Seeking Authentic Voice

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:26-28) This passage from Paul's letter to the Romans has formed and informed me for over twenty years. It was at the heart of my discernment to the priesthood, encouraging me to not over think, but enter into silence and listen. Listening is an art that requires me to strip away all distractions, to sift through the noise and the false enticements, in order to hear what is essential. Listening means I open myself to the unexpected, to being challenged.  My ordination process, twenty years ago, hit some bumps in the road. I had one person, p...

In a little over a week, on December 28, it will be my 17th anniversary of ordination (transitional diaconate, priest on June 28) in the Episcopal Church. That cold December night I gathered with many of my friends and family in a dark church lit with candles, flaming the hope I felt inside. I remember trying to vest, putting on a pink long sleeved clergy blouse and having no idea how to use the collar stays. I put the stays in backward, so the more pointed end was against my skin. I had so much to learn, despite four years of advance college education to acquire a dual degree, Mdiv/MSW, with an emphasis on Family Systems for Congregations. But on that night I wasn't thinking about the challenges that would come, I was only thinking about the hurdles I'd jumped so far and where I'd finally landed. I was in a church I loved surrounded by people I loved and filled with hope for the future. The first few years were mostly good, albeit challenging to learn how to preach and p...

Yesterday was my first Sunday back in the pulpit, so to speak. We have three services in the summer (one being a popular out-door service that is short and lively). The services in the summer are all casual, I don't use the pulpit. It was the first time in awhile that I have preached and presided at all three services, the Curate being on a much needed vacation. Fourteen years of doing this work, and still I was unbelievable tapped out Sunday afternoon. It amazes me to realize, from time to time, just how much energy is spent leading and preaching worship. Following the services I took the dogs for a walk and then went to two hours of yoga. One was a regular yoga class, the other was a "restorative" yoga class. I have done this many times in the past, but yesterday I was particularly struck by how hard it was to move. All I really wanted to do was go to sleep. So I went to bed early and slept for nine hours. My seventeen year old cat seemed to be in distress last week. I ...

I was nine years old when my parents finally relented and arranged for me to be baptized.   I wanted to be baptized because I yearned to belong to a community of faith that I knew and loved. I wanted to be part of my ancestry and heritage. My uncle baptized me with full immersion in a font the size of a swimming pool, dunking me three times into the deep water. Years later my family and I left that church and I found myself without a faith community. That was okay for a while – I was a teenager and then a college student and it was after all the 1970’s – a lot of cultural change was happening and I was trying to find my way through it. By the time I was 31 I was married with a new born baby. My husband was raised Roman Catholic, and it was important to him that we have our precious baby baptized immediately. So we entered baptism prep classes at the local Roman Church and had her baptized at six weeks of age. By the time our son was born four years later we wer...