significant that the final "test" of the call as authentic comes t h r o u g h other people, particularly other people who might serve as representatives of God. Amy's associate pastor, Linda's associate pastor, Maria's student pastor, Carter's priest, the priest that Flannery meets, the woman who barely knows Anne-Marie—these people become in some way spokespersons for God. It is t h r o u g h their voice(s) that the call becomes distinct

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a n d can be h e a r d by the w o m e n . C a r t e r summarizes t h e i m p o r t a n c e of this relational connection—this connection between people a n d G o d — w h e n she r e m a r k s : "Maybe I really did have a call to be an o r d a i n e d minister; maybe I h a d to p u r s u e it. I wasn't inventing it. It was coming from other people" (emphasis mine). O n o n e r a t h e r obvious level, the event as e x p e r i e n c e d by the w o m e n a n d the r e c o u n t i n g of the event as a r e c u r r i n g c o m p o n e n t of t h e "calling into t h e ministry" narrative serves to validate t h e woman's inclination. Someone else said it. She did n o t j u s t think it, o r think she felt a call f r o m God, o r fabricate the whole thing, o r speak o u t of line; s o m e o n e else saw it coming. S o m e o n e else, usually s o m e o n e with vested authority, recognized even before the woman herself did that this particular w o m a n o u g h t to p u r s u e t h e o r d a i n e d ministry. P e r h a p s m o r e i m p o r t a n t , however, this interactional, relational aspect of t h e women's stories holds o n e of t h e key aspects of this study, o n e that will be e x p l o r e d in various ways t h r o u g h o u t this book. In some ways, a n audible voice in the night would be as problematic f o r these w o m e n as it would be f o r their ordination boards. T h e y m i g h t suspect chicanery or question their own stability. It is, rather, the connection of other people who are connected to God that serves as a validation of t h e call as inspired by God a n d a p p r o p r i a t e . We h e a r echoes of Carol Gilligan's thesis in h e r g r o u n d - b r e a k i n g work, In a Different Voice, a n d lean toward trusting that this relational aspect of the women's lives a n d of their stories stems, in fact, f r o m their experiences as women. T h i s relational connection was not clear to m e until m u c h later in t h e project, when we h a d a long dialogue session about what the w o m e n felt was the message of their ministry; this will be discussed in d e p t h in a later chapter, b u t it serves to authenticate the significance of this message from God through other people. I a m v e n t u r i n g the hypothesis, too, that it is in this aspect of "relation" that t h e women's stories m e t o u r expectations better t h a n in those aspects that m i g h t outline personal relationships with spouses, p a r t n e r s , a n d c h i l d r e n — a s I h a d first expected t h e m to be expressed. T h e r e has been n o single c o m m o n e x p e r i e n c e of these w o m e n once they e n t e r e d seminary a n d later, as they sought e m p l o y m e n t as pastors of churches, a l t h o u g h their stories a b o u n d with segments of misogyny, discrimination, a n d sometimes unparalleled s u p p o r t . Most speak of seminary as a positive experience w h e r e their presence was acknowledged as somewhat u n u s u a l b u t in general accepted. For some the ordination of w o m e n was a critical issue in seminary; some certainly e n c o u n t e r e d p r e j u d i c e a n d bias f r o m the largely male faculty; others e n c o u n t e r e d only e n c o u r a g e m e n t a n d felt that seminary challenged t h e m in healthy ways. Many spoke of the i m p o r t a n c e of

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the seminary community; several met their spouses and partners at seminary; some are now married to clergymen—a situation that they all declare is difficult to maintain. Once they entered the j o b market, their experiences were likewise varied. Maria recalls realizing that she was not being called for interviews because she is a woman and because she is Hispanic. She had to get tough. Almost all acknowledge that because they are women they are more likely to get the small rural "charges," and many of them now serve or have served two or three "yoked" churches at the same time, traveling great distances every week and receiving extraordinarily low salaries. Many shared experiences of sharing charges with their clergy-husbands as co-pastors. All who experienced this situation have remarked that it took a toll on their marriage. Linda told of sharing a seven-church charge with her husband while their son was an infant. It was suggested that the husband become the "director" and that she take the three smaller churches, with the smaller paycheck. T h e i r next situation offered two "yoked" appointments, one with three churches, the other five. T h e y wanted Linda (who was nursing their three-month-old infant) to take the five-church charge, but they asked them to live within the three-church one. Amy echoed Linda's warning about the dangers of sharing a ministry with a spouse and related the u n f o r t u n a t e experiences she and h e r husband encountered when they did share one pastorate. While she currently holds a position that she feels is absolutely right f o r her, she acknowledges that the d o o r is not always open to women and that it is very difficult for congregations to change the way they feel about women in the pulpit. After leaving their shared ministry, she remarked: " O n e of the most heartbreaking things f o r me right now is that since we have left, their search committee has not even considered a woman. After [our] five years of ministry there. T h a t is painful. They had a good experience with me . . . [but] it is a very traditional community, very—." We need only recall Marsha's first encounter with a district superintendent to u n d e r s t a n d how painful some of their first experiences were, although she, too, has since f o u n d a h o m e as pastor of a small, rural Methodist church that has been generally supportive of h e r and of her ministry. Others, too, assert that employment opportunities have been primarily good, with only a few setbacks and disappointments. Yet the reader, I think, will share with this writer the sense that most of these women have been forced to take the smaller, rural, lower-paying positions. None of them hold the senior pastor position in a large congregation. T h e positive experiences described here seem slightly tinged with frustration in some cases and actual bitterness in others. None of their stories, I think,

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suggest that the position of women in the professional ministry today is a serious drawback for any of them personally; however, as their personal stories wind down into the present, into their current circumstances, they acknowledge that in many ways, the denominations have a long way to go before women clergy, in perception and reality, gain and maintain an equal footing with that of men. At the outset of this inquiry, I wondered whether the "call to ministry" narratives of mainline contemporary women clergy would parallel the more dramatic "call to preach" narratives of Pentecostal women. As I write this chapter and acknowledge the similarities between the stories of the women across such divergent religious denominations, it becomes clear that the connecting factor in these stories, the thread that runs f r o m one into the other, regardless of the variety of experiences and points of view, is the similarities of these women "as women in ministry." Like their Pentecostal sisters, the women in this study group feel an inclination toward this calling, resist it, deny it (sometimes), question it, test it, resist it for more time (sometimes), hear it expressed through the voice of another person, accept it and pursue it.2 While on the one hand the stories of these women are considerably different and offer few parallels at first reading, with scrutiny they nevertheless yield to a patterned perception of reality as it has been honed into acceptable narratives of calling. Within a sophisticated, literized community, the oral stories of the women serve to validate and authenticate their right to the pulpit in much the same way that the "call to preach" narratives serve the Pentecostal women who dare to act only on a call identified as f r o m God. T h e oral narratives expose this common thread that links the women to each other, to other people, and to God. It is this validation, along with a belief in connection and relationship, that crosses denominational boundaries and forms the cusp of their theological and spiritual integrity and unity. And it is here within this group as a model of women-church that the women, through unmitigated support for each other's calling and a shared conception of God in connection, have found the praxis for their religious beliefs. It is not nearly so easy to talk about an oral tradition existing among women in the mainline clergy world. When I began this study, and even as I talked with the participants, I believed that basically there were no female models for women who ventured into this world. I thought it fairly unlikely that an oral narrative tradition had evolved that would emerge as a recognizable and legitimate genre of the group. However, I must now reformulate my thinking on this matter. While the women themselves often decry the lack of female role models, and while they might not themselves be conscious of how often

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they had heard stories similar to their own within the contexts of the church, community, workshops, seminary, friends, and colleagues, I think it fair to say that there is, in fact, a narrative tradition here. Close examination of the women's stories reveals similarities, patterns, components, motifs, and language usages that argue for a shared rhetoric and aesthetic. Here, as with the Pentecostal women preachers, there is a legitimate, authentic "calling into ministry" narrative tradition. It may not be apparent at first glance, and those who share it may not even be aware of how they have internalized it, but the narrative is discernible and its components decipherable. "Overreading" their stories enables us to perceive shared experiences. We can trace the development of a narrative tradition embodying that experience and expose the distinctive elements within the narrative that illuminate the distinctive and definitive markers of an authenticated experience. Finally, "over-reading" the texts provides a means to discover the threads that bind this ecumenical group of women. Their stories yield a tapestry of individuality and community; the product of their industry reveals the strength of their shared belief in God in and through connection. Notes 1. "Charge" in this context refers to a church position as pastor; one might have o n e charge, two charges, or more. 2. For comparisons with Pentecostal women, see Elaine J. Lawless, Handmaidens of the Lord: Women Preachers and Traditional Religion and Lawless, "Rescripting Their Lives and Narratives: Spiritual Life Stories of Pentecostal Women Preachers."

Linda Stewart

Linda Stewart is a feisty young woman with short black hair, dark eyes, and a hearty laugh. She is exuberant in her manner and in her style of talking; her hands move and her eyes are expressive as she tells her stories of injustice and political dealings in the United Methodist church. Linda is the pastor of two "charges," one in a very small town, where she also lives, and another thirty winding, treacherous miles to the east across creeks that rise and far beyond the lights of any town. She is married to a clergyman who is an associate pastor of a large Methodist church in a much larger town that is also about thirty miles away. They have one son, who at this writing is four years old. For many months Linda has been trying to get pregnant again but has been unsuccessful. At the same time, she is also conscious of the difficulties of her situation—clergy-husband, two churches to pastor, and the problems of child care for her son. For this life story, I went to Linda's tiny office in the larger of her two small churches. There she took the time to show me some of her favorite scapulars and shared with me her favorite hymns, particularly those by Brian Wren. Linda, a music major in school, plays the piano and sings well. Often the most painful of her current position(s) is the lack of any really good music in the religious settings in which she works. Linda told me her story with the same aplomb I have observed when she speaks at the lunches. It was a delightful afternoon. I was born on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, outside of Dayton, Ohio. My dad was assigned there. He and my mother lived there on base housing, but her parents lived really very close by there. They met while they were both working. He was assigned on base while she was working on base. They met and married and stayed there until I was about nine months old. I was born in a blizzard, in March, in a barracks that was a temporary hospital while they were building a new one. They had everything else—this is typical, typical military stuff—they had everything in the hospital built and functional except maternity. Maternity was the only part that was still in the barracks. They had labor and waiting rooms and all this in one barracks and delivery in another. So when you got ready to deliver, they opened the doors of two barracks, running you very fast in between them, and hoped that the freezing cold did not stop labor. Anyway, we all survived.

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Life Stories Then we moved out to Edwards Air Force Base, in southern California, where the shuttle lands now. M y dad was an aeronautical engineer. We were there for four years. We did not move very much, which is not normal for Air Force, but because of his job, he had to be there for as long as whatever the project lasted. So we were there for four years, and my sister was born when I was two and a half. She has Down's syndrome, which has colored her life forever. She is not bad. Physically she is very good, is very healthy, has not had any of the trouble—Down's syndrome kids can be really sick. She didn't have any of the heart failure problems, you know, her heart is strong. We were very lucky, from that standpoint. W e moved from there, kind of over the mountains, into the LA basin. A little town of about 57,000 people. By LA terms, that's a little town. It was a suburb of LA, outside of the city but in the county, which meant w e did not have to go to LA city schools. Which I'm really glad for now. M y brother came when I was seven and my sister was five. He was a blueeyed, blond baby boy and everything was fine. We were there through the summer of '68. I fought my way through elementary school because of my sister. We would go to the park to play, and kids would harass her. I would beat them up. I was vicious, I really was. I got good—very g o o d — w i t h my fists. Then my dad was transferred back to Wright-Patterson. When w e moved, it looked as though w e would be in Ohio for two and a half, three years. He would then get a job right back where w e had been. You can't imagine what that does—to someone w h o has been raised in southern California and the LA area and in that life-style and all of a sudden to find themself in what feels like Siberia. We moved to an area that wasn't even incorporated, wasn't even a town at that point. It was a township. They called it rural suburbl They had harvested the last corn crop the October before that, on that land. They were selling out farms and making them into subdivisions. I spent the first year in my room. I was not coming out for anything. This was Hicksville for my mind. There were 680 in my graduating class, mind you, but for my psyche, I had been sent to Siberia and left. Knowing that w e were not going to be there for very long and the pain of moving and my o w n perception of the area, I didn't get very involved with folks, other than at the church. Then my father retired in 1971, along with every other aeronautical engineer w h o ever went through school. And they all retired in 1971. There were no jobs anywhere. It was nine months, I think, before he found a job—right there where w e were living! It was a complete revamping of the psyche. All of a sudden it was not "we're going back home where I bel o n g " — b u t "this is going to be home now." Hmm, somewhere in there—well, it was in eighth grade—I was an early developer. Physically. W h e n I was in sixth grade, I was practically 120 pounds.

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I was wearing a В cup bra—yes I In eighth grade I was at a skating party, a junior high skating party, supposedly. Only the skating rink had allowed high school kids to infiltrate. A friend of mine and I were being harassed. She had no breasts. I had monsters by this time, and they kept going. We were being harassed as we went around and around. A couple of the guys decided to find out whether mine were real or not by poking them as we went around. I think that was a turning point as far as my acceptance of myself, my willingness and ability to stand up for myself. The first time I was ever harassed was then and for something I had no control over. I look back on it now—it was the first time I was harassed over the same kind of thing my sister had been harassed about all her life. There wasn't anybody there to defend me. Somewhere in there, the message came through to me that if I wanted to be acceptable as a female, I was going to have to become the society's expectations rather than the semi-tomboy that I had been who did good in school, capable of various things. Something in my mind then also knew that I couldn't ever do that, that it was not who I was, that I would never be acceptable in that world. But this world was not acceptable either. So I fell into this midpoint. The other side of this is that my father is from the Tidewater region of Virginia, an area with old, old money. I knew how to be a "lady," in the sense of that era in that area. I could be in the D A R if I wanted to, okay? It goes back that far. So I knew how to be real manipulative—in that realm. I could get anyone to do anything I wanted, and I flirted. Oh, I was a good flirt. I could get from any male virtually anything that I needed. Now, the downside of being a military family is that the male head of household is gone a lot. The family that is left behind has to be able to do everything. You have to be able to fix the toilet if it overflows or to put the door back on or whatever. But when the male head of household returns, you have to develop instant amnesia about all these things. Because if he comes home and you are handling it all, then he doesn't feel that he has a part any more or belongs there. So I lived with this back and forth: I'm perfectly capable, except when there is a man around the house—then I'll "behave" myself. Well, what happened was that at the junior high, senior high turn, I realized that was the way to be if I expected to get along in the world. Probably in that three year period, from about sixth to ninth grade, I went through the transformation of "I am a full member of society and perfectly wonderful as I am" to "I really ought to be just an extension of whatever male is out there." I can remember the time—it was late in fifth grade—when I finally bowed to the pressure of teachers and quit writing "he or she" in my themes. We would have to write for school, write stories or whatever, and use, you know, the universal "he." I would not accept the universal "he." I can remember as a small child just refusing: "Why should you call somebody a he if you don't

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Life Stories know if it is a he or she; it might be a she and I don't want to be called he, as you know." I can remember fifth grade was when the teacher finally dangled an F in front of my face. Said, "If you don't stop it, and write the way you are supposed to write, 'stop it and be a good girl,' then I can flunk you." So, you know, I think that started the transformation. It just kept going. The return came in seminary. It took that long. The return came in seminary. I went to college, spent two years in Morehead, Kentucky. Very nice school. I was going for music education in the choral direction. Morehead is a wonderful school for music education in the instrumental direction and music performance in the choral or vocal. I transferred after two years. I transferred to Miami University. They are very good in instrumental performance and vocal education. So it worked out okay. I shifted majors a little b i t — w e n t from a vocal major, piano minor, to a piano major, vocal minor. It took three years and finally I got out of there. Morehead was an inexpensive school and very good in music. Very nearly half of the population of the school was black. Also, there is a large, reasonably well accepted gay community in Lexington, which was only a hour away, so there was a large gay community in Morehead—folks who didn't feel comfortable in the larger University of Kentucky, so they would go to Morehead from where, forty-five minutes or an hour and you're in the nightlife. A really interesting mixture of folk. I consider myself a child of the '60s. If I hadn't been so afraid of what my parents would have done, I probably would have run off to San Francisco. Kent State really did do something to me. I got more into things at Miami as an "anti-statement" to what was going on all around me. Also it's an easy place to disappear, especially if you're not really into the typical college scene. It's a really easy place to disappear. I was off campus and so I just kind of disappeared. Music, drama, and art majors tend to be a little odd. We were. But there is safety in oddness together. When we moved to Ohio, junior and senior high, church became our social life—you know, all of our social activities grew out of that. The church was the only place that really wouldn't let me hide. They discovered my musical ability—kind of pulled me out. They were very wonderful people as far as encouraging you to do whatever you could and not let a talent or ability just sit by. When I went to college, when I was in Kentucky, the United Methodist church down there really did not want to be bothered with the students coming to them. But the local Disciples of Christ church loved having the students and went out of their way to make the students feel welcome and cared for. So I was there for two years. It was a wonderful congregation—absolutely the embodiment of Christ's "I was hungry and you fed me." Most of the people in that congregation barely scraped by themselves, but eveiy single month they would take up a donation of clothing or appliances, if there was a need in the area, the town, for furniture, whatever it was. They scoured their own houses; they went knocking door-to-door.

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When I moved back to Ohio and went to Miami, I finally wound up in the United Methodist church there. They had such a wonderful pastor—the most shy human being I have ever met in my life, painfully shy. He would be out amongst the congregation before the service, connecting with people or whatever he needed to do and you could see the sweat was pouring, his hands were just wringing wet, and his face was beaded with sweat, and he would be real hunkered down, and he was a tiny little man, and he very nearly disappeared. He would wander around doing this and you could see him shaking. He went from person to person, doing what needed to be done. Then, he would go into his office, put on his robes, and he would come out and he was standing up, confident, ready to do what it was that God had called him to do—there was a complete and total transformation—-from when he walked into his office to the person who walked out again: the strength and the confidence of doing what he was called to do. And he was a phenomenal preacher, wonderful. In this huge, we are talking massive, congregation, there could easily be 400 or so people at each service, and students, you know, flowing out the back end of the church. The man had the ability to make it feel as though he came down out of the pulpit, sat down beside you, wrapped his arms around you and said, "we gotta talk," and that was the sermon style. It was like, "there is something that has been on my mind this week and we really need to talk about it." It really felt as though you were the only two people in the universe—to 450 peoplel It was universal; everyone felt it. Seminary, hmm, looking back, I can see that probably my whole life was leading up to it. The church always—I was always at church—just always there. When I was in elementary school, my parents were in the choir, which meant that every Thursday night, the choir brats, as w e called ourselves, were off in the three or four rooms of nursery and a big patio area. And the choir would have parties about every three months, and all the choir kids would come and have just a big zoo. It was a very creative congregation. Every year they would have a Music and Arts Festival. Painters, sculptors, and poets would have a display of things, and the choirs would prepare music, and people would form dioramas of famous paintings up on the stage, the chancel area of the sanctuary. W e were just always at the church. There was Bible school and after-school things. My call to ministry, when I finally became aware of it, is the kind of thing that you don't want to tell boards of ministry very much because they'll think you're crazy: "God spoke to me in the middle of the night." As I said, you don't tell too many people that because they think you are crazy. I sat up straight up in bed and looked over at my roommate who was sound asleep and snoring and went, "What?" [I heard] a voice as though it were another person there in the room. I could not tell you to this day whether it was male or female. It was just—it

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Life Stories wasn't audible. It was inside, but I could hear it. It asked if I had ever considered going into the ministry. I said, " n o " and it said, "Will you think about it?" I said, "Yeah, sure, right." A few nights later, the same thing: "Have you been thinking about it?" I said, "Nooo, actually, I thought the whole thing was a dream." It said, "What are you worried about? What are you concerned with?" So I started this big long list of reasons w h y it was impossible that God was intending me to go into the ministry. The first was that women do not go into the ministry—everyone I had known in the big academic robes with the felt d o w n the front (which is w h y I don't wear them) were men. The man, when I was in elementary school, was Doctor so-and-so, and you never saw him without either the robe, or a suit coat and tie, very imposing. And, so, women don't go into the ministry. Fine. Two days later, while my choir was rehearsing at the church, in walked the new Wesley Foundation director. Her name was Rose Henson. Within the next three weeks, I met four women in the ministryl I had never met one before I So I went, "Okay, you got me. One down." The next w a s — I don't have the moneyl My father paid for college, up to the bachelor's. H o w in the world do you expect me to go to seminary? You're talking a three year master's program here. The next night I was in the car taking home one of the little old women w h o was in the bell choir, and she is in Eastern Star. We are talking about Eastern Stars. She says, "You're kind of connected with the folks in church, aren't you?" I said that I knew some. And she says, "Well, the Eastern Star has a program and our unit does so well where we have a scholarship program for people w h o are intending to go into the ministry. We don't have anyone w h o has applied for the scholarship this year." (laughs, pauses] About three days later, I am talking to my parents on the phone and they are doing the "what are you going to do with the rest of your life" thing. It's the last semester before graduation, and I was having a terrible time with my student teaching. I'm hearing, "What are you going to do? Are you applying any place or anything?" The student teaching was going so badly that I didn't feel very good about it. Dad says, "Would it help if you got a master's?" I told him it could. "Well," he says, " w e could probably be talked into assisting you." A few nights later—what's next? I mean, this is over the course of weeks and months. Well, nobody goes into the ministry having been a music major. My major should have been something that would lead into i t — a speech major or an English major, something that would be useful. So I went back—it was probably a month later—I went to a gathering that happens every year at Wittenburg University in Springfield, Ohio. It's a Lutheran college and the event is sponsored by the Presbyterian church and people from all denominations go. It deals with worship and the arts and bringing a kind of unity: you have sacred dance going on and that's where I learned hand bells

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one year. I could not go to it that year for the whole week, but I went back

for one day and to the evening service. The theme that year, I don't even

remember what it was, but to make a long story short, in the course of that

day that I was on campus and wandering around with these people, I wound up in a workshop where pastors were being encouraged to become more involved in music. Two workshops, there was one for beginners and one for non-beginners, and I went into that one just to see if there was any way that

these two things could connect. There were eighteen people. Eighteen clergy

of about five different denominations. All of them had been music majors before they went into the ministry.

"God, one last thing," I said. "All right, here, you think this is such a good

idea. You have given me all of these possibilities. I am going to tell somebody

that this is going on in my head, that I am thinking about this. And if they

laugh, then I will know that it's nuts." So I went to the student pastor who

was at my parents' church back then. He was getting ready to graduate from seminary in Dayton. And w e were at the dinner theater—this whole bunch of high school folks and college folks, and I was one and he was one. We

were standing there in line for this dinner and he said, " H o w are things

going?" And I said, "Not too bad." He said, " H o w is student teaching?" And

I said, "Well, it's almost over." And he says, "What are you going to do with

the rest of your life?" I said, "I'm thinking about going into the ministry." He

says, "I was wondering when you were going to get around to deciding that." He had seen it for months.

So I was serious. I went in and talked to my pastor a few months later.

Well, he was new—he and I didn't see eye to eye. W e still don't. I went in to talk to him and he laughedl But by that time it was too late. The only thing

I had ever done around him was to lead the songs for Bible school. I believe that Bible school songs don't have to be drudgery—they don't have to be

awful, boring, horrible things. They don't necessarily all have to say God in

them. You can actually do some fun things. Part of what you're doing in Bible

school is learning to get along with one another and to have fun with one

another and to enjoy one another and it is a part of what you do in Bible school. So w e were doing things like "Do your ears hang low," (laughing)

"Little Rabbit Foo Foo," so this is all he had ever seen of me was at Bible

school. Eventually, he finally became pretty much of an advocate. I'm still not

sure if he was an advocate of me as much as allowing me to try.

I went to seminary. Well, I started January 2 of 1980. Mid-year. I never do

anything normally. Anyway, started in January, and the year was already part of the way through. All of the groups were already established, you know,

but the school only has 350 people, basically. So it is really hard to hide from

350 people when you are living on campus. I had two or three real good friends. I met my—[the man] who would be my husband—the second day I was there.

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Life Stories I w o u n d up in a class called Women's Ministry or Ministry with Women, something like that. It was taught by a w o m a n named Rosemary Hopeland. She taught this class and would spend an awful long time on inclusive language and women's issues. That school has a "women's issues, women's studies" focus and a "black studies" focus and a "peace with justice" focus. Wonderful school, Garrett Evangelical. It's in Evanston, on the Northwestern campus. They also have an evangelical focus now; I believe the school is beginning to lean a little more in the conservative direction rather than in peace and justice. But this professor kept saying—this was during my first full year there—kept saying that for most women, there comes a time, kind of like an incident, that will jar you back into a realization that there is oppression in the world and that women are oppressed and that w e need to stand up for ourselves and not give into the oppressive white male system. Keith and I were married in June of 1981 and in mid-August, the two of us and a couple—friends of ours w h o were serving churches close by—were invited along with everyone else to a pastors' appreciation banquet given by the Gideons International. Now, I had Gideons in my church—I was serving a church and Keith was serving a church—and I had Gideons in my church. I was, as the pastor of the church, invited to this dinner. I sent in my reservation as the pastor of the Pleasant Creek United Methodist church, saying that my spouse would attend. Keith sent his in as minister of Shady Grove United Methodist Church, saying that his spouse, Linda, would attend. We got there, his name tag was on the pastors' table; mine was on the wives' table—had a little print with butterflies on it and all kinds of neat little things. They sat us d o w n — w e were with a couple w h o spent the whole night trying to figure out what to say to me. They kept asking me about the house and housework and all. Well, w e were living in a house of Keith's church— mine didn't have a parsonage. Keith was resident there, I was driving, you know, commuting. Ninety-nine percent of whatever was going on, Keith was doing it—housework and cooking and all this kinds of stuff, because I was away and he was the one w h o was close by and so they would ask—trying to ask me questions about housework and all that. And h o w do you k e e p — whatever it is—clean? I said, "I don't know, Keith does it, ask him." They did not know what to say and she kept asking me, "Well, what do you do with your time all day, dear? " A n d I said, "The same thing your husband does with his time all day; I pastor a church. I do work in the office; I visit people, I go to the hospital." She says, "Well, h o w in the world do you do that and keep your house clean at the same time?" I said, "It's not my house." The whole night was like this—managed to make it through that part fairly well, but then the speakers started. Every single speaker, when they first got u p — a n d sprinkled through their speech—welcomed and showed their appreciation to these "Flnnne pastors and their pretty little wives." By the time the third person had said it for about

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the seventh time, I was steamed. I was roaring mad because it had taken me nearly twenty minutes when w e first got there to get a name tag that was mine and not—Mrs. Keith Stewart was the name that they had for me. So I walked back into seminary, like two or so weeks later. First, it took my friends and husband like three hours to get me down. I walked back into seminary and Rosemary was coming down the hall. I said: "Rosematy\" She said, "Oh, it happened, good. You're on our side now." She knew there would be something, [but, she said] "I just didn't realize it would come this soon." These finnne pastors and their pretty little wives! I was steamed, just steamed. It was that year that I finally began to come back in touch with the fact that I had been, basically, a feminist from the time I was born, and I had been culturized out of it, you know. So everyone kept saying, "You're changing, you're becoming one of theml" I said, "No, I'm reclaiming myself, is what I'm doing." I still think it would be easier not to be; I've had to put up with a lot of harassment. Do you know the song, "Sometimes I wish"? I'm trying to think of the words: "Sometimes I wish my eyes hadn't been opened"—is the upshot of it. "Sometimes I wish I could no longer see all the pain and the hurt and the suffering of my sisters and me as w e try to be free." It goes through a few verses, and says: "But now that I've seen with my eyes, I can't close them, because deep inside me, somewhere, I'd still know." Anyway, the upshot is that I've seen too much to go back. It would be easier, but I could not live with myself. I still carry a lot of anger at the system, at what those in power are able to do to those of us who do not have power. And in our church system, that is very strong. I was just sent to this church; it's a step down from where I was. While I was in seminary I had one church with 135 members, averaged 95 on Sunday morning. You need that perspective. As w e go into the rest of this. That was my student church. I was the pastor. In many people's terms, that was a large student appointment. They gained about fifteen people, and they now have a full-time person serving them. I served that church for two years. I got a new district superintendent who did not want to be district superintendent. In the four years that man was there, I left that conference, two women did not even finish seminary, and one who was a probationer was denied full membership and is now a nurse in Fort Wayne. Of the five women who had been full time at the time, one of them took a leave of absence, just to be able to get out from under him, and one got divorced; the man just wreaked havoc. He started telling lies in cabinet meetings about what was going on in my churches. Membership was up, attendance was up, apportionment payment was up, and he went in there telling them that I was tearing the church apart, that there were people who were not coming back, and on and on. They wound up nearly running me out of it before the year was over. Apparently, whatever he had said was so bad—one of my seminary professors was from

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Life Stories that conference—that my seminaiy professor in the executive session got up and refuted them. Said, "I have been hearing these things and I w a n t you to k n o w the truth about this person. She is leaving this conference but I don't w a n t her leaving with you people thinking this." When I was first considering ordained ministry, my district superintendent came out to the first meeting of my Pastor-Parish Relations Committee. All they were supposed to do at it was talk to me about w h a t I'm feeling and give their approval for me to pursue the ministry. Basically say, "Okay, w e think there is a possibility here." It is not supposed to be a heavy meeting at all. No big problem here. The DS comes o u t — n o w , I'm a college senior; I'm dating no one; most of my best friends are gay; I've decided just about not to get married a n y w a y — t h i s man sits there and he says, "Well, this is an itinerant system and you have to move around a lot. Now, w h e n you get married, what do you intend to do about your husband?" I said, "I'm not even dating. If I were to get married that w o u l d be a part of w h o I am w h e n w e were dating. That person w o u l d need to k n o w what's involved w i t h that. I wouldn't get married to someone w h o couldn't in some w a y adjust or deal with it." I asked my minister later: "Was that an appropriate question?" No, he didn't feel like it was. W h e n I was up for deacon's orders, that same district superintendent in the board of ordained ministry was arguing against ordaining me because I was married by that time to someone in another conference and he says, "She's just going to be leaving us, anyway, following after her husband, so w h y should w e ordain her?" Again, it was my minister there w h o stood up and said, "Excuse me, w e don't ordain people to this conference. We ordain them to the United Methodist Church. Theoretically, you and I could pick up and go someplace else. This should not be a part of whether or not w e ordain this person." We came here because I had gone to a Clergywomen's Consultation in 1983 in N e w Mexico and met some people. We have national ones eveiy four years. And while there, w e were put in small groups—fifteen, twenty people in my small group. We exchanged names, numbers, and all of that kind of thing, and w h e n people came to realize that w e were getting the shaft, the district superintendent recommended that I not be appointed, obviously. Since he was my district superintendent, the w a y they work over there none of the others could say, "But I have a church I w o u l d like to have her in." So they called Keith and me together. First, they recommended that Keith serve in Plymouth, which was near South Bend, and I said, "Well, w h a t do you propose I do if I'm not appointed?" They said, "Well, there are a lot of big churches up there, I'm sure they could use some secretarial help, and there are a lot of people up there w h o could find you some work in some of the factories around or Wal-Mart and K-Mart are always needing checkers." / kid you not, they said thisi So w e w e n t home and started calling around, everybody w e knew. An-

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nual conference w a s already locked in. I mean this w a s three weeks before annual conference. You don't appoint a clergy couple three weeks before annual conference. This w a s on a Thursday that they were telling us all this stuff. I got home on Friday and w e just started calling everybody. O n e of the men, the only man w h o w a s on that list from our small group, w a s a district superintendent from this area, and w a s the cabinet representative. H e said, no, he didn't have anything, but he would keep us in mind if they had two places open up close by or whatever. That w a s on Friday. O n Sunday afternoon, he got a call from a man w h o had been serving with the help of two part-time p e o p l e — a seven church parish, up o n the Iowa border. Both of the part-time people had left. O n e of them had a nervous breakdown and w a s gone, and I don't remember what happened to the other one. Since March he had been serving these seven churches, atone. Sunday afternoon he called the district superintendent and said, "Get me out of here, I can't take it." It w a s the same superintendent. By that Friday w e were letting them know, and on M o n d a y w e were looking at the house w e were going to be moving into. A n d went to annual conference. W e moved like two weeks later, it w a s nuts. W e came in here to serve these seven churches and what w e found out after w e got here was that the superintendent had had a battle with the bishop because the bishop said, "Well, w h o is going to be director w h e n y o u have seven churches in a parish? There has to be a director." The bishop then said, "Well, the man has been out of seminary for a year longer than the w o m a n has, so we'll make him the director." A n d the district superintendent said, "Yes, but she has done two years worth of work in seminary o n rural parishes. In fact, writing a final paper o n rural parishes, relating to all of this stuff. A n d the church she w a s serving in Indiana w a s a part of rural parish. So she not only has the academic knowledge but has the experience in it. Keith has been serving great big churches and as the associate. If anyone should be director, it's her." The bishop freaks, decides to make us co-pastors, makes us exactly e q u a l — a n d then puts Keith's name first every time that he lists whatever happens. But he did not have the word "director" behind his name. In the bishop's mind, he did, but in actuality and in all of the records, he doesn't. So w e moved into seven churches; this is all within about four weeks. I graduated from seminary, you know, closing d o w n all that stuff; finished my CPE working in a hospital as a chaplain, a kind of an internist thing; left my church under a cloud; left the conference in which w e had already put d o w n roots and friends—because w e thought w e were going to be there, y o u know. W e just shut d o w n all this stuff, all at once—all of a sudden I found myself out in the middle of nowhere. It took me three weeks before I w o u l d come out of the house other than to do Sunday morning. I literally sat around and cried, just could not deal with

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Life Stories all of this stuff, especially the betrayal, because one of the things that happened at the annual conference in Indiana, which met the week right after this one, was that the clergywomen in Indiana got together and were angiy.

They wrote this letter to the bishop, telling him what they thought about what had happened. They got it all done and written and ready to go. They

looked it over and stood there a minute, put the pen down and said, " W e

can't do itl" None of the rest of them did, either. The whole thing just fell

apart. So I've got the betrayal by the district superintendent and by the

women, who I thought I could depend on, leaving us out in the lurch. The

only good thing in the move was that the man gave me a wonderful, glowing recommendation. He saw it as his way of getting me out so he didn't have to deal with it.

In our fourth year the conference was having trouble finding people for all

the places. W e were scheduled to go to the Netherlands with friends from

seminary. W e had as much of a guarantee as you can in the United Methodist

system that they were not intending to move us. The superintendent said it over and over, "You are not moving; I am not losing you for this district. I have

no one to go into this situation, and I do not want to have to do all of the reshifting and reshuffling that would have to be done." So w e left. W e were

gone for three weeks and got back into the country on Wednesday night.

W e got back to Memphis on Thursday afternoon. Our secretary is standing

there saying, "The district superintendent wants to see you in the morning." In the morning w e go in and he says, " W e have this place [we're going to

send you]. W e were planning on this place for Keith, and there is this woman

that is coming into the churches where you are. Everything fell apart and so

you all are moving." Two weeks' notice.

The following Tuesday was the beginning of annual conference. The fol-

lowing Sunday morning, get this, we've been gone for three weeks. W e had

a four-and-a-half-month-old son at this time. Keith and I and the infant are back in the countiy, in church for the first time in weeks. Everyone is super-

glad to see us, and w e can't say anything until after the meeting that night

about the move. Here w e are knowing this is the second to the last time that w e will ever see these people, and w e are supposed to be happy and excited.

That district superintendent and I never did get along. He is very, very in-

timidated. He is intimidated by strong women, and he is very, very intimi-

dated by competent and strong women. You get competent, strong women and the man freaks. They wanted to assign us—the two appointments they

had, one had three churches and one had five. They wanted me to take the five church one, but they wanted us to live at the three church one. And I

said, "Excuse me, but here is this child here, hmm, who is nursing and doesn't

want to eat. Nursing is his total subsistence at this point." And they are like,

"Well, w e could find a crib and put it at the house there and you could have

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him with you." I said, "You mean you want me to—you want this place to be his home but me have the second, larger, charge?" They answer, "Well, yes." Keith says, "what would be wrong with my going there and her going here?" "Well, nothing, nothing." So, instantaneously, it's changed. It turns out that the big fight with the bishop is because the three church one paid more than the five church one. But it had already been done by the time the bishop was told. So the bishop was very uncomfortable while we were there, becauseyou know it does terrible things to a marriage when the woman is paid more than the man is. Yes, the fragile male ego can't deal with it. A man said that in a cabinet meeting, that the bishop had said that regarding clergy couples: that whenever they get ready to appoint clergy couples to be sure that the man of the couple is at the higher salary, because we don't want to damage the fragile egos. The male ego is veiy fragile, and you just don't want to damage it, and the whole marriage could fall apart if she is making more than he is. So we suffered through there for two years. It has nothing to do with the amount of money, but the marriage almost didn't survive. Not because of the amount of money but because of the workload and the craziness of the situation. Keith's office was twenty miles away, his churches then scattered out from there. On Sunday morning, by the time I finished with my three churches, I would have gone 39 and a half miles. When Keith left at 7:00 in the morning, by the time he got back anywhere from 1:00 to 4:30 in the afternoon, he would have gone from 95 to 140 miles, depending on where he needed to go and what was going on, and that was just Sunday. We were not in a town at all. We were just in the country. We were nine miles from the nearest town; we were seven miles across the river from Illinois, and the fiasco of trying to arrange for child care and sitting was just unbelievable. The only kids w h o were available for child care were twelve- or thirteen-yearolds who obviously don't drive and beyond that, only one of them, well, there were two girls that I trusted, w h o really were very good—in fact, better than some of the seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds. But you know, I never felt really good. We did have a wonderful sitter for daytime Monday through Friday, a wonderful woman, not licensed, overworked, underpaid, but really a very wonderful situation there. But by the time you juggle all of this stuff, it was nuts. So we asked to be moved this time. The members and I had gotten into a lot of fights because at one of my churches we disagreed on many things. All of which I attribute to the fact that I am female and they can't deal with it. They never fought me about my preaching or my administration. What they complained about was my housekeeping! (laughs) And my DS, a wonderful, compassionate soul, kept coming and telling me what I could do to keep house better, instead of saying that it had nothing to do with the way the church was run.

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Life Stories That's the tricky thing; no one ever came to visit me. No one ever came. I did catch a couple of the women one time, I came home and they were standing on the front porch, trying to look in the window. And my district superintendent took their side, you know, supported them in all of this and got his wife to give me some neat little housekeeping hints. His wife gave a talk to some pastors' wives, it's been four or five years now, but she was telling them how to survive life in the parish as a pastor's wife. One of her recommendations to them was, "Now, girls, I know that when you are going to do your housework, sometimes you get kind of warm. You might even want to wear shorts. That is fine, if you feel that you need to do that. But, please, by all means, be sure to keep a wraparound skirt near the door in case someone comes so that you can be presentable." And I said, "This is not the point at all." The point is not whether w e have magazines stacked up for three weeks or not. The point is not whether the child's toys are out in the living room or not. The point is that they are not able to deal with the fact that I am female and a pastor. So they are going to lay all of this stuff on me that has nothing to do with my abilities as pastor. W e were real glad to leave and [get] out from under him as a DS. W e have a new one down here who is very supportive of women in ministry and has been veiy strong as an advocate. He had better be, because he has a lot of us now. There are a lot of women in this district, there are four clergy couples in this district. It seems like the churches have a whole of a lot of expectations because they have so many needs. At one of my churches, they had a woman pastor before. She left after six years—a woman who was a phenomenal preacher, very evangelistic, and coming out of that background. But I think the other church is having more trouble with the fact I'm female. The different conferences have real different outlooks on what it takes to support a pastor, how hard to push, how much to ask for—whatever. My other church is way out in the country. It is a terrible road getting out there. A twisty, windy—it's not very far, but it is such terrible road. I asked them, "how often do you cancel for winter?" They said, " w e hardly ever cancel for winter." I said, "what do you do, send a snowmobile out for the pastor?" I want to tuck in an idea about being pregnant in robes. When w e were up north, we were very involved with the ecumenical, the administerial association, up there. Our son came in December, so when it came time of the annual Thanksgiving program service together, and it had been on the books for two years that it was the particular one that I was going to preach and it was going to be held in the Catholic churchl And the priest who was there had been fine with the fact that there would be a woman preaching from there. I mean I wasn't going to give sacraments out, but I was going to preach from the pulpit and he had no problem with that. It was in the middle of the beginning of the farm crisis. It just so happened that the BBC was in the area

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doing programming for a special they were doing on the American farm crisis. They w o u n d up filming our community Thanksgiving service—the BBC—as a part of " H o w are the communities pulling together?" And here is this very pregnant United Methodist elder preaching in a Catholic church I (laughing) It was so much fun. The priest was just rolling in the aisles, laughing. Apparently, he had asked his bishop, y o u know, w h a t his bishop thought about it before the pregnancy part, and the bishop said, you know, basically as long as there is not any sacrament involved, it w o u l d be an ecumenical thing to do. He said, "Just don't tell me w h e n it is happening," he says, "as long as I don't k n o w w h e n it happens, tell me w h e n it is over." That priest said he never did have the heart to tell the guy I was eight and a half months pregnantl There were some of the folks out there w h o saw it [on television]. They did send a copy back and they showed—you know, I'm in an alb—you can hardly tell, but it was pretty funny.

Maria Rodrlegas

Maria Rodriegas is a quiet, dark woman with broad shoulders and a definitive walk. Her mixed ethnic heritage is evident in her face and her rich black hair. She speaks gently, but with a reserve that speaks of centuries of strength and spiritual power, though she is one of the youngest of the ministers in the women's group. She went to Brite Divinity School in Texas and tells of the difficulties of getting a pastor's position anywhere because of her surname and the fears and prejudices that accompany people's perceptions of that. Maria is currently the pastor of two small charges: one in a tiny midwestern town and the other not far away, down several paved and not-so-paved roads out in the country. She has done well with these congregations, but when I visited her in March 1989, I had the distinct feeling that her congregations probably did not really know her at all. She has the ability to have several lives and present only parts of herself in each. At the lunches and in our dialogue sessions, I felt that I came to know her much better and felt fortunate indeed to learn more about her and have her share parts of herself which always captured us with their imagination and creative energy. I visited with Maria in her office at her "town" church during office hours in March 1989. T h e hollow sounds from the empty sanctuary carried over into her small office. I was born and raised in the Midwest. I generally say I am the fourth of five children. I do that because I learned to look at family place as part of who you are. I am my father's oldest child, however, because my mother was married before. The first three children are from that previous marriage. So I am second to the youngest and the oldest, then. I think that really reflects on who I am. I come from a relatively poor family. My father is Hispanic and my mother is Irish, German, and Dutch. She is from a poor family, uneducated in terms of her father's background. She left and married at the age of seventeen, just to get out of the house. She married a Native American who was physically abusive to her. She left that situation when her life was threatened, and then met and married my father. I was actually about two years old when they married. I think, from what my mom says, my dad was sort of a knight in shining armor. Like he showed up about Christmas time, Mom did not have

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anything for the three kids, and my dad showed up one night w i t h the tree and ornaments and presents and everything. He sort of swept her off her feet, I think. M y dad worked construction w h e n I was young, so he was out of t o w n a lot all during the week—sometimes he w o u l d get home on Saturday afternoon and leave on Sunday night. So I really don't have a lot of childhood memories w i t h my dad. And my father is an alcoholic and was drunk most of those years. So I really didn't have a relationship w i t h him, and really, just since my graduation from college have w e developed a strong bond. That is partially because, at some level, I have always been his little girl. Even w h e n he was drinking to excess, I could say things to him that the others couldn't. I was the first one in the family w h o used the term alcoholic to him. I think I am the oldest child in that respect, but I may be the youngest because I could get away with it. I am a co-dependent, and I have that personality. That plays itself out in a number of ways, in my relationships and in my work in the church. I was raised in the Roman Catholic church. I w e n t to Catholic school, was, you know, baptized, first communion, confirmation, and the whole bit. Then for financial reasons my parents transferred us into the public schools. Fifth grade was my first year in the public schools. That was devastating because in the Catholic church, really, at that point, in the parish I was in, the church made a point of expressing that if you get into heaven, you are Catholic, and if y o u are not Catholic then you don't get in. So to go to school w i t h those heathens—that was really w h a t it was like. Also because the neighborhood I grew up in was a rough one, and w e always had had little spats w i t h the public school kids w h e n w e were Catholic, so it was hard to suddenly have to go to school w i t h them, to find your friends in that group of kids you had been used to fighting with. The first year was really hard. The Catholic school is veiy stringent, and y o u stood up to talk, you did not walk in front of a nun or a priest, you always passed behind them, you still said excuse me w h e n the priest walked into the room, all the students stood up, you don't forget those things. I w o u l d do those things in the public school, and my teacher decided he liked it and the other kids did notl So I had to sort of fight my w a y home a few times—because of that. I was lucky that I had older brothers and sisters. But things finally got settled down, and it turned out to be a good move, I think, in the end. We left the Catholic church w h e n I was 14. M y older brother had fathered a child, and my dad being the macho man he is said, "If you were man enough to do that, you will be man enough to many her." So he got married w h e n he was 16. He married this girl and their baby died at five months old of crib death. He had not been baptized and the priest refused to bury him, or to allow the priests in our parish to bury him. (Although I don't k n o w specifically if that's w h y they refused to do the funeral.) So w e left the church

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Life Stories in really—sort of in a painful situation. It is the only time I have seen my dad ciy. It was the night after the priest left the house and my dad kicked him out and it was really hard because we had holy water in the house and we were CatholicI When Dad kicked the priest out of the house that was—well, you just did not do that. He sat us down and said he was not going to go back to church and we could do what we wanted, but he would hope that we would not go back there. Being a typical teenager, I saw that as I did not have to go to catechism on Saturday anymore. So we all agreed pretly much. In terms of my adolescence—because I think every adolescent needs a group or some organization which provides stability and support—the community center became my church. It was the neighborhood center that reached out to the kids w h o were generally low income level. The director of the center sort of took me under her wing and taught me things and was very supportive. I give her a great deal of credit for w h o I am today—her sense of commitment to the center. So, for me, that was my church—the community. So I did not go to church at all from 14 until when I was in college. Then during college sort of going through an identity crisis of w h o am I. Part of the question for me was who am I in relationship with God. I started looking again for church ties—really sort of went about it very methodically. I was a math major and I tend to do things like an algebra problem. So that was really how I looked for church, also. I am the only one in my family to have graduated from college, although my younger brother, after ten years of working on it, finally made it this summer. So I was the first one to go off to school. M y older sister had married when she was as young as my brother, and my other sister just always worked at a hospital at sort of at minimum wage type work. So there was a lot of family hope in my going on to college and becoming the one who succeeds for all of them. They were real happy that I was going to be in math, because you use math in the business world, you use math everywhere and you can go a long way. So I was a math major and did well in that, until my senior year, when I decided I was going to go to seminary. That was really hard for my family to hear. Both because that was very definitely a break from—well, we had left the church but we had never asked for our names to be taken off the record. So that was very clearly the break. I was going to go to the Christian ChurchDisciples of Christ seminary, too. I guess I need to back up and say how I did this. Really what I did was I visited the churches that were in the town where I was going to college. And I would visit them for about two or three months, knowing that if I liked them that I would keep going and if I didn't, then I would not. I treated it like a math problem. Sometimes you have to try more

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than once before you get it right. So I was very methodical about that; I would generally ask them for reading material about their denomination and about their church, question church members and the pastor about different things, and get a feel for things. My junior year of college I arrived at the decision that my baptism by sprinkling was incorrect. I was sort of a literalist at that point in my theological self. I felt like I needed to choose to be baptized by immersion. For me the choice and the immersion were important things at that point. So I felt the need to do that as soon as possible, but I had not found a church that I was happy with. A friend of mine was in the Independent Christian church (there was not one in the town where we were living but there was one sixty miles away) where she grew up. She said she thought her minister would baptize me without baptizing me into the church. So she talked to her mom and her mom talked to the minister and we set up a weekend when I would go down and talk to him and all. I did and he said he would baptize me into the Universal Church of Christ, and I could be immersed that way and would not technically be a member of the church. So I was happy with that and did it. The name of the church was First Christian, but it was independent; they are not part of Christian Church, Disciples of Christ. When I was home one weekend, I looked into the phonebook for a church and found First Christian church. The people were very friendly and greeted me, and so whenever I was home I would go to that church. I liked it so I started making it a point of being home more often. I went to college just sixty miles away, so it wasn't a great task to get home on the weekend. They did not have doctrines that you had to profess in order to be part of the membership or to take communion, yet the lack of doctrines did not mean that you were free to do anything. It was sort of a tension there that I liked, so I joined and it turned out to be a good move for me. The ministers at that time were co-pastors, a married couple team who were just a few years older than I am. They turned out to be sort of mentors as well as very good friends to me. My brother at this time, my younger brother, had decided to be Mormon. My mother's side of the family is Mormon, although she was not raised that way but was Methodist. After she married, her family joined the Mormon church. My brother decided to become Mormon, and then when he graduated from high school he went on a mission to Venezuela at the time I joined the First Christian church. That is what I think is for me the core of ministry: I was envious of him doing missionary work. I felt like it was something I wanted to do. At the same time, I did not care for the way that the Mormon church was with doctrines or missionary practices. Their sense of missionary work is conversion. They don't do anything in terms of people, where they are, at all. But yet, I was beginning to think, maybe I would like to do some missionary work when I graduated.

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Life Stories I was student teaching then and learning that I really did not want to teach; it was not the place for me. I had applied for graduate school and had been accepted into a couple of good schools and been offered a teaching assistantship at one of those. So I was kind of thinking that I would do that, but at the same time feeling a little bit of dissatisfaction with that decision. So I began talking to my pastor friends a little bit about missionary work. A friend of theirs happened to be coming to visit them who had been a fraternal worker in that church. A.F.W. is one of the types of missionaries that we would send to another country. He had been in the Philippines for two years and so I visited with him and I continued to have this discussion with Bob and Ruth about maybe I ought to do it. I said I could teach in another country, and they said yes, but if you don't like teaching in English, you are not going to want to teach in a foreign language. They felt like maybe I ought to give seminary a try, that it would give me a little more grounding in the Disciples church and that it would help me to gain a sense of my spiritual self and then if I decided some time later to do missionary work, I would be better equipped for that. So I took their advice. I said, I like these folks, I'll do that. I applied to seminary and was accepted in Brite Divinity School and was offered a full tuition scholarship because I am Hispanic and all minorities at Brite have full tuition. All Disciples have three quarter tuition scholarships and most Disciples get a little bit extra, too. They have a very good endowment program. It is at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. After I was accepted, I called my folks to tell them I had done it. I had not told them at all that I was even thinking about it. As far as they knew, I was going to take the teaching assistantship. They were really disappointed, I think, and a little bit hurt. One, they saw me turning my back on them and my lucrative future, and also Texas was a lot further away than I had ever been. That was not something they were really looking forward to. At that point, my dad was really at his worst in his drinking, to the point where most of us were not going by the house at all because we did not want to deal with it. My mom really wanted me to come home for the summer before I went to Texas, and I said, "I can't. Dad is too destructive. I cannot be there. I don't want to spend my last summer before school in that type of situation." That was sort of the straw that broke the camel's back for my mom. So my mom said to my dad, "You are driving all the kids away and that is hurting me and I am not going to take it anymore. Either the liquor goes, or I go." He quit the week before my graduation, and he has not had a drop since. It will be ten years this May that he has been dry. He did not do any AA or any programs, so some of those underlying problems are still there. I think that is part of what has helped my dad and me to have a good relationship, though; I think at some level, maybe initially, he was not happy with my being part of his having to give drinking up. Now I think he sort of

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appreciates that. I remember when it had just been a year, I gave him a call celebrating that. I was the only one; I mean my mom did not even notice it. I have been trying to think of what I can do—I need to do something special for ten years. I think w e both graduated ten years ago, so I am still toying with what to do for him. So I was home that summer; I had worked every summer in college at the neighborhood center as a recreation leader and I did that again, and the director always liked my going into ministry because she thought I should be a social worker; she could not understand me and this math thing at all. So for her, it was a step in the right direction. I went there until my mom loaded me up and drove me down to Texas, and I had to stay in the married student housing. I did not have a car so finding a job was next to an impossibility. I really wanted to get a job in a church as most seminarians do, but the bus system does not run on Sunday, so how are you supposed to get there? So in that respect, I was striking out in terms of finding work.

Seminary really challenges you in ways that you don't imagine in terms of your spirituality. It says, "Are you sure that story is true?" I think that if you never stopped to ask that question seriously about the stories in the Bible, and at that point in my life I had not, then it shakes your faith a bit. At some point maybe you wonder, can I take this? I was very homesick; it was the first time I had been a real distance from home and my older sister was just making it worse! She would call me up and say, "Carlotta,"—who I think was five at the time—"Carlotta started crying at the supper table tonight... 'why can't Aunt Maria be here?'" I have always been very active with my niece's life and still am. So she would do that all the time and make it worse for me. So I decided to leave seminary. I had run out of money and I could not find a job. I was really feeling shaken, at seminary. I went and talked to the dean of students, and he was pretty gracious about it and said there would not be a problem in terms of grants because I was leaving soon enough that they could be replaced and I would not have to pay them back. W e agreed I would think about it for a couple of weeks; in the meantime, one of the other students, who was my neighbor, had asked me—it was his turn to preach in chapel that week—he asked me to be worship leader. The scripture he was reading was the end of John when Jesus asks Peter three times, "Do you love me?" and Peter says, "Yes." And Jesus says, "Feed my sheep." I just about cried as I read that passage in chapel that day because I was struggling with that. The question I was struggling with was "Could I say yes?" I felt like I could not. So that was hard. At the same time, it was really funny because I read it with so much emotion, because it was a struggle that was going on with me; I had so much affirmation from the community about how well I read scripture! Really made them come alive! Then I decided—reading that gave me the strength to say, I can't say yes

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Ufe Stories right now. So I am not going to say yes halfheartedly. My folks were like, w e knew you would not make it, that is not what you were supposed to do, anyway. I went home. I was living with my parents and got a job at a bank downtown. I really did not do anything except go to church on Sunday and go to work and come home. I was in an incredible depression. I felt like I had let God down and I had not lived up to what I had been called to do. And at that same time, the chairperson of the elders at the church I was a part of committed suicide. That was really, really hard for me because he had been such an inspiration to me. My first Sunday back, he had come up and put his arm around me and said, "You need to know w e still love you." And then when he committed suicide, it was like, "God, if that man can't hold it together, h o w am I supposed to?" That was really hard for me. I think my parents started to get worried then, at that point, because I was becoming such a loner and not doing much. M o m started, just a couple of times, going to church with me and to a couple of women's events, I think as a w a y of encouraging me to go. And they started to be all purposeful about meeting my co-workers at the bank and inviting them over to dinner to tiy to break me out of this. Anyway, I came out of it and was all right. But there was a period when it was really tough for me. I did not like working at the bank, it was too easy, there was no challenge to it at all. I decided that maybe I would give teaching a try. A friend was teaching on an Indian reservation in South Dakota, and she said, "You need to come up here; w e need a math teacher and they are looking for one." So that fall I went and taught on an Indian reservation in South Dakota. In terms of getting on with the people I was at home there because the Native Americans tend to be passive in personality and I think my natural self is more passive. I don't like to be aggressive at all, and I think I have to push myself to be assertive sometimes. So I felt really at home, but again, I really did not want to teach. It just wasn't what I felt like I had to do. But I decided to make the most of my time there. I was taking a night course from the college I had gone to, because it was about thiny miles from the reservation and I took it—New Testament. They had gotten a new professor w h o happened to be Disciples of Christ and that turned out to be really good, because he really just pushed and challenged me hard. I think it was what I needed. He is the one w h o really introduced me to inclusive language and challenged me in a number of ways. That helped me to get to the point where I was ready to return to seminary. So I reapplied and I went again through our denomination, and they gave me just an incredible scholarship. To also help I had the full tuition from Brite; then my whole home congregation decided that they were going to come through in a big way and they did. Between all the money I would be getting, I would not have to work for the first few months anyway. Folks were really supportive.

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I went back and I decided I would go d o w n at the beginning of the summer so that I could get the first shot at working in a church. I got a job in a church that worked out real well. It was just north of Fort Worth. It was a Methodist church and was a good congregation in terms of learning. They were a little bit restrictive in terms of what they would let me do, partially because of the Methodist system and partially because they are conservative about women. They had hired me to do youth ministry and sort of allowed me to preach because the seminary required that I preach twice a year. W e started with five kids in the youth program and when I left two years later w e had twenty-five, so w e multiplied 500 percent, which was a good pull. Things just seemed to click then for me. I would say I was more determined about being there and I think stronger about my faith. I could stand to have it jolted a little bit. I ended up deciding that the truth of the stories did not matter. You know, it was good. Seminary turned out to be a good experience. I did it in three years at a time when Brite was beginning to develop their program into a four year program, but I felt like since I had postponed it for two years, I wanted to get out of there and get it over with. M y last year I worked in a meat processing plant, putting inventory on the computer. I worked in a glass booth that was about as big as this section here and sat in the middle of the processing floor, so that when they would take ingredients out of storage to mix them up they could drop the slip by and I would put it in the computer for inventory. So it was not hard work, just not glamorous. I did that because I did not want to be a youth minister my last year, I wanted to work in a small church as a pastor, but our field education director said, "I can't place you in a church right now. You are a w o m a n and you have a Hispanic name and there is not a small church around here that would look at you." I said, "Fine, it's my last year. I can pay the bills with my math degree." He just flat out told me that. So I graduated in 1985 and was ordained the following weekend, and then the next weekend was my parents' twenty-fifth anniversary, so it was three madcap weekends. I went back to Texas and hoped and waited for the search process to begin working. In our church denomination, you are not guaranteed placement. W e have a call system, and h o w that works is the churches w h o are looking for a minister call regional ministers, and ministers w h o are looking for churches talk to all the regional ministers and hope that they will match up. I was not really aggressive in that process because I had been involved with someone for about two years at that point and that person was not up on leaving Texas and I was not up on leaving alone. So I was not overly aggressive in the search process. For a w o m a n with a Hispanic surname the problem w a s — a g a i n I heard the same thing from the regional ministers, they would literally say, "With your Hispanic surname, I can't get your papers looked at because the church people don't know if you speak the language."

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Life Stories Finally, it took me a long time and I was to the point where I was ready to give up and Ifinallystarted to say to them, "butyou know I can speak English, tell them I can." It took me a while to get to that point of assertion. I was in the search process for two years before I was called to a church. I continued to work for a year then at the meat plant and the next year as a math teacher at a school in a Fort Worth area school district that was 95 percent black. I felt like I had a little ministry that way. It was—actually, in some ways more, it is hard to gauge that. But I had about decided to give up on ministry and I was not going to go on with the search process, but a friend of mine convinced me to hang in there and give it one last, strong push. So I did. By that point one of our regional ministers in the midwest was established a little bit better; he just decided he was going to champion my cause. I think partially because he wanted to claim that he had placed the first Hispanic minister in that region! He did. After two years, I had choices. I had two churches at once in Iowa w h o called me to interview and were promising. One was for an associate position and the other was a yoked ministry, serving two small rural churches as pastor. They called within a day of each other. I interviewed with both and both of them said they would like to continue the process further. At that point, I had to choose one, because once you enter into negotiations then the churches are not talking to anyone else and neither are you. I decided that I really wanted to be a pastor, that I did not want to do associate ministry, which was part of why it had been so long in the search process in the first place: I did not want to be an associate; I wanted to be a pastor! So, despite the fact that the first salary was larger, I interviewed with the other and went there. This is where my co-dependency comes in. This small church had gone through two splits in its history. The church had not had a full-time minister, and they were in financial trouble. The church was really small. When I interviewed, I was so naive. I believed that they wanted to do the work that it would take to grow, that they were committed. I believed that the ministers before me just had not been good enough—that I could save this church, (laughing) Co-dependency. I am the hero in my family, that has always been my role. I wanted to be the hero there, again. I was very naive. I quickly learned that. I had only been there about nine months and it became very clear to me that the church was going to close, and the only question was could it remain open long enough for me to have been there a reasonable amount of time to circulate my papers and get out or would it close while I was there. And did I want to help it go through that closing process? At the time, I did not realize that I was really depressed the summer of '88.1 realized that the church was closing, that there was no way I could save it, coming to terms with that. So, actually, I had two churches. M y salary was not very high. In fact, I just

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finished doing my taxes last week, and w h e n I got to that part after you do your deductions and all, w h e n I got to that part of taxable income, it was $1,530—was all the taxable income I had last year! That is w h y I am in such debt. So there were t w o churches. The other church looks a lot like this one I have here—small w o o d frame church. The other one (the one that closed) had been built in 1924, and at that point it was definitely going to close. By that fall, worship was dwindling; w e were d o w n to like nine people on Sunday morning. It was sort of depressing at one level, at another point it was not, because the nine that were coming were all w o m e n and w e started to, well, w e threw away the order of h o w the service was supposed to be, and w e started to do things much more loosely and freely. And the w o m e n started talking. Even though they were elders, had the titles, they had never served and they started to do some of that for each other in terms of communion and that sort of thing. Really a strong sense of spiritual commitment developed. I had to make a regional report, and I mailed a letter saying that I learned something I did not k n o w before and that was that you don't need a lot of people to have the spirit of God. We could only fill one p e w of that huge barn but w e could fill the room with this feeling for God. It was really powerful in that sense. But eventually w e had to call the region to talk about closing. So the region came down. They were going to have the regional staff members come and do the interviews—they have to interview present and past members. So in January and in February one of the associate regional ministers came back w i t h recommendations and shared all of the information that they had come up with. They recommended that w e close the physical ministry of the church, that w e use the money, then, in other ways. We had a huge service that day because the Methodist church across the street came. The minister and I had been good friends, and he asked that church to not have worship and to come to ours. That was really neat, and they had a good size church and had a choir and sang and all of that. We were packed and had to set up folding chairs for people. I was just afraid that people were going to get hit w i t h falling plaster and that w e were going to get sued the last Sunday, but fortunately that did not happen. It was really a tearful time. I tried to give a sermon on the resurrection I In January, I updated my papers and started the search for a n e w place. The search process this time out was a different story all together. I had so many responses, I don't think there w e r e — m a y b e I can count on one hand the number of days that I did not receive a letter from someone asking to look at my papers. Part of that is that once you have served a church they figure you can do it. The other part is that anytime I was asked to do anything at all on the regional level, I did it. So I was always being seen at district events doing things and that kind of helps. I made a lot of contacts that way. And the regional minister had decided that I handled the closing very well.

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Life Stories Whether w e like to admit it or not, our regional ministers are very powerful people when it comes to placement. He decided that whatever it was going to take, he was going to get me placed in a good setting. I interviewed with a number of churches and actually turned d o w n three. Part of it was knowing that I would have choices and part was saying that I was not going to be naive and go into another unhealthy situation. Also, I had decided that at some level, if the ministry was not right for me professionally, then maybe I could work at a secular job and minister in other ways. I had applied to the university for their computer grad program, and I really did not expect to get accepted because it had been ten years since I had been in the math program, and it was math and not computer science, but they accepted mel So I h a d — I was sort of taking control of me and not letting things drag on. When I moved in '87 I was pretty lonely for a while. I really do not do well living alone. I am used to living with a lot of people. Five kids and my two cousins, that is, seven kids, my parents, my grandfather. We always had a crowd. I just do not do well alone. The first house I was in was not fit to live in; it really was not. I could not use my microwave or my computer because the wiring would not support them, and the mice were really bad. One night I was so tired, I had had a meeting with a minister in town that did not go well and I came home and did some work and about 11 p.m. I went upstairs to go to bed and pulled back the blankets of my waterbed, and this mouse jumped out and it ran one way and I ran the other and before I had a chance to think about what I was doing, I called an elder and said, "There is a mouse in my bed and you have to get over here and help me." I did not even have a chance to think about h o w that sounded from this w o m a n to be calling an elder of the church at 11 at night claiming that there was a mouse in her bed! Then actually I sort of pushed the issue, the day the ceiling fell in in the kitchen. I went in and said, "I am moving this week with or without your help. I won't guarantee that it will be in this town unless you help me to move." So they moved the renters out of the parsonage and handed me the keys and I got some new carpet and they moved me in before the next weekend. I had to really push that issue. I think the church folks had blinders on about ministers, especially about single women ministers. This is sort of an example, but there was this family in the church I got very close to and I think maybe too close, now, because they are having a hard time with the new minister. But I would always go watch their son play baseball with them and their aunts, and you know they are an extended family that made up a third of the church and by their deciding that they loved me, that was very powerful. For me to have thatl But w e are at this game and Sally—Sally was my neighbor across the street and a member of this extended family and Sally loved to look at men. She appreciated that quite a bit. The young coach on the other team was really quite good looking and Sally leaned over me and said, "Barbara (another single

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woman at the game with us), did you see how good looking that other coach was?" As if to say, "I know you are a minister, Maria, so you of course do not notice those things." That kind of explains the mentality of how I was perceived. When I had my installation service at my current church, I asked the pastor to use the passage from John that I spoke of earlier, and I decided to respond to that sermon after the installation service before I gave my vows, just because I was so moved by the words he said; it was a positive response. Actually, you know, I turned three jobs down and then I interviewed here, and then another yoked setting came up. Within three days I visited each setting, then they both wanted to negotiate with me. I chose this one so I actually turned four down. It was good. It felt good to feel like I could do that. Not just because there weren't other churches; I had reached a point if there weren't any, that was going to be okay. I could go on anyway. But, it's never definitive when you visit, because churches really do put their best foot forward. I have learned a lot about these two churches that I did not know when I interviewed here. They have learned a lot about me. I am learning to be more assertive about getting what I want in the church. So I am starting to take the liberties of the robe, sort of putting on the clothing. There are things that I recognize as unhealthy. That's one of the things I really do better. I had been in therapy for a couple of years and was part of an adult children of alcoholics group, and I think when I was being co-dependent I could recognize that, in terms of relationship. But I really did not recognize that at all in terms of the church until I went through that ordeal with the closing of a church and I sort of stepped back and could see it better. Something important that I left out: about the same time we were closing the church, my brother attempted suicide—my older brother who had lost a son. Because his wife (not the one he married before, but another one) and his two daughters—his wife decided she wanted out of the marriage, and they both were addicted and had a history of drug and alcohol abuse. My brother really needed a lot of support then, and so I went back and did the whole hero thing and Mom called me. He tried to commit suicide on my birthday. Mom called me, saying, "We have a problem here, I am going to put your brother on to talk to you." So he talked to me about how he just wanted out, how he just did not want to wake up to this any more and all this. So I just went to town, made a few calls, and was on my way out of town before my mom could get home, because I had to get home to save himl So I did. I talked to my brother and to my parents. Mom had tried to get Jimmy an appointment with a counselor but they had a sixty-day waiting period. Well, I still knew a couple of folks in town from when I did a chaplain program there. I asked them to pull strings and they did, and so we got him an interview for Friday and that was Wednesday, the day that I got there. I agreed I would stay till Friday and take him to his interview. While he was

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Life Stories there, the counselor convinced him to check himself into a drug treatment program. I took him to check in. We went by to see Mom first and she said, "Maria, I know you will take care of it," and I did. That was really hard because part of the process was for him to list all of the drugs he had been using. (Many of which I had never heard ofl) So I checked him into it. About a week later they had family day, and Mom did not know if she could get off work and thought that I better go. So he called me and also his ten-year-old girl was with me, because I took her back with me because the wife had been taking things out on her when he was in bad shape. So my brother called me on Tuesday and said, "I need you to be here at 9 tomorrow for family day, can you be here?" It is a five-hour drive and I said I'd be there. But really, part of that was good for me, because in hearing all of those things then I started to get in touch with how I had really been co-dependent in the church. And that really helped me. So I think I am better at seeing an unhealthy situation. I hope I am better at recognizing when I am acting unhealthy with the church, when I am trying to be the savior or whatever. I think maybe I don't always catch it immediately, but I think that at some point I do catch it and say, "Wait a minute." That's what I hope.

Constance Colgate

Constance Colgate is in her early seventies, but you certainly would not guess her age by looking at her. She is a tall, white-haired, lovely woman, y o u n g at heart and in superb physical condition. She is an avid basketball fan, a lover of complicated jig-saw puzzles, and p r o u d of her independence. As her story reveals, Constance spent nearly a lifetime headed for ordination. Currently, she is "retired" but is very active; she still leads the vespers service at a local retirement center and performs weddings and preaches at funerals, and is a dedicated member of the women in ministry group. She owns and cares for her own home and is pleased to talk about all her grandchildren. She is well known and loved in the community. I visited with Constance in her lovely home on a short side-street, in a university town she loves. She was pleased to welcome me into her home and has been a faithful supporter of my project even though she says she is not close to some day-to-day concerns in the same way many of her "sisters in ministry" are. I have been extremely pleased that her story and that of Kathleen Miles-Wagner balance out this study in terms of generational perspectives on clergy. Constance's story is probably quite typical for women her age who sought the ministry earlier in their lives but f o u n d it not quite as accessible as women today might. I was born in Lakewood, Ohio, which is a suburb on the west side of Cleveland, on Lake Erie. The lake has always been important to me, partly because of being born where I was and partly because my father was the captain of a ship on the Great Lakes, so I often wonder how I managed to spend many years so far away from a big body of water. My mother was the daughter of Norwegian immigrants. They met in this country, came over here as adults. My father was out of Pennsylvania Dutch Amish background. He was one of ten children. His father apparently left home when the younger children were quite young. He never really knew his father until shortly before his father died. I had a sister who was born when I was not quite two years old and a brother who is five and a half years younger than I. Our life was really different in a lot of ways. Most of the year, Dad got home from the lake after Thanksgiving and he left again in, oh, March at the latest. So all the rest of the year

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Life Stories our mother was really the one who ran the family. It didn't mean that we didn't see our father, because we would go as a family to any port that he was coming into that was within a reasonable drive. And so our summers consisted of driving to the boat to see our father and then spending a month on the boat, with him, as a family, too. And it didn't seem really different to us because that's just the way our lives were, but it really was different. Our mother obviously was a woman w h o was very independent and was able to take care of us really well. I did not appreciate this of her until much later, and I will talk about that. But we grew up in the town, the city of Lakewood. A city of about 70,000—mostly residential, a very good school system. When there was just me as a baby, my mother moved back home to her parents when my dad left to go on the lake. But then after there were two more children, that wasn't feasible. It meant that we did spent quite a bit of time with our maternal grandparents because our mother sure needed a lot of support, you know, being responsible for three children and her husband out on the lake. My mother also had a woman w h o came in and helped with the laundry, ironing, and cleaning a couple days a week. This, I realize now, during the thirties, really Depression years, was fairly unusual. And then, of course, mother was very meticulous. Things had to be cleaned, and cleaned a certain way. I think my Norwegian grandmother was the same way, it was an inherited trait. My mother was a very good mother in a lot of ways. She was very particular about appearances and about how things were done and your responsibility. I realize as I look back that I got some very good basic training from her. Not, however, in some of what we would call now the homemaking characteristics. Because the only ironing I ever did before I was married was to sit at the electric iron and iron pillowcases, napkins, flat things. I had never ironed a man's shirt until I got married. I wish I had had a little more practice. And the only cooking I had done was to bake. I had learned to bake cakes and puddings, I was good at that; but when I married I had to learn about basic cooking. Anyhow, we had a happy home, our dad was sort of the wonderful knight in shining armor. He came home in the fall and we could hardly wait for him to get home—mother was so much happier. He did things with us. We would go Christmas shopping shortly after he got home, go and buy the Christmas tree. So Dad really didn't have to be a disciplinarian much or anything at all. He was a really special person in our lives. When I was a child, we went to several different churches, just basically to Sunday school with friends, in different places we had lived. But it wasn't until we moved back to what had been my grandparents' home when I was in the fourth grade that we really started to go regularly to the Lakewood Christian church. This was the church my mother had been baptized in when she was a teenager. She had never gone to another church. She was not really active, she went occasionally, but my sister and brother and I started to

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g o regularly to Sunday school. From then on, I especially, more than my brother and sister, became very interested in the church. I enjoyed going, I enjoyed the people, I enjoyed the activities. By the time I got to high school, there were a lot more evening activities and I became very, very interested and went to summertime programs sponsored by the church. Well, to g o back a little— W e had a very g o o d school system. Our high school w a s an excellent one, and w e were really encouraged to take what they called the academic curriculum track if w e thought w e were going to college, which I hoped to do. W e got a very g o o d background, and w h e n y o u consider that I graduated in 1937, which w a s still pretty much Depression years, even at that time 40 percent of our graduates went on to college, which w a s a pretty high percentage for a non-college community. W e had veiy g o o d encouragement in that area. The church had a w o m a n w h o was the director of Christian education. She came to the job first as a part-time secretary and Sunday school worker, then she became full-time Christian education director. I admired her. It looked to me that what she did would really be fun to do. W e laughed in later years w h e n I told her I used to think I really would like to do what Lucille does, imagine doing it and getting paid for it! I had a model there that w a s really interesting. A n d then our minister and his wife were very interested in y o u n g people in the church. They had no children themselves, and they spent a lot of energy being involved in the youth in the church. A n d of course, back then, there weren't all the other distractions. W e used to have really big youth programs, youth groups, youth activities—I k n o w that those things had a lot of influence on me. I chose Hiram College, which is a Disciples college. A n d I had been on the campus four summers for a week at a time at youth conferences, and I really fell in love with it. Hiram is very small college, about 400 students—a small town—there really is nothing there but the college. O n e grocery store, gas station, a post office, it's a very rural setting. M y first year there the fee for room, board, tuition, use of books, yearbooks, everything w a s S475I That's hard to believe in this day a n d age. I went there and really enjoyed the experience. M y father died near the end of my sophomore year, which w a s a terrible blow. He had appendicitis that should have been taken care of sooner, but he wanted to make the first trip of the season on the boat because that w a s always such an important trip. In 1939, which is w h e n that was, there wasn't even penicillin to fight infection. So he died in M a y at the end of my sophomore year. M y sister w a s just graduating from high school, and she had planned to g o to Michigan State but decided instead to stay in Cleveland and g o to business school. I went back to school in the fall and finished up there in 1941.1 had been very close to my minister and his wife, and w h e n my father died they indicated that they would like to be of help, financially, if I needed it. I talked to my mother and through them, I got a

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loan through the Ohio Christian Churches Organization. So I was able to get through college okay. And when I decided to go to seminary, the minister and his wife were helpful there, too, and I got a scholarship. They were very helpful, they were great to me. So after college, I went to the Chicago Theological College and really enjoyed that. I think it was the first time I was really challenged to study. I didn't study in high school, and I didn't really have to study in college. In seminary I had to study; it was another story. But living right on the midway of the University of Chicago after living in Hiram was very different. I met many people there that I liked very much, whom I kept in touch with through the years. I met my husband there. We both were dating other people and then in the spring both of those relationships had ended and we discovered each other. It was his last year, so it turned out to be my one and only year at the seminary. We became engaged, and he went off to Galesburg, Illinois, to one of the Congregational churches there, and I went home and got a job and earned some money to pay off the money I had borrowed to finish school. We were married in December of 1942. By then, of course, our country was very much into World War II. It was very difficult. We were worried all the time about friends, about how they were doing. Those who graduated in 1941, all the fellows in my class went right into the sen/ice. We got married at the end of December in '42, and I went to Galesburg as a new bride. But it was just one after the other, men of the church, going into the service. My husband began to realize that he really wanted to do something. The church people really hated for him to leave. Then the church people came to me and asked me if I would stay and be their pastor, which was really a surprise. I thought about it later, you know, I felt very good that they had that kind of confidence in me, but we didn't have any children then and I decided I wanted to go with him as long as I could. So we left there. He began his chaplain's training at Harvard Chaplain School in October, and was in training for a couple of months and in December he was sent on his first assignment in Kansas and I went with him, and I was with him on the different bases where he was stationed until 1946, when he got overseas orders and I went home. When he came back he had decided that he wanted to go to graduate school. I was pregnant and we ended up north of Boston. He enrolled at Boston University School of Theology. We were there for five years. Our two older children were born there. All the time, of course, I was working as a volunteer in the church. I was very much involved in what he was doing. He was serving as pastor to a small church while he was going to Boston University. I was involved with the women and Sunday school, and the vacation church school and all that kind of thing. After he finished his doctorate, he went to Chicago. It was 1951 and he wanted to teach, but the Korean War had started and colleges were cutting

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back. So he took a church in the inner city in Chicago, which w a s a real learning experience for both of us. Our third child was born there; w e were there for three years. I did quite a bit in the w o m e n ' s work in the Congregational church. I enjoyed that. A nice way for me to keep in touch with what w a s going on. W e moved in 1954 to Nebraska, where Herb w a s offered a teaching j o b at a small college. He was the chaplain o n campus and he taught. He w a s in the religion department. It w a s a very pretty, nice, small Congregational college. The first year w e lived in some temporary barracks housing, and the next year he became pastor at a small Congregational church in the town w e lived in and so w e lived in the parsonage. He did that for two years, and our fourth child was born there. The fourth year w e were there, he gave up the church and, well, he had decided to devote full time to his teaching. He wanted to do some writing. He gave up the church, and I was able to become the minister of a small church, about sixty miles west of where w e lived. There was my first experience as a pastor, in the pastoral world. I w a s licensed by the Congregational church. You have to (and that's United Church of Christ), y o u had to be licensed to serve communion in that church. So I w a s licensed. It w a s a crossroads church, out in the country. There w a s an abandoned school house across the road, and there were just miles of wheat fields, beautiful farmland all around. Such lovely people. It w a s a very small congregation and I would be surprised if it w a s still open now. But the people just didn't want to give up and g o into church in town. Like o n Easter Sunday, w e had 45 people there, so that gives y o u an idea. They were just wonderful to me, and it w a s such an enriching experience, from my point of view, because I really got a g o o d idea of the broad scope of ministry. The first week I had been there—and I just went out on S u n d a y s — I had been there one Sunday and the middle of the next week, I got a call from a funeral director that they needed me for a funeral for the son of some people w h o were in the congregation. The son w a s in his forties and had lived in California and had committed suicide. They were bringing him back there for burial and wanted me to do the funeral. I had never conducted a funeral! I said to my husband, " W h a t a m I going to d o ? " A n d he said, "You're their pastor, you're going to have the service." So I did. So I w a s initiated in a hurry into the various aspects of the ministry. People were very gracious and enjoyed having us in their homes. It w a s just a very nice experience, and I really regretted leaving there in August, w h e n w e were moving here to the midwest. W e moved to here in 1958 in the fall, and two of our children by then were still not in school and the others—Fran w a s in fourth grade and Katie w a s in seventh grade. W e visited the United church, since that w a s the church w e had been involved with for quite awhile. The Sunday school at the United church wasn't very big, and so it ended up with the children and I going to

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Life Stories the Christian church while my husband was out preaching just about every Sunday in some of the little churches around and was working as a faculty member at the Central School of Religion. The second year w e were here, I was approached by the First Christian church and asked if I would be interested in working part time as director of Christian education. They wanted someone on the staff to do that. So w e talked about it and w e decided that I would be willing to try. At that point I had one child at home, one in kindergarten, which means about two hours a day, one in fifth grade, and one in eighth grade, and so I thought that part time was about as much as I would want to deal with. The woman from across the street would keep the t w o young boys and so that worked out. I just worked afternoons at the church, mostly, recruiting teachers, working with curriculum, and setting up leadership training classes and doing all those sorts of things. I continued in this work for over nine years. Like any part-time position, you get more and more involved, and soon it becomes half time or three quarter time or whatever, and that was certainly true in this job. I enjoyed it all very much but there was a lot of frustration, too, because it seemed like I never had enough time to do what I wanted to at the church. I never had enough time to do what I wanted to for and with my family and with four children and a husband, you know, there is a lot going on! Then the longer you are around a church staff, the more people you are involved with and the more people you know then—and my ministry tends to be very people oriented— it can really get pretty hectic. In 1963 a new minister came. We got along very well. He was very aggressive in terms of wanting programs and things. So every year for several years w e put in the proposal to budget a full-time director of Christian education. Every year, w e didn't quite make the budget, so then w e would scrounge that back d o w n to part time again. And then, I began to think. What if they do get the money to pay me full time? What more will I do than I am now? (laughs) Which is really pretty funny. But I loved it, I really loved it all. At different times, I would think about maybe doing different things because, of course, finances were always something you had to think about, because the school of religion's salaries certainly weren't all that great. Mine was not all that great either. With four children, our expenses were horrendous. But I would think about other things, and I just could not think of anything that I really wanted to spend my time doing, other than the church. It seemed to me that the only reason I would be doing something else would be for more money, and it didn't seem like a good enough reason. So in 1968, I was approached by the Central Baptist church to come as minister of education and be in charge of opening a weekday early childhood program and be in charge of their educational program in the church. They had all these plans, so I thought about that for a little while and I finally

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decided that it w a s a really interesting challenge to be full time, and since I w a s already working full time anyhow. By then my daughter w a s married, my oldest son w a s in college, and it w a s just a different time in my life. I had been licensed by the Christian Church-Disciples and so could be called a minister of education. Anyhow, I w e n t to the Baptist church early in 1969 and I w a s there for 17 years. W e did begin a child development center in the fall of '69. It is still going, and it is a fine program and is a wonderful ministry for the church. It w a s a terrific job, too. The longer I w a s at the Baptist church, the more involved I became there. After my husband's death in 1976, the minister said to me, "I think it's time you were ordained. You have been doing everything that an ordained person does, and I think it is time." I said, "I agree, it is time." So I spent all the early months of '77, getting ready to be ordained, writing my papers and meeting with committees and so forth. I w a s ordained in November of '77, and it w a s a really a wonderful experience. I used some of the same hymns and prayers that my husband had used in his ordination in 1942, which w a s interesting. M y children and my mother were there for the service and that made it very meaningful. I w a s ordained by the Christian church and the Baptist church together in the Baptist church. There were people from both churches taking part and a joint choir from both churches. Since the First Baptist church is dually aligned with American and Southern Baptist churches, it meant that I w a s actually ordained by three different denominations in that service. It w a s really a very memorable experience for me and lots of people. There were many people w h o had never seen an ordination. And there were certainly many w h o had never seen a w o m a n ordained. After my husband died, I felt very grateful that I had this time of involvement already established. Because I have seen so many w o m e n w h o lose a spouse at an early age, certainly before they w o u l d expect to. They don't know w h a t to do with themselves. They find it difficult to start something. I feel that it w a s a blessing to me to have the support I've always had from the churches. It's been great. Oh, there have been some funny things. O n e time in the offering of the Baptist church it said, " You should not have a w o m a n preacher" in this anonymous note, and the pastor laughed as he handed it to me. A lot of funny little episodes like that. But, for the most part, the people in the congregation are just so supportive. I've really appreciated that. I w a s married again for a few years, but that didn't work out very well. So two years ago I w a s divorced. I'm much happier now. It's much better. M y daughter made an interesting comment about my divorce. She said, " M a y b e this has helped you realize t h a t " — h o w did she say it? Oh, " M a y b e this has made it easy for y o u to be happy living alone." I think that is true. I think that going through that experience just made me feel so sad w h e n I think of w o m e n w h o are not able to get out of a marriage that is really bad. Finan-

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Life Stories dally they can't, emotionally they aren't able to do it, and it's just very, very sad. So I feel I was veiy fortunate to be able to make that decision and carry it through. M y daughter was bom in 1946. So she went to college in the '60s, she graduated from high school in '64. She was in college in the '60s. She was in college near Kent State University, where the students were killed during the Vietnam demonstrations. M y daughter, I think, changed a lot during those years as many young people did. She and I have come to be very, very good friends, which is truly a wonderful situation. I don't feel responsible for the things she does, and she doesn't feel responsible for the things I do. We just enjoy each other. I have learned to have a better concept of myself through watching my daughter, through talking with her. I have learned that it is okay to feel a certain way about certain things. I have come to be a much more confident and secure person through talking with her and seeing h o w she is. I think the only sad thing in my life right n o w is my daughter and I live so far apart. She lives on the east coast. But this is where I really feel at home. I have three wonderful sons. I feel so fortunate in my children. M y youngest son lives here. He's very thoughtful. Even as a little boy he was just very thoughtful and never imposed on people and I used to worry about him; he's so much that way. I guess maybe when you are the youngest of four you sort of learn to keep out of the way. But, anyhow, he is just a wonderful son. He has a wife, Ann, w h o is a very dear girl. Their children are five and a half and two. I get to see them a lot, which is really, really special. M y other two sons live only three hours away. The middle of the three sons is an attorney and has a wife w h o is from here and she is a dear. They are so well suited to each other. It is really interesting to see h o w your children get their spouses. N o w each of my sons have wives w h o m they fit veiy well. M y middle son and his wife are both energetic and ambitious, and they have three just beautiful children. They do a lot of things as a family. I think it's terrific. They have my youngest grandchild, w h o will be two and she is really something, (laughs) The darling of her family. The oldest of my three sons is a stockbroker and his wife is a school teacher and she is a dear. W e told the other two boys that they had a tough act to follow, to find wives w h o were as sweet as she is. Their children are 15 and 11. But I have just a wonderful family. They are all so thoughtful.

Ann Engels

Ann Engels is the minister of a large and ever-growing Unity congregation in a middle-sized town of about 30,000. A trim, lively woman, Ann looks fabulous in all her clothes and wears fashion and color well. Her energy seems boundless, and I am certain she would attribute her energetic world view to the vibrance of her religion and her relationship with Christ. She is extraordinarily pleased with her life right now, but she has not always been happy with where she was, who she was with, or what she was doing. True to form, however, she changed all that. Now, she is pleased, and it shows. I recorded Ann's life story in her rather spacious office at her church. There she sits at a large desk in a cool but intimate atmosphere, with her state-of-the-art word processor; she talks about faxing papers to Russia and composing sermons at the keyboard. Ann's ministry is most definitely twentieth-century, upbeat, and filled with positive thinking. She was candid and straightforward as she related all the twists and turns of her very diverse life. As this book goes to press, Ann is packing her bags to take a new church in California. Well, I didn't know it when I was born, but I was born on a very special day, which is December 25. So I guess maybe it started there. I like to laugh and say I have the same astrological chart as Jesus Christ, only 2,000 years and a half a world away. My family belonged to the Disciples of Christ, that is the church that I grew up in. I can remember going there when I was a little kid. That is where I learned the Bible. There was Sunday school there, and I went every Sunday with my mother. My father did not go. I had to sit in church with my mother; so, if you asked me if I liked church when I was a little kid, the answer is no. I hated sitting there. But I belonged to the youth groups when I was a kid, and I loved to go on the retreats and so forth that they went on. We lived in one town all my young life. My folks still live there. It has always made me wonder how people visualize their lives when they've had ten different places in childhood. My mother and father were kind of average, middle class. My father commuted every day to work, and my mother stayed home and kept house until I was almost in high school, then she took a parttime job. We lived in a small town, so all the people in the little Disciples of Christ

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church seemed kind of like family. I didn't realize what an impact that had until about ten years ago, when I went back to my hometown on a Sunday morning to surprise my mother. I drove by the church about the time people were getting out of church. I just drove by the church. There were all these white-haired people with canes, tottering down the street. I thought, oh, my God, these were the people who were the young people in the church when I was there. It just struck me—the time span and what life is all about. I was really an insecure child, even though I had a really steady home life. My brother and sister are much older than I am. So I was kind of the surprise that came later on. I felt like the one who didn't know what was going on. When I came into the world, all of the relationships had been established in my family. I came along so much later, it seemed like I was somehow imposing on all these relationships. It was kind of an odd thing that I became an insecure child. My mother did not know why I was insecure. My father was pretty noncommunicative, he didn't know what to do with kids and didn't have much patience. I went to the first grade when I was five, so I was a lot younger than the kids in the class. There again, I felt strange and out of place. I really felt like I had been dropped off on the wrong planet. Everything was such a puzzle to me. All through school, I was а С and D student. I don't know how I did in first or second grade, that early, but I know that later on, everything seemed to be a puzzle. I had no patience with anything. I couldn't sit down and study algebra and figure it out because it was just like a blank wall to me. Probably a turning point in my life was when a friend of mine who was in the same class, but even a year younger than I but was already into college level stuff when we were in high school. She was really intelligent. She came by the study hall one day and says, "I'm going down to take the scholarship test in English in the gym, why don't you run down with me?" I said, "No, I haven't studied or anything, there is no point in doing that." But she said, "It's free, let's see how you're doing right now. Come down and keep me company." So I went down and took the scholarship test in English, and I got honorable mention in the state, (laughs) Up to that time, I thought I was dumb. I thought I was stupid, I thought I was below average, even though my mother and father tried to encourage me and told me I was not stupid. My brother and sister were very smart and all of that—but somehow, I just didn't catch on. I was in a fog for those years. I have no idea why, except maybe coming late like I did. In high school it was as if all of a sudden, it all just opened up for me. I realized I was smart and then I really tried. I graduated in the Beta club, which meant I was over a В average. I was not popular with boys in high school. I was mostly just interested in horses. Horses were my favorite animal in all the world, and I don't think I turned in a paper in high school that didn't have a horse sketched in the corner of it. When I graduated, I was seventeen, a lady

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called from the Bridal Shop. A n d I said. "I'm very sorry, but I don't have a horse." That is h o w out of it I wasl The girl w h o invited me d o w n to take the test with her is still one of my closest friends. She has gone on academically to get involved and teach. I went to college right out of high school for two years. And to show you h o w smart I thought I was, I took secretarial science and went on with more typing classes and more shorthand classes. I was afraid of the teachers, always afraid of teachers; they were like parents that I did not know. It was always like all of a sudden having a stepparent imposed upon me. That's kind of h o w they struck me, like I didn't know what they were going to want or do. I always went to school with a sense of guilt and fear and anxiety to the point where I had a stomach ache every morning. Every morning, I don't know h o w I survived. W h e n I got into college, I carried this all with me. It was a small denominational school where they had rather strict rules and that fit right into my fears and fed my utter lack of self-confidence. I did okay in the first two years. Then I got involved with a young man there at the college. He was the first guy w h o had ever paid a whole lot of attention to me. He thought I was wonderful and all that. He told me that he had nervous problems. As far as I knew, it was like pneumonia and you got over it. So against my parents' wishes, I married him. Of course, they were going to support me anyway, no matter what I did, they were going to support me emotionally, but they didn't really think I should marry him, mostly because they thought I was too young. They didn't really know h o w serious his problem was, neither did I. Sometimes, he would be okay for a while. But he had a lot of personality problems; there was a lot of craziness and jealousy and so forth. It was just a frightening time in my life. His family was very supportive, but they did not think there was anything wrong with him. I was married to him for three years, and I have two sons and they are his children. During this time I experienced my first episode with deep, deep, frightening depression. I had never experienced anything like that, and I felt no one would understand it. We're talking about 1961-62. There were not even selfhelp books, none of the stuff that w e know about n o w was written then. If you went to a psychiatrist, it was because you were crazy. It was a stigma. For a long time, I would sit in the living room for eight hours and not figure out h o w to get off the couch and get across the room. It was really, really deep and frightening. I did manage to feed my son his meals, change his diapers, and that was about it. I had never experienced anything like this. I was 21, with no savvy at all. One day, the thought came to me that if I didn't get out of this, they were going to lock me up and throw away the key. Somehow, that triggered me. I dashed around, packed up the car, and took the child and left. I went to my mother's place. I stayed there for a week. I just sat. I began to come out of it. M y mother, of course, encouraged me to go back, not understanding what

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Life Stories was happening. So I got in the car and went back, it was a four hour drive and the closer I got, the more the depression started to come back and the more I started to realize what was the matter. I began to have thoughts like, I don't know why I'm dying here, but I've got to get out of here. I had, of course, begun to believe there must be something wrong with me. It was a real scary time. When I realized what had happened, all of a sudden my energy came back. I cleaned up the house. I took care of everything, put everything in order, got out the car one morning when he went to work, packed the whole thing with everything I wanted so I wouldn't have to come back, and put my son in it. I was four months pregnant when I did this, with the second one. I took off again, back up to my folks, and that time it was to stay. Fortunately I had a place to g o — a lot of women don't and it's really hard. I stayed there with my folks. I had my second child and got a divorce. So that is when I started life by myself. I look back, you know, I was taught that you are going to pick your career and your mate and all that for the rest of your life by the time you are 18. You're supposed to make all these choices like you know what you're doing. I was probably only the second or third divorce in my entire family, and I, spent the next seven years getting rid of the fear that I had accumulated through that experience. I worked a lot of secretarial jobs. I had figured out at one point that I had twenty-three jobs in eighteen years—because with secretarial jobs you learn it and then it's not interesting anymore. I took a bookkeeper's job, learned that, then it wasn't interesting anymore. I wasn't getting anywhere. At this point, I was starting to question: What should my life be? Where do I g o ? I wasn't finding another husband. I was dating a lot of men, but nothing was working out. I had been taught, of course, that that was the g o a l — y o u got a job until you got married. And from then on it didn't matter. Well, here I was with two small kids and secretarial skills, which were very good, but I could only get low-paying jobs. I didn't really know what I was going to do with myself. I went on for seven years that way. Then I met my second husband. Well, first of all, before I met him, another friend came up the pike one day to stay for a weekend. She said, "I really want to go to the Science of Mind church downtown. I've got their textbook, and I like it, and I'd like to know a little more about them." So I had to take a half day off work and take her all the way downtown to this church. I walked in the door and starting looking through their literature and sat down and listened to the minister talk to her for about ten minutes. It was like, oh, my God, all of a sudden, my whole belief system just flipped over like a pancake, and I thought, I have got to be a part of this. It was 1969, and it was like all of a sudden, things were making sense. I

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was told I was not a victim, that I had control over my life through my mind. All of a sudden, it was making so much sense, the way I had been thinking all my life was creating all of the situations I was in and the w a y I felt about myself, the idea of believing that I was d u m b to the point where I was almost flunking out of school, w h e n actually I wasn't dumb. All of a sudden, I saw h o w my w h o l e mindset affected my life. It was like Paul's revelation on the road to Damascus. I fell off my horse, too, and I just saw my whole life just flipped over. I saw another side of it. So I started going to this church; it was a 45-minute drive. There was a young couple in the church w h o approached me that first Sunday morning and said, "We're the church babysitters. If you'd like to come evenings, you can leave your kids at our house." From then on, those people were just my closest friends for the next couple of years. We just did everything together, and I took all of the classes. I really enjoyed it. It was w h a t I needed, a total immersion to get my w h o l e mindset flipped over. Eventually, these t w o friends and I did an outreach service in a nearby t o w n on Sunday afternoons. I began to think I w o u l d love to teach this stuff but I don't k n o w anything. I have t w o small children to raise. I had not finished my college education, there was a lot to be done. I was sitting in church one Sunday morning, thinking I should have married a minister, and something in my head said loud and clear, "Don't marry it—be itl" It was funny, but at first the message was more on the level of stop living your life through somebody else, stop thinking about living life vicariously and start being w h o y o u are. The idea of being a minister wasn't completely formed in my thinking yet. I did ask that particular minister about w o m e n ministers in that church. He gave me this condescending look and said, "Well, my dear, there are w o m e n ministers and they do have churches, but they are very small." Then I met another man and married him. This was my second marriage, and it is the name I still have. He came to church w i t h me for a while, but he wasn't really interested. Our marriage lasted three years. M y first marriage lasted three years, and seven years later my second marriage lasted three years. I think I married him because I was tired. I was tired of supporting t w o kids, working three jobs, and doing all the stuff I was doing. It just seemed so nice to have someone else around to share some of this with. He had t w o children also, and so it was a zoo for three years. Up to that time I had been so unhappy w i t h myself that I was emotionally abusive to my children. I gave my kids a bad time. I had no patience w i t h them, like my father had no patience w i t h me. But w h e n I got into the church, I thought, these poor kids have had to put up w i t h me for the past five or six years like this. So I started to change and realize that I should have fun w i t h these children. I need to enjoy them and

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Uta Stories let that enjoyment come through. I started to do that; I started to make that shift. I was a mess during those days. I look back at it and see there was something pretty strong going on in me to make it through. We built a house together. I was busy all the time, between four kids, building a house, and a working husband. I dropped out of the church. Eventually, I got a part-time job and, while I was working there, I started to express my unhappiness with my marriage. I still knew there was something very essential missing here. So when w e moved to another state, he and I got a divorce, and I moved and started to finish up my college degree. M y sons were eleven and thirteen by then. I was driving d o w n the road, with a U-Haul truck with all my stuff in the back, and I was thinking to myself, God, Ann, what have you done to these kids? You've dragged them through two marriages, made their lives miserable, and here you are dragging them off to somewhere else—when I finally shut off my mind and started to listen to them. I realized theyjust wanted to be with me and I hadn't thought of that. So I went back to college to finish my degree. I found a little house that could be easily financed. It was in a fairly decent neighborhood, within walking distance of the university and in walking distance of the kids' schools. It seemed like everywhere I turned, the answer was yes, even to the point where I called the phone company and said, "I'm a student at the university. I need to have a telephone put in." And they said, "Oh, you're a student? That means you get a ten percent discount." It was crazy, everywhere I turned, the answer was yes, you can do this. It was like everything in my life flipped over again—it was like everything was indeed possible. I found, at the university, a department that had become the interpersonal communication department. They were doing self-awareness groups and all that kind of thing, nonverbal communication. This was in 1973. All of a sudden, the world of communication and interpersonal communication opened up to me. I was a philosophy major at the time and seeing the cobwebs all over what I was learning. I had a minor in psychology and all they had up there was behavior modification, and they were still in the Skinnerian stuff. I dumped my major and picked up a major in interpersonal communication. I tried to get into courses that were already full, and the w o m a n looked at me and she said, "Oh, well, this is my last day on the job. I'm secretary in this department and I want to do something nice for somebody on my last day." It was like every answer was a yes! I graduated with my bachelor's degree, and then went on and took a counseling master's degree. I wasn't dumb! I graduated summa cum laude and the whole business. I had such a good time I did ten times as much work as anybody needs to get an A in any of the courses I was taking. I just had a ball; for the first time in my life, I was having a glorious time. A friend of mine came to see me this last year, and he said, "You're the one w h o taught me h o w to live." And that was just a neat confirmation. I'm sorry, Monday is my

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low energy day, so I'm going to blubber all over this, [she laughs—and then cries) I got my master's. We lived on just very little during that time, and yet my mother and my friends helped. From time to time something would arrive in the mail exactly the time I needed it, so we never did without. My kids were very industrious. Just about the time they were turning teenagers, and they would have become rebellious, I also made a shift with them. I had changed so much that they never got to the point where they were terribly rebellious. I turned them loose and I said, "I'm considering you adults in this house along with me. I'm here, I'll keep the house, I'll take care of you. But I want to share this with you." And that's what we did. Then I married for the third time. I was going to a singles group and I met this guy who was up there at the microphone, directing and so forth. I had seen him a couple of times. We went out to an all-night restaurant, just for a cup of coffee, but we sat there and talked all night. He was a really gentle kind of person, a real teddy bear kind of guy. I had just broken up with a man I had dated for three years. I think that's a lot of what drew us together; we were good at caring for each other at that time. There were people who looked at us real strangely because he was a biker with an earring and long hair, and a high school education, and here I was a manager at a local company and a master's degree. I didn't want that to matter. It didn't matter to me, but it did matter to him eventually. I worked at a business at the airport for eight years. It started as a part-time job, but pretty soon I worked into another department very quickly because they found out I could do lots of things. Then I became full time and I was still just doing menial accounting things, but eventually I looked at another department, sketched out how it could be managed better, where my office could be, what I would do, and how we could do this. I presented it to my boss one day, and they let me do it. I created my own management job, and they let me do it. I got interested, I found out things, I did a little flying, and I got really involved. I learned a lot there. All during this time I had not yet decided to be a minister. I had not made that decision. I was getting my master's degree in counseling and thought, maybe this is what I am supposed to be doing. I really like the one-on-one work with people, maybe that is what I'm supposed to be doing. I was doing counseling at the university as a student. One day a lady came in and said, "Ann, I've done all the coping workshops, I've done all of the success oriented stuff and self-image and on and on and my life is in decent order, and everything is going fine, but I still feel empty and I don't know why." Well, I knew what she needed—she needed a spiritual life. She needed to get inside of herselfand have that relationship with her creator and understand the expansiveness of that—outer goals are not enough. We need to grow spiritually. I wanted to tell her that, but I was in one of these counseling rooms with the

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Ufe Stories two-way windows, and students and professors were plugged in and observing. I thought, I'm in a secular institution. If I say this, I'm going to be thrown out. And it was exactly what would happen in any agency I went to. I looked at her and I said, "if you look deep within yourself you will find the answer." She looked puzzled and ask me to repeat it. I did. Then, she said, "Oh, I understand, thank you very much." And she left. And I thought, I've got to go on, I've got to be able to talk about what I believe. I can't stop here. That is when I decided that I had to do something more. I needed to be a minister. During this time I had gotten re-involved in a different church, which is Unity, and is similar to the one I'd gone to a few years before. When I checked it out I discovered that they are really close. And so I started to go to church again. It's hard to remember the sequence of things. I started going to that church before I married my third husband. I never said anything to him about going to church, it's something I do for me. I promised myself after I had gotten my master's degree I'd go back to church. So I'd go to church every Sunday morning and come back at noon, bubbling over about all the stuff that happened. After about a year he decided he would go with me. He said, "We can take the bikes." We had two old Harley Davidsons by then and I had learned to ride a motorcycle. But when he said, "Let's take the bikes to church," I thought, oh, my God, he had the loudest bike in town and I had the second loudest. But I thought, well, here goes, they're either going to love us or hate us. We fired up and went to church on these monsters. We pulled up in front of the church " Varroom," got off the bikes, and started into church. The man who was the usher was a very, very proper gentleman, pinstripe suit, everything just so—a beautiful, gray-haired man. He met us at the door and he said, "Welcome. Give me your helmets and your jackets, and don't worry about your bikes, I will watch your bikes while you are in church." There isn't anything better you could say to a biker than tell them you will watch their bikes for them. Well, that sold my husband. After that, he was partners with me at church. But right after he and I started going to church, there was a very deep division in the church. It got to be one of those miserable dirty fracases where they were firing the minister. I became the chairperson of a committee to oppose this. Because I was kind of in charge and because I did it well, that was kind of the last foundation block that slid into place. I said to myself, okay, no matter what happens in a church, I can handle it. So that was kind of where I started in my decision to go to ministerial school. My sons were absolutely thrilled with it. My husband encouraged me all the way. He even did outreach ministry with me; he did the music and sometimes he did the Sunday morning talk and/or meditation. But when it came to my leaving to go to seminary, he said, "Well, I'll stay here until the house

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sells; it shouldn't be too long." So we packed up the house, and I packed up everything I needed because I had to start school. He never did sell the house and move there with me. Even though we had it all planned, I think he was too scared. He could not go beyond this point with me. We talked on the phone one morning a year after I had left for school and decided to call it quits. After I hung up the phone, the whole apartment just seemed kind of dead. It was like, wait a minute, I'd never lived by myself before. My sons were always with me, and now they were gone. Now my husband was gone. I had had my sons with me for twenty years. So, even though I went in and out of marriages, I always had these kids. All of a sudden I was alone. I didn't know if I could do life for me, just by myself, or not. I sat there for a while and thought about that. I finally said, "Look, God, this is your ballgame. You tell me what you've got for me to do." Within five seconds, the phone rang. It was the dean of students at the school, informing me that I was the new president of the class. It was like God saying, "Here's what you are to do, just keep going." It's like all of a sudden, my life just escalated again. And it was interesting. The ministerial students were mostly people in their 30s, 40s, 50s—they're not teenagers or early 20s. It is a midlife career change. You need to have a lot of life background. They sort of look for people who are mature and have a lot of life experience. We agree to teach according to the principles as set forth by the founders. Other than that, we are a totally independent entity here. So I've got to be able to run my own corporation, along with doing all the things of the ministry, counseling, and the whole new thought process. There is a lot of self-help psychology involved. My father said to me on the phone about a year ago, "You are so happy where you are now, it's such a shame that you wasted so much time." I said, "You know what, Dad—everything I have ever done has fed into what I'm doing now, and I couldn't be doing this if I hadn't. It seems like it was a zigzag path, but it wasn't. I've used absolutely everything I was ever involved in." He said, "That's wonderful." After all these years my father became comfortable enough somehow in himself and with me that we now have a close relationship. I'm so glad. He's 82, and I'm so glad he didn't die before that happened because it was just a beautiful coming together. My brother and sister are the American Dream kind of people, essentially. They've had the same spouse for many, many years, and their children have grown up to such and have their own jobs. They have their retirement, their vacations in Hawaii, a boat, whatever— they've gone that American Dream route. Their little sister has been all over the map and now she's going to be a what? (laughs) It took my father a long time to get comfortable with me because I had not gone the same route as he and my mother, and sister and brother, the whole family. I was a lot more

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Life Stories Irritable, a bit more on edge, a lot more—like him, more temperamental than the others. So I'm totally thankful that our relationship finally came to be so close. I w a s in seminary two years; I started in 1983 and graduated in '85. This church here is my first ministry and I've been here four years. Seminary w a s the nicest thing I ever did for myself, and I'm still very involved at the church headquarters. Most of my classmates at seminary were women. There were 35 in our class to start out, I think nine of them were men. Classes are usually around 50-50. They're not planned that way, it just sort of happens that way. But the year I started s o m e h o w the balance really tipped. For one thing the larger churches are always looking for a man. The smaller churches will take a w o m a n minister because they figure they can't afford a man. However, some of them, like this church, have always had a woman. This church started in 1980 as a study group. Then it had student ministers for a couple of years. Then they had a full-time minister, a woman, for two years before I came. Some congregations like to have a w o m a n minister. But another level of it is, the men are taught to be intellectual and so forth, logic a l — a n d operate at that masculine level and be impersonal. The larger churches are impersonal. The w o m e n are taught to reach out with intuition, love, and caring, and the smaller churches are that way. The w o m e n w h o g o out into smaller churches in other denominations don't necessarily find that loving, close situation. They are finding a lot of scrapping and difficulties. Here w e have a board of directors of six people. A n d w e are a team. W e work on a team concept. W e share all the stuff and throw it on the table to see what w e can do about it. It is understood that I a m the spiritual leader and so forth, and it is understood that they are to take care of the facilities and so forth. I also depend o n them as kind of a prayer group with me, my support system. They interact with me that way. Whereas there is a lot of adversarial stuff on boards and with boards and ministers in other churches. There's a lot of that in our churches, too, in other churches. But this particular o n e — a n d that's w h y I took this church—has such a sharing of the ministry, nobody is uptight about anything. There are a lot of dedicated people here. They love this place. They have taken me right into that family as well. It's a really lovely situation here. W e have 100 to 120 in attendance here, too. People walk in here o n Sunday morning eager to walk in and experience the energy that is here. W e have an upbeat, fun time. W e have an order of service, pretty close to the other Protestant churches, but w e add flavor to it.

Chapter 4

Key Metaphors: Sub-Texts in Women's Stories

I really felt like this was, you know, I felt like finally I was in the ministry and it suited me. It just felt like it fit. Something about being a lawyer didn't fit—it was like I had tried on the clothes of a lawyer and they didn't quite fit. But this was real rewarding. Flannery Haller I finally began to come back in touch with the fact that I had been, basically, a feminist from the time I was born and I had been culturized out of it, you know. So everyone kept saying, "You're changing, you're becoming one of them!" I said, "No, I'm reclaiming myself, is what I'm doing." Linda Stewart

In h e r recent and intriguing work, Composing a Life, Mary Catherine Bateson speaks of lives as "emergent visions." Of the five professional women she has covered in the study (which includes herself), she comments: "This is a study of five artists engaged in that act of creation that engages us all—the composition of o u r lives. Each of us has worked by improvisation, discovering the share of o u r creation along the way, rather than pursuing a vision already defined." 1 Bateson explores the concept of life as "an improvisatory art," noting the ways we "combine familiar and unfamiliar components in response to new situations, following an underlying g r a m m a r and an evolving aesthetic." 2 She compares a coherent life with a good meal or a p o e m — it "has a certain balance and diversity, a certain coherence and fit." Yet as a woman looking at women's lives, she suggests that we have been too bent on seeing achievement as "purposeful and monolithic"

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and offers that we instead see women's lives as "crafted from odds and ends, like a patchwork quilt, and lovingly used to warm different nights and bodies." 3 Bateson claims that through the study of women's lives we gain self-knowledge and that knowledge is empowering. The mythological quest that has been recognized and celebrated as the monomythic plan for humans must be discarded in a modern world in constant flux. She calls for new visions: It is time now to explore the creative potential of interrupted and conflicted lives, where energies are not narrowly focused or permanently pointed toward a single ambition. These are not lives without commitment, but rather lives in which commitments are continually refocused and redefined. . . . T h e circumstances of women's lives now and in the past provide examples for new ways of thinking about the lives of both men and women. 4 In the spirit of Bateson's challenge, I would like to suggest another means of "reading" the texts of women's stories. In this chapter, I offer a method for isolating key metaphors in the stories that lead us to understanding the interpreted sub-texts of the more literal and chronological stories the women tell. This analysis seeks to uncover the intratextual threads that bind these women's stories into cohesive and imaginative works with meaning and purpose—both for the tellers and for the listeners. In the preceding chapter an obscure narrative form emerged from within the recesses of the women's individual stories. Certainly, this form was not evident when the stories were first collected; yet the strains that emerged point to an undeniable narrative tradition. While such an analysis paints with a broad stroke the larger picture of women called into the ordained ministry, I propose here a way to "read" the individual stories, which will bring out the identifiable threads that become the key metaphors in each individual story. By examining these individual threads we can try to identify how women construct meaning out of their lives and their stories. Drawing once again on the work of Nancy Miller, we find her turning to Roy Pascal, who has suggested that autobiography can incorporate a "cone of darkness at the center," recognizing that there may be "something unknowable" in the writer. For women, Miller suggests it is "as though the anxiety of gender identity, of a culturally devalued femininity, veils its inscription in strategies of representation." 5 How, asks Miller, do we look for the "unsaid things?" She suggests a "double reading," an intratextual practice of interpretation and a gendered over-reading that does not privilege either the autobiography

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o r the fiction.6 T h e historical t r u t h of a woman's life lies in the reader's grasp of h e r intratext: "the body of h e r writing a n d not t h e writing of h e r body." 7 W h a t is a n "intratextual practice?" T h e m e t h o d p r o p o s e d h e r e is to locate key metaphors in women's s t o r i e s — m e t a p h o r s that serve as intratextual clues to g u i d e us toward a d i f f e r e n t kind of reading, o n e that r e m e m b e r s t h e thematic m e t a n a r r a t i v e e m b e d d e d in the constructed a n d delivered narrative. T a k e n individually, the stories of the w o m e n in this study seem at first to be quite d i f f e r e n t . Examinations such as the o v e r - r e a d i n g in the previous c h a p t e r point to commonalities a n d p a t t e r n s that a r e discernible in the stories taken collectively. T u r n i n g to the stories as individual entities once again, we find that each w o m a n has a d a p t e d a rhetorical strategy f o r p r e s e n t i n g herself to the listener. T h e r e is s o m e t h i n g the speaker wishes the listener to think, learn, a n d u n d e r stand a b o u t h e r t h r o u g h h e r story. T h i s is the metanarrative. It is available to us if we learn how to d o a d e e p reading, o n e that will expose the intratextual t h e m e s that lie b e n e a t h the surface of t h e actual story. Appropriately, the intratextual aspects of the women's stories a r e veiled; as Miller suggests, this move toward the c e n t e r stage is a precarious a n d tentative one. T h e female speaker w h o has been asked to tell h e r story is uneasy a b o u t accepting t h e power a n d authority of the textualized "I." H e r words serve as "a d e f e n s e a n d illustration, at once a treatise o n overcoming received notions of femininity a n d a poetics calling f o r a n o t h e r , f r e e r text." 8 As I have d e m o n strated in C h a p t e r 2, the w o m e n were both h o n o r e d at being asked to tell their stories a n d ambivalent a b o u t the stories they ultimately told. Many were acutely aware that the act of telling their story "represents e n t r a n c e into the world of o t h e r s a n d by m e a n s of that passage a rebirth, a n access [an elevation] to t h e status of an a u t o n o m o u s subjectivity beyond the limits of f e m i n i n e propriety." 9 T h e stories become, then, a kind of t r a n s c e n d e n c e of their conditions t h r o u g h the telling. In this c h a p t e r I have chosen to e x a m i n e in detail two of the life stories f r o m t h e ten p r e s e n t e d in this book; those of Flannery Haller a n d Linda Stewart. I p r o p o s e an intratextual r e a d i n g that exposes what I r e f e r to as the key m e t a p h o r s in their s t o r i e s — m e t a p h o r s that, w h e n identified, serve to o f f e r a d e e p e r r e a d i n g of t h e subtexts at work in the stories. It is telling that Flannery begins h e r own story, " I n the beginn i n g were my parents." She later laughed a bit u n c o m f o r t a b l y at that beginning, n o t i n g its biblical r e f e r e n t . Flannery's story tells of a girl enthralled with the magic of religion. Yet she must be the least overtly "pious" person I have ever known. I n fact, at times she can be o u t r i g h t sacrilegious, defiant a n d questioning at t h e same time.

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But religion is in her veins; it is what and who she is. On long walks we have taken together with her dog, she has expressed to me her anger and frustration with people who assume that she is simpleminded and narrow because she is a clergy woman; that she takes the Christian "message" at face value; or that she is not a critical thinker, a questioner, and an intellect. She longs for the respect and credibility other professionals receive. Because she is, in fact, intelligent and sensitive, Flannery is a woman who trusts the way she feels about a situation and how it "fits" her. Often in the course of her story, she says, "It just didn't seem to suit me. It wasn't a good fit." The best fit, to Flannery's way of thinking, would have been the garb of the Catholic priest. But very early in her life she knew those robes would never be hers. Today, reflecting on religion and life, she claims she might not choose the priest's role, but as a young girl she had no choice. The fact that the choice was made for her has deeply affected her life. Flannery was baptized a Catholic as a baby, and church was an important part of her early life. She recalls the importance of her teacher Sister Joanna in elementary school, and she recalls the kinds of questions she asked at a very early age. She was a good teacher. I remember thinking, if all this talk about God is true, why do people just ignore it? Why isn't it the most important thing in people's lives?

She recalls arguing with her father, even as a young girl, calling into question his racism—"that memory to me, tells me about what was going on, that as a seven-year-old I was standing u p to him and using a religious argument." The joy of her early life was the church. She recalls the importance of the Catholic services when she was still in elementary school. She was a loner; she went to services by herself, rapt with the ceremony and the ritual. So I was very taken with the whole drama of the Christian faith. W e lived down the street from the church, and I could go by myself. As I got older I would go to the Holy Week services. I loved it. Maundy Thursday they had foot washing and the Last Supper kind of thing and the Good Friday services, which were not my favorite; they were pretty grim. And the best was Easter vigil on Saturday night, which ... during Lent the organ had not been played. During Holy Week the statues were draped with purple cloth, all this somberness and just, oh, sadness, on Good Friday. And then Holy Saturday, I just loved that service. You'd go, the church would be darkened. Everybody would have a little candle. The priest would be in the back doing something, and lighting a candle and coming toward the font, singing in Latin, still at

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that time. "Lumen Christi, Light of Christ," and the people would say, "Lumen Christi, Light of Christ." He would say that three times, getting louder each time. And from this paschal candle that he had lit, all the other little candles would be lit, and pass it along and the church gradually getting lighter as the Mass goes on. There was sort of introductory prayers and stuff, then the "Gloria," the organ and the bells would ring, for the first time in a long time. And it just knocked me out, still does. It was just a wonderful, wonderful service, so I would go by myself to these things. I just really, really liked that.

Her love for the church and things religious is clearly evident in this poignant description of Catholic ritual. Her personal response to all this was to decide to be a priest. So, anyway, through all this time, I would describe myself as religious. I wanted to be a priest. That was the neat stuff, to be a priest. I wanted to be an altarboy, an altar server, but, you know, none of those things were possibilities for me.

Later, in a followup interview, she expanded this a bit: I just took it to heart so much that there must be something to it. I did not want to be a nun. That did not seem like—I didn't feel called to be a nun I just wanted to be a priest and be able to do the magic and get the bells to ring at the right time and all that. It just seemed to m e — w h a t a great thing to be in that kind of role. I wanted to be a priest.

The reality of her disappointment was extremely difficult to accept. Her home life too was difficult during this period. Her father was an alcoholic, and the family was in financial trouble. Flannery had to work during high school to pay for her education, and she was still a religious Catholic until she encountered some teachers who were not Catholic and a philosophy teacher who offered an entirely new perspective on the issue of religion. She found herself moving away from the church and away from the stance of a believer. "Eventually, I thought what a fool I've been. I just threw it out entirely." She began to call herself a "non-theist." During this time she worked at the YWCA and recalls watching the work of the associated ministers, thinking that her own work was rather like what ministers do. However, she hastens to add, this did not make her think that maybe she should be one "because I was still pretty much in the mode of being a Roman Catholic or nothing. I knew nothing, nothing at that point about what I might do." As I try to "read" Flannery's story to learn what she "knew" and

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when she knew it, I am struck by how she comes to "knowing" as a process. She remembers knowing that God and religion were important to her from her earliest memories with Sister Joanna. Later, after getting frustrated working at the YWCA, she went to law school because, she told me, "I thought, well, you know, I can make a difference, going into law." But over the next few years, she always had the feeling she was in a "holding pattern." Almost immediately she knew the law was not the place for her: "I felt like I needed to go, but I did not know what else to do because I had this great education. I just did not know where to go with it." During law school, both of her parents died, and through the urging of a female Episcopal priest, she began to get involved with the church again. When she first discovered, in fact, that this rather impressive woman was an Episcopal priest, she said, "I remember very clearly feeling right away, 'Now I'm in trouble.'" T h e lead-in sentence when Flannery tells of meeting her first female Episcopal priest is a significant marker of plot progression. It has a definitive air; we are alerted that something critical is about to be related. "So, about in 1979 sometime . . ." Flannery begins a story, remembered in detail, complete with dialogue. She chuckles as she recalls the way she "cross-examined" the woman priest. Later, she told me this story as she tried to emphasize just how critical this meeting really was. She told me how she would swim down to the end of the pool where the woman sat and pull herself u p out of the water just enough to pose another pointed question. Then she would disappear into the water and swim furiously to the other end of the pool, only to return and jab the woman with yet another probing question and swim away. "She must have thought I was nuts!" she laughed as she told the story again. Clearly, this incident is a turning point in Flannery's life. T h e female priest graciously answered all her questions and seemed neither weird nor self-consciously "religious" to Flannery. Why does she think, she is "in trouble"? T h e rest of her story does not really tell us. She had heard about women priests in the Episcopal church, but she had never seen any—and wouldn't go looking for any, she said. Not only does the woman endure Flannery's cross-examination, she invites her to her church, and, of course, Flannery goes, albeit four months later. She did not want to rush into it, she laughingly jokes, but she doesn't tell us why. But we know why. We know because her story has prepared us to know. We know what Flannery knows about herself. We know that Flannery is an inherently religious human being. We know that she has tried to be a lawyer but feels it is not the right occupation for her. We anticipate a dramatic turn of events—and it comes. Flannery knows she's "in trouble," and we know that Flannery wants to be

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an Episcopal priest. Certainly, we can spot the desire that lights u p her eyes as she comes to know that this is the right decision for her. Of course, it is not a quick and immediate decision, n o r an easy one. She suffers the pain of leaving her h o m e and friends; she suffers the embarrassment of changing career and the difficulty of "farming out" her clients; she recalls the pain of filling out the application forms; she describes the jolt of finding herself in a d o r m room at Yale Divinity School. But she has learned to trust her feelings, to trust what she knows about herself. During this time, Flannery attended a Cursillo, a concentrated Christian weekend experience, and f o u n d she really enjoyed it; then she served as a m e m b e r of the leadership team at another one. This was the turning point, and here, again, the thread that holds her story together emerges: It finally occurred to me that if, finally, that if this is what ministry was, that maybe that is what I should do. That felt right to me. [emphasis mine] It felt like I was being called to the ministry and it felt like it wasn't the first time I had gotten this c a l l . . . . By this time, I knew that I really did not want to be a lawyer.

Following the leadership roles at the Cursillo that "felt right to me," she makes the connection, and we know why she felt she was "in trouble" meeting the female priest: That was a real turning point for me. It was after that weekend that I realized what I had done there and that I had really liked it. It was what a priest does in talking and facilitating and—you know, when I was a kid, I wanted to be a priest. So, it felt like an old call, a reawakening. But it could awake because there was the possibility of a woman's ordination in an Episcopal church, where in the Catholic church, I just had to stuff itl

But she felt uneasy about the prospect of picking u p everything and leaving her practice and going to seminary. In fact, she could not fill in the blanks on the application form, especially the question about why she wanted to go to seminary. Finally, she filled it out: "I said I felt I had a call to ministry, and I really wanted to go to seminary to find out." And she did. But she describes this time as painful and difficult: After that second Cursillo in November, I remember clearly that I began to hear it more and more. It really was on my mind a lot—that I felt called to ministry. I felt crazy because of that. I felt almost sick. I was just miserable. And I had a terrible time even telling Joan [the Episcopal priest]. You know,

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at the one church]

said, "You'll have trouble getting ordained in this diocese." But my conviction was that if I was called by God, I w o u l d be ordained and I did not need to let these little things, like a bishop, bother me.

It felt right; it suited her. She knew this was what she ought to do. Then she began to practice what it meant to be a minister. Her fieldwork was in a nursing home: I really felt like this was, y o u know, I felt like finally I was in the ministry and it suited me. It just felt like it fit. Something about being a lawyer didn't fit—it was like I had tried on the clothes of a lawyer and they didn't quite fit. But this was real rewarding.

Feelings motivate Flannery, and she trusts her feelings implicitly. She may not know what lies in store for her, but she does trust her feelings. And when she knows something, she acts on it. When she begins to feel that something is wrong or begins to sense that the suit she has tried on does not fit, she begins to move. She tells of feeling that she needed to leave the prosecutor's office, but she did not know where to go or what else to do. As soon as she could say, about being on the Cursillo leadership team, "I knew what I was doing there," she had entered a new phase, a liminal phase to be sure, but one that represented the first step toward a new development. She describes it as being in a kind of holding pattern—but ready to take off. Yet she was wrong not to worry about the bishop. Flannery was never ordained as an Episcopal priest. Early in her seminary work she began to hear more and more about the unpredictable nature of the particular bishop, the one who would have to ordain her. She applied, but after a considerable amount of time, it became clear that the diocese was not moving on her ordination. So she submitted to the diocese in her hometown. She was turned down there as well. She despaired: That was a real blow. I didn't k n o w what I was going to do. To have this master's of divinity and not to be ordained. I just really—I think I began to realize that being an Episcopal priest just wasn't for me.

True to herself and to this autobiographical story, which revolves around a woman's desire to find the perfect fit, Flannery reinterprets the bishop's decision not to ordain her into the Episcopal church as a mis-fit for her:

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I am grateful, really, as much as it hurt at the time. I am grateful it worked out as it did because I would be miserable if I was in that. I could not fit in . . . part of what happened was that I really did not belong; I did not fit. And, of course, my first response to that was—what's wrong with me? There was nothing wrong with me. I found the place where I think I do fit better.

T h e place that fit Flannery better was being ordained in the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ. This denomination's commitment to social action and justice reminded her of the better aspects of her days at the YWCA. T h e Disciples began and remain dedicated to being a congregation of equals, lay and ordained. When she was ordained, everything seemed to fit: And then in November of '85 I got ordained at the Marquand Chapel at the Divinity School and it was great. It was a lot of fun. A lot of my friends from Vale were there and w e brought down a couple of busloads of people from the nursing home. So the first couple of rows were these wheelchairs, you know, and then there were people from home that came up. So it was really a kind of weaving together all the threads of my life Just wonderful.

At the time of this field research, Flannery was the pastor of a small, midwestern Disciples of Christ congregation. She was, during our early talks, ambivalent about the position. She had never sought the pastorship of a church; yet she had felt called to take this church and was coping. She is certain that the clothes of the ordained ministry fit her, but at this point in her life she was not certain that being pastor of a church fit her. By the time this book went to press she seemed more certain and a little less uncomfortable with her position, but she did add, "it's just like, you know, again in some ways feeling my way in the dark." She may, in fact, be in a holding pattern. She is waiting for the fit to feel "just right." Then she'll know it is of God. Trusting her feelings and trusting what she knows is, in fact, her direct link to what she knows about the divine. It seems fairly remarkable to me that women who have become successful clergywomen—that is, they have (1) determined that they wanted to be clergy; (2) successfully completed seminary; and (3) landed jobs as pastors or associate pastors in a church, parish, or chaplaincy situation—basically did so without having female role models. So who were these insightful young women who just "decided" to go to seminary? We have examined rather closely the story of Flannery Haller, who followed her feelings until the fit felt right. With Linda Stewart, we ask the question, what did she know about herself and how did she gain that knowledge. Like most, Linda had to

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t u r n both inward and outward for the knowledge about herself that would guide and direct her life. W h e n I asked Linda about female models she said, "No, I never saw a woman in the pulpit all the time I was growing up. I guess I did it because women weren't doing it!" T h a t statement makes sense because Linda Stewart is a fighter. She does not describe herself as a remarkably goal-oriented, decisive young girl. In fact, she was a girl whose early life was often disrupted. As a "military brat," she was accustomed to moving and having to make new friends on the various air force bases where her father was stationed. Early on, Linda f o u n d ways to sustain herself. T h e stories Linda has heard f r o m h e r family, which she has chosen to retell, about her birth set the stage for the rest of her life: I was born in a blizzard in March, in a barracks that was a temporary hospital while they were building a new one. . . . They had labor and waiting rooms and all this in one barracks and delivery in the other. So when you got ready to deliver, they opened the doors of the two barracks, running you very fast in between them, and hoped that the freezing cold did not stop labor. Anyway, we all survived.

Linda was born in the Midwest but grew u p in southern California, which she loved. T h e n , when she was in early high school, h e r father was transferred back to the midwest base where she had been born. She was devastated. She tried to describe the pain of moving to a town that was not even incorporated, into a house that sat where the previous October's corn crop had been and now sat alone in a stark field: "I spent the first year in my room. I was not coming out for anything. This was Hicksville for my mind. T h e r e were 680 in my graduating class, mind you, but for my psyche, I had been sent to Siberia and left!" Linda believed their stay in the midwest would be for only two or three years, so she determined to wait it out and not get involved. And, except for the church, that is exactly what she did. When her father retired and decided to stay in her birthplace, Linda could not believe it. It took, she said, "a complete revamping of the psyche. All of a sudden it was not 'we're going back h o m e where I belong'—but 'this is going to be h o m e now.'" Linda's childhood memories—the ones she chose to tell—are often sad and full of struggle. She fought battles for her younger sister, who had Down's syndrome: I fought my way through elementary school because of her. We would go to the park and play, and kids would harass her. I would beat them up. I was vicious, I really was. I got good—very good with my fists.

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She recalls the last person she beat up with her fists, a "little monster kid" who made fun of the way she was dressed, claiming that she was not "in" with the way people dressed on the coast. Being from California herself, she hit this insolent young man, declaring, "You know nothingl" Telling this story, she laughs, and says, "Hmm, somewhere in there . . . that was in the eighth grade . . ." Linda does not complete her thought. Rather she begins to tell another story about why and how she did not fit in and how her physical development had caused her to be cruelly harassed and had instilled in her a sense of herself as a feminist. I was an early developer. . . . When I was in sixth grade, I was practically 120 pounds. I was wearing a В cup bra—yes I In eighth grade I was at a skating party, junior high skating party.... A friend of mine and I were being harassed. She had no breasts. I had monsters by this time, and they kept going. We were being harassed as we went around and around. A couple of the guys decided to find out whether mine were real or not by poking them as we went around. I think that was a turning point as far as my acceptance of myself, my willingness and ability to stand up for myself. The first time I was ever harassed was then and for something I had no control over.

Like Flannery, Linda's struggle necessarily centered on the fact that she was female. Somewhere in there, the message came through to me that if I wanted to be acceptable as a female, I was going to have to become the society's expectations rather than the semi-tomboy that I had been w h o did good in school [and was] capable of various things. Something in my mind then also knew that I couldn't ever do that—that that was not who I was, that I would never be acceptable in that world. But this world was not acceptable either. So I fell into this midpoint.

Linda grew up with southern money in a military family. She had learned how complicated the role of the woman was in those two cultures. On the one hand, she admitted, she could be the perfect southern coquette; yet in the military household, with her father gone for long periods, she and her mother had to become completely selfsufficient. But she learned here, too, there was a game to be played: But when the male head of household returns, you have to develop instant amnesia about all these things. Because if he comes home and you are handling it all, then he doesn't feel that he has a part any more or belongs

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What is extraordinary about Linda's story is that this is all she included about her early life: the ridiculous situation of her birth; the traumatic move f r o m California to the midwest and the subsequent fights; the teasing by boys because of her physical maturity; and her confused status in the world as a female. Except for the following short anecdote, which she used to "segue" into her college experience and which serves as a narrative marker, she told no other childhood or early adolescent stories. T h e poignancy and pain in all the ones she has selected out of roughly 18 years of life are striking and tell us far more than at first might be evident. She leaps f r o m a fifth grade incident to college, and tells us that this is the beginning of her transformation, a thread that she will adroitly pick u p later. How Linda weaves her story demands an intratextual "reading." She has a theme; she is conscious of the "point" of her story f r o m the very beginning, a point carefully woven and carefully presented. This is, in fact, the theme, the key metaphor, of Linda's story—her transformation, how long it took, and how it took shape. She moves toward college and links it with her childhood in the following manner: I can remember the time—it was late in the fifth grade—when I finally bowed to the pressure of teachers and quit writing "he or she" in my themes. . . . I would not accept the universal "he.". . . I can remember fifth grade was when the teacher finally dangled an F in front of my face . . . . [She] said, "Stop it and be a good girl." So, you know, I think that started the transformation. It just kept going. The return came in seminary. It took that long.

But before seminary came college. H e r e Linda felt that, largely, she did not fit in. She changed majors several times and lived on the outskirts of the campus with other "outsiders." What, then, was the "return"? What turn did Linda's life take in seminary that serves as the meta-narrational device? She tells that her "Women in Ministry" professor kept telling the class that for most women there will come a time, an incident, or a significant moment, that will "jar you back into a realization that there is oppression in the world and that women are oppressed and that we need to stand up for ourselves and not give in to the oppressive white male system." Linda fairly leaps over any details of her marriage during this time by reporting, "Keith and I were married in J u n e of 1981 and in mid-August, the two of us and a couple—friends of ours who were serving churches near

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by—were invited along with everyone else to a pastor's appreciation banquet . . ." Both Linda and Keith were serving churches and both were invited to this dinner in recognition of their ministry. "We got there, his name tag was on the pastors' table; mine was on the wives' table—had a little print with butterflies on it and all kinds of neat little things." The dinner was a disaster and her recollections of it are hilarious. Linda says the others at her table "spent the whole night trying to figure out what to say to me." Then the speakers began to take turns at the podium and each in turn welcomed the "finnne pastors and their pretty little wives . . ." By the time the third person had said it for about the seventh time, I was steamed I I was roaring mad because it had taken me nearly twenty minutes . . . to get a name tag that was m i n e . . . . So I walked back into seminaiy and Rosemary was coming d o w n the hall. I said, "Rosemary!" She said, "Oh, it happened, good. You're on our side now." She knew there w o u l d be something, [but, she said] "I just didn't realize it w o u l d come this s o o n . " . . . I was steamed, just steamed.

After reading Women's Ways of Knowing, I began to think about how the women in this study know things—about themselves and about who and what they wanted to become and do in their lives. Linda's story is especially revealing in this respect because she articulates at several points what she knew about herself, about society's expectations, and about her own discomfort in knowing she did not fit. She uses the word "know" to describe her feelings about herself and she explores how she came to her knowledge in several different places in the narrative: "I knew I couldn't ever do that, that that was not who I was"; "I began to come back in touch with the fact. . . . I'm reclaiming myself, is what I'm doing." This is decisive language; this is the language of a woman who knows herself. Yet in reality Linda is a woman who questions. She is often angry with her denomination and what she perceives as the idiocy of the hierarchy there; she feels prejudice and unfair treatment of her as a female within the system; she is still very conscious of her large breasts and how some men view her body as an object for their stares; she has spoken of both the joy and the pain of being a mother who is also a pastor. Self-knowledge and the search for self-understanding offer no panacea against the vagaries of life. Yet the language of her metanarrative reveals that Linda is indeed a survivor. Given Linda's conscious quest for self-knowledge, I wondered about her decision to go to seminary—how did she know this ministry was right for her? After she had told me her life story, I realized she had

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basically jumped over that part of her story—suddenly she was talking about seminary. So I broke my promise to not direct the narratives and asked her how she got to seminary. Her reply was circuitous and necessitated going back to the early parts of her story, when her family moved to the midwest and she spent a year in her room and did not get involved except for at the church. This description appears nearly as an aside in her original story of retreat and silence, yet my question required that she go back to that point and remember an important connection—the church was the one place Linda could never hide. The church was the only place that really wouldn't let me hide. They discovered my musical ability—kind of pulled me out. . . . When I w e n t to college

the local Disciples of Christ church loved having the students and

w e n t out of their w a y . . . absolutely the embodiment of Christ's "I was hungiy and you fed me." . . . Seminaiy, hmm, looking back, I can see that probably my w h o l e life was leading up to it. The church was always—I was always at the church—just always there.

When Linda moved back to the midwest and went to her second college, she began to attend the local Methodist church. It is in her description of the pastor of that church that we find, again, the key that links the threads of her story. . . . wonderful pastor—the most shy human being I have ever met in my life, painfully shy. He w o u l d be out amongst the congregation before the service, connecting w i t h p e o p l e , . . . and you could see the sweat was pouring, his hands were just wringing wet, and his face was beaded w i t h sweat, and he w o u l d be real hunkered down, and he was a tiny little man, and he veiy nearly disappeared. He w o u l d wander around doing this and you could see him shaking. He w e n t from person to person, doing w h a t needed to be done. Then he w o u l d go into his office, put on his robes, and he w o u l d come out and he was standing up, confident, ready to do what it was that God had called him to d o — a n d there was a complete and total transformation—from w h e n he walked into his office to the person w h o walked out again [showing] all the strength and confidence of doing what he was called to do. And he was a phenomenal preacher, w o n d e r f u l . . . . The man had the ability to make it feel as though he came d o w n out of the pulpit, sat d o w n beside you, wrapped his arms around you and said, " W e gotta talk," and that was the sermon style.

At first, this episode about a male pastor has no clear connection to Linda's own story. Yet close reading of the language she uses to describe this man reveals the thread that binds her story together: the

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transformation. This man's story becomes a reflection of Linda's own. Linda's transformation comes with her calling. What she had known about herself since she was born was that she knew who she was, and somehow that meant she ought to be able to do anything she set out to do—including being a pastor. But the transformation, the complete turn-around, which Linda calls a "reclaiming" of herself, of what she already knew, had to come f r o m God and is in process. In the previous chapter, I described in some detail Linda's rather dramatic calling, which included hearing voices in the night and several tests of God to determine that the calling was legitimate. Finally, she talks with her associate pastor and finds him supportive. Her final lines about her calling are indicative of where she finds herself today: So, I was serious. I went in and talked with my pastor a few months later. Well, he was new—he and I didn't see eye to eye. We still don't. I went in to talk with him and he laughed! But by that time it was too late, [emphasis mine] One can almost envision Linda staring down this "new pastor" with a definitive, "You know nothing!" Linda's story is about self-knowledge, about recognizing who she is, acknowledging the differences between her own sense of self and society's expectations, and re-claiming parts of herself that accurately reflect what she knows about herself. Today Linda is the most overtly political person in the group. She devotes much of her time to reports and statistics reflecting the inequities of women in the paid ministry. She spends hours typing u p her newsletter, which she wanted to call "Naked in the Pulpit" ("because that's the way we were feeling") but, instead, used her wit and turned the metaphor on end by naming it "Notions 'n Pins." She openly argues with boards and committees about salaries, j o b opportunities, abortion, and discrimination against women. She attends annual conferences and confronts the hierarchy with her findings. Hers is a committed dedication to equality, women's rights, and h u m a n rights. And, of course, the demands of a two-point rural charge try her patience and require that she drive the many miles between the two churches, to pastor both of them properly while taking care of her three-year-old son. And in the process of doing all this, she has made some enemies. She knows the anguish she can cause by bringing injustices to light, but she also knows she must, because that is who she is. T h e r e is not room in this work to do a lengthy meta-narrational analysis such as the ones I have offered here for each of the individual life stories of the women in this study. However, I do offer this as a

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m e t h o d of " r e a d i n g " women's life stories. Clearly, t h e stories of the w o m e n in this study a r e stories of searches; the w o m e n are searching f o r their r i g h t f u l place in t h e professional a r e n a , the Christian ord a i n e d ministry in particular. Yet their searches a r e in m a n y ways d i f f e r e n t . W h a t such a literary analysis can provide is a m e a n s f o r locating key m e t a p h o r s , key phrases, a n d t h e m e s that r u n t h r o u g h the stories a n d provide the w a r p against which the chronological story is woven. Few of t h e w o m e n in this study p r e s e n t e d only straightforward chronological stories without interpretation. T h e interpretations evolve as t h e stories develop. T h e s e are i n t e r p r e t a t i o n s in process. As the w o m e n weave their individual stories they c o m m e n t o n t h e m , weaving a subtle t h r e a d of cohesion that is difficult to discern with t h e n a k e d eye. This material is intratextual a n d n e e d s to be carefully "pulled" as t h r e a d s are pulled o n pillowcases o r tablecloths to reveal an intricate "cutwork" p a t t e r n . It would be a simple m a t t e r to say the w o m e n all e m b a r k o n searches a n d in the process their lives are transf o r m e d . Yet to d o so would deprive each story of its own power. Flannery's story draws its strength f r o m the magic she feels in religion. Like a m o t h d r a w n to the light, she feels pulled toward the priesth o o d . H e r story is o n e of trials a n d tribulations a n d a searching that never really ends. Linda's story pivots o n knowing that t h r o u g h religion she is t r a n s f o r m e d — t h a t h e r own personal power derives f r o m h e r insistence o n justice a n d right relations, even at the risk of disj u n c t u r e in h e r own life. W h a t w o m e n know does not in most instances provide an easy p a t h f o r t h e m . W h a t is i m p o r t a n t f o r us to learn f r o m their stories is what they d o know a n d how they act o n that knowledge. Not o n e story in this g r o u p i n g tells of a w o m a n b u f f e t e d by fate, t u r n e d topsy-turvy by what life h a n d s her. T h e s e stories reveal questions that a r e never fully answered, b u t they also uncover lives lived in t a n d e m with knowle d g e — k n o w l e d g e of self a n d knowledge of a divine calling.

Notes 1. Mary Catherine Bateson, Composing a Life, p. 1. 2. Bateson, p. 3. 3. Bateson, p. 4. 4. Bateson, p. 9. 5. Nancy K. Miller, "Writing Fictions: Women's Autobiography in France," p. 57. 6. Miller, p. 58. 7. Miller, p. 61. 8. Miller, p. 50. 9. Miller, p. 54.

Chapter 5 Naked in the Pulpit: Sexuality and Holistic Well-Being

We wanted to call our newsletter "Naked in the Pulpit" because that was the way we were feeling much of the time, so since we couldn't, we called it "Notions 'n Pins"—the NIP still stands for "Naked in the Pulpit" for us, but no one else knows that. Linda Stewart

A woman in the pulpit, dressed in liturgical vestments, celebrating the eucharist, and preaching the word to the congregation threatens the very foundation of patriarchal order, but perhaps more significantly such a woman exposes sexuality in a manner that cannot be denied or disregarded. This chapter addresses the issue of sexuality in the pulpit but throws into question the feminist admonition for women to "read/write the body," as I seek to demonstrate that such endeavors can work to reinforce the fetishism of the female body rather than offer a view from within the female experience that seeks to em-body rather than dis-member. Female clergy first threaten male prominence in the theological ordering that has evolved into a concretized image of a male deity, a male savior, and a male Holy Spirit—the aspect some have long argued was first the female aspect of the deity. The highly visible Roman Catholic insistence that priests be male because only they have the physical characteristics of the male God-head and his son provided the religious validation of male domination and prominence in the larger sociocultural context. This hierarchal, patriarchal structure and its validation pervade all of Western culture, even Protestantism, which has denied the all-male priesthood yet has historically shared

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an ambivalence a b o u t o r d a i n i n g w o m e n . W o m e n in any pulpit, on the most obvious level, t h r e a t e n a n d , i n d e e d , u s u r p t h e exclusive rights of males to religious authority. A female in the pulpit also t h r e a t e n s to c r u m b l e t h e f o u n d a t i o n of the d i c h o t o m o u s n a t u r e of fixed g e n d e r roles a n d a r e n a s f o r m e n a n d women. As long as the male was the sole religious authority, h e could also lay claim to household authority a n d d o m i n a n c e over the " o t h e r " household o c c u p a n t s — w o m e n a n d children. Scholarship exploring the historical roots of male activity c e n t e r e d in the public a r e n a a n d f e m a l e activity c e n t e r e d in the private provides o n e f r a m e w o r k f o r u n d e r s t a n d i n g how w o m e n have been o p p r e s s e d by a religiously inspired sociocultural system that did n o t provide t h e m access to spheres beyond the " h e a r t h and h o m e . " 1 As Katie C a n n o n notes in God's Fierce Whimsy, " T h e E u r o a m e r i c a n r u l i n g class has a t t e m p t e d to contain w o m e n within a private sphere. W o m e n , sexuality, bodies, feelings, a n d children have had n o place in t h e public world of economics, politics, a n d 'matters of c o n s e q u e n c e . ' " 2 T h e migration of women o u t of the cloistered h o m e e n v i r o n m e n t a n d into public p r o fessions has t h r e a t e n e d to rock the f o u n d a t i o n s of patriarchy a n d has caused male d o m i n a n c e a n d oppression of w o m e n to shift, t h o u g h by n o m e a n s disappear. T h e Catholic church's c o n t i n u e d insistence o n male priests celebrates a n d u p h o l d s t h e line of divine m a l e n e s s — f r o m God the Father, to God the Son, to G o d the Holy Ghost, to t h e male priest. Father to Son to Spirit to Priest, maleness is h o n o r e d , celebrated, worshiped. At first glance, this is a g e n d e r e d line of authority (although only those of the male sex may participate), not a sexual m a t t e r . W o m e n are excluded f r o m the hierarchical schema: femaleness simply does not a p p e a r as a c o m p o n e n t of the theological construct. However, the Catholic c h u r c h officially d e e m s that only an asexual male, a m a n who does not e n g a g e in sexual activities, o n e who is a m o r e p u r e a n d holy representative of the Father (who, a f t e r all, did n o t actually copulate with Mary to conceive his son), can be a priest. T h e celibate male priest a n d the asexual virgin m o t h e r , t h e n , become r e p resentatives f o r the ultimate h u m a n potential f o r godliness, a n d all participate in the p r e t e n s e that this particular male (the priest) is asexual a n d , t h e r e f o r e , p u r e a n d holy, above carnal longings—or sin. T h e priest d o n s long robes that hide the physical configurations a n d potential swellings of his body, and p r e t e n d s h e is unlike o t h e r males, o r o t h e r h u m a n s . W h e n h e steps u p to t h e altar, h e is viewed by m a n y as acting f o r Christ. Protestant Christianity has never s h a r e d the Catholic belief that t h e "minister of G o d " o u g h t to be celibate. Protestants have always b e e n

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a bit more realistic and have taken to heart the Pauline directive that it is better to marry than to burn. Nevertheless, for centuries the prevalent image of a "minister of God" has been a male image. Like Catholics, Protestants have held firmly to the patriarchal construct that recognizes males as God's p r o p e r representatives on earth. While perhaps not articulated, the father/son/male-minister line of authority has survived centuries of hard-line Protestantism. Most denominations did not even contemplate ordaining women until this century and some still will not. T h e Protestant minister, unlike the priest, can marry and his wife can bear his children. So he has never been involved in the pretense of clerical asexuality. Even so, his sexual n a t u r e is shielded. In the pulpit he may stand in vestments or in a business suit; he may be adored by some of the women in the congregation; he may even be the subject of cruel i n n u e n d o or scandalous stories. But whatever the congregation whispers, the minister does not signify sexuality. He is not perceived as a sexual being; he cannot celebrate sexuality; he cannot explore the sexuality issues of his constituents openly f r o m the pulpit. By and large, sexuality is not an aspect of religion because it is not a visible component of the male-dominated hierarchy. Sexuality is part of the "other," which is represented by the female. And femaleness has not been a recognized aspect of Protestant religion. T h e Virgin Mary has never enjoyed any power—overt or covert—in the Protestant church. Any hint of iconography or intercessory power of Mary has been eliminated. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, and the male minister have guided Protestants in a well-oiled patriarchal system that has pervaded every aspect of their public and private lives. Margaret Miles has pointed out that T h o m a s Aquinas's descriptions of Mary's talents indicate his awareness that because Christ's power and the Virgin's might easily be construed as competitive rather than complementary, her powers had to be de-emphasized: "She possessed extraordinary gifts but could not use them publicly since it would detract f r o m Christ's teaching." 3 Miles argues that women have had to be "guided to accept the model of the nursing Virgin without identifying with her power—-a power derived f r o m her body . . ." 4 A woman in the Protestant pulpit predicates a semiotic shift. T h e male images, so neatly configured in their interlocking hierarchy, are rearranged and disengaged. T h e woman standing in the pulpit contradicts the assumptions of complacent and comfortable congregations. Both women and m e n must adjust their perspectives, realigning their image of God with this female, this marginal "other." It is not an easy thing to do. Males are particularly uncomfortable because their divine right status has been questioned openly, in the pulpit.

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W o m e n a r e shocked at t h e prospect of d i s r u p t i n g the o r d e r . At first, t h e r e must be a question in everyone's m i n d : "Is this what G o d intends? Is this right?" If, a n d when, the answer is a r e s o u n d i n g "Yes!" t h e n the r e a r r a n g e m e n t begins, a n d o f t e n bitterness a n d a n g e r will follow. According to D a p h n e H a m p s o n , who says she can n o longer call herself a Christian, male religious leaders in the western tradition have created a cultural "reality" closely aligned with western theology. God has b e e n conceived as particularly male, a t r a n s c e n d e n t being in an o r d e r e d hierarchy. Men see themselves as above w o m e n , so " h u manity" has been designated as " f e m i n i n e " in relation to God. H a m p son relates this to the social construct that posits m e n as good a n d s t r o n g a n d m o r e spiritual in relation to w o m e n , who are seen as sinful, weak, closer to things of the e a r t h (especially r e p r o d u c t i o n ) : " W h a t f e m a l e a n d the f e m i n i n e stand f o r thus becomes locked into a whole interpretation of reality . . . [where] w o m e n a n d the f e m i n i n e a r e conceived as inferior a n d sinful." 5 She notes that religious e d u cator a n d writer A n n e Wilson Schaef, t h r o u g h h e r own work, has d e t e r m i n e d how internalized this view of reality is in the western sociocultural a r e n a , a n d she aptly quotes f r o m Mary Daly: "If God is male, t h e n the male is G o d . " 6 O r d a i n e d w o m e n , gaining religious authority, pose a new a n d p e n e t r a t i n g t h r e a t to the m a l e - d o m i n a t e d ord e r . W o m e n as lawyers, doctors, a n d college professors can r e m a i n in the public perception as (unauthorized) tokens, anomalies, freaks, a n d radicals who have n o respect f o r the h o m e a n d ideologies of family a n d tradition. T h e y a r e o f t e n discounted with the line, "Well, they aren't really women." But an o r d a i n e d female may be perceived as not simply professionally e n d o r s e d by the religious institutions who o r d a i n e d h e r ; she takes on a role that traditionally has been perceived as having divine recognition a n d authority invested by God. In m a n y cases she is a wife a n d m o t h e r ; in o t h e r s she is a lesbian; in others she chooses m a r r i a g e without children. W h a t e v e r h e r choice, she is rarely perceived as a radical, a n d m o r e o f t e n t h a n not she shares a belief in the i m p o r t a n c e a n d primacy of family o r relationship, h o m e , a n d religion. H e r position in t h e pulpit or at the altar is nevertheless j a r r i n g , f o r it calls into question the m a k e u p a n d the acting o u t of all the established socio/cultural/religious constructs. T h e w o m a n has a u t h o r ity; the w o m a n has religious power; t h e w o m a n preaches, teaches, travels, officiates at the sacraments, conducts weddings a n d f u n e r a l s . Suddenly, the tidy cultural configuration with t h e male at h e a d is toppling. In the h o m e , new a r r a n g e m e n t s are necessary a n d end o r s e d : m e n cook a n d care f o r children; w o m e n work; w o m e n travel; w o m e n counsel parishioners; m e n work; both work; both cook; w o m e n

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seek and find female partners. T h e patriarchal o r d e r does not prevail. Not only do the males who seek to retain their dominating presence find this threatening, but women in the congregations and local communities who have comfortably and securely located themselves in the private arena and participated in the construction of a patriarchal reality as well as the domestic model of reality for their own identity are threatened as well. It is always threatening when the comfortable social framework shifts and begins to reconfigure in unfamiliar ways. This aspect is not, of course, unique to clergywomen and the other social participants in their life arenas; it is true of any situation where women enter the work force and by doing so deconstruct and call into question the social frameworks and h u m a n expectations of those involved. When the situation centers on the church and is closely tied to religious beliefs, however, the impact is greater and the implications broader. What is unique to the situation involving female clergy is the fact of religious validation for this emerging social order. Could God possibly endorse such heresy? If God does, then must the patriarchy fall? How to maintain male dominance and absolute authority in the church, home, and social arena? Obviously, it cannot be done; the authority for the hierarchy has been rescinded. T h e ultimate threat to males is difficult to c o m p r e h e n d . It is not just that the absolute right of the male to the pulpit is being eliminated but that, like a row of dominos, every aspect of patriarchal authority and male dominance is threatened. In contrast to this male perspective, clergywomen claim that their presence is expanding perceptions of humanity as holistic, inclusive of all aspects of what it means to be a h u m a n being as created and encouraged by a concept of God that celebrates the whole h u m a n experience, which, of course, includes the sexual. But the sexual has been deemed inappropriate for religious contexts. Roman Catholic Christianity decreed the flesh as sinful and denied the body—finding it the locus for all that was animalistic and "natural" in humans, as well as holding the potential power of the devil and of evil. Associations of the female body with the serpent, the devil, and the loss of innocence have m a d e it easy to persecute women and deny them access to the pulpit. T h e 1484 Malleus Maleficarum states that m e n are much less likely to associate with the devil in witchcraft than are women because they belong to Christ's sexJ Sexuality was relegated to the arenas of the flesh—sin and wantonness (associated with the female body), on the one hand, and reproduction (also associated with the female body), on the other. By contrast, the church aligned celibacy with purity and divinity, a route available only to male priests, monks, and nuns. This dichotomy between the flesh and

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the spirit parallels the perception of God as a transcendent being— separate f r o m and on a higher plane than mere humans, separated f r o m the body and the flesh of "lowly" h u m a n k i n d . This denial of the flesh m a d e it impossible to incorporate any potential f o r h u m a n divinity. Contemporary Protestant Christianity lives in the shadow of a fear of the h u m a n capacity for debauchery and sexual lascivity, so that the body can be claimed as the "temple" of God only if sexuality is tempered and largely denied. While celibacy has never been imposed on Protestant clergy, in Protestant socioreligious culture sexuality remains a d a n g e r to be checked, and both sexual allure and d a n g e r are associated with women. With all the above factors operating, what becomes the perception of a female who is ordained, dresses in robes, and stands before a congregation to speak "in the n a m e of God"? W h o is looking at whom? As I attempted to determine what a look at sexuality and the ministry would entail, particularly if I were writing about female clergy, I t u r n e d to some of folklorist David Hufford's thinking about how the terms "objective" and "subjective" are used, particularly in the arenas of belief and religion. 8 It is critical that we determine the perspective that has gained validation. T h e women in this study have said they feel "naked in the pulpit." They do not mean they feel stripped naked; they are not speaking f r o m the outside purview of a woman's naked body; they are speaking about how they feel in the pulpit. What does that mean to the women who say it? Does it mean the same thing as how a woman in the pulpit is perceived—by those others, who can physically see her u p there in robes, reading the scriptures, administering the sacraments, praying, and blessing, baptizing, burying congregation members? We have here the view f r o m without and the view f r o m within—and they are two very distinct views. T h e view f r o m the outside has been the privileged view. T h a t is, the socioreligious (outsider) view of the female has determined her status and her limitations within the ordained ministry. From the outside (read male) point of view (the authorized, empowered point of view), a woman's body lacks a penis; therefore, she is not like Christ, and cannot be ordained as a priest. But also, and importantly, f r o m this perspective, a woman does have (sensual) lips, longer hair, breasts, a vulva, (rounded) hips, and (alluring) legs. H e r body has been perceived by those observing it, and the various body parts have been fetishized and loaded with semiotic and symbolic import. O n the other hand, the view f r o m within the female body is a very different story—from this side of the lips, the hair, the breasts, the vulva, the hips, and the legs, the view is considerably different. What

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is ironic a n d u n f o r t u n a t e is that t h e outside view, based on observable data, r e f e r s to a n object, the external, a n d has come to be considered the m o r e "objective," that is "respected," view. T h e view f r o m within, based on the subject, the o n e who experiences, has b e e n d e e m e d "subjective" a n d automatically becomes suspect, because we have b e e n trained to trust the objective a n d mistrust the subjective. But the complexity of the connotations of the word "subjective," reflecting its crucial historical role in the d e v e l o p m e n t of theories of knowledge, can be appreciated by a look at some of its dictionary definitions: "Pertaining to the real n a t u r e of something; essential; p r o c e e d i n g f r o m o r taking place within a n individual's mind such as to be u n a f fected by the external world." Nevertheless, "subjective" is o f t e n used pejoratively to c o n n o t e privately arrived-at j u d g m e n t s based on emotional o r prejudiced g r o u n d s . T h i s combination of the experiential m o d e with connotations of falsity flies in the face of the philosophical truism f o r which Ralph Barton Berry coined the t e r m "egocentric p r e d i c a m e n t " to n a m e the fact that we a r e all limited to a n d by o u r own u n i q u e a n d peculiar p e r c e p t u a l world. We cannot go beyond this world to know what the external world is like in itself; knowledge is inevitably s t r u c t u r e d in terms of o u r perceptions. Even the "objective" relies on the "subjective" (or what we have experienced) to i n f o r m the interpretations we make a b o u t what we see. 9 But the p o p u l a r , limited view of these critically i m p o r t a n t terms has created myriad limitations a n d has h a m p e r e d the world available to females; in this particular case, it has worked to obstruct the f e m a l e desire to be a priest, with t h e same rights a n d privileges as a male priest. T h e constructed reality of "female" f r o m a male perspective can actually be viewed as a folk belief, a belief perceived as authentic, validated, objective a n d codified as an official religious injunction against female priests. Within Protestant d e n o m i n a t i o n s w h e r e w o m e n can be o r d a i n e d , this particular belief is n o t official doctrine o r held by all persons ( t h o u g h , i n d e e d , shared by many), but t h e fetishization of the female body a n d the c o n c u r r e n t semiotic a n d symbolic overlays a r e clearly o p e r a t i n g within the religious contexts in which these f e m a l e clergy o p e r a t e as well. T h e r e are beliefs about women's bodies that dictate the congregations' responses to t h e m in t h e pulpit. However, the women also share beliefs a b o u t themselves, a b o u t their bodies, a b o u t the world, about religion, a b o u t their place in the pulpit, a b o u t God, a b o u t humanity, that are derived f r o m their experience within t h e female body. T h i s viewpoint has been d i s r e g a r d e d as "subjective," a n d carries little o r n o authority o r validation within the religion a n d culture. I o f f e r t h e a r g u m e n t that the f e m a l e e x p e r i e n c e f r o m within the female body is equally legitimate a n d should carry equal

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weight to what is perceived as the "objective" view f r o m t h e outside. In fact, I find t h e subjective view closer to the dictionary perception, that is, " p e r t a i n i n g to the real n a t u r e of something; essential; proceeding f r o m o r taking place within a n individual's m i n d , " a n d find it to be m o r e defensible because it is knowledge a n d belief constructed f r o m actual experience a n d e x t e n d e d to interpretation, not knowle d g e a n d belief constructed f r o m perception alone. How did we get to a place w h e r e perceived, objective knowledge is s u p e r i o r to a n d m o r e trusted t h a n subjective knowledge? H o w can we facilitate a rem e m b e r i n g of the female body that does not find n u r t u r a n c e in f u r t h e r violation a n d fetishization? W h e n I started writing a b o u t the topic of sexuality a n d the ministry, I t h o u g h t it would be u s e f u l to discriminate between stories a n d experiences depicting " g e n d e r e d " situations a n d those depicting "sexuality." T h a t a p p r o a c h p r o v e d to be h e l p f u l at first, a n d some stories were fairly easy to distinguish. T h e w o m e n told m a n y stories a b o u t mixed messages f r o m congregation m e m b e r s a b o u t the c o n f u s e d g e n d e r role expectations that accompany having a f e m a l e pastor. W h e n she cooks f o r c h u r c h functions, Carter (the Episcopal priest) says m e m b e r s a r e astonished a n d say, "You m a d e this? It is like they finally decided that I was in t h e role of a cleric, b u t obviously if I can d o t h a t — t h e n I could n o t cook!" She tells a b o u t a Bible study class in which the c h u r c h w o m e n were u n a b l e to light the pilot light o n a stove a n d asked f o r the male priest to assist. C a r t e r went instead, r e a d the directions, a n d , to their a m a z e m e n t , she said, lit the pilot. "It was sort of my welcome to Faith Chapel. I could d o what the priest could do. I could light the oven!" Similarly, Maria laughed about how h a r d h e r f e m a l e congregation m e m b e r s try to exclude h e r f r o m the typical f e m a l e expectations f o r potluck d i n n e r s a n d kitchen duties, insisting, " O h , this doesn't m e a n you\ You a r e the pastor!" I n the process, however, she says, it becomes a "catch-22." At the same time they insist that she n e e d n o t participate, she is certain that they a r e k e e p i n g c o u n t of all the female activities she does not share with t h e m a n d suddenly the g e n d e r e d e x p e r i e n c e becomes potentially linked to Maria's sexuality; that is, if she does not b r i n g salads a n d participate in t h e activities of the w o m e n , t h e n h e r femaleness comes into question. Marsha tells about a " m a d d e n i n g " experience that "just continues to h a p p e n , over a n d over." She was called to officiate at a w e d d i n g a n d several w o m e n came u p to h e r a f t e r w a r d , exclaiming a b o u t how they "had never seen a w o m a n minister, wasn't that j u s t amazing, a w o m a n minister p r e a c h i n g a wedding! [They] h a d never h e a r d a w o m a n p r e a c h a w e d d i n g , b u t they t h o u g h t it was okay, t h o u g h t she did a fine j o b . " Marsha says she feels like she's in a zoo: "It's j u s t an

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awful feeling to have to keep experiencing that! It gets to be a burden." Similarly, Constance laughingly recounted an experience at a recent f u n e r a l where a woman was officiating. A week later, she heard two older women discussing the funeral. O n e was lamenting that no minister had been there to conduct the service. "So," she told her friend, "some woman just got u p there and did the talking. It was the darndest thing!" T h e r e are many instances of this kind of cognitive dissonance—seeing a woman in the pulpit u n d e r certain conditions and without explanation. This story led to a long discussion of vestment catalogs and how they had changed in the past several years to include the possibility of female clergy. T h e women recalled that twenty years ago there were no women featured in the pictures in the catalogs, n o r were women's measurements included. T h e n , for a time, there was an extra sheet featuring choices for women, an insert that accompanied the regular catalog. More recently, pictures of women began appearing selectively, modeling only the vestments "appropriate" for women to wear. Now, the catalogs include women's pictures on most pages, and have begun to include a picture of a woman in a chasuble, the vestment worn only by the celebrant at the eucharist. Carter was delighted: "They finally put a woman in one!" My neat distinctions between gendered stories and sexual stories began to collapse, however, the m o r e I listened to the women's voices. I recall another f u n n y story Carter shared in one of o u r dialogue sessions. T h e story was told as true but I believe is probably apocryphal. I heard a story about a priest, when he first went to be a director of a Newman Center. It was Christmas and they were hanging things and all of that, and the light bulbs needed to be changed and he got a ladder and someone came to him and said, "Oh, no. Father, let one of the men do that!"

This story actually helped me understand that the gendered and the sexual could not so easily be separated. G e n d e r e d roles and expectations are based on perceptions about sexuality. In fact, this story easily leads us into an examination of one aspect of the beliefs about women—or m e n — i n the pulpit, and what semiotic messages are inherent in that "picture." This Catholic priest's maleness provided him access to the priesthood; yet in this anecdote it is clear that his manhood has been questioned at the same time. While questions of appropriate gender role differentiation continued to a p p e a r in the discussions of women in ministry, it became a p p a r e n t that gender was not at the heart of the issue. Sexuality was. Bold, raw, naked, open, embraceable, pure, but denied h u m a n sexuality. Yet as we moved

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t h r o u g h the exploration of the issue we f o u n d the lines blurred and sometimes indistinguishable. We came, I believe, to recognize that g e n d e r is never really just gender—it is merely sexuality disguised and denied. How female clergy dress becomes a public issue that has to d o with sexuality. Several women told stories about congregation members being upset by the length of their skirts, thinking that their skirts were too short and did not convey the p r o p e r image of the female pastor as d e m u r e and modest. Anne-Marie told of an associate who had lost her j o b f o r wearing pants to church a few times. But the issue of sexuality is certainly multifaceted and takes us far beyond expectations of social behavior. Linda tells a story about a woman whose church-provided robes were too large for her and how she sought a robe that would neither hide nor reveal too much. H e r stories led the women to talk about her women's denominational newsletter, which the f o u n d e r s wanted to call "Naked in the Pulpit," because that was "the way we were feeling very much of the time." They concluded that they could not, in fact, call it that because of the rather risque implications of such a title. Instead, they strategically chose "Notions 'n Pins," which keeps the abbreviation N I P but embeds their radical statement within an acceptable and m u n d a n e domestic image of sewing. When they tell this story about feeling "naked in the pulpit," or I refer to the story, listeners often giggle and p r e s u m e the title not chosen has a sexual connotation. It does, but not in the way initially perceived. I shall r e t u r n to this point later in this chapter. Susan Suleiman, in her examination of The Female Body in Western Culture, tells us "we find ample testimony to the fascination that the female body has exerted on o u r individual and collective consciousness. And simultaneously with its attraction, we find testimony to the fear and loathing that that body has inspired: beautiful but unclean, alluring but dangerous, women's body ( = mother's body) has appeared mysterious, duplicitous—a source of pleasure and n u r t u r ance, but also of destruction and evil—Mary and Pandora . . ." 10 Women, in this view, are em-bodied. Women cannot be a-sexual. They signify the sexual. No matter how young, old, large, small, provocative, or covered, the female body has come to signify sexuality. " T h e cultural significance of the female body is not only (not even first or foremost) that of a flesh-and-blood entity, but that of a symbolic construct. Everything we know about the body . . . exists for us in some f o r m of discourse, and discourse, whether verbal or visual, fictive or historical or speculative, is never unmediated, never free of interpretation, never innocent." 1 1 This interpretation is, of course, political. T h a t is, the persons in power—men, by and large—are making

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the interpretations. This is what the female body signifies to them. This is a question of power and control within the society. In an interesting connection between the power of speech and women's bodies, George Steiner, in After Babel, states, "the alleged outpouring of women's speech, crank flow of words, may be a symbolic restatement of men's apprehensive, often ignorant awareness of the menstrual cycle."(!)12 Perhaps closer to reality, however, Miles's comment that "women's mouths, tongues, and speech have frequently been associated with the vagina—open when they should be closed, causing the ruin of all they tempt or slander." 13 The current interest in "writing the body" derives largely from the theoretical essays of Helene Cixous, Julia Kristeva, and Luce Irigaray, who have been concerned with the body politic and encouraged women to "write" the female body. 14 Drawing on her reading of Mariana Warner's The Cult of the Virgin Mary, Julia Kristeva, in her provocative essay "Stabat Mater," explores the proposition that because of the demise of the cult of the Virgin, and of religion in general, we are today left without a satisfactory discourse on motherhood. 15 According to Toril Moi, Kristeva asks, "What is it that the cult of the Virgin ignores or represses in modern women's experience of motherhood?" 16 In reply to her own question, Kristeva points to the need for a "new understanding of the mother's body. . . . There is, then, an urgent need for a 'post-virginal' discourse on maternity, one which ultimately would provide both women and men with a new ethics: a 'herethics' encompassing both reproduction and death." 17 In some ways, the present chapter on sexuality and the ministry seeks to meet Kristeva's challenge, demonstrating how "women in the ministry" do provide a new "herethics" that not only encompasses reproduction and death but also seeks to reunite the secular and the sacred, the temporal and the spiritual, the human and the divine, the flesh and the spirit—and that would, therefore, also reweave the natural connections between life and death. As long as we attempt only to "write the body" with a patriarchal pen, the manifestation of this new "herethics" will remain on the level of signification rather than articulation, giving voice to a "herethics" that will go beyond mapping the female body. I began this study with a notion that women in the professional ministry would be, and already were, changing the face of religion as we know it in this country. While many of them initially hesitated to agree with this assessment, several now recognize how feminist theology is actually affecting all levels of denominational politics and practice—evidenced, they say, in denominational shifts in attitudes about inclusive language in hymnals and sermons and in official

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stances o n abortion a n d homosexuality a n d the issue of f e m a l e ordination. My work, t h e r e f o r e , has b e e n to a large d e g r e e focused o n t h e critical question of what the overall impact of f e m a l e clergy has b e e n a n d will be. In o u r dialogues I came to u n d e r s t a n d the ultim a t e effect the presence of w o m e n in t h e pulpit has o n the religious consciousness—the implicit, u n d e n i a b l e fact of the vibrance a n d spiritual dimension of h u m a n sexuality as perceived by w o m e n . T h e topic, however, p r o v e d to be difficult to e x a m i n e a n d even h a r d e r to u n d e r s t a n d . W h e n we first b e g a n to e x p l o r e the topic of sexuality, I was viewing the issue f r o m a very n a r r o w perspective. I t h o u g h t the w o m e n w e r e c o n c e r n e d with p e r h a p s two aspects: (1) how a p e r s o n acts out h e r o r his sexuality, that is, what people d o b e h i n d closed d o o r s a n d with w h o m ; a n d (2) the general (and usually male) attitudes toward the f e m a l e body that intersect a n d interact negatively with the image of a w o m a n in the pulpit. While both these issues were of concern in the discussions, the dialogue sessions o n sexuality took my u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the issue of sexuality f a r beyond these two r a t h e r obvious questions. T h e w o m e n were o p e n to discussing aspects of their own sexuality, how they relate to congregation m e m b e r s as sexual beings, a n d how sexuality was n o t an aspect of their be-ing that they wanted to isolate a n d view separately. T h e y p r e f e r r e d to see sexuality as only o n e aspect of t h e complex w h o l e — b u t I did not c o m e to this realization easily o r quickly. As I sought a way to deal with sexuality a n d w o m e n in the ministry, I listened to a n d r e a d t h e transcripts of o u r dialogue sessions with a n e a r toward what I conceived as " m a p p i n g the f e m a l e body." I m a g e s of the female body a n d its link to sexuality led m e on this semiotic a n d metaphorical examination. It seemed i m p o r t a n t in a discussion of sexuality in the ministry to m a p the f e m a l e body in t e r m s of its dissonance with the pulpit. T h e f e m a l e b o d y — c o m p l e t e with breasts, womb, sexual organs, long hair, a n d m o u t h . Covered o r uncovered, the female body in the pulpit poses a problem. In o u r discussions of sexuality a n d ministry, Linda c o m m e n t e d that when she was pregn a n t some m e m b e r s of h e r congregation felt very u n c o m f o r t a b l e because the fact of h e r p r e g n a n c y b r o u g h t h e r sexuality to the foref r o n t . T h e congregation h a d to face t h e fact that she a n d h e r (clergy) h u s b a n d were e n g a g i n g in sexual activity. Linda talked openly a b o u t how some of the m e n in h e r congregation o f t e n looked at h e r cleavage r a t h e r t h a n at h e r face a n d how their interest in h e r breasts took an interesting t u r n w h e n she was n u r s i n g h e r son. She felt a lot of discomfort in h e r congregation w h e n she b r e a s t f e d a n d suggested that many clergywomen choose not to breastfeed their babies because some congregation m e m b e r s find it i n a p p r o p r i a t e . F u r t h e r -

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more, it was her opinion that the problem with women officiating at the sacraments went back to some very ancient Old Testament taboos about women being unclean during menstruation—and her pregnancy made clear that at various such occasions previous she must have been menstruating. T h e discussion about breastfeeding and pregnancy also brought the women to acknowledge that the public display of pregnancy and breastfeeding troubled some men because these images were the signifiers of what men could not do. This first discussion, then, helped to map the female body in terms of sexual dissonance. Linda mapped the breasts, the womb, and sexual intercourse, which of course draws attention to the vagina and the sexual parts of the woman as well as her menses; her story also draws the lines of sexual/textual dissonance that accompany this mapping. Similarly, Margaret Miles suggests that the Adam and Eve story set the stage for the messages of sin and corruption superimposed on the female body (reflected in Ecclesiasticus 25:24, "From a woman sin had its beginning and because of her we all die."). The female body came to signify Eve's perceived initiative in sin and her shame, pain, and punishment. Some of this ancient and medieval response to the female form remains with us today; female nakedness continues to be heavily invested with social and religious meaning. But no one voice in this group can speak for all and Linda had no sooner concluded her account when others were eager to have their voices heard and acknowledged as well. Several claimed that their experience of being pregnant in a co-minister situation "was nothing like that." Amy's passionately contradictory story counters Linda's negative perceptions within the congregations she ministered. Her story does not deny that she, too, was perceived by her congregation as an actively sexual being and that her pregnancy further exposed that aspect of her be-ing: "It was almost the opposite of that—a celebration of sexuality and of creation of life. And I got none of that negative denial of who I was or that I was a sexual being. There was none of that." Her pregnancy was noted and applauded as a celebration of sexuality and a celebration of new life. In either case, the female body is mapped and noted as sexual and reproductive in essence. As Miles notes, the connection between the female body and eroticism is ironic because female sexual arousal is not visibly apparent; she also notes that even though the male sexual organ displays the most visible "willfulness," it is the female who is identified with her sexual and reproductive organs. 18 In one of our dialogue sessions, Marsha repeated a story we had heard before about a Methodist district superintendent who had misled her about employment opportunities in the area in which her

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clergy-husband had taken a church. H e had encouraged her to come and had suggested that he could help her find a church to pastor. Yet when she actually arrived, he said to her, '"Why d o you want to be a minister? You are a woman. That's like bloodying your head against a wall.' He then began to laugh as he said, 'Can you imagine a p r e g n a n t bishop?'" He soon realized Marsha was not laughing with him. T h e g r o u p discussed why that was such a problematic image. For one woman: "It is a constant reminder of your sexuality. You cannot escape the fact that you were with a man. You did it at least once. You cannot be asexual anymore. You really cannot anyway. A m a n might be able to carry that off, but a woman never can." This led the g r o u p to conclude that women cannot be asexual. No matter how one approached the subject, the g r o u p asserted, it would be impossible for females and for the congregations of female pastors to deny or ignore their sexuality. Women are flesh and blood, and have bodies that are sexual. As we talked and as I questioned this stance, they clarified the argument, pointing out that what they were presenting were cultural perceptions of women as always sexual, rather than suggesting that they themselves were buying into the myth. With the women who m a d e u p the Mud Flower Collective, they were in accord: "Sexuality and the reality of o u r sensual bodies, which women and gay m e n represent on behalf of all persons is not recognized by most white or black males." 19 While the women in this g r o u p eventually rejected any categorical statement insisting that women are more embodied and are, therefore, inherently any more sexual than men, they did agree that women in ministry boldly c o n f r o n t the myth of the asexual minister: " O u r being there changes the myth of asexuality. Because when they see a woman u p there, they can no longer say that the priest has no sexual identity. In the ministry, it has been asexual. You can pretend a man is asexual, or a minister is, until you get a woman u p there and then that means the other one was a man and this one is a woman. And that means they both have sexual identities." Kathleen struggled with why they felt this might be so: "If a male priest says he is celibate and that he never thinks about it [sexuality], which is unlikely, he is treated as though that were true." T h e others agreed, at least temporarily. Flannery suggested that the male priest is expected to take this stance—asexual, celibate, never thinking about sex. " T h e male priest can really upset people by recognizing that he has sexuality and talking about it." In reality, she said, the male priest does not have to "buy into" the myth, he just has to recognize that the congregation needs to pretend that it is so. A female in the pulpit, however, they all

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agreed, throws that myth into confusion. "We screw up the myth by appearing before a congregation. A woman can never be looked at as asexual. Therefore, the ministry can no longer be looked at as asexual because there is a woman in there. And if the woman is pregnant, there is no way they can fool themselves anymore—about either males or females." At this point, I suggested that until women entered the pulpit, no one was thinking about the male minister or priest as male. But the women in this group argued with that. They argued that women certainly looked at and thought about their male ministers as male, yet they agreed that there was no validation of the realness of their (men's) sexuality. "By her presence the woman in the pulpit signifies Ί am woman' and she forces the man and the congregation to say, then, 'this is a man,' because of the difference." Later, after all her strong arguments about women not signifying sexuality any more than men, Marsha told a story that seems to verify exactly the opposite of what she has been saying. Recalling Linda's comments about men who looked at her cleavage rather than making eye contact, she told us about the first hospital call she had ever done. There, in the lobby, she greeted a man who had just been introduced to her. This man took her hand and looked slowly not only at her breasts, but looked her "all up and down. I hated it," she told us, shuddering and remembering how it had made her feel. "It was horrible." T h e difference lies in the seat of power and control; she felt violated by his optical rape. Recalling how she felt made her re-think the stance she had taken. She was clearly distressed by the difference between her philosophical arguments and the reality of her experience. Some clergymen deny their sexuality or are required to pretend that they deny it. In some denominations they are forced into celibacy and a denial of their sexual natures or drives. T h e r e is a shared denial by many congregation members that the male pastor is sexual. This is not, of course, always true. We have all heard stories about the promiscuous minister, the ladies' man, the clergyman who abuses his position by sexual molestation. Women, on the other hand, are perceived as sexual and therefore force a confrontation with sexuality. While this forced confrontation is uncomfortable for women and often makes them feel vulnerable, women who recognize it and carry it to its fullest extension humanize religion by celebrating the full potential o f what it means to be human—and to be sexual. As I asked the women to focus on these differences and on the perceptions o f their congregations about them—either pregnant or not pregnant—my questions to the group centered on several aspects

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of sexuality and ministry that I had not been able to sort out. Some of these aspects included a question about why some parishioners would be hesitant to share in the sacraments when the officiant is a p r e g n a n t woman. O t h e r questions focused on how congregation members perceived clergywomen before they become pregnant, while they were pregnant, and after their children were born. I wondered whether the congregations shared in the pretense that before the pregnancy the minister was "just a person," not a woman, but that once she became pregnant there could no longer be any denial of her g e n d e r and her sexuality. I f u r t h e r wondered whether clergywomen, like women in the general population, ceased to be thought of as sexual once they become mothers. Amy attempted to respond to these questions in terms of h e r own experience. Before h e r first pregnancy, she speculated, the women did not know how to respond to me as a professional woman. It doesn't take people long to figure out in my relationship with my husband that I'm not the person that cooks. He's the person who cooks in our family. So I was some kind of different breed, you know, I didn't have children; I didn't cook. They gave their pie recipes to my husband. And yet there was something affirming in my being pregnant, and there was something affirming in my having a child that said, "Yeah, she is a woman and because she is a woman I connect with her." And it opened doors; it opened intimacy— [doors] that were guarded before. But no one was ever appalled by my pregnancy. It was a celebration within the congregation. And no one was appalled that I nursed my child. The reality is that Linda had one kind of experience and I had a very different kind of experience.

But once again, as in the case of u n m a r r i e d or lesbian women, if she does not have a pregnancy, then her sexuality is in question. As Amy put it, they are asking, "Is she really a woman?" And what all of this reveals is that sexuality in this discussion and in the perception of most religious denominations means appropriate and prescribed sexual feelings for and with the opposite sex and for one's spouse. In this discussion, I had to admit that I was still searching for the clue to how the body politic related to women in ministry and how the different stories might connect and guide us toward an understanding that would transcend the varied and different personal perspectives. Later, when Linda told how one of her pastor /parish relations committees had asked her to redesign h e r wardrobe to better cover her bosom, her story brought comic relief to a very difficult session. Both Marsha and Amy laughed, and said "That's why we've never had

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any of these problems. We don't have any breasts!" T h e entire group roared with laughter at this remark, and agreed that maybe it had something to do with just how large a woman's breasts were and how much the woman's configuration was revealed or hinted at under ministerial robes. Breasts are mapped, noted, pondered. Breasts too large, too exposed, feeding children, or protruding from the folds of the robe are dangerous, provocative, sexual. Women without breasts are questionable as women. Ironically, the connection between all the stories becomes a perfect example of damned if you and damned if you don't. Either way the female in the pulpit loses. After the laughter died down, several women in the group wanted to pursue this further and commented that, in fact, it did not matter how attractive a woman was or how much her body parts protruded from under the robe. What mattered was that she was a woman, in a robe, in the pulpit. Her presence is a signifier of difference, and (I shall continue to argue) of sexuality. And this can occur because of her position in the society, because of the essence of the female as it has been cultivated in this culture. This is not biological determinism; this is an acknowledgment of the position of women in our culture and how their bodies are perceived. Margaret Miles argues in her book, Carnal Knowing: Female Nakedness and Religious Meaning in the Christian West, that "female bodies have not represented women's subjectivity or sexuality but have, rather been seen as a blank page on which multiple social meanings could be projected." 20 One can map the female body and its sexual/textual, semiotic, and metaphorical implications just as I have done here. Yet as I rethink such a dissection of female sexuality in terms of body parts, I ask to what end I offer such an analysis. Is this an approach from without or an approach from within? Is this sexuality from a female perspective or from a male perspective? Does my map not spotlight each of those provocative, alluring, and "dangerous" aspects of the female physique in such a way as to endorse and perpetuate the semiotic violation of women, in the pulpit and elsewhere? While Hdlene Cixous's directive to "write the [female] body" with white ink excites us in its potentials, we must heed the cautions as well. Helena Michie in her book The Flesh Made Word argues that "Fetishization of parts of the body—breasts, legs, vulva, uterus—transgresses the body's integrity as subject." She makes a point of differentiating between a "naked" and a "nude" body, where the latter is most definitely a recreation intended for the male gaze.21 Similarly, while acknowledging the potential importance of female body imagery in women's literature, Elaine Showalter concludes that "there can be no expression of

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the [female] body which is unmediated by linguistic, social and literary structures." 2 2 Showalter would have us "gaze" at social contexts rather than female bodies. Taking a female approach to the subject should deny neither the stories related here n o r the feelings shared by the women in o u r dialogue sessions. They and I know the m a p p i n g of the female body well, and we have all followed a prescribed path in these discussions. However, the women were also able to leave the m a p p i n g of the body and expand the discussion of sexuality in a way that would incorporate a female perspective not discernible so long as we remained preoccupied with sexuality in male terms. Oddly, since I am a woman, it took me a while to understand this language. But, as Miles points out, "because women have not enjoyed the conditions necessary for formulating the self-representations that could have i n f o r m e d the collective male view of women, men have usually created representations of women out of their fears and fantasies." It will be difficult now, she argues, for women to offer acceptable alternatives based on female subjectivity and experience. But such a move toward self-description is absolutely necessary, she says, for the acquisition of political power. It is, however, difficult f o r us, as women, to move beyond "seeing ourselves as others see us." She quotes Sandra Bartky, who writes, "a panoptical male connoisseur resides within the consciousness of most women." 2 3 Miles calls for a collective female voice that will publicly begin to formulate new ways of perceiving the female body—perspectives f r o m within rather than based on the external male gaze. She acknowledges the difficulty inherent in deciding that the female body has been irretrievably appropriated to a male agenda and thus unavailable to women themselves for reinterpretation. In this case, the women ministers seem inclined, for the moment, to leave the m a p p i n g of the female body as a means for accessing female subjectivity and h u m a n spirituality. I hear them saying we need not try to de-eroticize the female body but to accept the equally erotic in all bodies. This is in many ways the message of Rita Brock's Journeys by Heart: A Christology of Erotic Power and Carter Heyward's Touching Our Strength, although both Brock and Heyward go f u r t h e r in suggesting the erotic as a path to the divine. 24 Here, then, is the voice, the Word, according to Women, embodied in a "herethics" that validates difference and h u m a n wholeness. T h e message is not on the level of signification and semiotics; it is a philosophical and theological discourse that refuses to deny any aspect of sexuality, male or female, but that strives to articulate beyond the sign, the signifier. In a radical turn on the Lacanian denial of the

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f e m a l e access to language a n d the symbolic, clergywomen challenge what being sexual a n d spiritual a r e taken to mean. According to Suleim a n , Irigaray rejects the Freudian/Lacanian "erection of the phallus to the status of transcendental signifier . . ." a n d the subsequent exclusion of w o m e n f r o m the symbolic a n d f r o m language. She posits instead—in opposition to a "phallic" discourse, characterized by linearity, self-possession, the affirmation of mastery a n d a u t h o r i t y — a f e m i n i n e discourse. Women must "struggle to speak otherwise" that is, speak in a f e m i n i n e text. 2 5 Women, Suleiman argues, must cease to be objects a n d become subjects: "let w o m a n speak h e r own body." Miles quotes Jean-Paul Debax: "to r e d u c e w o m a n to silence is to r e d u c e h e r to powerlessness; that is how the masculine will to castrate operates. Lavinia's t o n g u e is cut off, as a r e h e r h a n d s , a symbol of total powerlessness. T h u s , p e r h a p s because of this, women's will to revolt necessarily passes t h r o u g h the use of language, the t o n g u e (la langue). L a n g u a g e , the tongue, is women's weapon." 2 6 Rebecca C h o p p , in The Power to Speak: Feminism, Language, God, speaks of language as a political activity, noting that G o d has long been associated with t h e Word while w o m e n have been o p p o s e d to the Word: "As Word, G o d has traditionally been p r e v e n t e d f r o m being r e p r e s e n t e d by w o m a n , while w o m a n has b e e n c o n f i g u r e d as taboo a n d placed o n the m a r g i n s of t h e Word." 2 7 Yet, as C h o p p acknowledges, w o m e n d o speak f r o m the margins, a n d they speak of t h e Word. C h o p p seeks to reconstruct in a "theological semiotics the proclaimed W o r d as t h e perfectly o p e n sign that f u n d s multiplicity a n d otherness in a n d t h r o u g h f e m i n i n e discourses." 2 8 Like R u e t h e r , C h o p p finds in " w o m e n - c h u r c h " the basis f o r a c o m m u n i t y that lives in a n d f o r t h e proclamation of God in the w o r l d — f o r m e d in a n d t h r o u g h the Word. Chopp's description proposes a new discourse based o n new ways of being h u m a n , which include the desires of w o m e n a n d what w o m e n have e x p e r i e n c e d a n d what they know. I n o u r dialogue sessions, A n n e - M a r i e p u t it this way: I am uncomfortable with the equation of men with asexuality, but I do think that women—the fact of women being there—somehow triggers more thought about sexuality. And, furthermore, the women who are up there [in the pulpit] are, for the most part, doing a lot of rethinking and deconstructing of the traditional ways in which we understand the body and sexuality. Sex is so different for men, because it's almost like—it's just different for them. There's this thing, this member, outside their bodies that you do this other thing with and then you feel better, but for women it's so intrinsically integrated and it involves your whole body, not just one part. And so, if it

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A m y a g r e e d a n d w e n t o n to e x p l o r e this line o f t h i n k i n g : I think for women the sexuality has always been there. It may not have been there for the men, because there were men in the pulpit and there's such a denial, such a homophobia—so a woman in the pulpit has opened the door to sexuality in a broader way for men. This brought agreement: The kind of sexuality we are calling for now is a whole one, a healthy one, where sexuality is intimately connected with God and God's grace in our lives, rather than the dirty thing you do off in the dark. Interestingly, A m y p o i n t e d o u t that P r o t e s t a n t c h u r c h e s a r e c u r r e n t l y treating (male) sexuality in a n e g a t i v e way. C o n f e r e n c e s o f t e n deal with sexuality, b u t t h e f o c u s is "sexual abuse by t h e clergy." T h e c h u r c h e s a r e n o t d e a l i n g with sexuality as a w h o l e n e s s issue b u t as a m a l e p o w e r issue a n d h o w to deal with t h a t — w h i c h they all a g r e e d was a legitimate c o n c e r n . H o w e v e r , We're not dealing with the wholeness of sexuality, but rather we're talking about the abuse of sexuality—and it is a way to continue to distance ourselves from dealing with our sexuality. A n n e - M a r i e tried to articulate s o m e o f w h a t s h e f e l t was at t h e r o o t o f this belief: I think it's more than pregnancy and menstruating. I do not feel as though I am free to admit to or express any kind of sexual feelings. Now, probably, men aren't either. But I think it is a part of the wholeness that I am striving for—to be able to be sexual. I don't mean unpleasantly exposing yourself. What I mean is to be able to say or to intimate that one has truly sexual feelings and that they play a part in the way we relate to the altar. And I don't feel free to say that. And I guess no one does, in fact, hardly anyone in our culture can say that. But we preach—we are very revelatory in our sermons about a lot of things that are very deeply important to us, but there is never a hint of thatl This is a long way from where the church is right now, but it is something that I feel, that I feel called to work toward.

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At this point, Amy remembered a sermon that her male co-pastor preached: and he said in his sermon that the reason w h y he enjoyed sex so much is because it takes us beyond ourselves. The minute he said that, he could see people's heads go [made a motion quickly from one side to the

other—like

What\}. Think of the shock value of that coming out of the pulpit!

Anne-Marie responded, But, you see, w h e n we're pregnant that it is almost as if w e have said something like that because it is a physical manifestation of it.

Telling this story helped Amy articulate the theology of sexuality as she sees it: And I think that there's power in that, to say that God is a part of all ofthat and so I don't see that as a negative, and I think people's reactions to it can be really positive.

Anne-Marie agreed: Humanity and sexuality are a part of this business of being called to the ministry as women. Justice is a part of the wholeness ministry which the church needs to face. There are lots of contradictions, even in our o w n stories. The call for wholeness and embodiment is coming from feminist theology, which, of course, includes both w o m e n and sympathetic men.

Kathleen added: It's wider in the sense that w h a t I see w o m e n doing, calling for, and simply by their presence forcing the recognition of all the stories of individuals, the recognition of individuality, the recognition that each person is an important entity, an important being, and that making the generalization, the theological overview, isn't w h a t religion is about.

And, finally, Anne-Marie: So w h a t we're doing is calling, is bringing the emphasis back not just to sexuality or on being w o m e n but bringing back that it's the person that's holy and the person is whole and the person has a stoiy and the story matters enough that you just don't put it in the back and extrapolate out of it to make generalizations. And so that wholeness has to do with the value of a person.

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Miles would agree with the notion that this view calls the Christian church back to an earlier notion of the human body: "the first theological meaning of nakedness in Christian tradition was the innocence, fragility, and vulnerability of human bodies in their initial creation." 29 The women in this study would not read such words as an open invitation for abuse or sexual impropriety. Rather "wholeness" is to be understood as an unabashed presentation of self in all its particulars—with sexuality being a very important aspect of the self. It also means that the women stand firm in their concerted belief that God endorses different sexual orientations and avenues for wholeness and love. Their stance may not, in all cases, correspond with any or all of the official views of their various denominations, and most of them see this as a direct challenge for their personal ministries. Anne-Marie had come to this discussion with a quote from Sally McFague in an article in Christian Century, which she considered appropriate to what Kathleen had just said about individuality: A collegial theology explicitly supports difference. One of the principal insights of both feminism and postmodern science is that while everything is interrelated and interdependent, everything—a maple leaf, a star, a deer, dirt, and not just human beings—is different from everything else. Individuality and interrelatedness are features of the universe, hence no one voice or single species is the only one that counts.

Anne-Marie concluded: I think that sexuality is at the heart of w h o w e are as human beings and that as w e search for this wholeness in the midst of a call to ministiy, we've got to deal, then, with what it means to be sexual human beings w h o are called to ministry. It is a theological issue as well as a political issue. That's me! That's my one voice. *

*

*

I want to return now to the newsletter title that did not get used, "Naked in the Pulpit." The women who proposed this title said they wanted to use the phrase because "that's how we were feeling most of the time." T h e title and their feelings had nothing to do with sexuality as we normally perceive it: the image embodied, rather, a feeling the women had about being vulnerable, stripped naked, indefensible, attacked, denied, violated and dis-connected. The newsletter, designed for women only, was an attempt to re-member the female constituents and help them feel less vulnerable, to serve as a corrective, a conscious

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move toward connectedness. Moreover, as I listened to the women talk about sexuality in these sessions, it became clear that for them sexuality is intricately bound u p in their notions of what it meant to be a spiritual be-ing. Being naked meant being vulnerable, taking risks, and acknowledging their femaleness in the pulpit. T h e reason this position feels threatening is that sexuality is inherent in their presentation of themselves in front of a congregation, while a male's self-presentation can deny his sexuality. Their theology and spiritual aspirations include a broader notion of what it means to be a sexual being: being human in all its manifestation includes being sexual. T h e "wholeness" they speak of comes to embody all bodies in all their aspects. Being a spiritual being means learning to be vulnerable, to take risks, to acknowledge who you are in all the ways in which you are human. Such a stance, then, becomes a directive for inclusivity: women who are lesbian; men who are gay; women who are mothers; women who are unmarried; women who are barren; men who are fathers, caregivers and cooks; men and women who pastor; women and men who marry; people who live and love and be. "Naked in the pulpit" then becomes the paradigm for a message of vulnerability and trust. It is not that women are inherently more sexual than men but that culturally the female body has been so intrinsically linked to sexuality that its presentation becomes the signal for recognition of sexuality in all the participants. T h e response to this message has been predictable—the mapping continues, and men retreat f u r t h e r rather than expose themselves as equally vulnerable. Anne-Marie says the denominations are reluctant to face sexuality head-on and acknowledge its power in the lives of all the members of a congregation; the churches need to approach the issue from the standpoint of exploring what it means to be a sexual human being, laity or clergy. Women are no more "sexual" than males, but the patriarchy sees the female body as sexual. Women in the pulpit, in vestments, officiating at the sacraments, have re-energized religion, have re-inserted the human, in all its aspects, into the imagery of the divine. Because women signal the sexual, the presence of the female within the sacral splits open the myth of asexuality in any h u m a n and affirms the right and beauty of the divine to exist and thrive within and through the corporeal. To return to Kristeva's challenge, in this way religion becomes accessible, relevant, and meaningful, as worshipers discover, through the human, a fusing of the dichotomous sacred/secular, the spiritual and the temporal, the flesh and the spirit. Theologians and these women alike would agree that Christ's message embodies this "incarnation theology," which humanizes religion through the image

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o f Jesus, but as A n n e - M a r i e has suggested w o m e n a r e calling the church back to an a c k n o w l e d g m e n t o f that. " I think the l a r g e r issue is not just with sexuality but b e i n g in touch with the concrete, the real, the e v e r y d a y , the tangible. O f course, the sexual is a part o f that." O t h e r s a g r e e d , "Sexuality is d e f i n i t e l y a piece o f it a n d probably the most i n f l a m m a t o r y piece o f it, but in a m u c h l a r g e r sense w e a r e calli n g the w h o l e church into wholeness." Kristeva calls f o r a n e w " h e r e t h i c s " ; M a r y Daly speaks o f a " m e t a ethics o f radical f e m i n i s m " ; S h a r o n W e l c h writes o f a " f e m i n i s t ethic o f risk." 3 0 T h e y are all r e d e f i n i n g the w h o l e n o t i o n o f ethics and a c k n o w l e d g i n g the i m p o r t a n c e o f a m o r e holistic c o n c e p t o f be-ing that encompasses all aspects o f what it m e a n s to be h u m a n , i n c l u d i n g sexuality. Daly explains: " W h e n I use the t e r m mythic to describe the d e p t h s o f meta-patriarchal Self-centering/be-ing, I m e a n to c o n v e y that the D r e a d f u l Selves o f w o m e n w h o choose the W i l d J o u r n e y participate . . . in a sense o f p o w e r , not o f the 'wholly other,' but o f the Self's be-ing. Metapatriarchal mythic a - m a z i n g means repudiati n g saintliness a n d b e c o m i n g wholly h a g g a r d , H o l y H a g s . A s such, w o m e n a r e 'wholly o t h e r ' to those w h o a r e at h o m e in the k i n g d o m o f the fathers." 3 1 Daly's " w i l d j o u r n e y " is a d i f f e r e n t j o u r n e y f r o m most o f the w o m e n in this study; all o f t h e m , thus f a r , r e m a i n within the b o u n d s o f Christian d e n o m i n a t i o n s . But with Daly they seek a n e w a n d sometimes wild j o u r n e y that will take t h e m b e y o n d the " k i n g d o m o f the fathers." A n d , clearly, they e x t e n d an invitation to all m e n to j o i n t h e m in this j o u r n e y into (w)holiness a n d well-being.

Notes 1. See Sherry Ortner, "Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture?" 2. Katie G. Cannon and the Mud Flower Collective, God's Fierce Whimsy: Christian Feminism and Theological Education, p. 21. 3. Margaret R. Miles, " T h e Virgin's One Bare Breast: Female Nudity and Religious Meaning in Tuscan Early Renaissance Culture," p. 201. 4. Miles, p. 205. 5. Daphne Hampson, Theology and Feminism, p. 97. 6. Hampson, p. 108. 7. Miles, p. 206. Emphasis mine. 8. I am relying here on unpublished classroom materials for a graduate seminar on belief and religion H u f f o r d teaches at the University of Pennsylvania, which he has shared with me; my thinking has also been aided by his published works and extensive conversations with him on these issues. 9. Taken from classroom materials shared with me by David Hufford. 10. Susan Suleiman, ed., The Female Body in Western Culture, p. 1. 11. Suleiman, p. 2. 12. As quoted by Miles, p. 310.

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13. Margaret R. Miles, Carnal Knowing, p. 156. 14. See, among others, Helen Wilcox, Keith McWatters, Ann Thompson, and Linda Williams, eds., The Body and the Text: Helene Cixous, Reading and Teaching; Verena Adermatt Conley, Helene Cixous: Writing the Feminine·, Julia Kristeva, Revolution in Poetic Language·, Toril Moi, ed., The Kristeva Reader·, Molly Hite, "Writing—and Reading—the Body: Female Sexuality and Recent Feminist Fiction"; Ann Rosalind Jones, "Writing the Body: Toward an Understanding of L'Ecriture feminine"·, and Mary Daly, Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism, p. 50. 15. Moi, The Kristeva Reader, p. 160. 16. Moi, p. 160. 17. T h e women in this study pointed out that this word is only one letter away from "heretical" and thought possibly this was intentional on the part of Kristeva, because it is a heretical ethic. 18. Miles, p. 116. 19. Cannon and the Mud Flower Collective, p. 20. 20. Miles, Carnal Knowing, p. 169. 21. As quoted by Miles, p. 181. 22. As quoted by Miles, p. 181. 23. Miles, Carnal Knowing, p. 170. 24. Rita Nakashima Brock, Journeys by Heart: A Christology of Erotic Power·, Carter Heyward, Touching Our Strength. 25. As summarized by Suleiman, p. 137. 26. Miles, Carnal Knowing, p. 74. 27. Rebecca S. Chopp, The Power to Speak: Feminism, Language, God, p. 3. 28. Chopp, p. 7. 29. Miles, Carnal Knowing, p. xi. 30. Sharon D. Welch, A Feminist Ethic of Risk. 31. Daly, p. 50.

Chapter 6 The Dancer and the Dance Female Images of God

I have had some of my strongest impressions of what God is in music and we just did Elijah this weekend a n d there's a place where the soprano sings—"I thy God will strengthen thee" (sings). A n d when she soars u p to that "I thy God"—I just ahhh—every time I ever hear that song, I just—there's something about that opening, that o p e n i n g and lifting u p that is a really powerful one f o r me. It's a musical image. Anne-Marie Cooper

I connect to the imagery of dance very strongly, a n d I think there is a spirituality to dance. It is very neglected. I find myself—I don't resonate to music in the way that some people do. I resonate to dance a n d to movement. . . . This image is m o r e of a reflection of an image of myself as a spiritual being than it is of my image of God. Amy Seger

It's like defining God, a n d I just don't think we can do that. I don't think of God as transcendent. I just think of God in terms of being. I can't r e m e m b e r having a mental picture of God. I really can't. I can be by the ocean a n d kind of come out of myself in that way, or I can look at the roots of a redwood tree or at the height of a redwood tree, a n d just be g o n e — a n d that's for me a real experience of, I guess you could say, of the transcendence of God, but it's also a very personal kind of experience. If I were going to try to come u p with any kind of concrete image of God, I don't think I could do it. Community would be the closest that I could come u p with. Carter Buchanan

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So there's this kind of experience which is mostly thought experience, which has to do with being overawed by it all—about the creation being so much more than I am and in a sense unapproachable, but so wonderful. Kathleen Miles-Wagner

It was July 7, 1990, and the women and I had met for one of our marathon afternoons of dialogue and discussion. Our topic on this muggy, hot day was theology. I wanted to know more about their beliefs and images of God. I wanted to know if their images and concepts of God correspond with the official, creedal beliefs of their denominations, or if their personal beliefs were ever in conflict or in tension with the denominational beliefs and how they negotiated these differences. My introduction of this topic and my question about conflict and tension initially met with laughter and much general acknowledgment that their concepts might indeed not be "in line" with their denominations. As the laughter, isolated titters, and remarks faded away, a fairly long story emerged as a response to my inquiry. The story, initiated by Linda Stewart, was about a recent regional denominational meeting; other voices interjected from other women in the group who had also been at that meeting. They shared the telling of this story about how the denominational leaders were trying to cut the budget of the status of women's committee (which is chaired by Linda) because a small portion of that committee's funds were being used in ways the leaders did not endorse. Linda began her story with some indignation: "Less than a week ago, there was a young man trying to get rid of the entire budget of my committee—Yes, I think my concept of God is different." (Again, Linda's emphatic statement brought knowing laughter from the group.) This story is rather long and might be perceived by some as not germane to this discussion and convoluted because of the shared telling, but it bears repeating. Apparently, at the general business meeting of the United Methodist Conference, a man had suggested that the entire budget of her Status of Women committee be cut because the committee had pledged money in support of a pro-abortion group. Linda rose to the occasion; her female colleagues watched in awe and wonder. Linda started the story with the lines: Less than a week ago, there was a young man trying to get rid of the entire budget of my committee—Yes, I think my concept of God is different.

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Marsha, another Methodist who had been there, told us, I thought, then, "what a great moment," I thought is there any w a y I could help Linda here?

Others chimed in to add to the telling: But she answered it so beautifully. She gets up to the microphone and she says, "ahhhh."

Linda reclaimed her story: While he's talking, I'm looking around for my orange sheet. I know for sure that I'm going to have to talk, so I'm looking around for the orange sheet that you're supposed to wave when you want to talk, but he's already looking at me.

Someone in the corner of the room quipped: That's when your favorite line should have come in, " You know nothingY' Well, I think she came pretty close to that, but she was very articulate and very carefully worded. And very calm, she was so calm.

This brought laughter and feigned disbelief— No, not Linda! That's because the "Status and Role of W o m e n " supports abortion—and they wanted to cut the whole budget. That was the gist of it.

Linda clarified the problem: Well, fifty dollars of our budget, our huge budget, which is this year is $1,500, fifty dollars of it goes to the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights. And since that organization is one which supports safe legal abortion, was his reasoning, that w e ought to cut, you know, eliminate the whole thing."

I asked: "What is the official church stance?"

Linda responded: See, that was where I had him, because the "discipline" says that w e don't like it much. W e want to do everything w e can to avoid it, but w e do realize

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that eveiy now and then, when life conflicts with life, there are going to be those times when people need to make those decisions and we want "safe and legal" to be an option. And that, basically, that's the CAR [Coalition for Abortion Rights] stance. CAR is very involved with education so that folks know how to avoid pregnancy in the first place. Amid general laughter, this brought several comments about how to avoid pregnancy—like avoiding men—"a sure fire way." Linda laughed with the group until tears came to her eyes. Then she continued: They're very involved with counseling, involved with education for contraception and teaching folks to counsel, not relating to abortion necessarily, but also to adoption and putting people in touch with ways to keep the baby and whatever. Which was basically why we support that organization in the first place. It was because it doesn't just say, "let's all go forth and make sure all these women get abortions—." This same guy told me later that his church had sent him to annual conference with that one specific goal in mind, which was to eliminate that, because their church believes that there is absolutely, positively, unequivocally, never a reason for abortion. T h e group responded to Linda's story: Now, I would highly question that their church, that everyone in that church believes that. There must be just a few powerful ones who do and who shut the others out. From what I've heard of that church and of that community, I would say it's probably, it's pretty close to being all women. They probably shut anybody up who believes otherwise. Linda finished her story: It was pretty amazing. I sat down and shook for about ten minutes. She answered quite well. She did, she really did. Anne-Marie brought this dialogue full circle when she concluded: And that might really be a good issue for us to get into in terms of the question that you're asking about—theology—because I think abortion is one of the ones where you really have to think about what you believe about God and why. So maybe we could start there.

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At first it seemed puzzling that my questions about images of God brought a story about denominational politics. However, the more I thought about the women's responses, the more I realized that, in fact, this story points us directly to a notion of God that is shared by the women in the group, a notion of God that transcends denominational boundaries and unifies the group. Once again, a spirituality of wholeness and well-being becomes the nexus for understanding a story. Here, in Linda's shared narrative, is an embedded notion of God that is woman-centered and has a natural connection to women's bodies, women's rights, h u m a n rights, and peace. God is not necessarily female or feminine, but the concepts and images that emerge in the dialogue portray a God based on principles that women in general and clergywomen in particular have embraced as their own—of justice, of peace, of connection. As Linda put it, "every now and then life conflicts with life." These women agree that education and support are priorities in this dangerous arena of life and birth, but they are also realistic. They recognize that women sometimes have very difficult decisions to make, and it was on this basis that Linda's committee supported the work of the coalition to ensure that abortions could be safe and legal. Gillian Bennett has discussed the shape and structure in women's storytelling, and Susan Kalcik has proposed that women often share in the telling of stories as a communal event. 1 This story works in a communal way to express some of the shared beliefs and concerns of the women in this group. While this was Linda's story, several of the other women felt free to add to it or comment on it. Their interjections often asserted their respect for Linda's stance and their support for the awkward and painful situation she found herself in at the national conference. Marsha recognized the significance of this moment and wondered if she could help Linda; the others praised her strength while recognizing her vulnerability. Linda focused on her disarranged state as she recognized what the man was trying to do to the budget of her committee, trying to locate her "flagging card" in order to be officially recognized and respond to the man's accusations calmly. T h e others confirmed that she was, in fact, articulate and calm, but their asides also attested to Linda's reputation for fiery responses and willingness to confront both issues and people. T h e comment that she should have given the man her favorite line, "You know nothing!" was a development from our discussions about key metaphors in life stories—Linda's in particular. While Linda's defense of her committee's actions seems clear and strong, she concluded her story by saying she "sat down and shook for about ten minutes." We know f r o m this collectively related story that the women involved in the telling took

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the incident very seriously. And while the story may not at first seem germane, it does, in fact, embody many aspects of the women's theology and their ministry. Recall that my initial questions had been "What are your images of God?" and "How are these images different from those officially condoned by your denominations?" Linda's story and the responses in the ensuing dialogue made it clear to me that the women here were not making clear-cut distinctions between images of God and beliefs about God. Linda's story is about her belief about God, one that is shared by the diverse members of this group. Her image of God, she told us through this narrative, is more inclusive than the one perpetuated within her denomination. While it may not appear on the surface that this story is about theology, AnneMarie's comment linking abortion and theology made the connection for us, because, she said, "abortion is one of the ones where you really have to think about what you believe about God and why." Linda and her committee, as well as the members of this ministry group, want to argue for a God who is realistic and who is there to help people where they are. Issues are rarely discussed merely as issues, but rather as issues in people's real daily lives. Linda, as we have seen, is a fighter. She fights for women's rights; she fights for human rights; she has a deep sense of morality and social justice, a view that is shared by the women in this group. 2 Their images of God are broad and deep; their concept of God breaks down traditional forms and concepts, always striving for a more holistic approach to religion and spirituality. Traditional religious language does not actually help us very much as we try to understand what these women believe about God because they are reluctant to make rigid distinctions between belief, practice, images, theology, and experience—not because they do not wish to illuminate denominational differences but because they instinctively feel the limitations and artificiality of these concepts and terms. Several of the women in this group meet on Mondays for a liturgy discussion. They read the lessons for the following Sunday and talk about them and about ways to incorporate them into their sermons. Three, sometimes four denominations are represented in these discussions—Episcopal, Methodist, Disciples of Christ, occasionally others. I think Flannery's comments stemmed from one of these sessions: Some of us were talking yesterday about this very thing, and I was saying that to me it's a lot easier to say what God is not or w h o God is not than who God is. And then I can reject a lot of the traditional imagery used for God, beginning with Father and then going on to Judge—and a lot of other ones. And I get a sense of God—like for me one of the places where I feel

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Chapter Six the presence of God or have some sense of an image of God, is like at the ocean. The sort of vastness and dynamic quality of the ocean, the 'ever-on' quality of it. But God as a person is a trick. I mean, it's a hard one for me to get ahold of, but it's easier for me to know God is not these qualities, judging, and a lot of things that are really at the basis of Christian traditions. And I have a sense of things such as compassion and gentleness and things like that as being qualities of God . . . I really can't back that up with proof, you know, it just feels true to me.

Kathleen: That sounds familiar. Following up on our yesterday's conversation. Would you say then that God is experience rather than image? I think that's the way I put it. That it's an experience I have, rather than—I mean, if I want to recall it, I may recall in images, but mostly it's an experience not an image.

Then, gradually, the others began to join in. They generally agreed that "images" were too limiting; they agreed that the images of God they had been exposed to during their lives often allowed for little spiritual flexibility. Well, I think the way you put that just now, it strikes me—an image tends to be—by its nature, any image is limiting, that the unlimited, in a sense i s — —it's static, it's too static. — a n d process, the process or the experiences, speaks to me more.

Kathleen completed her thought: And the images outside of ourselves and across the experiences—are both inside and outside.

Ann talked at length about her early childhood religious experiences, which were quite different from those of many of the other women in the group. Ironically, her negative recollections were about the Disciples of Christ church, to which several of the women belong. The images she still carried from these early years were, by her account, harmful ones. When I was a child I grew up in church, and the way to Sunday school was downstairs, and there was this long narrow stairway up to the back of the sanctuary. We'd go up there into church, and at the very top of the stairway was this huge picture of these gray, black, rolling clouds, and there was this opening and this terrible looking man with his hair like this and a beard

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and lightning in one hand and so forth, and this was God. I don't know whose idea it was to hang that picture there; I would have burned it. But that was what I saw coming up those stairs every Sunday morning. Somebody said "God" and I just blocked it, I just completely blanked it out after a while. And later on when I was in high school, my path with God was, "You just ignore me and I'll ignore you and we'll both be fine." So I just did not deal with that image; it just absolutely terrified me. And I also had a father w h o was veiy impatient and highly verbal in cursing and carrying on. He never abused me physically, but he was, he made us afraid of him when we were children. Usually our image of God comes from our parents, very early. And so these two things just sort of formed it for me as a little girl and I was scared to death of that. And so I decided to ignore the whole thing, and I found out that after I'd ignored the whole thing for ten years, I wasn't struck by a lightning bolt or anything—I was much happier. And eventually, I found the Science of Mind church, which is very much like Unity, with the idea that God is peaceful and that God is the principle of life and that God is absolute Good. That God is absolute love and joy. And this is a principle, like an energy, that flows through us. That God's answer is always "Yes" because creation is a big "Yes." It's our j o b to learn about life and to ask for things that are good for us. When we ask for things that are not good for us, we get them and the pain is there, not to choose again. And my theology is that I can become God-like. That if I pray in the image and likeness of God, then somehow I am that image of God. One of my jobs is to learn to be as much like the likeness of God as I can, and so I set about finding out what that is. So I can't work out of an anthropomorphic God that stalks the earth, like in the garden of Eden. You're right, image is very limiting. Sometimes when I'm meditating, I'll image the voice of God, and sometimes the image of the voice of God is female. God for me is that principal living being.

True to form, Marsha had a completely different story, which she told with equal enthusiasm. Her early images were very concrete and quite positive. God became the father she did not have. However, the concrete imagery began to shift as Marsha attributed female qualities to this father image—and the imagery evolved quite naturally into qualities she had experienced from her mother: I'll jump in. This will be totally contrary [everyone laughs knowingly). Ann was talking about a picture in her church. I was thinking how powerful that is, the imagery that we grow up with as well as our experience. And I was very fortunate. The imagery in my church that I remember first was the center window, was a picture of Jesus as a shepherd with the sheep there, holding, he was holding the sheep and these other sheep were with him. And all around were these windows with beautiful faces of people, nobody looking

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Chapter Six mad or vengeful or anything but just looking lighted and happy and joyful. I remember growing up thinking that God—well, the major concept was that God loves us, that was reflected in the imagery of my church and in the colors of the beautiful stained glass windows. And you'd sit in church and all these colors would come down on me. I remember as a child looking at these colors on my hands and on my skirt, and playing with the colors. And also just thinking that, first of all, it was a happy, joyful place to be. And secondly, I can't relate real well to a principle, I relate much better to a person, and we've talked about that. That's just major to me. I remember as a very small child, feeling very different because everybody I knew had two parents, and I did not. And I remember learning in church that God was a father for everybody. For me that's a positive concept because I didn't have a father, and I thought, oh, how great that God is my father and he knew I needed one. And then later I realized that God is much more than the Father. And really, when I think about that I think I confused my concept of God with my mother's qualities—knowing her to be loving, supportive, affirming, and really enjoying life. And so I think my concept of God as father really was my mother, but I put it into the category of father. But when I think about God, I think about a person, more with a capital P, a larger than a person person. The main quality of that person is unconditional love and being there no matter what—which is really what my mother did.

A m y painted a picture of diversity and placed herself at the center of it. While both the picture and the image of Jesus are concrete, the quality of "inclusiveness" introduced a new dimension to her comment: The picture I remember—it must have been like in a nursery or preschool room of my Sunday school, was the picture of Jesus with all the children from different countries. It's an old picture. And there was the one little blondhaired, blue-eyed girl, and I looked at that picture and thought—that's mel But the image of being there with all the diversity of other children is an image that has stayed with m e — a part of how I see Jesus as being inclusive and not contained, and an American Jesus, a Jesus that has arms and a lap for children from all different races.

Carter added her voice: I've always had to struggle with the need for images as well. I have found myself in a void—that as I toss out the King, Ruler, Judge, even occasionally toss out Father—I'm still willing to hold onto father and trying to bring in others. But I find myself in this void and searching around for those others that have been lost to us. There are biblical images of God as a midwife. There are biblical images of God as a nursing mother. Biblical images of God

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giving birth to the world. And yet I struggle to pull those in, and I struggle on Sunday morning with those. Linda, the long-ago music major, continued to center her imagery in music: In our hymnbooks, we have changed the wording in order to shift those images, just as we go along. The two hymnals I have at the two churches I serve are—the imagery is just horrid. It's so militaristic and bloody and violent that I feel so limited in terms of the songs that I can pick for us to sing. And then people will say—"how come we don't sing . . . " Someone joked: Ves, like "Onward Christian Soldiers"! This inspired a lengthy discussion of resources available to the women for altering the language and imagery in their services. T h e y shared favorite authors, hymnbooks, and liturgical aids that used inclusive language. They recited and sang the words of Brian Wren's contemporary hymn, "Bring Many Names," which celebrates a "living, loving G o d " who is alternately a "strong mother God," a "warm father God," an "old aching God," and a "young growing God." 3 Anne-Marie articulated the frustration of trying to formulate a verbal description o f God: You know, when we talk about images of God, the thing that always pops into my mind first is this great quote that says, "God will be God." And that kind of captures for me the impossibility of my trying to ever understand or know its mystery. And I feel as though I know it most often either in music or in relationship. And there are moments in relationship where I have really sensed sacred space: there's an openness there; and there's a community there; and a mutuality there. There's a lot of acceptance and I think that God is very much in that. And that that's who God is. Amy turned to stories: And also in stories, sometimes in worship there's a story that's shared or some part of you getting ready for worship. Some of the stories—seem like, a lot of times for me I sense God in the story and telling the story and watching people listen and watching them respond and stay with me. It's a sense of something very holy happening.

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Kathleen added: When you think about stories, stories are experiential. I keep going back to the word experience. Stories are human experience, and you can extrapolate from that for 'timeless truths' but the stories are about human experience. They are tellings of, relivings of, the experience. Anne-Marie responded, Story is so much more holistic. It's like, Ann, when you were talking about God as principle, that means a lot to me, and I can connect to that, but it isn't enough. It's not holistic enough. It's got to involve my guts and my very being— Ann agreed: It's hard to curl up to a principle on a cold rainy night. [Everyone laughed], God is also immanent as well as transcending, that presence and power within. Flannery had been quiet until now: What you say about this "God will be God" strikes me as a rephrasing, sort of in the third person, of "I am who I am." And that's the key image we have in the scripture, isn't it? The time that God responds to the question, "Whom shall I say?" "Who are you?" and the "I am who I am," "I will be who I will be." That's a very dynamic sort of—you can't pin me down with that kind of answer. Someone responded: That seems like the most adequate one in all the scripture to me. Flannery continued: It's the only one where we get the answer from God. In this Sunday's service, I was using an image about creation is music and relationship and nature—these are the things, I think, the things for me. And this I took this from an even older image that I'm sure you've heard before—creation being the dance and God being the dancer.4 And that the dance has no existence apart from the dancer, but the dancer is more than the dance, and the dance only exists as long as the dancer dances. And you can't take it home in a box if you want to, which is what we're always wanting to do, is put it into a

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box, where w e can have it. The dynamism of i t — i t doesn't exist apart from the process. A n d if you l o o k — y o u know, looking at creation is looking at the dance, you can see the dancer behind the dance.

Carter responded eagerly to Flannery's imagery: And that connects right into something that A n n was saying earlier about God being good and God's answer is "Yes." God's answer to the c r e a t i o n — to the dance, is yes. And that is so freeing, I think, you k n o w it is so hard to talk about that w i t h people in your church because it's scary. It's very freeing, but it also is a tremendous responsibility. If God's answer is yes, then I am free to answer yes, to make all those choices, then all the old, you know, rules. That's it, the rules are the boxes, you know. For my mind, rules are useless and meaningless. I simply cannot relate to rules. I can only answer to God's answer of "yes." But I don't k n o w h o w to talk to people about that. It scares me.

Flannery added: Well, as we're talking about this, I'm remembering in seminary all about Christine doctrine, systematic theology, and all this business where you try to pin it d o w n — w h e r e if you just came in and said things like, well, music and relationship really speak to me [this brought

laughter from the group]. We

get all these things about transcendent and immanent and "it's just h o w so" and so carefully d e f i n e d — y o u know, it'd give you a headache.

Kathleen: It was logically consistent. Provable.

Linda re-membered seminary: We found in seminary that consistently, the w o m e n in our classes were getting lower grades than the men in the systematic classes. And my last year there they were going through a transition in the theology department, and they were trying to take one of our theology professors, w h o had been doing history and feminist theology and various things like that, and put her into the systematic mold and make her teach those classes. And she says, "You just don't understand. The reason that the w o m e n keep getting consistently lower grades in here is because w o m e n don't think the w a y the systematic theologians have always thought." And she says, "I could teach the class, but it w o u l d not be systematic theology as y o u all k n o w and understand it." You might have heard of her—Rosemary Ruether—

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As usual, Anne-Marie was cautious: I think it's real important, though, that when w e say all these things, which I believe absolutely, that w e help people understand we're not saying that sloppy logic is fine. We're not saying you can just think any old thing you want to. It still requires, I think, careful thought.

Kathleen agreed: Intuition isn't sloppy logic.

Anne-Marie continued: I think also w e need to say, not that w o m e n can't, but that women don't choose to buy into that type of thinking.

But, no, Flannery insisted: But I can't—I can't do that stuff. And it was partly the frustration with not being able to do the thing that everybody thought one ought to do that certainly made me realize that I had to honor the way I was doing it—that my experiences were real. They were really happening to me. They were really forming my psyche. They were my w i n d o w onto the world. And if that didn't fit by somebody else's structure, then that was too bad for that guy's structure.

Kathleen continued: God for me is experience and it's experience of a sort of a sustaining presence. That's the closest thing to an image I would use of it. It's a presence. It's personal in the sense of being a presence—not just an abstract concept, but absolutely impossible to describe. I couldn't say what God looks like, I only know the experience of the presence and what it feels like. I think about it a lot, and I try to find images, and I find all the things that God is not—the images that don't work. But when you're doing a theology course and you're supposed to give rational explanations—how are you going to give somebody a rational explanation for the subjectivity of your o w n experience? It just can't be done. I think maybe even God is more of a feeling that w e have in certain experiences. So w e tell about those experiences, but w e still can't describe that feeling.

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Flannery: Anything that y o u can describe is not God.

The others agreed. Linda brought the discussion back to a personal experience: I think part of the void that I've been in has been, w h a t you were talking about, that my experience that is saying "this is G o d " or "this is a part of G o d " has been so denied. I mentioned once to someone that at t w o o'clock in the morning, sitting in the dark nursing my son I was feeling closer at that point to God than I had in years. That in that darkness, the song—I can't even dredge it up right n o w — i t was absolutely permanent w i t h me for months, "like a child that is quieted is my soul." Because he'd be in the bed screaming and yelling and hollering, and I'd pick him up and—absolute quiet is w o n derful. You know, he'd nestle d o w n and at t w o o'clock in the morning, w h e n it's just you and him, and you've had no sleep, and the congregation is going bizarre. N o w and then, my soul w o u l d be quieted in that same way. And this group that I was talking to told me that that probably was not a very healthy thing to be d o i n g —

Someone asked: What, nursing?

Linda replied: No, feeling close to God in those moments. It's perfectly normal and perfectly natural, they said, but it's not a part of God.

Anne-Marie: You k n o w w h a t I think might be bothering them? I have heard men, o n occasion, refer to sexual experience as being the closest they came to religious ecstacy, and I have a hunch that some of them are looking at you nursing a son and thinking w h a t a nice erotic experience this is, which it is, and thinking, oh, gee, I shouldn't think of sexual experiences as religious experiences—

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Flannery: But that's a part of the d a n c e —

Carter: They don't want to know that the whole Song of Solomon is a description of that sexual experience with G o d — t h a t connection between spirituality and sexuality.

Kathleen returned to an earlier idea: I want to go back to the notion of the incomprehensible notion of God. I spent a lot of time in my garden, and when I'm out there and the bugs are flying around, and the birds and the flowers are doing their thing—just the whole great chaotic mess of everything that goes on. It's so vast; it's so complex. And it always gives m e — a n d this isn't the rational part of my m i n d — i t gives me a sense of how vast and impossible to comprehend all of creation is. It's much more than I could possibly grasp, or much more than my subjective experience can even get near. So there's this kind of experience which is mostly thought experience, which has to do with being over-awed by it all—about the creation being so much more than I am and in a sense unapproachable, but so wonderful. And it's okay to just be a little speck in this—like the little bug is, you k n o w — j u s t a little speck. About that being all right. There's a kind of peacefulness and a kind of equilibrium that comes every time I remember that I'm just one little speck in the whole thing and the whole thing is really so marvelous and so over-awing. That's part of God in my sense, too. I guess I'd call that the intellectual half of me, of the experience.

Marsha tried to express when she felt closest to God: I would second that, because I've really, in some instances, felt extremely close to God, through what I'm doing. I actually have found that the closest times I feel to God are during the week when I'm really struggling with the scripture passages I'm going to preach on, and I'm reading different things, and I'm thinking and struggling trying to understand it—just wide awake mentally, to where I lose track of what time it is, even. And I can sometimes feel the experience comes along with intellectually being very alive, very involved. When you were talking, I was thinking about the call to love God with all our heart, soul and mind and strength and I sure don't want to just love him with my heart and my soul, but mentally and intellectually.

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Anne-Marie's experience was personal and poignant: I think I learned that lesson when my dad was dying. And w e had brought him home and we were thinking that he would be able to die at home— anyway, we were at this point where we were going to have to make a decision. And his pastor, who was a woman, happened to come out that morning to the house, and she came in, and we said we're going to have to decide whether to send him to the hospital and all this—and she said, "I'll make tea." And it was the perfect thing. She made us tea. She just loved us, you know, that was all it was. She couldn't answer the question for us. Nobody could. So she just made tea.

Kathleen: God makes tea. I like that.

As usual, Maria had been listening all this time and had not entered the conversation. When she did everyone listened eagerly: I'm much more eclectic in my personal spirituality than I have the courage to share with the congregation. You know, I grew up with connections to the Native American tradition, and so I embrace some of their forms of spirituality that I know my parishioners would shudder if they knew. Like, I believe in having a power animal w h o guides you and directs you and that you go into the underworld to seek out your power animal—ask it questions. It will give you the answers or the way to the answer or laugh at you, or whatever.

The others responded in quick succession: But that's not God? Is it connected to God?

Maria: Well, for me it is connected because it's part of what helps me know what I need to be.

Someone else: So, tell us your power animal.

Maria: Well, no, when you tell someone what your power animal is that gives them power over you. You generally share that cautiously. The animal I have an affinity with. I don't know how to describe it more than that, but

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Chapter Six I use it in imageiy work, when I am doing guided imagery work—I'll use that. Also, I use crystals quite a bit, but I think that is tied to my Catholic upbringing—of always having a rosary in my hand. I really think there is a tie-in there, as a means to meditation.

I asked Maria: Do you think you make a distinction between spirituality and theology? No, I just think I make a distinction about what I share with the congregation. So, what do you share with them? I share all the fruits of my spirituality; I just do not share with them the process. What if they need that! I just don't do that; I've just not had the courage or felt the situation such that it would warrant sharing that.

Carter agreed with Marie and interjected: The possibility is that they wouldn't be able to hear what she was saying—they may not even be able to hear the fruits even if they hear the process. They might be very threatened by it. I'm not sure the pulpit is the place to do that. There may be other avenues that, where one on one, or in small groups, places, where the more vulnerable side of ourselves in terms of our spirituality can be shared. But in preaching, I like what you said about the fruits of it, and I mean, what I do is—I sort of stretch. I don't stay with the traditional, but I just kind of stretch it a little bit, and you just keep stretching it a little bit, until people are able to hear.

Marie agreed with her: The other thing about the process is that it isjust so big, you can't talk about it in the sermon and do it any kind of justice at all. So what you're likely to end up with is a lot of people really misunderstanding—they hear the words "power animal" and go "uaaa" [catches her breath]—they hear that—Because preaching is such a—it's a limited period of time. It's very much a—however much of a relationship you've got in kind of a feeling of giveand-take with a congregation—you're still the only person talking. And nobody gets to respond to your sermons and you can't have a conversation. So you can't really share a process, I don't think.

Anne-Marie knew what this felt like: I don't preach very often, but every time I do, I feel myself either pushed or called or whatever the right thing is—to reveal just a little bit more of myself

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than I really want to. And then, that's always very freeing after its been done, but it's just a little bit uncomfortable—

Flannery agreed: It seems to be a sure sign of the spirit, when I have to do something that I really don't want to do, then— [much agreement and laughter].

Carter picked up Flannery's thought: And then also the process comes through. One of the few times—I'd say a sermon in which I most knew, that I most struggled one of the hardest times—in terms of knowing that I had to preach it—and I had an option of not preaching—but I just knew I had to preach, and I had to work this thing out was three years ago right after I had had a miscarriage. And the lessons were Jeremiah—and Jesus was saying something about coming out to bring peace—but they were real awful lessons. And I had just had—was still having this awful experience. But what I ended up doing—and of course I didn't say anything about it, about what was going on in my life—what I started talking about was how a lot of people say serenity is sort of the thing that a Christian is promised. That if you can get serenity, then you can do anything. And the point of the sermon was that is not at all what we're promised. And look at Jeremiah. And look at Jesus. And look at all this stuff. And that life isn't fair, but it's not promised to be fair. And that was kind of the gist of the sermon. Well, that was obviously preaching to me. But about six or seven weeks later, I was sitting with some church school teachers kind of going over some stuff and I don't remember how it came up but one of them said, "You know that sermon you preached"—I didn't know which sermon she meant at that point—"you know that sermon you preached at the end of August last year was really powerful for me." She said, "I never told anybody this in the church but I had a son who was born, and he died about three days after he was born, and I've been dealing with that for the last seven years and being furious with God about it. And something in your sermon allowed me to let that go." So, I told her what had preceded the sermon. But I guess that's kind of—the process comes through anyway. And if I had gotten up there and said, "I had a miscarriage last week" that would have been the end of it. They couldn't have heard any more; they would have tried to take care of me. But it would have been really inappropriate for me to say that, even though that was definitely the main thing behind that sermon.

This discussion of the images of God reveals for us a feminine dimension of the divine shared by the women in this group. It is significant that the discussion begins with an account of male repression of

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female reproductive rights—the issue of abortion and a connection of that issue with an image of God that would embrace the possible necessity for abortion and women's right to make decisions about their bodies and their babies—and ends with a poignant story by a female priest who was pregnant but lost her baby, and how that female experience could be shared with her congregation at this point in her relationship with them only in muted terms. The connections between sexuality and ministry for female clergy discussed in the previous chapter emerge here in the women's images of God. Women are not able or willing to disconnect their physical/sexual/female aspects from their spiritual/theological beliefs. Concepts and images of God are filtered through the female body and through the experiences of the individual women. God sometimes takes on female characteristics because God has been conceived and born from the very depths of their being. God is. They are. And until they "found" this group of other women in ministry, they often felt their images of and beliefs about God were isolated, private, personalized images. Only, it seems, within the collective consciousness of this group has a shared dynamic of God emerged. These women know God is because God is in the room when they are all in the room together. The abstract notion of God as relationship and God revealed through relationship has become concretized in the connectedness they feel with each other when they sit in each other's presence in love and trust and know that God is there, too. While the women agree that much of the language and practice of what they are discussing was at the heart of the message of the first Christians, they feel that the Augustinian fall and redemption "stuff" has overshadowed these early and most important considerations. They see themselves as re-claiming these marginalized views with pride. They see this as "female" in the sense that women, and some men, are re-claiming the emotional, spiritual aspects of religion and faith over the more rational, dogma-driven, creedal, theological beliefs. Kathleen argues for claiming ambiguity as a positive aspect of their belief in and imagery of God: "One's spirituality is directly related to the amount of ambiguity that a human being can withstand without coming apart." They recognize the positive energy built into ambiguity, asserting the power of their differences lies in their recognition that God, whatever that might mean, resides in all their beliefs and is still larger than all of them combined. Diversity, then, works in this group to enlarge the holistic imagery of God and the sacred. Kathleen continues: "Our beliefs are in the ambiguity, and that is not the same thing as saying our beliefs are ambiguous. Stated creedal beliefs largely eliminate, are designed to eliminate, ambiguity.

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They were an attempt to bring order to what largely cannot be known." They refuse to be pinned down. Flannery rejects the notion that biblical stories are useful only in their metaphorical sense and returns to the earlier discussion of the important connection with experience that stories provide: "It's been the literate tradition—printing and so forth has been to take these stories and extract from the stories these 'timeless truths.' And then, eventually, you're just talking about timeless truths, which is the propositional preaching you've been talking about, and you forget the stories. But the stories is where it is—that's where truth starts." Concepts of God are diverse here. Native American power animals move easily with images of Jesus as a shepherd and of God's association with the ocean and the dark, moist sensual intimacy of a mother nursing a child in the night. T h e images are about connection—connection to animals, to the sea, to the natural order of all things in the universe, to other people, to God, to the sense of a divine presence. While many of the women are obviously rejecting male images thrust on them as children—such as Ann's description of the picture of the boiling angry God in her Sunday school—others cling to images of God as male, not because of masculine qualities but because of a connection of this image of God to female qualities. Marsha always talks about God as her father and relates it to her own very personal experience of growing u p without the presence of a natural, biological father. However, the qualities of this God the Father are articulated in terms of her association of God with her mother. This is significant for this particular woman because in many ways Marsha appears to cling to a rather traditional, main-line concept of religion and denominationalism, although she is one of the women who readily moved to a new denomination in order to be able to pastor her own church. She is also one of the regulars at the interdenominational liturgical sessions. Her comments on this topic might represent the first time she had ever articulated how her image of God was actually closer to her mother than to her absent father. Amy's story reveals more than how God becomes a male/female image for her. Her comments reveal how she comes to imagery and perceptions of God and to her own spirituality—through movement and dance. And her image of God is directly connected to her imagery about herself. I connect to the imagery of dance very strongly, and I think there is a spirituality to dance. It is very neglected. I find myself, I don't resonate to music in the way that some people do. I resonate to dance and to movement. So in terms of my own spirituality, that's what feels right to me. Some of the im-

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Chapter Six ages—sunsets and sunrises for me are where I get that sense of the "more than this" of God. That image of it. Trees. I like the green trees, but I love the trees of winter because of the reaching upward and the stark—this is partly connected to the dance, too, this image is more of a reflection of an image of myself as a spiritual being than it is of my image of God—that imagery of tree. I have had to admit to myself, in a personal, relational sense of God, for me, God is male. And I am not wanting to admit that, you know—I have tried very hard for God to be female for me, and I have a lot of guilt about that and didn't want to say that out loud. In fact, it was only in talking with Maria one time recently that I was able to admit that. But for me the personal relational image of God is male, because in my life, the source of unconditional love is my father [she begins to cry here] and it wasn't my mother. It's the strong connection with my dad—where there was that love that called me to be myself and to be valued. It called me to be more than—It was through him. And it's only in the last six months that I've been able to accept that—that God is male and I don't say it very loud, especially with this group—

Amy may have been reluctant to admit her male imagery of God in this group, but the fact that she did attests to the safety she feels here. T h e group met Amy's comments and pain with warm, loving laughter and began to make jokes about how she had better not start advocating such a stance. But the effect of the laughter was to diffuse her discomfort. While they listened and wept with her as she allowed herself to become more and more vulnerable, it became obvious to her and to everyone else in the room at that moment that her stance was accepted and respected and understood by the women in the group. In fact, I have no doubt that some of the women there agreed with her; others agreed with her without necessarily adopting her point of view, an important distinction. Anne-Marie spoke for the others: I think that is something to celebrate. Because God created male, female, the world, and called it good, all of it. All of it is good, you know male and female. And I think that's something to celebrate and affirm. I affirm it with you.

Amy drew strength to continue from the acceptance of the group: I don't take it away from my mother in that w e are friends now. W e are friends, but I grew up with the sense of knowing she wanted a boy. And as I grew up, she would tell this stoiy—a story I've known for a long time—that when I would try to nurse from her I pushed her away, and she tells that story as a story of my rejection of her. Fortunately, I went through counseling that

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helped me say "you were a smart little baby; you knew where the rejection was coming from, and it wasn't coming from you." I don't hold that against her, but what it does for me, it makes it hard for me to think of the nurtures the love-giver, the caring, care-taker as female, because it wasn't my experience.

Carter responded in kind: I would have completely the same image, because my father is also the person to do that for me. I also have a grandmother w h o helped, but I think that's why I have both a male and a female kind of an image there of nurturing, but if I had only to rely on my mother and my father, it would have been an entirely male image, because that's the person who, in the same sense you're talking about, has given me unconditional love.

Somehow, Amy's vulnerability and her willingness to place herself in that position with this group of women created a space for some of the other women to express feelings that had not surfaced before. Anne-Marie confided in a voice suggesting her tenuous feelings: In general, I find it much easier to be vulnerable with males than with females. I don't know exactly what that says about me, but it's true and I'll admit it. So I think my images of God continue to be more male, my personal image is more male. But this group is a real new thing for me.

Someone responded: It certainly doesn't seem that with this group that you hold back or anything.

Someone else joked: What are you holding back?

Again, the group here began to make jokes and help Anne-Marie deal with the vulnerable position she has created for herself by admitting her ambivalence about relationships with women. I'm not holding back at all—how long do we have here? But it has been a process for all of us. And I feel like I'm doing fine.

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Others spoke, then, about the importance of the group: Well. I think Anne-Marie's point is good, I mean, w e don't have to talk about other things at all, but w e can talk about this room right now. You can look at the clergy union which struggles to be some kind of support (everybody laughs) and you can't imagine getting to this kind of depth of sharing—of anything.

Constance laughed again as she admitted her general dislike, too, of church women's groups: Well, I'd like to say about this g r o u p — I guess this isn't exactly on our 'God talk' but this group has done something for me which, I think I'm glad it's d o n e — [ g e n e r a l laughter) but I really did not enjoy most women's groups. (knowing laughter from the group) Little churches, which are okay, but when you go and sit for an hour and a half, trying to decide whether they're going to have yellow jello or red jello. (lots of laughter) I mean it j u s t — W h o caresl That kind of colored—get it? colored—red or yellow, ha, h a — k i n d of colored my feelings about women's groups in general. But I feel totally different now. I feel a lot better about women in general, but especially about this group. This group has done that for me and I really appreciate it.

Linda continued with her own feelings on the subject: I feel like I've come around full circle on that. Most of the people I hung out with were male, through high school and college. A lot of what was going on with those relationships was, well, I thought of it as a big brother to little sister, but I look back and realize that I was playing more of a mother role, more of that nurturing, you know, "boys will be boys and they need somebody to take care of them" and so I will be the one w h o does that. I'm n o w where I don't trust any of them. I do not trust any of them. My initial response or reaction is complete distrust—

Someone asked her quietly: Does that include your husband and your son? My husband, most of the time, yes. I'm n o w to the point where probably 99% of the people w h o I trust and the people with w h o m I associate are female. You're sure not alone in that one. I have so many close women friends—powerful—professional women. You know, one thing they try to do is separate us by saying, "powerful women can't get along." Oh, God, can w e get alongl (everyone laughs)

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Anne-Marie: I think we are modeling being vulnerable, and that's being human. And it's nice to be able to do it and not have to hide it. I think the strength of women's leadership is in our vulnerability and our ability to be vulnerable and not feel like we have to guard and protect that. Transcendence is up in the sense of being out of, but it's not—transcendence is not up there [she motions to the sky]. We encounter the transcendence of God when we are out of ourselves.

Carter added: Or so much into ourselves that we are outside ourselves. It's a paradox.

And Flannery expanded on what the others had said: It's like omniscience, omnipotent, omnipresent. It's like defining God, and I just don't think we can do that. I don't think of God as transcendent. I just think of God in terms of being. And I think of God a lot the way Constance was talking about it. I can't remember having a mental picture of God. I really can't. I've never seen a picture book with this old man on the front of it. I don't think I have ever thought of God in those terms. I have to say with Kathleen I have similar kinds of experiences. I can be by the ocean and kind of come out of myself in that way, or I can look at the roots of a redwood tree or at the height of a redwood tree and just be gone—and that's for me a real experience of, I guess you could say, of the transcendence of God, but it's also a veiy personal kind of experience. If I were going to try to come up with any kind of concrete image of God, I don't think I could do it. Community would be the closest that I could come up with.

Anne-Marie, who had avoided the community of women before, who had not sought the connection with women, who hesitated to be vulnerable with women, made the connection between God and the women in the room: I feel clues to the divine right here in this room. There are lots of clues to the divine in this room at this moment. *

*

*

I have learned, in listening to the voices in this study, that many of our expectations about how people define and act out their religious beliefs must be reconfigured when we begin to study and try to un-

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derstand a female perspective on religion and belief. In a followup discussion in 1992 about belief and religion, the women talked about how their beliefs, their images of God, their experiences, their sense of religion, their ministry could not be separated out into neat categories. The notion of rigidly codified beliefs or theological premises is not at the heart of their religious conceptions and their spiritual realities. While it is true that they reside in clearly defined and recognized religious denominations, and while it is also true that they abide by and participate in the rituals and belief systems constructed within those denominations, it is also true that at the core of their religious belief and spirituality is a more holistic, non-codified, nonarticulated sense of the presence of God in their lives and in their relationship with each other. While this stance does not invalidate their denominational connections, it does suggest a different future for religion if women continue to become a more active force in its creation and perpetuation. For the religious message of the women in this study is a very different one from the standard denominational messages we have received up to now from the male clergy, whose voices have been the only voices available to hear. Women in ministry offer a different voice. They are calling, in fact, for a different approach to religion, to belief, to ministry. This book suggests some of the differences in this female perspective; it is different; it is new; it is unique; it may recall images and beliefs long associated with Christian religion and belief, but, the women insist, they are re-calling, renaming, re-membering these aspects in new ways. Theirs is a new message. Notes 1. See Gillian Bennett, '"And I Turned Round to Her and Said . . .': A Preliminary Analysis of Shape and Structure in Women's Storytelling,"; Susan Kalcik, "'. . . like Ann's Gynecologist or the Time I was Nearly Raped': Personal Narratives in Women's Rap Groups." 2. Carol Gilligan discusses women's heightened attention to morality issues in In a Different Voice. 3. Brian Wren, Bring Many Names: Thirty-Five New Hymns. On two occasions, led largely by Linda Stewart, I have heard the words to this hymn. 4. Flannery may in fact be referring to William Butler Yeats's image in "Among School Children" (The Poems ofW. B. Yeats, p. 217): Oh chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole? О body swayed to music, О brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance?

Chapter 7

God in Connection: The Message off Women's Ministry

It's the feminist paradigm versus the rationalist, objectivist paradigm. For us, there's the wholeness to all of life, and prayer is a piece of the wholeness, a piece of the whole weaving. It isn't something apart from—prayer is in all the things that we talk about— in some ways we're always talking about prayer, at least I am. I guess it would be very difficult for some people to understand what I mean when I experience this room with all of you as prayer— Anne-Marie Cooper Yes, the roots of Christianity are evident here, but what we're doing is reclaiming a lot of stuff that has historically been labeled heresy, particularly about the spirit and thrown out so many years ago, or it was suppressed . . . rooted out. Carter Buchanan We all really try to live it, embody it. Everything about our ministry, about our lives, and our vocation and our preaching—everything. That's a part of what happens in the preaching is the invitation into relationship and into wholeness that people really respond to. Kathleen Miles-Wagner

T h e w o m e n in this study are well-educated, sophisticated professionals; they take their ministries seriously. T h e y d o not separate the rest of their lives from their ministries—all are parts of the whole. Yet they surprise people. T h e y express their frustration with people who seem bewildered that they are clergywomen. From many people, apparently, they perceive misunderstanding about what this means. Often, once people learn that they are clergywomen, the expectations about

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them and their behavior change—People somehow expect them to be overly pious, conservative, and small-minded. T h e women I worked with sense in the population at large a stereotyped image of the "minister," and particularly of the female "minister," as a person who could not possibly be an intellectual, be f u n to be with, use slang or "offcolor" language, want to see R-rated movies, or, in general, be a regular h u m a n being. Certainly, there is little room to be expressive in terms of their sexuality and their personal relationships. Assumptions abound about how they see the world, how they respond and react to the world, and how they think about the world—in both its secular and sacred dimensions. It seemed necessary, then, to examine with the women the alternative(s) to this point of view. I recalled one woman, whom I knew had had a difficult and sometimes painful life in her professional ministry, saying rather early on in our dialogue sessions, "Where else can we do this? If not the ministry, where else?" In some ways, then, my question to them was "What is the 'this' you speak o f ? " What are you doing? What is the message of your ministry: in the sermons you preach, in the way you live your life, in the approach you take to your denomination? This presentation of how the women see religion and their own ministries includes lengthy excerpts f r o m the dialogue session in which this issue was discussed. T h e chapter concludes with remarks noting some of the more obvious strains of the message(s) these women share. My purposes in f o r e g r o u n d i n g the actual dialogue are several. First, I think it is important to let the reader "hear" the dialogue as it evolved and to u n d e r s t a n d how this g r o u p has come to shape a remarkably cohesive and homogeneous message. But this is a widely divergent g r o u p in terms of denominational homes and theological views; by presenting the dialogue as it developed, I also hope to show how religiosity and spirituality are mediated within the group. No one checks denominational cards at the door at the beginning of these sessions; the women bring the full baggage of their training and their denominational stances with them, yet they manage to mediate the differences between them in what I would suggest is a particularly female m a n n e r . Further, I want to point to the m a n n e r in which they mediate and construct together a vision they can all share, and how, in so doing, they once again demonstrate the essence of the g r o u p as a model of "women-church." Similarly, it follows that the dialogue itself and the way the end result is achieved are representative of their collective/connected message; the dialogue becomes a model of their ministry in action. Here, without forethought, the process of their shared endeavor toward meaning, the sacred, the spiritual, the just, and the unconditional love and caring becomes manifest in the way

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they seek meaning together and, in essence, practice what they preach. It is in their connection with one another, in their shared spiritual journey, that they encounter and confront the very essence of why they are ministers of religion in the first place; it is here that they find spiritual growth, evidence of God's love, the connection of the human and the divine. T h e structure of the dialogue becomes important, too, for here in the turn-taking, in the confrontations that do not meet fruition, in the subtle use of humor to mediate difference and celebrate unity, we find the ways in which this can actually happen. My question about their message was immediately met with a joke. I had come to expect it. Kathleen retorted quickly If I could say that in one sentence, then I wouldn't have had to preach for eighteen years I

This brought general laughter and agreement, and without missing a beat, she continued that the message is That we ought to be building bridges to each other. We should try to understand about and comprehend others, and thereby find out how we can cooperate with each other.

Her comment was met quickly by Ann Engels: Oneness in spirit. We're all really one in different physical bodies, trying to express our God-likeness. This kind of blending—if we understand our oneness in spirit, then those other differences don't matter.

After some quiet thoughtfulness, Linda Stewart offered: Recently my message has come to be very biblical: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Love God, love neighbor, love self. Put it to the test. If it's not one of those three, then don't do it.

Anne-Marie, who shares Linda's denomination, interjected that she thought possibly everyone in the room could agree with what Linda had just said, but felt that she, personally, had to take that approach further: How I see that coming to fruition in the world has to do with justice issues and somehow working to liberate people to wholeness and wellness. Being

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Chapter Seven female I'm particularly interested in that issue of wholeness for women, although we've got to work on the other side as well.

She mentioned several new books on the topic of male spirituality and Amy Seger helped her out: What these are concerned with—that men are not in touch with their true spirit. There is a growing liberation movement for men, by men. What has been considered "macho" is not considered true male spirituality and, hence, the pursuit of male spirituality is appropriate. Linda agreed: There are very different perceptions of how to be a loving neighbor or how to love God. If within yourself you can say the way I am responding—even to justice issues—if it is true to my understanding of how that works, and always keeping your mind open to different ideas, then you should be on track. Constance offered a quote that she has come to rely on in her life and in her ministry: Find and give the best. This immediately brought questions from the other women, who wondered what the "best" might be and whether there are different perceptions of what "the best" is. Constance agreed that her own definition of that had changed and enlarged over the years, and Kathleen suggested that it was idealistic and naive to think that either the "inner self" or the notion of "the best" would be the same for everyone. As is so often the case in our discussions, one member of the group had already begun to analyze the discussion and pointed out that thus far the response to my question had focused on "how we live our lives—what we do." She noted that her response to my question had taken the form of "If I had one last sermon to preach what would it be?" My message would not be, "what do we do," but, first, "have we received God's love in our own lives?" The basic foundational thing for me is to know that God loves us no matter what, unconditionally, absolutely. We are precious to God. People don't know that—that God loves them, let alone that anybody else loves them. Once people believe that, then the other things

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will follow, will grow out of that loving God, loving neighbor, working for justice, working for healing.

This reminded several in the group of a line from a famous children's hymn, quoted, they told me, by the theologian Karl Barth: "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so." Amy offered her message: God is with u s —

Her thought was interrupted by a woman who does not share Amy's theological stance and who took Amy's thought in a different direction. Ann told us her message was: God is within us—that's personal empowerment that happens. We ourselves are nothing. The power of God within u s — m y last sermon could be, "We are personally empowered by the love of God within us." When you are in tune with that, when you reach out into the world, you reach out in the right way, with divine guidance.

Without arguing this theological point, Amy waited for Ann to finish, then completed her thought: . . . as opposed to God is far away from us, as in 'transcendence.' My preaching is an immanent one. God is within us. And that is connected with wholeness, wellness, well-being. Church and religion are important. We have a real radical message about wholeness and fulfillment and well-being. It is not the message of the media or basic societal values. Wholeness comes through relation with God but in relation with others, a giving of oneself. We don't hear that message anywhere else.

This led to a discussion of the then popular song sung by Bette Midler, "From a Distance," which includes in its lyrics the lines, "God is watching us, God is watching us . . . from a distance, God is watching us." While some felt this was a rather ominous image of God, Ann pointed out that the message of the song was that from a distance all the differences on the earth disappeared and that no boundaries were visible, and that God calls us to that perfection. Carter spoke: Inclusivity, wholeness in creation, love. These are the three things I hope I am preaching. We must reorder our whole life and accept God's presence

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Amid the laughter, Ann continued some of her earlier thoughts: If we develop a vertical relationship with God, then a horizontal relationship with others will follow. "I am in the Father and you are in me and I am in you." We are made of the stuff of God.

Not bothered, but wanting to make the distinction, Carter offered: We are made in the image of God.

Ann continued: The unfolding and the likeness—here we are. If we are truly God-like beings then we don't have to accept that we are victims.

Carter nudged: We are not God.

Flannery made a joke: Oh, I don't k n o w . . . speak for yourself (everyone laughs). Oh, maybe Flannery is I (lots of laughter).

During the laughter, Carter insists: We are created by God.

Ann replied, God is a power greater than ourselves.

Everyone heard the sub-text of this disagreement, but the joking behavior and the laughter were intended to offset any uncomfortable feelings that might result from such a theological difference. I have

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observed this use of humor on many occasions in this group. It works well to diffuse the tension without discounting the important religious differences. Flannery, especially, is attuned to the importance of using humor in an ecumenical group like this one. I have never heard the group allow themselves to be diverted from the discussion to disagree or argue openly about religious and theological differences. They are quick to state their differences; they accept these differences; humor helps them focus on the language that is communal, shared. This is apparent as we hear the group ask for Flannery's answer to the question of the day. —Can we all be quiet while Flannery answers the question. —She was late; she doesn't know what the question is I —What is the meaning of life in one sentence . . . {lots of laughter). —No, no. In one sentence, what is it you preach? What is your message? Flannery's answer was quick and witty: Repent! Now\ Today\ T h e laughter was overwhelming. T h e joke was hers. They were all in relieved agreement with her that this is not, in fact, the message of any of them. They were joined again harmoniously in their thinking. Because I had felt the differences in theology, and because I now knew it was safe to do so, I asked specifically about the different theological points of view that had just emerged. Carter replied: We are in God's image, but we are not God. Ann followed: We are not all God is. Marsha offered: We are all God's children. Here I wanted to play devil's advocate: Everybody? Everybody Is God's child? Even thejerks7 Sure, they all agreed: Even with our differences, we are all God's children.

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Someone else echoed: Because w e are all God's children, the differences are to be honored and respected.

Carter came back with: God loves all p e o p l e — e v e n psychopaths and jerks. I don't happen to like them at all, and I don't think God condones their behavior. We're not saying that because everybody is created in the image of God that everybody is good and equally good.

This brought general agreement. Anne-Marie offered: Nobody's good, including m e —

Flannery shot back: Oh, I don't k n o w . . .

Flannery's witty, self-deprecating comment again served to lighten up the discussion. Right, nobody's good, but Flannery i s . . .

I came back to my questioning about God loving the jerks: "What prevents the jerks, then, from sitting in Marsha's church and judging her and thinking they are good and God-like just as they are . . ." Immediately, they all saw the humor in my question. — O h , they're all there I

This, of course, brought gales of laughter. —In

fact, they're taking over Marsha's

church...

More laughter. Marsha, especially, thinks this is hysterical. I persisted: "What prevents the attitude 'God loves me just the way I am'?" Carter tried to make this clear: We're not preaching that. We never said that.

Marsha tried to help: Accepting people for w h o they are isn't saying w e can think God loves me just the way I am. God really loves me. This will never result in the "just

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the way I am" business. Once you feel that, it's humbling. It is a radical message and it causes change. Unconditional love, however, won't condone all behavior.

Carter remembered that Marsha's God is a father figure and she has difficulties with that: God doesn't have to be parental. Jesus frees us from the concept of God the parent and if you add in the Holy Spirit, then you cannot focus only on God as one aspect. [There is] Jesus as a human being. We can't limit God to a single image.

Flannery agreed: We cannot put God in a box. God's bigger than the metaphor of the trinity.

When she first arrived that day, Marsha had been expressing her frustration that she had not been able to get the adult study group in her church to come to the study times she had arranged. I asked her, then, what it was she wanted her congregation members to do, to learn, in these groups. Grow spiritually. That is at the heart of my faith. Knowing God loves you just opens the door to the opportunity for learning and doing and understanding and becoming. Like that bumper sticker I hate, the one that says "I found it." We have to change; we have to be vulnerable.

Flannery agreed again. You know, they say the average religious person only gains a third-grade level of faith. What we learn are rules. We learn to live by them. But that is not life-giving. It makes religion irrelevant. It boxes God. It's such a low level understanding—if you follow the rules then God will let you into heaven. Right, [Carter] You know why bad things happen to you, too. You broke the rules I And, [Linda] You also know what you have to do to fix it—Repent!

"—Repent!" Flannery's answer is once again perfect. We all laughed because we all understood the joke. Kathleen, always the thoughtful, careful one, pointed out that rules and regulations are often very useful for people. Rules are important for keeping chaos at bay. However, she agreed that generally most religion(s) stopped there and limited growth. They all agreed that

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change was imperative and that change brought questions about the rules and regulations. In fact, it was some of the rules and regulations that needed changing, like the wording of the hymnals or the ordination of women. Carter suggested that sometimes the best way to advocate change is to "pull the rug out from under them," that this is sometimes the only way toward growth. It became apparent during this discussion that the group had begun to crystalize and articulate a shared concept of God through connection. By now it was clear that collectively they rejected religious ideology that "boxed God" through rules and regulations. None of them had turned toward explicating what a religious life might include in terms of "dos and don'ts"; clearly, they were not preaching the God-fearing "this is how you behave if you are a good Christian" kind of religious message. Kathleen first spoke about a bridge; Ann about oneness in spirit and how the relationship with God leads to relationships with others; Linda about loving God, neighbors, and self; Anne-Marie about how love is manifested in justice issues and liberation; Amy about spirituality for all, both males and females, and how God resides within people; Constance about finding and giving the best; Marsha about receiving God's unconditional love as the foundation for all other love and connection; Carter about inclusivity, wholeness, and love; Flannery about how not to "box" God in, that rules are not life-giving. Knowing that many of their denominations do, in fact, rely on a conception of believers journeying through a series of "stages of faith," they discussed how hierarchical that notion really was. Flannery offered again the argument that this approach limited religious people, especially clergy, to being simple-minded and easily programmed. She spoke in organic terms. Ifyou have little bud, you don't say "You're only a bud, the full-grown thing is what you ought to be." We're all meant to grow into fullness but you don't put it in terms of good, better, and best. When w e get uncomfortable and uptight, we tend to get rigid and make rules.

This led to a long discussion about that being where most denominational arguments currently reside—rules and regulations, petitions on homosexuality, on the ordination of women, on representation at conferences, on regulations and more regulations. They agreed in their disagreement with this view of religion. Anne-Marie spoke emphatically, I'm not here to "fix" people. I don't have the answer.

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Amy agreed with her: I preach that questioning is okay and leads to growth. Besides, (laughs) women have a real advantage in saying it's okay to question because I suspect that fewer people think w e have all the answersl

This, of course, brought laughter, and was followed by Kathleen's quick, Probably when w e have the answers they won't listen. Plus, for some congregations, just to be able to let us in, they have had to ask questions.

Flannery was insistent that religion not be perceived as rules and regulations about the proper way to live. G o d is not a judge. You are loved by G o d as you are and as you can become, and G o d wants you to become all you are created to become. As you grow into that, you find a greater wholeness, greater fulfillment—not because of rules but because you find life in that. G o d wants you to blossom, to bloom, and to go to seed.

This led to a delightful discussion of what "seedy" meant and how their discussion related to the parable of the mustard seed, which had been part of the lectionary reading for the past week and was definitely still on their minds. Several of them discussed how they had preached on that parable and had emphasized that the mustard only becomes, in fact, a rather unimpressive shrub, not a gigantic and impressive tree. They agreed that the parable meant for us to realize that the kingdom of heaven is not a place or an impressive product but an activity; the focus should be on the process of growth, not on the result. The Bible verse came to mind: "The kingdom of God is at hand . . ." It seemed to me, at this point in the discussion, that the women were advocating a kind of ministry that would allow for and encourage the development of each parishioner toward spiritual growth and seeking full potential. I was surprised to hear them deny that that was what they had been saying. Immediately, Carter replied, We're not giving them that. They already have that.

And Kathleen seemed to echo what Karen had said many months before: I'm in it because I wanted to find my full potential. Being in the church, working in the ministry was a way I could do that—by helping other

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people do that. I was sustained by that work. I wanted that for myself and I got it through the ministry. To which, I questioned, "Then you're in this for yourself}" Carter replied, Sure. We can't have it unless we give it away. There's a prayer we use in the Episcopal marriage ceremony: "Let their love for each other be so fulfilling that they reach out in love and concern to others." We get a great deal from the work in the church; here is our opportunity for growth. Anne-Marie agreed: Where else could I live the questions as fully as I do in the church? There is no other place to live the questions so fully. I ask, "Then the questioning, the probing starts in you?" Yes, it won't work any other way. And Anne-Marie brought it full circle: And where does that come from [the questioning]? The desire to know God in our lives comes from God. Again, I pushed them to articulate the kind of religion they were advocating. Was it not a kind of "individualistic religion"—were they not talking about helping each person strive for his or her fullest potential? Cautiously, Carter concurred, but seemed to know something that was not being articulated: But if each person does that, then there's something bigger. That's where we started. If everyone could find that potential, then it would be a different kind of world. But it is not a sort of "me and God in our own little world stuff." She reminded us that the discussion had included the images of bridges, connection, inclusiveness, loving God, neighbor and self, of a common spirit. It starts with ourselves, but it cannot end there by the nature of what it is—God in connection, in relationship. God starts it, in relation with us.

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Marsha picked up the discussion: It can't start in a vacuum. God starts it. G o d starts it in relation with us. It comes to individual people, but then it spreads out to more people. Relational—God to people—out to the people.

Kathleen continued it, People function within a community. In the minister's role, working within a community, w e are getting something personal out of it.

Carter responded: There is individual, personal growth and potential, but it is not just individual. The definition of that is that it goes beyond that.

And Kathleen offered: You have to come to community in order to hear it. W e are on the journey together; it is a journey the whole world is making.

Flannery: The personal is unique, but the person is part of the community. You can't make the journey alone. W e don't believe it can work that way. Some people try, but as our friend Paul would point out—about the connected parts of the body—it doesn't do it on its own. You can't say to one part of the whole, I don't need you.

Kathleen: When a person tries to go it alone, what you get is navel-gazing. Nothing grows. It becomes a narcissistic kind of thing. It becomes inward only and cannot grow. The journey has to do with the connection to what is outside of yourself.

And Anne-Marie once again cautioned: Even in community, the growth we seek is fragmentary. The wholeness that w e seek is an illusive goal. But if you're alone the fragmentedness will be much greater. The community and relationship draws me into greater wholeness—draws me away from fragmentation.

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Flannery went back to her gardening metaphors: Flowers alone w o n ' t reproduce. You have to cross-pollinate. You w o n ' t have a cabbage, or a zucchini, without cross-pollination. It's in the nature of it. — S o . [someone

interjects] So, you're saying we're just a bunch of vege-

tables. Is that w h a t you're saying here?"

And Flannery countered with Well, it's not a parental image, at least, I mean, it's notl

And of course the laughter refreshed the room and cleared our heads. This enabled us, perhaps, to process Kathleen's final remarks better. This may be difficult to articulate because, really, it is a philosophical question—seeing reality as a bunch of separate entities and reality as an interrelated moving whole. Reality is a living thing, and w e use the w o r d " G o d , " w e use our metaphor of G o d to describe the livingness of it and that eveiything in it is related to everything else, and eveiything is involved w i t h everything else. Anything y o u do moves stuff on the other side of the world. Eveiything is connected to everything else. A n d that is the philosophical understanding of reality as basic to the religious v i e w — a n d it's in direct contrast to what some people take to be the scientific understanding, w h i c h is that there are just a bunch of atoms a n d molecules out there running around at random and bumping into each other. I think that even that has changed lately, with the concerns for the earth, the universe, w i t h ecology, we're certainly learning that it's all connected.

Carter suggested that this was not an entirely new idea, but some older threads were now part of what is called process theology. Their discussion led to the importance of moving away from parental images and metaphors, including the notion of woman as maternal and caring, but toward relationship and connectedness, of all living and loving things, not seen as "mothering" and "fathering" but as caring and connecting. In general, they agreed that these were not the current major themes of their denominations. Too often there the dominating themes continued to be focused on rules and on distrust. It is in their individual ministries, in their own churches and in counseling that they are able to bring the message of wholeness, of well-being, of inclusivity, of love and caring to the people to whom they minister.

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Anne-Marie had the final word: We all really try to live it, embody it. Everything about our ministry, about our lives, and our vocation and our preaching—everything. That's a part of what happens in the preaching is the invitation into relationship and into wholeness that people really respond to. I became concerned that I was missing something about their allegiances to their particular denominations in these discussions, so during the summer of 1992, we discussed again the unity of this very ecumenical group, I have already shared with the reader some of what they had to say. They reclaimed ambiguity as a positive term for creative energy; they talked once again about the dangers of trying to "box God in" through concrete images and unflagging allegiances to denominational creeds. They reiterated their belief that women approach religion and spirituality differently from men, striving to articulate subtle differences in style, approach, use of religious language, dependence on specific beliefs, rituals, practices, and creeds. They made gendered distinctions among logical, rationalist, objectivist, propositional, ritualistic, and belief-driven approaches to religion (male) and a more fluid, experiential, questioning, vulnerable, faithdriven, emotional spiritual, and metaphorical approach (female). Finally, as our discussion drew to a close, Carter offered an anecdote to illustrate her contention that belief systems, creeds, theology, and church authority should not obscure the heart of what her ministry is all about. She prefaced this with the thought, "As we pray so we believe." Tuesday night I got a call to go to the hospital to baptize twin babies who were born prematurely and died at birth. Well, according to my theology, it wasn't necessary to baptize those babies—they're already with God. However, I wanted to baptize those babies as much as their mother wanted them baptized. And all the things I believe about baptism are not necessary for those two dead babies. However, what baptism really says—what we are saying when we baptize is that all the promises of God are available to all people in whatever state they are in. So, if you ask me if I believed in baptizing babies that are dead, I would say no, and yet I did that and I would do it again, and if I had a premature baby that died, I would want that baby baptized, which was something I didn't know until Tuesday night. Somehow believing and acting have to be dealt with differently. By the time she finished this story, Carter was in tears, and so were all the rest of us in the room. We all sat, staring at the floor, stunned

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by the power of this story, remembering with Carter her own miscarriage, feeling with the mother who wanted her dead babies baptized against all reason. T h e tape recorder picked u p only the sounds of the birds outside the open windows several feet f r o m where we sat in a circle, silent. Anne-Marie's earlier words echoed in my mind: I feel clues to the divine right here in this room. There are lots of clues to the divine in this room at this moment.

Anne-Marie is right when she says many people might not understand how she identifies prayer with the women in this group; perhaps many would not understand what she means when she says there are clues to the divine in the room as well. I suspect some religious people may be uncomfortable with Carter's story of baptizing dead babies, particularly people like those in her own congregation who had earlier had difficulty with her suggestion that the Trinity is a metaphor for God. But her willingness to be vulnerable and the strength of the group's convictions keeps them acting on the faith they have developed together. Every single Sunday morning these women stand in pulpits all over the city and on winding, dusty backroads that link the small and the larger towns together in a crisscrossed web. They rarely worship together; they stand before their own congregations, leading them toward wholeness and well-being. But all week long, in their lunches together, in the liturgy meetings they have created, in the dialogue sessions we have been holding, in their own homes, over the telephone, on long walks and longer dinners, the women in this study sustain one another. Quietly, they are invoking a new religious era. Theirs is not a revolution but a revolution, a turning about the center, a spiral, a whorl toward a new center.

Afterthoughts: The Never-Ending Story, or the Book in Process

T h e women in this study have all read this book, or portions of it, and we have talked about it in great detail. I think, perhaps, it is not the book any one of them might have written. In general, they tell me that they are pleased with it as written. We have not agreed on all points; for example, they think I speak too highly of them or paint a picture that is not quite real, but they concede that this is my perspective and reflects how I see and think of them. I believe they are modest and cannot see themselves as I do. T h e y have cautioned me to make certain that what I say as I interpret their lives and their ministry is presented clearly as my perspective and my interpretation. T h e i r cautions have been appropriate, and I have endeavored to h o n o r that directive. At the same time, there is hardly any way to check every word I use, every descriptive adjective, every slant I might give to a particular event or conversation. My attempt to h o n o r and present their multiple voices has aided, I hope, in diffusing the biases I bring to my work, the cultural and religious baggage I carry a r o u n d and cannot recognize, see, or hear in my own writing. O f t e n their own questions or arguments served in the dialogue to illuminate the twist I have put on a particular issue or topic, to pull me back to center, to help me see how I have constructed their reality within my own. T h e r e is no way to prevent this f r o m happening. I can try very h a r d not to filter my writing t h r o u g h my own experiences, but, in the end, I d o and I recognize that fact. However, being aware of this f r o m the beginning of this study has, I hope, kept my consciousness of the problem squarely in f r o n t of my eyes and on my typing fingertips. And the methodology of reciprocal ethnography, utilized here, has worked as a check on the writer's tendency to confiscate the material and r u n away with it. For some time, the women felt that I could use their actual names

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and perhaps include photographs o f them in this book. I regret that this could not happen. I think the readers' connection o f each woman's voice with her face would have enhanced their appreciation o f this endeavor. I find it difficult to express the spirit that emanates f r o m their faces when they sit surrounded by children and deliver a children's sermon, or stand in the pulpit holding the Bible and speaking with gentle persuasion to their congregations, or smile as they shake the departing members' hands or share a loving hug at the d o o r o f their different churches. N o t only has this study demonstrated yet again that women in the church as in other institutions face discrimination and denial o f their equal rights, it has brought to the f o r e the gender biases inherent in our research and critical inquiry about life stories and autobiography. O n e can cite scores o f studies on life stories, life histories, and autobiographies that delineate what scholars have recognized as the components characteristic o f male life stories and how these characteristics are different f r o m those o f female ones. A polarity has e m e r g e d which suggests that male stories will be linear, defined, goal-oriented, while female stories will be chaotic, nondefined, and not goal-oriented. Female life stories are often defined by their lack, just as these female clergy are also defined by their lack. T h i s study suggests a different way o f reading and "over-reading" women's stories that reveals and honors the multiplicity o f levels in women's life stories, levels that reflect the multiplicity o f their real individual and collective lives. Research methodologies, f o r the most part, seek to o f f e r reproducible generalities. Yet the women involved in this study decry the scholar's attempts to generalize f r o m the particularities o f individual lives; they argue instead f o r a validation o f difference. This study seeks to honor that recommendation by attending to and presenting the various voices o f the women who spoke to me during the course o f this study. T h e women's voices can be heard in this book. T h e y can be heard in the individual life stories included here as they were given to me; they can be heard through the interview sessions I had with them and in the answers they gave to my particular questions; and they can be heard in the dialogue sessions we held as we processed through this study. By now, I am hoping that the reader feels acquainted with the women who were most actively involved in this study. I hope you have come to trust and listen to the voices o f the different women as they have argued f o r their unique and valuable (and sometimes radically different) positions. As an interpreter, I have drawn some generalities f r o m the plethora of data generated by this study. I feel obligated to draw the reader with me into what I feel is the essence o f the material, and to

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call attention to patterns, motifs, structures, a n d h a r m o n i e s that, by virtue of my position in the study, I a m able to see a n d interpolate. But I invite a n d challenge the r e a d e r to listen to the voices of the w o m e n a n d search t h e r e f o r new a n d d i f f e r e n t a n d provocative angles a n d insights that a r e e m b e d d e d b u t have n o t been illuminated by this study. I a m confident that t h e r e are myriad interpretations yet to be f o r m e d about the data collected. I b e g a n this study by a r g u i n g f o r a m o r e interactive m e t h o d o l o g y f o r the collection a n d interpretation of e t h n o g r a p h i c materials. I call the methodology I a m using "reciprocal e t h n o g r a p h y " a n d have involved the persons in t h e study with the study itself. I have a p p r o a c h e d this e t h n o g r a p h y as a process, a n d a m e n d i n g this p h a s e of it with t h e clear u n d e r s t a n d i n g that it is an o n g o i n g process, a spiral that has simply looped back o n itself only to o f f e r t h e challenge of a new a n d f u r t h e r arching spiral that will in time o f f e r yet a n o t h e r . I come to this point, as I conclude this book, with t h e conviction that while t h e methodology I have a d o p t e d is tedious at times, difficult a n d timeconsuming, a n d o f t e n f r u s t r a t i n g , it is clearly a n d most certainly w o r t h the effort. Doing field research in this m a n n e r calls into question research that is characterized as "objective" a n d that advocates long t e r m observation a n d scholarly expertise b r o u g h t to bear o n interpretation. Each time I believed I h a d focused o n a topic clearly a n d concisely a n d h a d taken all significant factors into consideration, w h e n I presented t h e material to the g r o u p f o r their appraisal, they d e m o n s t r a t e d time a n d again how f a r off t h e m a r k I could actually veer. H o w quickly, too, I could fall into scholarly traps of " h e a r i n g " the answers I w a n t e d / n e e d e d to h e a r a n d discounting those that did not "fit" a particular p a t t e r n I was p u r s u i n g o r a n a r g u m e n t I was d e t e r m i n e d to make. If o n e o v e r a r c h i n g t h e m e e m e r g e d f r o m t h e w o m e n in this study, it was the call to " h e a r all o u r voices." T h i s cry elucidates the scholar's dilemma. We a r e trained to d r a w conclusions, to find patterns, to point to commonalities, a n d to synthesize generalities. Otherwise, o u r critics claim, what good is the m e r e description of o n e m o m e n t , o n e g r o u p in this space at this time? Yet as t h e w o m e n relate their individual life stories, as they talk a b o u t their concepts a n d images of God, as they a t t e m p t to d e f i n e a n d describe their spirituality a n d their theology, a n d as they outline their ministry, it becomes clear that the ability to h e a r t h e individual voices within t h e collective song of t h e g r o u p voices provides the m e t a p h o r n o t only f o r their lives a n d f o r t h e stories of their lives, b u t f o r their theology, their spirituality, their concept of God, a n d their ministry as well. Validation of these w o m e n a n d their ministries comes, in this work, t h r o u g h an alternative view of "objective" a n d "subjective." H e r e the

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outsider's "objective" point of view has not been authorized as the legitimate view. Instead, the subjective view, the insider's view, has been authenticated, validated, recognized, and presented as imbued with power and authority. The women in this study have spoken through their own experiences. They have not taken recourse in the theological underpinnings of their particular denominations; they have not relied in these discussions of their religious beliefs on the codified treatises of the United Methodist, Disciples of Christ, or Episcopal churches. They have spoken from the heart; they have spoken from their own personal experiences with themselves, with their families, with each other, and with God. They know what they know based on what they have experienced. Yet surprisingly (unlike those dedicated to a positivist approach), they do not impose their experience on others but rather seek to recognize that different experiences will bring about different viewpoints, perspectives, and beliefs. These differences do not worry them. In fact, connection and difference are the essential keys to understanding human spirituality and, for them, God's manifested love. Recognizing difference validates difference. Connections between human beings draws on respect for difference and on validation of whole persons. Such a recognition is directly linked to a connective concept of God and the world. I bring the reader back to the definition of "holy," as defined on the first pages of this book. "Holy . . . free from injury, whole, hale, . . . health, happiness, good luck . . . inviolate, inviolable, that which must be preserved whole or intact, that which cannot be injured with impunity . . . a ready word to render . . . consecrated, dedicated, sacred." The ministry of women, if this study can direct how we think about this subject at all, seems to be a ministry built on spiritual concerns for the validation of all humans as and where they are. The wholeness and well-being message that has found a voice in this study is a message shared by all the women involved; I believe subsequent work with clergy women in different geographical locations and in different religious contexts will verify the directions taken in this research. I believe we can talk and think about a female approach to religion, to the divine, to the human condition, and to the ministry. The concerns discussed in this study have crossed many boundaries and have remained intact, although differently interpreted, expressed, and examined. The holistic approach to religion as presented in these pages crosses denominational lines, generational lines, sexual-preference lines, and racial lines; in fact, we find not a blurring of lines but a respect for lines on the one hand and a denial of what lines can constrict and determine on the other. When I began this study I thought the book would include not only

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the women's life stories but their sermons as well. As it turned out, the work developed in ways I had not quite expected. As I wrote Chapter Seven on the women's ministry and realized that I had little if any space to devote to the many sermons I had collected, it became clear that I must deal with the sermons—but not in this book. Therefore, my work will continue. There are no real conclusions, then, to a work like this one. It is a truly never-ending story. There are only places to start and places to stop for a while. But the story of these women lives on far beyond the pages of this book. Women like these are changing the world; they are changing the perimeters and expectations of ministry; they are changing their denominations; they are changing each other; they changed me.

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Index

abortion, 243-44, 246; theology and, 228, 245, 247, 260 Abu-Lughod, Lila, 82 η. 17 African-American pastors, 18-19 After Babel (Steiner), 227 American Baptist church, 3 American Folklore Society, 8 2 n . l 6 American Heritage Dictionary, 57 "Among School Children" (Yeats), 266 n.4 anthropology, 57—58; feminist, 7n.2. See also reflexive anthropology Aquinas, Thomas, 219 asexuality, 218, 226, 235; myth of, 219, 230-31 Augustine, 260 authority, religious, 1 - 2 , 7 5 - 7 6 , 219, 281; threats to, 218, 220; validation of, 221 Barbre, Joy, 63 Barth, Karl, 271 Bartky, Sandra, 234 Bateson, Mary Catherine, 76, 2 0 1 - 2 Becker, Howard, 83n.49 Belenky, Mary Field, 8 2 n . l 8 Bennett, Gillian, 64, 246 Berry, Ralph Barton, 223 biblical tradition, 20; reclaiming femininity in, 22 blocks, stories as, 64—65 book work, 60, 2 8 3 - 8 7 Boston, 141 breastfeeding. See nursing "Bring Many Names" (hymn), 251 Brite Divinity School (Texas), 60, 139, 170

Brock, Rita Nakashima, 24, 234 Brodzki, Bella, 63, 67, 6 9 - 7 1 Brown, Karen McCarthy, 7 n.2 Buchanan, Carter, 7, 2 5 - 2 6 , 258; choosing ministry, 130-32, 137, 150-51; images of God, 242, 250-51, 253, 256, 259, 263, 265; life story, 100-113; message of, 267, 271-82; on sexuality, 224; on women's stories, 62, 65, 67, 72, 78-79 calling into ministry narrative, 66, 148, 207; patterns in, 128-54; early affinity, 129, 133, 143, 148; knowing, 147; lack of models, 133, 137, 149-50; oral tradition for, 7 5 - 7 6 , 153-54, 2 0 2 - 3 ; other people, 129-31, 150-51; resistance, 132-34, 136, 147, 149-50; testing God, 137-38, 150. See also individual women call to preach narrative, 77, 137, 142; versus calling into ministry narrative, 66, 148-49, 153; Pentacostalism and, 66, 83n.31, 128, 153 Cannon, Katie, 218, 2 4 1 n . l 9 Carnal Knowing (Miles), 233 Catholic, Catholic church, 64, 133, 138, 207, 218, 219, 225, 258; ritual, 2 0 4 - 5 ; sexuality and, 217, 221 celibacy, 218, 221-22, 2 3 0 - 3 1 Chicago, 24, 143 Chicago Theological College, 143 Chopp, Rebecca, 2 1 - 2 2 , 235 Christian Century, 238 Christian Church-Disciples of Christ, 3, 7, 12, 29, 60, 6 4 - 6 5 , 67, 138-39,

296

Index

Christian Church-Disciples of Christ (continued) 143-45, 209, 214, 247-68, 286 Cixous, Helene, 227, 233 clergy dress: gender roles and, 2 1 8 - 1 9 , 225-26, 2 3 2 - 3 3 Clifford, James, 5 7 - 5 8 , 75 Clinchy, Blythe McVicker, 8 2 n . l 8 Cohen, Colleen, 58 Colgate, Constance, 7, 148, 264-65; choosing ministry, 143-44, 149; life story, 183-90; message of, 270, 276; on sexuality, 225 community, 59; female images of God and, 242, 251, 265; relationships and, 59, 6 9 - 7 1 ; religious, 21; wholeness and, 279; women-church and, 2 2 - 2 4 , 235 Composing a Life (Bateson), 201 Conley, Verena Adermatt, 241 η. 14 Cooper, Anne-Marie, 7, 22, 2 6 - 2 7 , 83n.33, 245; choosing ministry, 12930, 132, 134, 150; images of God, 242, 251-52, 254-55, 257-58, 262-65; life story, 9 2 - 9 9 ; message of, 267, 269-70, 274, 276, 278-79, 281-82; on sexuality, 226, 235-40; on women's stories, 57, 62, 68, 72, 7 7 - 7 8 Crack in the Mirror, A (Ruby), 58 Crane Theological School, 60 Crapanzano, Vincent, 59 Cult of the Virgin Mary, The (Warner), 227 Cursillo, 134, 2 0 7 - 8 Daly, Mary, 2, 220, 240, 241 n. 14 dance, 242, 252-53, 256, 2 6 1 - 6 2 Debax, Jean-Paul, 235 Denzin, Norman, 75, 77, 83n.49; postmodernism and, 74 diaconal minister (Methodist), 68, 83n.33, 92 dialogue: humor and, 263, 269, 272-73; meaningful, 5 - 6 , 59, 61; as ministry in action, 268-69; as process, 127, 2 6 8 69 dialogue sessions, 4, 12, 18, 22, 81 n.15; framing questions in, 76; as a group, 6 1 - 6 3 ; lunches and, 14-18; relational aspect and, 151; women's stories, 7 9 80; women's stories (see also individual women), 18

difference, validation of, 284, 286 Dillard, Annie, 6, 127 Dilthey, Wilhelm, 63 Disciples of Christ. See Christian Church discrimination, 5, 148, 151, 213, 284; ethnic, 140, 152; monetary, 152, 215; stereotypes and, 3, 268 DuPlessis, Rachel Blau, 31, 83n.31 Eastern Star, 138 Ecclesiasticus, 229 ekklesia, 21, 23, 28n.7 Engels, Ann, 7, 11, 18, 127; choosing ministry, 146-47; images of God, 2 4 8 - 4 9 , 252-53, 261; life story, 191200; message of, 269, 271-73, 276 Episcopal, Episcopal church, 3, 7, 26, 60, 65, 100, 130, 149, 2 0 6 - 8 , 247, 286; marriage ceremony, 278; ordination of women, 130-31, 134; priest, female, 22, 1 3 4 - 3 5 , 2 0 6 - 7 Episcopal General Convention (1976), 130 equality for women, 1 - 2 , 153, 215. See also discrimination ethnography: "doing," 5 7 - 5 9 ; feminist, 5 - 6 , 7n.2, 61, 80, 82n.l7; as framing, 75; postmodern, 5 9 - 6 0 , 74; reflexive, 27. See also reciprocal ethnography eucharist, 23, 2 8 n . l l , 225. See also ritual female autobiography, 6 3 - 6 4 , 7 9 - 8 0 , 284; relational stories and, 6 8 - 7 1 , 73, 80, 151. See also life stories; individual women Female Autograph, The (Stanton), 63 female body, 221-22, 226, 230, 239; fetishization of, 217, 223-24, 233; "writing," 217, 2 2 7 - 2 9 Female Body in Western Culture, The (Suleiman), 226 femaleness, 218, 224 feminine, femininity: devalued, 2 0 2 - 3 ; reclaiming, 22; discourse, 227, 235 feminism, feminist, 5, 22, 201, 211, 217; ethnography, 5 - 6 , 7n.2, 61, 80, 82n.l7; movement, 1960s-1970s, 20; religion, 20, 227-28, 237; seminary and, 253; women's stories as, 74. See also women-church

Index Feminist Ethic of Risk, A (Welch), 240 fetishism, 217, 223-24, 233 Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schussler, 28n.7 First Christian church, 143 Flesh Made Word, The (Michie), 233 folklorist inquiry, 7n.2, 57-59, 75 Fort Worth (Texas), 139 Frank, Gelya, 83n.28 "From a Distance" (song), 271 gender roles, 202, 224; clergy dress and, 218-19, 225-26, 232-33; life stories and, 284; religious authority and, 1—2, 75-76, 218-21, 281; sexuality and, 224-26, 268 General Baptist church, 3, 60, 144 Gilligan, Carol, 68, 73, 151, 266 n.2 God, 204-5, 209, 214, 217-18, 286; metaphor and, 26-27, 280, 282; sexuality and, 236, 238, 255; women's relationships to, 139, 148; and the Word, 235 God, call from, 149, 151, 153, 208; through other people, 129-32, 150 God, images of, 1, 61, 242-66; community and, 242, 251, 265; dance and, 242, 252-53, 256, 261-62; versus denominational images, 243, 246-47, 261, 266; as experience, 243, 248, 252, 254-55; femininity and, 259-60; as holistic, 247, 252, 260, 266; intellectual, 256; as male, 249-50, 261-63; music and, 242, 251-53, 261; power animals and, 257-58, 261; as relationship, 260; self as image of, 249, 261; sexuality and, 221, 255-56, 260; stories and, 251-52, 261; as womencentered, 246, 261. See also individual women God, women's message about, 267-82; versus "boxed God," 275-76, 281; building bridges to, 269, 276, 278-79; giving the best, 270, 276; justice for all 269-70, 276; loving God and, 2 6 9 71, 273—76; male, female spirituality and, 270, 276; oneness in spirit, 269, 276; in relation with others, 271-72, 276, 279; wholeness and, 271-72, 276-77, 279

297

God's Fierce Whimsy (Cannon), 218 Goldberger, Nancy Rule, 82n.l8 Graham, Billy, 135 GynlEcology (Daly), 240 Haller, Flannery, 7, 12-13, 25, 201, 211, 259; choosing ministry, 133-35, 148, 150; images of God, 247-48, 252-56, 261, 265; key metaphors in life story, 203-9, 216; life story, 29-41; message of, 272-77, 279-80; on sexuality, 230; on women's stories, 64-65, 67 Hampson, Daphne, 220 Handmaidens of the Lord (Lawless), 1 —2, 60, 75, 83n.31, 154n.2 Heilbrun, Carolyn, 63 Henson, Rose, 137 herethics, 227, 234, 240 Heyward, Carter, 234 hierarchy, 14, 16, 68, 145, 213, 215, 219-20; lack of in women in ministry group, 13, 18; in stages of faith, 276; "whole" women and, 71. See also patriarchal order Hiram College, 143 Hite, Molly, 24In. 14 holy: defined, 286; women, 2, 9, 23 homosexuality, 220, 228, 239, 276 Hufford, David, 222, 240n.9 humor, 263, 269, 2 7 2 - 7 3 identity, female, 71, 73-74, 139, 2 1 1 13, 224; patriarchal order and, 79, 221; storytelling and, 73, 203 In a Different Voice (Gilligan), 151 Interpreting Women's Lives (Barbre et al.), 63 intratextual practice, 202-3, 212, 216 Irigaray, Luce, 227, 235 Jelinek, Estelle C„ 83 n.28 Jeremiah, 259 Jesus, 19, 132, 146, 250, 259, 261, 271, 275 Johnston, Marsha, 7, 244, 246; choosing ministry, 135-37, 148, 150, 152; images of God, 249-50, 256, 261; life story, 84-91; message of, 273-76, 279; on sexuality, 224, 229, 231-32; on women's stories, 62, 71-72

298

Index

Jones, Ann Rosalind, 241 n.14 Journey is Home, The (Norton), 81 η. 1 Journeys by Heart (Brock), 234 Kalcik, Susan, 246 knowing, 4, 147; as process, 2 0 5 - 6 , 208; self-knowledge a n d , 213, 2 1 5 - 1 6 Kristeva, Julia, 227, 2 3 9 - 4 0 , 241 n.14 Langness, L. L., 83n.28 Lawless, Elaine J., 154n.2 Life/Lines (Brodzki and Schenck), 63 life stories, 5 7 - 8 3 ; blocks a n d , 64—65; as e m e r g e n t visions, 2 0 1 - 2 ; f r a m e w o r k for (see also reciprocal ethnography), 1 2 - 1 3 , 59; g e n d e r biases in, 7 8 - 8 0 , 284; as genre, 7 5 - 7 6 ; geographical area of, 3 - 4 , 1 1 - 1 2 , 60, 81 n.14; as justifications, 6 7 - 7 3 ; "multiple truths" a n d , 77; need for audience a n d , 7 7 78; overview of women in, 4, 60, 128; presentation of, 6, 8 2 n . l 9 ; the "unrepresentable" and, 6 9 - 7 4 ; women's responses to transcripts of, 62, 76, 283. See also female autobiography; individual women Literature of Their Own, Α (Showalter), 74 lived experience, 74, 7 6 - 7 7 L u t h e r a n , 138 mainline denominations, 1 - 3 , 11, 23, 60, 66; calling into ministry narrative and, 128; discrimination in, 3, 5, 284; feminist theology and, 2 2 7 - 2 8 ; oral tradition of, 7 5 - 7 6 , 1 5 3 - 5 4 , 2 0 2 - 3 . See also individual denominations male autobiography, 6 3 - 6 4 , 67, 7 9 - 8 0 , 284 male dominance. See patriarchal o r d e r ; hierarchy Malleus Maleficarum, 221 Mama Lola (Brown), 7 n.2 Marcus, George, 5 7 - 5 8 , 75 M a r q u a n d Chapel, Yale Divinity School, 209 marriage, 152, 220; Episcopal ceremony, 278; Protestantism and, 219 Mascia-Lees, Frances, 58 Mason, Mary, 63 Mayfield, Karen, 277; choosing ministry, 144-46

McFague, Sally, 238 McWatters, Keith, 2 4 1 n . l 4 menstruation, 229, 236 metanarrative, 2 1 2 - 1 3 , 215; defined, 203. See also key metaphors metaphors, key, 2 0 1 - 1 6 , 246; in story of Flannery Haller, 2 0 3 - 9 , 216; in story of Linda Stewart, 2 0 9 - 1 6 Methodist. See United Methodist Michie, Helena, 233 Middler, Bette, 271 Miles, Margaret, 219, 227, 229, 2 3 3 - 3 5 Miles-Wagner, Kathleen, 7, 2 4 - 2 5 , 27, 183; choosing ministry, 1 4 0 - 4 2 ; images of God, 243, 248, 2 5 2 - 5 4 , 2 5 6 - 5 7 , 260, 265; life story, 4 2 - 5 6 ; message of, 2 6 9 - 7 0 , 2 7 5 - 7 7 , 2 7 9 - 8 0 ; on sexuality, 230, 2 3 7 - 3 8 ; on women's stories, 6 4 - 6 5 , 6 7 - 7 0 , 73, 78 Miller, Nancy, 63, 7 0 - 7 1 , 73, 2 0 2 - 3 Minnesota Women's G r o u p , 63 miscarriage, 2 5 9 - 6 0 , 282 Misch, Georg, 63 misogyny, 5, 72, 80, 151 Moi, Toril, 227, 241 n.14 Morton, Nelle, 2, 8 1 n . l m o t h e r h o o d , 136, 213, 220, 227, 239; sexuality and, 232 M u d Flower Collective, 230 music, 155, 214, 242, 2 5 1 - 5 3 , 261 m u s t a r d seed parable, 277 "Naked in the Pulpit," 215, 217, 222, 226, 2 3 8 - 3 9 Native American tradition, 257, 261 New Haven (Conn.), 135 New Testament, 23, 139 "Notions 'n Pins," 215, 217, 226 nursing, 2 2 8 - 2 9 , 255, 2 6 1 - 6 2 objective knowledge, 2 2 2 - 2 4 , 2 8 5 - 8 6 Old Testament, 229 Olney, James, 63 " O n w a r d Christian Soldiers" (hymn), 251 oppression of women, 20, 22, 212, 218; superwoman image a n d , 3 oral narrative, 59, 6 3 - 6 4 , 66, 153. See also calling into ministry narrative; call to preach narrative ordination of women, 128, 141, 144, 219, 276; in Episcopal church, 1 3 0 - 3 1 ,

Index ordination o f women, (continued) 134, 2 0 7 ; official policies for, 148, 2 2 8 ; Protestantism and, 19, 2 1 7 - 1 8 Ortner, Sherry, 2 4 0 n . l over-reading, 1 2 7 - 5 4 , 203, 284; gendered, 7 3 - 7 4 , 202 Pascal, Roy, 202 pastor, associate, 12, 144. See also women in ministry patriarchal order, 2, 21, 2 1 2 ; critique of, 20, 22; identity and, 79, 221, 2 3 9 ; ordained women and, 220—21; sexuality and, 2 1 7 - 2 0 . See also hierarchy Pentecostalism, 3, 66, 75, 128; call to preach narratives and, 66, 8 3 n . 3 1 , 128, 153 Pentecostal women preachers, 1—2, 60, 148, 150, 1 5 3 - 5 4 Perkins, Cora, 11, 14, 1 8 - 2 0 Philadelphia, 130 Planned Parenthood, 4 Poetics of Women's Autobiography, A (Smith), 6 3 postmodern ethnography, 5 9 - 6 0 , 74 Power to Speak, The (Chopp), 2 3 5 Predicament of Culture, The (Clifford), 5 8 pregnancy, 136, 2 3 6 - 3 7 , 245; sexuality and, 2 2 8 - 3 2 , 2 3 6 - 3 7 Presbyterian, Presbyterian church, 3, 136 process, ongoing: reciprocal ethnography as, 2 8 3 - 8 7 professional image, 6 9 - 7 0 , 79 Protestantism, 133, 218, 2 1 9 , 2 3 6 ; fetishization and, 2 2 3 ; marriage and, 218—19; ordination o f women and, 2 1 7 - 1 8 ; sexuality and, 2 2 2 . See also individual denominations reciprocal ethnography, 5, 6 0 - 6 1 , 77, 80, 8 2 n . l 6 , 8 3 n . 4 9 , 127, 283, 2 8 5 ; life stories and, 5 7 - 8 3 . See also ethnography reconstructive Christianity, 22 reflexive anthropology, 5, 58, 61, 81 n. 15, 8 3 n . 4 9 . See also anthropology Reimer, Gail, 71 Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights, 244-45 "Rescripting T h e i r Lives and Narratives" (Lawless), 8 3 n . 3 1 , 1 5 4 n . 2

299

ritual: Catholic, 204—5; denominational differences in, 2 2 - 2 8 ; ecumenical, 22 Rodriegas, Maria, 7; choosing ministry, 1 3 8 - 4 0 , 1 4 9 - 5 0 , 152; images o f God, 2 5 7 - 5 8 , 2 6 2 ; life story, 1 7 0 - 8 2 ; on sexuality, 2 2 4 role models, female, 6 7 - 6 8 , 143, 153; lack of, 66, 68, 79, 133, 137, 1 4 9 - 5 0 , 209—10; successful clergywomen and, 209-10 Roman Catholic nuns, 3, 15 Ruby, Jay, 5 8 Ruether, Rosemary Radford, 2 0 - 2 2 , 2 4 - 2 5 , 235, 253 Runyan, William, 6 3 Schaef, Anne Wilson, 2 2 0 Schenck, Celeste, 63, 67, 6 9 - 7 1 Science o f Mind church, 146, 2 4 9 Seger, Amy, 7, 26, 2 6 3 ; choosing ministry, 1 3 2 - 3 3 , 137, 1 4 9 - 5 0 , 152; images o f God, 242, 2 5 0 - 5 1 , 2 6 1 - 6 2 ; life story, 1 1 4 - 2 6 ; message of, 2 7 0 - 7 1 , 2 7 6 - 7 7 ; on sexuality, 2 2 9 , 232, 2 3 6 37; on women's stories, 65, 6 7 - 7 0 , 72 seminary, 151; community of, 152; feminist theology and, 2 5 3 ; mainline denominations a n d , 1 2 8 sexism, 2, 21 sexuality, 61, 2 1 7 - 4 1 ; clergy dress and, 2 1 8 - 1 9 , 2 2 5 - 2 6 , 2 3 2 - 3 3 ; denied, 222, 2 2 5 - 2 6 , 231, 2 3 9 ; female as symbol of, 2 2 6 - 2 7 , 230, 233, 2 3 9 ; gender roles in, 2 2 4 - 2 6 , 2 6 8 ; wholeness and, 228, 2 3 1 , 2 3 4 , 2 3 6 - 3 9 Sharpe, Patricia, 5 8 Showalter, Elaine, 63, 74, 2 3 3 - 3 4 significant other, 59, 6 9 - 7 1 Smith, Sidonie, 63, 71, 8 3 n . 2 9 Song o f Solomon, 2 5 6 Southern Baptist church, 144 spirituality: theology and, 2 5 8 - 5 9 "Stabat Mater" (Kristeva), 2 2 7 Stanton, Domna, 6 3 Status and Role o f Women committee (Methodist), 2 4 3 - 4 4 Steiner, George, 227 Stewart, Linda, 7, 25, 201, 203, 2 6 4 , 2 6 6 n . 3 ; choosing ministry, 1 3 7 - 3 8 , 1 4 9 - 5 0 , 152; images o f God, 2 4 3 - 4 7 , 251, 253, 2 5 5 ; key metaphors in life

300

Index

Stewart, Linda (continued) story, 2 0 9 - 1 6 ; life story, 1 5 5 - 6 9 ; message of, 2 6 9 - 7 0 , 275—76; on sexuality, 2 1 7 , 226, 2 2 8 - 2 9 , 2 3 1 - 3 2 ; on women's stories, 66, 69 subjective knowledge, 2 2 2 - 2 4 , 2 8 5 - 8 6 sub-text. See metaphor Suleiman, Susan, 226, 2 3 5 symbolic interactionism, 77 Tarule, Jill Mattuck, 8 2 n . l 8 Tedlock, Dennis, 59 Texas Christian Seminary, 6 0 theology: abortion and, 245, 247, 2 6 0 ; feminist, 2 2 7 - 2 8 , 2 3 7 , 2 5 3 ; spirituality and, 2 5 8 - 5 9 T h o m p s o n , Ann, 241 n. 14 Touching Our Strength (Heyward), 2 3 4 Tyler, Stephen, 5 7 - 6 0 Union Theological Seminary, 60, 135 Unitarian, Unitarian church, 3, 7, 42, 60, 64, 142 Unitarian Universalist Association, 141 United Methodist, United Methodist church, 3, 7, 18, 60, 64, 68, 71, 8 3 n . 3 3 , 84, 92, 129, 1 3 5 - 3 6 , 1 3 9 - 4 0 , 145, 152, 155, 2 1 4 , 229, 244, 247, 2 8 6 United Methodist Conference, 2 4 3 Unity church, 3, 7, 18, 22, 60, 147, 191, 249 Unspeakable: Discourse, Dialogue, and Rhetoric in the Postmodern World, The (Tyler), 5 8 Vanderbilt University, 6 0 Virgin Mary, 19, 2 1 8 - 1 9 , 227 Walters, Anna, 2 Warner, Mariana, 227

Watson, Lawrence, 6 3 Watson-Franke, Maria Barbara, 6 3 Weintraub, Karl, 6 3 Welch, Sharon, 2 4 0 Wesley Foundation, 137 wholeness, 2 8 6 ; community and, 2 7 9 ; God in connection and, 2 7 1 - 7 2 , 2 7 6 ; religion of, 2; theology, 21 Wilcox, Helen, 241 n. 14 Williams, Linda, 241 n. 14 women-church, 1 1 - 2 8 , 129, 153, 2 6 8 ; community and, 2 2 - 2 4 , 235; defined, 2 1 - 2 2 ; as model church, 2 3 - 2 4 women in ministry: femaleness of, 224, 2 3 2 ; hormones and, 1 6 - 1 7 ; locating, 1 1 - 1 2 ; stereotypes for, 3, 2 6 8 women in ministry group, 4, 1 1 - 2 8 ; commonality and difference in, 22, 2 5 - 2 6 , 2 8 n . l 0 ; ecumenical ritual in, 2 2 - 2 5 ; and eucharist, 23, 2 8 n . l l ; lack o f hierarchy in, 13, 18; overview of, 11 - 2 8 . See also women-church women's stories. See life stories; female autobiography; individual names Women's Ways of Knowing (Belenky et al.), 8 2 n . l 8 , 213 Woolf, Virginia, 5 8 Wren, Brian, 155, 251 Writing a Woman's Life (Heilbrun), 6 3 Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (Clifford and Marcus), 57— 58 Writing Life, The (Dillard), 6 Yale Divinity School, 60, 131, 135, 207, 209 Yale University, 29 Yeats, William Butler, 2 6 6 n.4 Y W C A , 133, 2 0 5 - 6 , 2 0 9

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