When I returned to my research after years of trying to get ordained, I remembered a manuscript I'd reviewed by a woman who had had shock treatments. Out of hospital, cured of her depression, she went back to work – and discoverd she could not do her job.
I was tenured and couldn't get fired but my research program was a shambles.
I had become “involved” in the Church to qualify for ordination. I spent my time serving on committees, selling raffle tickets, painting furniture, and helping with bake sales. I postponed my sabbatical to accommodate the requirements of the ordination process. I had no time for family, hobbies or research – and I do not remember reading a single book for pleasure.
I was not a suitable candidate for ordination. Clergy and members of the Commission on Ministry didn't want to hurt me, or others who were unsuitable, by giving us irrevocable rejections. They believed that by providing opportunities for volunteer work we would eventually be deflected to other “ministries.” I only came to understand this after investing potentially productive years of my life in projects that I disliked and believed to be pointless.
When shock therapy was in vogue, women were more likely to get the treatment than men. Shock therapy fixed depression but wiped out information and technical skills. Since most women were engaged in low-skilled tasks, it was assumed that the trade-off was worth it.
So it was with the Church. The assumption was that laypeople involved in the church didn't have lives and that by contriving activities for them the Church was doing them a favor.
In addition to ordinary activities, I was obliged to attend special programs for lay people seeking ordination which eventually jelled into an initial “Day of Discovery” followed by a 12-week self-study. The text was a workbook, with quotes from the Bible and Prayer Book, suggestions for projects, and whitespace for recording what we had done each day in fulfillment of our Baptismal Covenant.
A section was filled out as a model for our reflections: the text -- “I have worked for justice, freedom and peace;” reflection -- “I got a cup of coffee for Linda.”
Reading this, I saw to whom the materials were directed. She was a middle-aged woman, at loose ends now that her children were grown, who wanted to “work with people.” I saw her at work in a room full of office-ladies like herself leaving her desk to get a cup of coffee for Linda. “I have worked for justice, freedom and peace.”
The purpose of the program, of course, was to dissuade her from seeking ordination by channeling her into appropriate unpaid “ministries” like the model project suggested later in the text: organizing a guitar group to stage a program at the local old folks' home.
Why, I wondered, did the Church waste applicants' time trying to manipulate, wheedle and cajole us? Why didn't it treat us as adults who, given relevant information, could rationally decide whether to pursue ordination?
Why didn't the diocese print a brochure explaining what being a priest entailed, criteria for selection, educational requirements and job prospects? I wasn't looking for a job but others were. Some were looking for a way to parley years of volunteer work into paid employment; others were looking for second careers. Dragging them through the process of “discernment,” wasted time that they might have spent learning to fix computers or going to law school. Why didn't they play it straight?
I suppose that given the mystical notion of “vocation” clergy could not admit that they were assessing applicants according to secular criteria. I still wonder what euphemisms and self-deceptive stratagems they employed when deliberating in camera:
I worry about her when it comes to leadership. [Working class housewife. Probably not smart enough; certainly wouldn't be able to acquire the polish for a professional-level position. Nice old cow, though -- maybe we can get her into an LEM II license.]
I'm concerned about potential health issues. [He's fat. I'd like to give him another looksee next year if he could lose some weight. Is there any polite way of telling him?]
After my first application, the process was aborted. I was encouraged to reapply the following year -- my sabbatical year. I planned to use my sabbatical to work towards a theology degree but the Chair of the Commission on Ministry suggested I postpone my sabbatical: beginning work in theology prematurely, she said, would be “thumbing my nose at the Church.” So after special pleading with the dean, I managed to postpone my sabbatical. The schedule for the following academic year had been set so I wiped two adjuncts' jobs.
When I was rejected the following year, I asked the Com Chair whether there was any point in reapplying. She said there of course was and advised me to go into therapy to strengthen my application. Could I do that? I said I could because I was on Kaiser but she nixed that because, she said, Kaiser only employed licensed social workers – false, I later discovered – and that I needed to go to a clinical psychologist or psychiatrist. I would have to pay.
When I applied for the third time, after therapy and more involvement in the church, she professed to be “taken aback”: she had “never dreamed,” she said, that I would try again. It was only after seven years of trying and my third rejection that the bishop told me it would be an imposition on those involved in the selection process if I were to reapply. I asked if there were a reason? He said that it “would not be fruitful” to discuss reasons.
The Chair of the Commission on Ministry had been convinced – from the first time she met me, she said – that I would never be ordained but had no compunction about advising me to postpone my sabbatical or spend thousands of dollars on therapy. Priests had encouraged me to become increasingly involved in the church without taking the opportunity costs into account – the costs to my work and my family.
In the end though it was not my rejection or the patronizing, disingenuous behavior of clergy that drove me from the church but my involvement.
The church had once seemed to be an image of Heaven and I had believed I was called to celebrate the Mysteries. It became to me a place for rummage sales and bake sales, committee meetings, crafts groups and other activities devised by clergy to “build community” and keep laypeople busy. I had been backstage and seen the ropes and pulleys. All sense of the numinous dissolved in friendliness and familiarity.
I did not lose my faith – I lost interest.