The Yale Divinity School campus is rectangular. Marquand Chapel stands on a rise at the center, surveying the campus from on high and calling faithful worshipers into its bosom of praise. Red brick, white trim, a parade of steps up either side of the entrance to the simple white door, a clock tower with a cross on top—nothing like most Episcopal churches built of stone and with a steeple. It startled me at first. It looked like the Brick Presbyterian Church of my childhood. I was home.
Before I went to my appointment, I entered the chapel’s open doors and sat in a white pew. Wordless for once, I listened to my heart speak— thumpety thump—into the silence. God bless me, I said again and again and signed myself with a cross—head, genitals, right breast, left breast—a very full-bodied, un-Protestant thing to do, but an action that solicited God’s help to align conflicting forces within. I simply whispered, “God, let me come here.”
Chapter 4 Set. Breathe. Ready. Go.
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!
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“How