Thealogical Lady: A Blog

Spirit Whispers: Philadelphia 11

7/29/2014

On this Feast of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, another celebration is underway: the fortieth anniversary of the ordination of the Philadelphia 11, the first women to be ordained in the Episcopal Church.

I am grateful for God's prophetic call on the lives of these women. I am grateful for their obedience to God--which manifested as disobedience to the unjust, unholy policies of their church.

I am grateful that these women paved the way for other women to respond faithfully to the call they hear from God without fear.

I am grateful for the first experience I had of Sunday liturgy at St. Augustine's Episcopal Church, at which the first thing I noticed was a woman standing at the altar as an ordained deacon--and no one was rioting. No one even batted an eyelash (except me).

I am grateful that the presence of ordained women is normal in the Episcopal Church. I am grateful that the face of the Episcopal Church in the United States, the Presiding Bishop, is a woman (and one of great wisdom).

I am grateful for this church that perceived its own call to be prophetically transformed after eleven women stood up, risking everything that mattered to them, to respond to God's will.

I am grateful that these eleven icons of Martha made it possible for me to sit more easily, like Mary, at the feet of Jesus and hear what he has to say.

0 Comments

Spirit Whispers: Unworthy

6/27/2014

0 Comments

Through my silence practice every morning this week, my life has grown very quiet, and I'm noticing a new tone in my discernment about priestly call.

My failings and faults have surfaced with a most poignant sting. I've started questioning the call I'm hearing. I've dared the call I hear to change, to go away.

The funny (read: frustrating) part is that even as I've allowed myself to feel anxiety and doubt and worry during these silences, the call I hear hasn't wavered.

I hear this call even though I'm not perfect, not the best fit, not the holiest person, not the most balanced person, not the cookie cutter candidate.

As I continue to hear this call, I acknowledge that the outcome of all this discernment is irrelevant. My listening--my obedience--is the only thing that matters to the one I call God.

Will I continue to offer over my whole heart, no matter what outcome that offering brings forth?

0 Comments

Spirit Whispers: Speak up

6/17/2014

0 Comments

If you've never had the experience of participating in a spiritual discernment committee, I invite you to consider it.

After my fifth (and final) meeting with my discernment committee for priesthood yesterday evening, my committee confirmed that they heard my call to priesthood. And that's not even the extraordinary part.

The extraordinary part is that, as I prayed yesterday before my meeting, I prayed for total surrender to God's will, and for the faithfulness not to run if that will was something my ego didn't like. My total surrender granted me total, deep, quieting peace.

The extraordinary part is that, having let go of my attachment to the outcome of my discernment process, I happened to read (during evening prayer) the story in Matthew about the disciples who wanted to know why they couldn't heal the sick on their own when Jesus so easily could. Jesus told them it was because they lacked faith, and that if they had faith even the size of a mustard seed, mountains would move for them. And I realized at that moment that my mustard seed faith was what had moved the mountain of my ego in order to make a straight path for Spirit to enter and dwell deep within my heart.

The extraordinary part is that, despite having a clear sense of call when I walked into the process, my sense of call widened and deepened and became more rooted as the dialogue went on.

The extraordinary part is that, especially in the final two meetings, as I listened to the challenging questions of my committee members, I perceived Spirit doing the asking. And as I offered my vulnerable, open-hearted answers, I perceived Spirit speaking through me. (It's fair to say that I've never experienced God's voice speaking to me so powerfully as I have in my discernment committee meetings, and for a Benedictine who hears God speaking to her through liturgy and scripture and encounters with others all the time, that's saying a lot.)

The extraordinary part is that, despite my Enneagram-three-personality-type's desire to manage a situation in such a way that the outcome is "positive," I was required to relinquish my ability to do that in order to speak plainly and truthfully. I was painfully aware that my deep honesty could at any moment result in the humiliation of my ego, and I spoke anyway. In that total risk of my ego, I realized it was not my ego that spoke, but Spirit.

When I walked out of my meeting last night, I had no idea what my committee members had heard. I didn't know what they would say. My three-ish ability to anticipate the outcome of the process failed me spectacularly. And I perceived in my failure the possibility of God's success--success in finding a way to make use of the quirky instrument that I am.

My committee is passing me on to the next steps of the discernment process, steps that will be challenging in their own ways. What my committee heard may not be confirmed by the next folks I encounter in the discernment process. But what happens next is not my concern.

The most important piece to emerge for me from this discernment process is the profound recognition that my heart--my whole heart--belongs to the one I call God. Whatever comes, I know that I will be faithful to the path God has prepared for me. I won't turn away. This is God's gig, and I am God's beautiful, imperfect instrument.

What song(s) will God choose to play through me for the uplifting, healing, and reconciling of her creation?

0 Comments

Spirit Whispers: A Pentecost-tide Theme

6/9/2014

2 Comments

My fourth priestly discernment meeting, which happened yesterday morning in between Pentecost liturgies, gives me goosebumps as I reflect on it. I realize that the questions I received were the questions of Spirit herself, that God was speaking through the voices of my five committee members (right there in Heidi Chapel) and I was being beckoned to answer God's questions from the depths of my vulnerable heart.

The whole of the Pentecost season (which, thanks to the influence of Latin in the Roman Church, we call "Ordinary Time") is a time of just this kind of discernment, of radical listening. My Pentecost theme for Thealogical Lady will be "Spirit Whispers," and here I will invite myself and my readers to cultivate the ability to hear what Spirit says. To listen, ob audire, is to be obedient. Obedience is one of the vows that I have made as a Benedictine Canon, and obedience--radical listening--is something to which all Christians are called by baptism. Listening is a path of wisdom for any mindful person, that she might hear something greater and wiser than her own solitary voice.

In reflecting on the Spirit-ed questions that emerged during my discernment meeting yesterday, clarity about my identity rose up. I am not merely Kate, responding to a diocesan priestly call; I am Sr. Kate, a vowed member of the Community of St. Mary of the Annunciation, responding to a religious priestly call. I wonder what further clarity will emerge from my next discernment meeting. In what ways will Spirit speak through the curiosity and concerns of my committee members? What will I hear, if I have ears to listen?

2 Comments

Living Lent: Feast of St. Joseph

3/19/2014

0 Comments

Today is the feast of St. Joseph, husband of Mary (mother of Jesus). He is widely regarded by Christians as the father who adopted, cared for, and protected the son of God.

This is also the day my mother's father was born. I don't mean my biological grandfather, but the grandfather who chose--with my grandmother--to adopt my mother when she had just been born. They were childless and middle-aged, and they took a leap. Without their leap, which one might regard as an act of exceptional obedience to God's call in their lives, you wouldn't be reading this.

My grandfather honored his birthday patron well, and I can't help thinking of him when March 19 comes around. Below I offer a tribute to my memories of his generosity and love, written in the form of a letter, dated several days after his death. I was a senior in high school when he died.

December 8, 1999

Dear Poppidor,

I never got to tell you all this stuff...because after a while, I stopped coming to your house. I began riding the bus to school, and rarely got the chance to go to the 5 & 10 with your complimentary $2. I stopped sleeping over at your house, and began having my own sleepovers. Every place you took me, every memory we shared, grew obsolete as I grew up. The memories were gems, but I didn't know what to do, with you so sick.

I was frightened.

There was so much I didn't know about you. Even though you fixed my knees when I scraped them on the gravel, gave me Squirt from the basement when I was thirsty, let me play on the ivy, gave me rides in the car with the blue interior, and gave me lots of bread for the ducks at the park, all I knew of you was the grandpa side. When you took me and Jasmine to the monument and got us hamburgers to quiet our stomachs, you were the wonderful grandpa, but did I know you? When you were there for my Confirmation, standing as my sponsor, you were kind and patient, but did I know you?

And when you read that article in the newspaper about me, talking about what I'd done for Hoops for Heart in ninth grade, you were so impressed that you gave me my wish, a second thought I'd thrown in during the reporter's interview. You bought the computer that I type on now, that I've cherished so much....

You only bought the computer--you didn't help in its selection. You were afraid with all of us that you would buy the wrong thing--that we wouldn't be happy. There was only one exception--the exception you made for me. Was it my fourth or fifth birthday? when I received the stuffed clown, the one I named Pepper, the one who rules among all my Barbie dolls and stuffed animals. Pepper was the best gift I'd ever received, because it was the only one you dared to give. And it was perfect.

Those butter cookies are getting stale. The oyster crackers are drying out. The V8 might last a little longer, but not forever. Your offerings of food and drink will never sate me again. The davenport will grow dusty, as all the rooms did. I won't sprawl my sleeping bag on the dented green carpet in the living room, with my red-print nightgown and Care-bears. I won't touch the nightlight. I won't play with the lovely dancer on the shelf. I won't climb on tiptoe to see the mirror.

All these things, even the ones unmentioned, will become dimmer in my mind as time continues its path. Tears will trickle down my cheeks as I struggle to remember all those things....

But in the meantime, I will watch, listen, and learn. There were many things about you I didn't know. You were more than a wonderful grandpa--you were a wonderful person! I want to know that person. Maybe, if I learn more about that person, I will learn more about myself--or at least have something to aspire to.

I hope you have listened, and filled in the blanks where I forgot.

I love you.

Your granddaughter,

Michelle

0 Comments

Retreat and return

2/11/2014

6 Comments

Photo by M. Kate Allen

My dreams this week concern me.

I've dreamed about killing someone I didn't know; I wasn't convicted in court for lack of evidence, even though I knew I was at fault. I've dreamed about others I did know dying of natural causes, leaving me to pick up the pieces. Last night I dreamed about an elderly friend of mine asking me to help pack up two houses: the one in which he used to live and the one in which he currently lived. He was preparing to move elsewhere, though I didn't know where. Everything I touched in his current house was laden with memory, whereas everything in the other house was strange, rich, and unlike him as far as I knew him.

I'm no expert on Jung or Freud, but I do know that dreams can point dreamers to insights about themselves and their lives.

What is with all the death, hiding, and transition?

I woke in the middle of the night last night to get my baby daughter a bottle. When I returned, I flashed back to a conversation from my last Benedictine Canon chapter meeting. Br. Philip talked about preparing for his final profession as a Canon next month, in particular about the placing of the pall over his prostrated body. Like Br. Chad and Br. Rawleigh, Br. Philip will lay down his body at the service of God, the community, and the world. He'll be covered with a pall, the pale garment of baptism and death.

I realized in the chill of the night that if I make my full profession as a Benedictine Canon, I will be committing myself to die.

I crawled back into bed and closed my eyes, but words rose up, and I ended up texting myself with the words of a haiku so they wouldn't be swallowed by sleep.

A funeral pall
veils the diff'rence between old
and new. Ego die.

My dreams point me to an unexpected revelation: my old self is dying. I am being put to the test. My identity as a religious person has long been plagued with fear, self-absorption, doubt, and horded treasures, all carefully saved so I would have something to cling to in case God ever failed me. Now, step by step, I am moving forward into the intensely uncomfortable unknown: a place of overflowing trust.

Father, I put my life in your hands.

I'm dying--and it's okay. I'm letting the precious treasure of my life go. And what a relief.

Mother, I put my life in your hands.

My life will be whatever it is meant to be. The particular outcome of my life is no longer my concern. Living from moment to moment at the service of God and God's magnificent, multi-faceted creation is enough. Being able to turn again and again from my selfish fears toward God, the holy Fire who burns within me, is enough.

6 Comments

Family Ties

2/7/2014

0 Comments

I want to pause for a minute and think about the way my new title of "Sister" changes things for me.

Now that I am "Sister" to those in my community, those who are "Brother" in that community are my brothers. They're confreres. They're bros. They're family.

I even get to see them with relative frequency--once or twice or even thrice a week, sometimes.

I'm holding my new chosen-sibling relationship with them in tension with my vows of stability, conversion, and obedience. I'm promising to be here for them. I'm promising to keep trying to be a better sister to them. And I'm promising to listen to them, even when I don't want to.

I'm learning how to be a sister in a new way. I'm a sister to four childhood siblings, but growing up, stability, conversion, and obedience played very little role in my relationship with them. I was a loner, I did what I wanted, and I didn't listen when it didn't suit me.

Will my identity as "Sister" in this community change my identity as sister in my childhood family? I don't know.

But here's a change I am noticing since my vows last Sunday: when I pray for others now, I don't just pray for those I find easy to love. I lift up the names of those my heart has closed off. Every day, I punch the steely walls of my heart in order to pray for those whom I don't want to love, don't want to be there for, don't want to be better for the sake of, and don't want to listen to.

My prayers may not change the ones I pray for, and they may not change my relationships with those people, but my prayers for those others are changing me. Despite my inclination to resist, the vows I uphold are tearing down my defenses, exposing my vulnerabilities, and rending my heart for love's sake.

0 Comments

Spirit Whispers: Philadelphia 11

Spirit Whispers: Unworthy

Spirit Whispers: Speak up

Spirit Whispers: A Pentecost-tide Theme

Living Lent: Feast of St. Joseph

Retreat and return

Family Ties

Archives

Categories