Let the Wild Rumpus Start

Note: This was posted on Facebook on April 12, 2021. I am posting it here for easy future access

 

Well, so I just realized that it was 35 years ago today that I was ordained to the transitional diaconate at the Cathedral of St. Luke, Portland, ME by the Rt. Rev'd Frederick Barton Wolf. It was his birthday. It was also the birthday of Ruth Pillsbury, head of the Altar Guild at the Cathedral and one of the first models of strong women in leadership in The Episcopal Church. I still do things exactly the way she taught me. E.X.A.C.T.L.Y.

 

I am so grateful for all the wonderful saints who were and are and are still yet to come who shaped and formed me for this impossible vocation. I am especially grateful for those who carried me through "The Process" for, in those days, I surely could not have done - and didn't do - it all by myself.

Looking back, I wonder how I made it through. The odds were clearly stacked against me and so many other women who were - and still are but were never ordained - called to this work in the institutional church.

 

I've told this story before but it's worth repeating: I remember the then President of the Standing Committee - the then rector of one of the wealthiest churches in the diocese, and someone we all 'knew' (wink, wink) was gay - saying to me, "Well, now, Elizabeth, if we allow your ordination to proceed, what will you do to help the church . . . adjust . . . to the fact that you are a woman and a .... a.... lesbian?"

 

"You know," said he, clearing his throat after having said such a vile word, "when the first 11 were ordained, they did nothing - absolutely nothing! - to help us adjust. Indeed, one of them said that it was our . . . OUR . . . responsibility! (Raising his voice at the end to emphasize such a preposterous notion, while others around the room nodded in solemn agreement.) WHAT (he asked, peering over his glasses) will YOU do to help us?"

 

I remember looking at him and saying, "I promise to be a good priest, faithful to my vocation and ordination vows, and to model my life after the teachings of Jesus. Just as you have done, sir. What more is there to be done? What more would you like me to do?" (I remember working very hard to keep my Portuguese temper in check and my voice well-modulated.)

 

 

And, he stared at me, slack-jawed, for what seemed like a full minute, cleared his throat in the way men often do who believe themselves to be more important than they really are, and said, "Well, yes. I suppose that will be sufficient." 

 

And then I was dismissed.

 

Ten years later, when I was Canon Missioner to The Oasis, we developed a discussion guide for congregations to talk about human sexuality and homosexuality. We called it "All Love is of God". ( https://oasisnewark.org/). 

 

When the first copies came into the office, still hot off the press, I put a congregational workbook and leader's manual in a manila envelope and addressed it to him, at that time Dean of the Cathedral, with a little note saying, "Remember you asked me what I was going to do to help the church ... "adjust"? Here you go. I trust you will do your part."

 

I never got an acknowledgment. No surprise. Not really.

 

I later learned that he moved his "lover" (that's how he was described) into the deanery. Nothing was said, of course. Just this man was now living with the dean. Shortly after his retirement, however, he "officially" came out. 

 

There's more to that story which is very sad and, in fact, tragic, but, suffice it to say, being in the closet is toxic, and internalized homophobia destroys brain cells. 

 

'Nuff said.

 

You know, there's a little place in my heart that still rejoices whenever I read Romans 8:28 "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose."

 

That's the hope to which I clung during my difficult, often painful, and very costly ordination process. I've had moments of doubt, of course, but that is what I still believe about my ordination. I only regret the cost exacted on my family for those difficult years of institutional abuse. 

 

I am grateful to so many for so much - including the bishop and the Altar Guild Directress and the Philadelphia 11 and the Washington 4 and courageous members of Commission on Ministry (which cost one of whom his position as rector when he, too, came out) and the Vestry and the Cathedral congregational members and family and seminary professors and field education supervisors and CPE Supervisors and church members and congregations "brave" enough to call me as vicar/rector/priest-in-charge and colleagues and, of course, Ms. Conroy and our children and so many unnumbered saints who believed in me when I doubted myself.

And, now, Thomas James Brown is the 10th Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Maine, the second gay man to hold that position but the first to be able to be open and honest about the fullness of his being. I can not even begin to express the joy that is still in my heart after attending his consecration two years ago.

 

See also Romans 8:28. 

 

For all that has been, is now and is yet to come: Soli deo gloria, which, roughly translated, means "Let the wild rumpus start".