Our Mother

Drawing by Jessica Creech, November 26, 2005

Today, I read through two books of dreams that I have written down over the past seven years. So many of my dreams are populated with priests, bishops, altars, churches and sacred artifacts. In one dream I am robed and standing in front of the altar. The cross behind me only has one arm extending. (My analyst said the image sounded like a phallic symbol.) I turn to the congregation who is sitting in the dark and I say, “The peace of the Lord be with you,” And they say, “And also with you. Hail Mary full of grace, blessed is the woman who turns her face.”

We don’t say the Hail Mary in the Episcopal Church. But I think of the image of Mary, so full of power at times, and also an image stripped of sexuality, a sanitary picture of woman, one who “turns her face” from the atrocities of the patriarchy and endorses the Catholic tradition of excluding women from the priesthood.

This past weekend I traveled to the Episcopal cathedral in downtown Chicago to celebrate the ordination of four women. I couldn’t help but think of the number four as a number that Carl Jung equated with wholeness. In Christianity’s two thousand year history, only in the last thirty years has the Episcopal Church begun to ordain women. There is something new afoot. But there is still much work to be done. Our liturgies, hymns and our prayer book still hold predominately masculine images of God and tell of men's encounters with the divine.

As a woman learning to find her own voice, I am leery of using my voice as a mouthpiece for the patriarchy. This is not to say that all priests do this. But there is a strong caution in me about conflating the well worn insitutions and collective structures of the church with the Living Spirit of God. For me, to be authentic to my experiences of the Living Spirit involves creative liturgies, word smithing, translating a language of church that has been handed down to us by men into my experiences of God as a woman. I wonder how far a creative liturgy can go and still fall in the rubrics of the Episcopal tradition? Would being a priest mean that one has to use the patriarchal language from time to time? "Blessed is the woman who turns her face." How also do I honor the way God speaks to me in images that include the feminine?

As the women took their vows on Saturday I wondered if I could ever say I will like they did. In our prayer book, the examination begins addressing the candidates for ordination as, “My brother”. Obviously they changed it to “My sister” on Saturday, but it just bothers me that the printed book of common prayer that is found all over the world in every Episcopal and Anglican church doesn’t say HER in it anywhere in reference to God or priests. I talked to the national office for the Episcopal church recently and asked them if they were going to reprint a new edition of the Book of Common Prayer—as the Lutheran’s have just done—and update the gender inclusive language for the worldwide church. They said probably not any time soon.

The Episcopal churches that I have worked in for over six years have not been too keen on changing the words of the liturgy. We may be creative in our theology, but our liturgy goes by the book. That’s what makes us Episcopalian, is a line I hear often. Yes we have supplements, yes people have been creative and there’s room for more. But could I be true to myself and my experiences of God within so many patriarchal rubrics? I have my doubts.

Back in January I closed the door on the idea of priesthood. I've spent a year of saying NO. I have many reasons. I have watched too many burnt out, workaholic priests in action. (And I’ve been a burnt out workaholic church employee). I’m not a CEO or a businessperson. (I’m a mother and an artist.) The commission on ministry has taken a hiatus on admitting people into the ordination process. Churches can barely afford to pay their priests in this economy. There are many priests out of work. The church is in decline. These are just a few of my excuses.

And yet, I don’t feel completely at peace about my decision to close the door. As I watched the women put on their vestments, as they carried the chalices to the congregation and turned their faces to me, I was excited by the evidence of the Living Spirit among us.