Call

I love the song White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane and always wanted to use the line "A hooka smoking caterpillar had given me the call"  in a story talking about my "call"  so here it is.

Alice in Wonderland was my favorite book these lines always haunted me:
Caterpillar: “Who are you???”
Alice: “I hardly know sir, just at present, I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have changed several times since then.”

The question posed by the Caterpillar intrigues me, even as a child I would ask myself that question. As I grew older I would play with the question accenting different words; WHO are you?, who ARE you?, or who are YOU?. The question wafts around me like the smoke coming from his pipe. My answer is always the same. It is the same answer that Alice gave. Well maybe a little different; “I knew who I was last year (week month) but I think I must have changed several times since then”

As a young girl I saw myself dressed in white robes and lying prostrate on a floor. It was like a brief snapshot in my head. If you read week one you know that I didn’t have much use for God. I thought he kind of sucked…. But I was drawn to movies and books about the saints. I thought I was bonkers because in that day women were NOT priests. In these visions/pictures I did not have a head covering so I knew I wasn’t a nun.

When I was 19 I went to nursing school. It wasn’t because I wanted to be a nurse it was all about job security. Growing up poor left an indelible mark on me and even 37 years ago I knew that nursing was a good choice. I remember my first patient as a nurses aid, a middle aged man with lung cancer. He used to push his IV pole in the hall and I would ride on it. But he became weaker and one day the “head nurse” told someone to find me. She grabbed my hand and quickly led me down the hall to be with him when he died. She was a crusty “old” army nurse about 35; I was 19 alone in San Francisco. Together we sat with the man as he died. It was at that moment I realized that I had compassion…I had always been told that I was selfish. That lie was shattered in an instant.

Flash forward 20 years and I am enrolled in an evangelical/charismatic, inner city, and multi ethnic bible college. I “got saved” 10 years earlier and wanted to follow the call I saw in my head when I was a child. I went to a non denominational church, where “women are not allowed to teach men” But I taught a bible study for men and women, the pastor liked me and when people complained he told them I was “facilitating” the group. We later became great friends and spent many hours discussing theology…

I worked part time as an associate pastor in an Assembly of God church, while in the MTh. program. It was fun really…I got to teach about Grace. Many, even though they had been Christians all of their lives, had never heard a message on Grace. I was there for 5 years, but I never really believed the theology and could not buy into the political agenda of the religious right. I knew it was time to go but didn’t want to leave the people behind. One day a women who I had gone to school with walked in and I heard clear as a bell “look up for your redemption draweth nigh”. I left… it was time.

In the meantime I hooked up with a “neo-monastic” group who’s leaders I was familiar with from the charismatic renewal movement of the mid 1990’s. We discovered or rediscovered the sacraments. Our Abbot and Abbess were ordained as priests in an Indy Anglican movement, they were later consecrated as bishops by and Indy Catholic Bishop , and Indy Anglican, and an Indy orthodox woman Bishop…After 3 years of classes and training I was ordained as a Priest, on the feast day of St. George, the Dragon slayer.

As a new monastic, or as our Bishop calls us “secular monastic”, group we have been on a journey together. Nothing is static, I started a home church but after a year that dwindled so I started attending an Episcopal Church. I was later kicked out five years later, the priest in charge said it was because I didn’t respect her authority. I served on the vestry was a Eucharistic minister, lay preacher etc… she was nuts and everyone who disagreed with her it was ”off with their heads”

Now I attend a church in another diocese. I love it and feel loved and accepted. I don’t have any titles, I am a Eucharistic minister but don’t serve on any boards or committees. I talk about healing, theology, Barbie Dolls, and religious crime novels with the Rector. I’m healing from the last experience. It is good…

So I’m still a Registered Nurse, I work in telephone triage and love it. People at work sometimes want to talk to me about spiritual things so I listen and when necessary tell my story or some of it…. Yes I am ordained and can do all of the “stuff” but I am not called to be a Rector or associate pastor. I am called to be me at least for today.

I have a frame around my license plate that says “Following the Wild Goose wherever She may lead” The ancient Celts called the Holy Spirit the Wild Goose… That is my call… It is ever changing… I don’t know if you’ve noticed but geese are loud…very difficult to ignore.

Who Am I? I am compassionate and worthy of God’s love. I am the mother of an amazing daughter who is in her second year of college; she is a good and strong young woman. She has qualities and strengths that I thought I didn’t have… I guess I was wrong because she got them from someone…

I wrote this for a class last year.  Some things have changed others haven't.  I'm happy being....