Читать книгу God Is Not a Boy’s Name - Lyn Brakeman - Страница 9

In the summer of 1976 the General Convention of the Episcopal Church voted to approve what had already been proved in 1974 and 1975—that women could be priests. I knew this would happen. I’d dreamed of this, but now it was real and upset my efforts at denial.

I heard from some women priests who were at the convention that the atmosphere in which the gathered church, wrapped in awesome silence, had waited for the 1976 tally to reveal whether or not the ordination of women in all three Holy Orders had been explicitly approved, which was tantamount to a Yes vote on women priests, was electric. It was a dramatic, historic, hope-driven temps vierge moment of absolute openness when everything or nothing could happen—and change lives forever. The final tally: the clergy order, 114 votes cast, 58 votes needed for affirmative action, Yes, 60; No, 39; Divided, 15. In the lay order, 113 votes cast, 57 needed for affirmative action, Yes, 64; No, 37; Divided, 12. The motion passed. Even as I reread these statistics, I can feel my own tears prickling.

Church unity, perilously threatened by the 1974 and 1975 illegal ordinations, had remained shaky, but now its purpose, which was to cover up the truth for the sake of “peace,” fell away completely to reveal what was really upheaved: male unity. Some men had betrayed the old boys’ club compact. In time I’d understand more about this shattering, but for now all I knew was that women rejoiced and I was voted in. You would have thought it was an ecclesiastical tsunami the way some people carried on about Jesus choosing only male disciples, therefore . . . . Still, the Episcopal Church, normally a snail of an institution, had beat the United States government that had just (1977) defeated the Equal Rights Amendment. Women could be priests. All we had to do was pass their tests, proving there was nothing wrong with us. I breathed to my belly as bioenergetics had taught me, puffed out my chest, stood sturdy on both strong legs, and decided to follow these brave women who were making history by overturning the church’s man-on-top arrangements.

“Okay, I’m ready to do it,” I told the rector.

“Do what?” he said with a grin.

(Seduce you.)

“Be a priest.”

“Okay. Wonderful. How come?” he asked.

“You asked,” I said.

“And the church voted. I’ll inform the vestry. I know they’ll sign off on you. So will the bishop. Then you’ll go before Committee One to be screened for postulancy. Here, take this ordination manual home and read it.”

This manual was a weighty book. Books keep me alive; I’d first seen God in a book. Hugging the manual, I headed home, read it in spurts, and almost backed out.

Requirements for ordination were painstakingly comprehensive: physical examination, interview with a shrink, standardized psychological testing, three screening committees, an interview with the bishop, canonical written and oral exams, ordination as a transitional deacon, and then, in six months if you were still breathing, ordination as a priest. There was a standard of learning: demonstrate proficiency in theology, Bible, liturgics (worship), preaching, pastoral care and counseling, church history and patristics (study of early Church Fathers, no mothers named), ethics and moral theology, polity (church governance,) fieldwork in a parish, and anything else you had time for.

My God, I hoped seminary didn’t have many of its own requirements. The job of a parish priest, the expected career track, carried tonnage: leader of a congregation bearing full authority and power over every scrap of community life: administrative, liturgical, instructive, pastoral. Could I do all that?

Who did they think we were, men? Roman Catholic “fathers” weren’t married, but we Episcopalians had big fat lively sex lives. All I’d wanted was the sacraments. Women with all this power and authority could upend centuries of conditioning. In my mind’s eye I saw myself as a small three-year-old striding off to find the right place for herself.

I entered the ordination process in 1977, feeling legitimate, not like an “issue,” yet also not knowing that the bishop of Connecticut at the time had voted against the ordination of women as priests. Trinity’s vestry approved and sponsored me, so the diocese scheduled me for interviews with Committee One, the committee that advised the bishop about granting aspirants the status of postulancy, a status which officially declared an aspirant qualified to be in the track headed for ordination.

The morning of my screening day, my mind woke up in a traffic jam. Who would be on this committee? What should I wear? There was nothing in the manual about dress code. My mother would say, “Be presentable, darling.” I surveyed my closet for what seemed like centuries and selected a black cotton dress with a safe square neckline. Neither Mom nor Mother Church would find slacks presentable.

Dressed presentably, a short, dark-haired woman of thirty-nine, mother of four children, and aspirant to the ordained priesthood, I stood in front of an immense stone retreat house where Committee One met. On the lawn I saw a large statue of the “holy family,” mom, dad, infant son—an image the church adored. I should fit in well here. The hot July sun kissed my face. I blew a kiss back and entered the building.

It was Friday afternoon. We six aspirants, four “older” women, above thirty and just below fifty, and two “younger” men, looking like boys, took our places with six committee members, a fair-game clergy-lay mix, all looking very much older, if not in years then in churched-ness.

After introductions, we discussed the assigned book, Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory. The old Mexican reprobate alcoholic priest protagonist of Greene’s novel was hardly a model for us to imitate. The question to consider: Did the condition of a priest who administered sacraments affect, for good or ill I presumed, the grace of the sacrament? The answer: Of course not. God, on His perfectly pronouned own, worked the grace angle independent of human effort. I wondered if this choice of reading was meant to stave off any gender bias accusations—a woman couldn’t pollute the sacrament any more than the Mexican drunk, could she?

The Episcopal “cocktail hour” consisted of dry sherry, crackers, and cheese. Lo and behold! The crackers they served were Ritz. I ate exactly five. I have no recollection of dinner. I went to bed early. July aside, I pulled the covers up to my neck and shivered with dread. The crucifix on the wall threw shadows, its cross pieces forming an arrow shape—sharp. I turned away, feeling suddenly so, so sorry for Jesus—and myself.

The next day each aspirant had an hour-long interview with each committee member. A bell rang to signal the next interview. Committee One members were neatly dressed, men in their clerical collars, women in linen skirts, high-necked blouses, stockinged feet, low-heeled pumps, and basic pearls. They all looked cool.

“Good morning, Lyn,” the laywoman with tightly curled graying hair greeted me warmly and folded her hands onto her lap. “I think it’s fair to tell you that I am against the ordination of women, although of course that will not interfere with my ability to screen women fairly.” I admired her pathology. Ding!

•

“How many children do you have, Lyn?”

“Four.”

“Well, that’s two-point-two-four too many. Their ages?”

“Fourteen, thirteen, nine, and about to be seven. They are wonderful . . .” I gushed maternal praises.

Where did he get his stats? The Rev. Reginald Winthrop Pugh III was short, frail for his name, with large glasses and a pointy nose sloped like a carrot on a snowman. He was a gay priest. (Everyone knew and no one told.) Which one of my children would he have me assassinate? Ding!

•

“Who will supervise your children while you study and while you take on the duties of a priest, assuming of course that you make it through this process?” asked another primly suited laywoman inquired with raised eyebrow, trying to look as if her question was genuine and she expected a real answer. I told her my mother would help out and wondered if this were a screening for priests or mothers. Ding!

•

The Rev. Charles Youngsterman had been around the church a very long time, his fingers in about every aspect of its life. “My dear, I liked your essay on vocation and vision. However, you have written about a model of priesthood you call supplemental. We don’t have that here. In Connecticut we ordain rectors for parishes.”

“Oh, I want to be a rector, definitely. But I thought we were writing a vision. Couldn’t there be some priests not in full-time paid parish ministry who could help parish clergy out from time to time but work outside the church proper in pastoral ministries?” Ding!

(Much later I discovered that my model had precedent. Worker priests had at one time been ordained in the Roman Catholic Church and sent into the field to do pastoral care with workers on the docks in Marseilles. The movement worked well until bishops called the priests “home” to parishes, under the watchful eye of their diocesan bosses. Too much extra-parochial priestly activity could get out of control. I didn’t realize it then, but I was describing the eventual shape of my own priesthood.)

•

Mrs. W. was a social worker with a kind face, fine smile, and fret wrinkles smudged into her skin, hair graying, light dancing in her eyes, a little foxy, a little sugary, a little steely, like a granny. Appearances soothe. I decided she was my ally. Until she spoke.

“Are you happy?”

What kind of question was that? I choked. “Yes, very.”

“I was just wondering if ordination would make you happy? You’re well qualified and will make a fine priest—in ten years after your children no longer need a mother.” Ding!

•

The day got heavier and hotter as I trekked along with the bell. The last interview was with the committee chairman, another gay male priest I’ll call the Rev. Etherington Sweetwater because he was sweet in a pursed-lip kind of way. “You know, Lyn, I just keep seeing this dear little seven-year-old, or is he still six, boy, hungry and his mother not home. I can see him as he stretches, unable to open the refrigerator.” He sighed, his eyes half closed, smiling as he delivered the death sentence. The last bell of the day sounded like a blaring gong in my ear. Ding!

•

In the closing plenary session, I asked, “What if you go to seminary anyway, if you’re not a postulant?” A hush fell on the room. Then the Rev. 2.24 declared, “That, unless you don’t care about ordination, would be an act of defiance against church authority. You’ll hear from the bishop. Any more questions?” Aspirants dismissed. Without a word of goodbye or good luck to each other, we aspirants, looking scalped, departed.

In a blurry rage I drove home to my parish and gave rector Steve hell for not preparing me. He suggested I pray, and I hope I didn’t tell him to go to hell. Then I went home and made John open the refrigerator for me.

“Why, Mom?”

“Just open it and I’ll give you the biggest hug you’ve ever had, and a treat.”

After two dreadful weeks of waiting, the bishop, who had the definitive say over every step of this process, summoned me to his office, where he told me from behind a three-mile-wide desk, “I’m so sorry, Lyn. I know this will come as a great disappointment to you, but Committee One has not recommended you become a postulant, an assessment with which I concur. They said it would be a dual vocation.”

I must have looked blank. He continued. “They meant that you couldn’t be a mother and a priest.”

I smiled and stared at him. He was the pastoral bishop our diocesan clergy had craved and elected, a charming raconteur with a hearty laugh and a twitch that caused him every few minutes to jerk his head to one side. Poor man, he looks uncomfortable. He belongs back in a parish. I screened him without scruple until he twitched and a droplet of perspiration flew from his upper lip.

“Dual vocation? What about clergy fathers?” I blurted.

“They’re different,” he said.

“They have wives,” I said. Mothers too. Then I cried. He handed me a tissue, a gesture for which I hated him. I don’t remember the rest, except that he added something about a “hunch” he had that this wasn’t the right time. Was a hunch like a twitch? This interview was over. Ding!

Damned if I didn’t thank him when I left.

Only one of us four aspiring women was accepted—and she provisionally. They sent her for more courses in ethics and worried that she’d been in therapy for fifteen years. “What could you expect for a woman in this sexist church and society?” she later quipped. That woman, the Rev. Joan Horwitt, was the first woman ordained (1979) in Connecticut. Of the other two female aspirants, one went home to re-discern her vocation, having been told that the diocese didn’t ordain permanent deacons so she would have to be a priest; the other woman went to seminary and then to another diocese whose bishop, friendly to women’s ordination, ordained her.

Then there was me. Doubt and shame peppered with indignation enshrouded me. I’d imagined the church would be, well, nicer. I ruthlessly self-screened, feeling like the biblical Job, who carried on for thirty-seven chapters about how God let the innocent righteous suffer, until God Himself, probably fed up, appeared and took Job for a long lovely walk through all creation. Was God showing off, or simply letting Job in on enough of the divine mind to give him a new vision? Neither Job nor God smoothed my doubts; instead they deprived them of their power to possess me completely. I left on our family vacation. I didn’t feel motherly that year, so my family mothered me: they left me alone on the beach.

•

I’m toeing soft sand. The large solar globe glares. Alone on the beach in a chair with a towel and my Bible, I flip it open. And there it is: the book of Judith. I shake my head no. This book, God, is apocryphal, like an extra in the theater, interesting but not canonical—like me. But my attention is pulled to Judith’s prayer: “O Lord God of my ancestor Simeon, to whom you gave the sword to take revenge on those strangers who had torn off a virgin’s clothing, to defile her, and exposed her thighs to put her to shame . . . you said ‘It shall not be done’—yet they did it.”

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