Journal Entry--- March 26, 1993
Earlier in the semester during one of the lectures I wrote down and underlined, “It is impossible to escape one’s history.”
As a woman pursuing a Masters of Divinity degree I am often asked whether or not I plan to be ordained. The answer to this question initially and invariably includes providing the information that I am Catholic. The feelings that accompany the act of saying, “I am Catholic,” are complex to say the least. They are a combination of embarrassment and a defiant claim of ownership; embarrassment because of the injustices inflicted by the hierarchy of the Church throughout its history and defiant claim of ownership because being Catholic is an integral part of who I was and am. I imagine the feelings to be comparable to the experience of a child whose parent is a public embarrassment. The whole world may condemn him or her and yet, despite this, the child is compelled to say, “He is my father,” or “She is my mother.” For me the experience of growing up Catholic was so profound that I cannot separate it from who I am.
As a Catholic woman the question of ordination requires not only the obvious decision regarding vocation in general but also the decision to leave the tradition. The experience of waking up on any given morning and thinking, “I am not Catholic,” is comparable to waking up and thinking, “My name is not Louise.” The tradition has given me a love of ritual, story, divine things; an appreciation for the symbolic and an awe for the human practice of religion. It is an inseparable part of my memory, my childhood and my history.
The discussion in my group this week evolved into a debate concerning the tension experienced while deciding for oneself whether working within the structure of the Church is worthwhile or is compromising of one’s own commitment to personal liberation. I found myself becoming increasingly agitated when, after having explained that I have made a vow to myself never, ever to work for the Catholic Churchagain, some women in my group attempted to convince me that only in working within the system can I create change. As my agitation turned to anger, I candidly expressed that I didn’t really care what happened to the Church; let it crumble and fall on its own arrogance and intolerance.
I then related a story of an experience I had 5 years ago. In November of 1988 I had given a presentation on the “Image of God,” to a group of parents preparing their children for First Eucharist. Two months later, in January of 1989 one of the parents who had been present at the session approached me after the class and said that he wanted to thank me for that session. Because of it, he said, he had been helped through a very painful time in December. His brother had been killed in the Pan Am 103 Flight that crashed over Lockerbie, Scotland. He told me that because of that presentation he had been able to image God in such a way as to not blame God for his brother’s death. [I am not such an advocate for the God of the Bible these days].
I told my discussion group that after he had said this to me and I had been left alone in the church basement, I wanted to run from that place as far and as fast as my feet would carry me. Why had it taken this man 34 years to hear a word about God that did not present “Him,” as responsible for suffering? What kind of God did we, as ministers present to people in the midst of their pain? I knew only too well; a God who wills for us to suffer, a God who tests His people; a God who works in “mysterious ways.” If a charge of slander could be brought against the teaching office of the Church in the name of God, a guilty verdict would be inescapable.
After I related this story a member of my group asked me if I didn’t thank God that I had been there for this man and made a difference in his life. I told her that I rejoiced in it, but wondered if she knew at what cost. I have come to realize that working for the Church meant [for me] that I was still participating in a cycle of abuse. I, along with millions of women past and present have been exploited, silenced, diminished and abused by a powerful Church that in the midst of abusive tactics expects gratitude for the opportunity to stand marginally in its presence. The sense of betrayal and pain that I experienced in this realization is something from which I am still attempting to recover.
My story ends that very same afternoon while waiting on the platform at South Station for my train back to Rhode Island (I commute to Cambridge for classes). Standing on the platform not five feet away from me was Ed, the man in my story [I know. And even as I write this 13 years later, I have a case of goose bumps]. He was waiting for the same train home. I hadn’t seen him in two years. I called out his name; we embraced and sat together for the one hour ride home. During the trip he talked about the very experience I had related in class that day (I had not wanted to bring it up myself). He told me that he had spoken to me that evening five years earlier because he thought that I probably often wondered whether my work made a difference or not and he wanted me to know that in his life, it had.
And I didn’t want to run this time. I realized that even though the Church had been in my life far longer than I had been in his, the Church did not define my image of God, nor did it have the final word on the creation of myself. Those were ultimately in my hands. So, I realized that I had not fashioned Ed’s image of God either. I had simply been in his life for a moment and if somehow, in some small way, he felt that I had made a difference, then I was still glad for it. You call these “Christic” moments, Carter and I understand more than ever that the Church does not define sacrament, nor does it define Christ. God/Christ is not a being, or a thing. It is a moment, when grace, power, compassion, beauty, truth or tenderness occurs among the human. To use Mary Daly’s term, “God is a verb.”
Reflection on the reflection:
It’s been very strange to read and re-write this journal I wrote 13 years ago. I look at the words, know that they were mine and yet, I have changed so much from the woman I was then, I hardly recognize her. I was still speaking of God through the lens of a (somewhat) believer. I believed in the project of systematic theology. I was working through a painful but fertile time in my life; re-inventing a self drawn from an inescapable history but determined not to be chained by that history. I was creating and constructing a self and a voice that would ultimately be mine, not theirs. It takes a lot of work to create a voice.
And I am not finished yet. It still takes shape but I will no longer be silenced.
And I live louder every day.
Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin' high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
"We'll meet on edges, soon," said I
Proud 'neath heated brow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.
Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
"Rip down all hate," I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull. I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.
Bob Dylan, My Back Pages, 1964
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