Seminarians were invited to process in the service of the Ordination/Consecration of Kai Ryan to the Episcopate on June 1. Being a Junior in Iona School for Ministry that is transitioning to being a Junior again at Seminary for the Southwest, I was one to don the black cassock and surplice of the seminarian. My younger two daughters and I had played music at the Ordination/Consecration of Bishop Andy Doyle, but now processing as one surrendering one’s life to the service of the church and its people, this took on a new meaning.
My mother went to seminary along with my father, and although she was never ordained, she did go on to be a notable Christian author in her day (Virginia Stem Owens.) She went to seminary in the 1970s, rarely doubting her abilities or validity in the institution of Christianity. Her self-knowledge of her call and her gifts was a gift to her two daughters who were taught, by example, that they, too, had equal merit. My mother quickly decided she was not called to be a pastor, but used her knowledge to teach, write, and lead a writer’s fellowship she inherited from Richard Foster. She and my father demonstrated equality in their marriage, although acknowledging certain domestic gifts, we soon asked my father to not cook. Unless it was scrambled eggs.
I say all this as I read and listen to the responses from women who have struggled with their call to ministry and to leadership. As I gratefully look to the continued voice of a female Bishop, I feel welcomed by that. I am reminded that others have not been affirmed as women in religious leadership and I am ever so grateful that women like my mother and +Kai (and MANY others) have paved the way rather smoothly for me.
That is not to say that I haven’t or will not hit those blockades where I will hear words or policies that attempt to make me invalid–I worked in such Christian circles for 18 years before coming to the Episcopal Church. But, I have not accepted that I was not called to ministry because of being born a woman. That example was never modeled for me. Deo Gratias.
Magdalena's Musings 