Recently, a very dear friend of mine was ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church. She honored me tremendously by choosing me to present her to the bishop at the ceremony as a representative of the church laity. I was to attest that my witness of her journey convinces me she will be a good priest.
When my friend invited me to do this, I cried. I felt so blessed and cherished. I met her shortly before she entered the ordination process. She and her husband had moved to Florida from Virginia. After retiring from her career as a dentist, she felt God calling her to Holy Orders. She is a year younger than I am. She is so accomplished. She might be an overachiever. If she is, she is God’s overachiever and I am sure He is well pleased with her.
I immediately recognized that her invitation was one of the two biggest honors of my life. The other instance was when I won my governmental agency’s highest award in the training arena for my work in leadership development. I have since considered what the two instances have in common and how they are different. The biggest similarity between the two honors is that they both recognized my contribution to things that are very important to me… so important that they are viscerally part of who I am. I love teaching. I love creating. I love mentoring true leadership that inspires followership, not just compels compliance. I love my friend. I love the process of spiritual growth. I love the experience of the Holy Spirit expressed through His people. I love His Church.
There is one key difference. As much as all these loves of mine feel like who I am at the very core, winning the award for training was about what I accomplished. I accomplished at a high level because my love drove my efforts. Still, the metrics evaluated were tangible. The award was based on behavioral evaluation of my teaching, the participant feedback ratings, number of classes taught, number of courses developed, and additional work products that could be observed. When my friend asked me to be her lay presenter, the honor was recognition of truly who I am, not of what I’ve done.
The ordination was a pivotal experience for me. This sounds self-centered about something that was so not about me. I don’t mean to push my personal benefit to the front of the blessings line. Clearly, the ordination focused on God’s agenda and my friend’s experience. I think God is wonderful enough to widen His net with collateral blessing. I am sure that every member of the congregation who witnessed the event felt a wave of renewal. For me, recognizing the value of who God made me to be, quite apart from any achievement, ignited the Holy Spirit within me. I felt the movement of my soul. That movement unleashed something- a new clarity and peace.
When I was a senior in high school, I took a career aptitude assessment. The instrument revealed that I should be a priest- or, since I was a girl- marry one (it was the 1970s, after all.) Since I was a Roman Catholic at the time, neither alternative seemed viable for me. I wandered away from the path the wise folks at the career aptitude assessment company advised.
That pull towards priesthood never completely disappeared. I preserved it carefully and locked it away in my mind’s attic. It was one of those things you are pretty sure you will never use but can’t quite make yourself throw out or give away. Bits and pieces of it have manifested in my real life now and again.
I stayed an observant Church member my whole life, even when most of my peers fell away. Whenever my work life allowed (and sometimes when it didn’t,) I volunteered. I taught junior high school confirmation classes. I facilitated the adult course for people wanting to join the Roman Catholic Church. I created Lenten devotionals. I shared my faith more openly than most people. I read about church history, personal spiritual development, and liturgy. Since converting to the Episcopal Church, I’ve engaged in many different ministries, most of which center around pastoral care and Christian education. I thrive on supporting and encouraging in God’s name- hopefully projecting at least a pale reflection of His love. My own spiritual study and prayer life is immensely important to fueling my life’s engine. I don’t say any of this to tout my piety or fish for compliments. The bottom line is that I wrap myself in these pursuits because I love doing them. They bring me joy, peace, and purpose.
Since becoming an Episcopalian, I have been curiously aware that the limitations on ordination that I faced in my youth no longer exist for me. I have wondered if God would now have me pursue ordination to the diaconate or even the priesthood. I went spelunking for a vocation in my heart. I didn’t settle onto anything definitive so I left the door ajar while I just kept living and exploring.
When my friend told me that she was beginning the ordination process, we discussed it. She encouraged me to consider embarking on the journey with her. It was tempting and it was easy to get caught up in it. There was something, however, that didn’t feel rich enough or deep enough or irresistible enough to convince me. I talked to my pastor about it. In talking it through with him, something more concrete occurred to me.
Part of the pull I was feeling was a desire for credibility. I have been blessed to contribute to the work of my Church in ways that fit exactly who I am and who God created me to be. I have been able to develop, facilitate, and teach interesting, engaging, meaningful courses. I have been able to make genuine, warm, loving connections with people who need an accepting, loving heart to journey with them for a season or a lifetime. I have been able to work on teams that have been more than the sum of their parts. I have been able to meet practical needs. All of these blessings have been soul sustaining. However, I have had to push my way through some painful barriers to gain acceptance for my efforts since I didn’t have any standing. After all, who I am to be teaching or doing Church project management? I am not clergy. I do not have any relevant initials after my name. Maybe, if I went through some sort of education program culminating in ordination as a deacon or a priest or certification as a master catechist, I’d be qualified to do the things I loved to do and would be seen as qualified to do the things I loved to do.
My pastor agreed that there were courses I might be able to take and I could pursue an ordination program, but he also said he didn’t think I needed to do so. He pointed out that, for the large majority of people, my qualifications for the work I had been doing were completely undisputed. He stressed that, while I might not have the “right” credentials, I did have qualifications. They are the qualifications God embedded in me. My own independent study, past training experiences, God-given spiritual maturity, and genuine engagement with people are those qualifications. He believed that, rather than pursuing ordination to gain acceptance and credibility from a small group of people, I could better spend my efforts doing the work and trusting God to use what He has given me.
This conversation lightened my spiritual dilemma. It enabled me to lean into my own instincts about what God was calling me to do in the Church. I stopped worrying so much about overcoming the credibility gap. The feeling of living in the moment and responding to what I discern as God’s unique call to me is liberating. Most of the time, I feel wildly peaceful about it all, if such an oxymoronic statement makes any sense.
Still, every now and again, ordination has crossed my mind. Maybe part of it is that my current approach to ministry feels like I might be a little too peaceful. Maybe I am clinging to comfort instead of rising to a challenge God calls me to meet.
During the ordination ceremony, I suddenly felt certain. God is not calling me to the priesthood. He is happy with how I am using the gifts He gave me. I am using them to His glory and to the welfare of His people. Maybe I had a vocation once, but I do not have a vocation now.
Wait. I do have a vocation. And I am living it. It is just not a vocation to Holy Orders.