I interviewed Mary on a Friday afternoon in May. It was almost 80 degrees in New York City, the ice cream truck was across the street, and you can hear the cars racing up Hudson street in our interview.

I hit play on my digital voice recorder, Mary started talking, and within minutes I felt so connected to her story. Mary wouldn't be on my list if I didn't feel connected to her, but as she shared the feelings came flooding back to me about why I love Mary.

It's taken me a long time to post this interview. I could come up with a list of reasons but I think it's because I've been running Mary's words through my head over and over again.

What did I take away from my time with Mary?

The cost of identity and resisting traditional models of ecclesiastical success.

I am a product of Denison University's Religion Department. I am a product of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps and the Open Door Community. I am a product of Union Seminary which means I'm a product of Liberation and Feminist Theology. I am a product of the city. I am a product of stardust and a spiral galaxy, embodying the dust of a supernova millions of light years ago. I had to die to many things in my past in order to embrace this Life and be molded and shaped by a subversive and radical Spirit.

These communities have shaped my identity in how I express and make choices with my vocation. I've been at Pilgrims 10 years, about eight years longer then I expected. Associates usually leave after two to three years to move on to bigger and better things. You leave to climb the corporate church ladder.

But, like Mary, I've made a conscious choice to stay in my associate position. I. Don't. Want. To. Be. In. Charge. Period. Not only do I love the small, progressive, More Light, ritual-minded community of Pilgrims, but I love the power and energy I have in my position. One of my seminary professors, Larry Rasmussen, commented to me recently that he has a hard time getting clergy from large churches to take risks around eco-peace, eco-faith issues. Larry believes their position of power keeps them in a comfort zone, talking the theology but making a choice not to take risks.

The day I stop taking risks is the day I should probably give up my ordination standing.

Some people in charge, as Mary states in our interview, can attract a certain level of energy and adoration. They are vulnerable to characteristics of traditional models of leadership that can hinder connections based on mutuality and equality. I agree with Mary that there can be a cost to being a leader in a position of privilege, especially if one leads in an unconscious and unexamined way. There are certain expectations to being in charge and those expectations can be seductive--like the clergy Larry mentions who don't take risks for the sake of the planet.

So....I love my work at Pilgrims for many reasons. I have space to grow, be creative, and be playful with people. But after my conversation with Mary I realized my work feeds me in another way---in my choice to stay in my associate position so I can be authentic, have integrity yet still be powerful and take risks. In this way, I am resisting a dominant ecclesiastical (and cultural) understanding of success. Resistance is a source of Life for me. In our interview, Mary said this about herself, "Because of my choices, I'm not going far in this world." I could make a choice to go up the ladder of success and go far, or I could make the choice to live with a sense of expansiveness and resist the need to go on to bigger and better things.

Thankfully, I have people like Mary (and Larry!) to hold me accountable and remind me of the elements I need in my work for an authentic and faithful life.

______________________________________________

In the final minutes of the interview, I asked Mary to create an image that represents her life right now. I did the same.

Mary came up with this:

When I asked Mary to interpret the image, she looked up on her bookshelf and read this quote from Meister Eckart: "Whatever God does, the first outburst is compassion." This seems to fit with Mary's model of leadership. She had made a choice to be an associate in order to allow herself the freedom to first be compassionate.



This is my image to the right. I created a bowl to symbolize this image of being held. As I continue with these interviews, I have this experience of my theology, my ethics, my ways of living in the world being held together by these threads of clergy women. I wrote "belonging" because Mary, as many others have, spoke about how experiencing this sense of belonging early on in life made a difference. Resistance is in the bowl because Mary embodies this concept and pushed me to see my work in the same way. Re-interpreting my work in light of resistance and alternative models of leadership and power has created this deeper sense of connection to Mary. I'm not in this alone.

Thanks be to the Holy.

What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life?
The world would split open.
From Cries of the Spirit, edited by Marilyn Sewell

In January 2009, I will celebrate ten years of ministry at Church of the Pilgrims (PCUSA). I was right out of Union Seminary, finished a CPE stint at the Washington Hospital Center, and was doing the soulless work of temping when I got my position at Church of the Pilgrims.

A year later I was ordained into the UCC through this position and life has continued to unfold since: I birthed three amazing kids, witnessed new life in other ways, sat at the bedside of death, shed tears for myself and others, and experienced the complexity and emotional depths of ministry with a justice loving congregation. I have loved Bob and received his love back.

As I move into a new decade of ordained ministry life at Pilgrims, I’ve realized I need to take a step back and re-connect with the foundations of my values, my faith, and Spirit. Over the next year I will engage in a “Connections Tour” as I sit down with vital, ordained women in my life to hear their own stories of life and faith. I want to hear how faith has changed, been strengthened, been left vulnerable, been made new over and over for key clergy women who have been part of my theological and moral compass. I have come this far not on my own but with the profound companionship of clergy women who walk gently and lightly on this earth for the sake of justice for the Whole Earth.

Over the next twelve months, I will interview these ten women either face-to-face or over the phone to hear how their lives have been shaped and formed over the years. I need to hear these stories so; in return, I can hear my own story and do my own deep reflections on where I’ve come from and how I want to step into this new era and decade of life and work. Hearing stories of others will be my own consciousness-raising about what I believe and how I want to continue to live in God’s Way. As the Dictionary of Feminist Theology states:

Story is the articulation of one’s experience in verbal narrative in song, poetry, fiction, autobiography, liturgy, and sacred texts. The hearing, telling, naming and inclusion of women’s stories in necessary to doing our theology; without our stories, there is no feminist theology. New metaphors, new relationships to the principalities and powers, new images of and relationship with the Holy emerge from women telling their stories, in being “heard to speech.” Placing stories of our experience at its source makes feminist theologizing an act of justice and healing: a radical act of “going to the roots.”

Ten Year Connections Tour List

1. Rev. Anna Olson, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Long Beach, California
2. Rev. Murphy Davis, Presbyterian Church USA, Founder and Partner of the Open Door Community, Atlanta, Georgia
3. Rev. Dr. Jennifer Harvey, American Baptist, Professor of Religion and Ethics at Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa
4. Rev. Ruth Garwood, United Church of Christ, Executive Director of the UCC Coalition for GLBT Concerns
5. Rev. Louise Green, United Church of Christ, Minister of Social Justice at All Souls D.C, Washington, D.C.
6. Rev. Kathleen Ennis-Durnstein, United Church of Christ, Senior Chaplain at Children’s Hospital, Washington, D.C.
7. Rev. Barbara Gerlach, United Church of Christ, Colombian Human Rights Activist and retired clergy from First Congregational Church, Washington, D.C.
8. Rev. Kristen Klein-Cechettini, Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), Director of Life Development, Resurrection MCC, Houston, Texas
9. Rev. Dr. Mary Foulke, Senior Associate for Christian Formation, St. Luke in the Fields Episcopal, New York, New York
10. Rev. Dr. Margee Iddings, Presbyterian Church USA, Alexandria, Virginia