Wednesday 12 August 2020

What even IS a lay curate??

My lay licensed worker team photo, taken outside my curacy church building

When I was told that my ordination was going to be postponed until at least Michaelmas because of Covid-19, I was hit with shock, like a gut punch. But I was lucky, because I was told in March, and as I was due to be ordained in July, I had time to rearrange my concept of my future. Some of my contemporaries were not so lucky, getting radio silence from their dioceses until the last minute, or pin-balling throughout March-June between umpteen different scenarios in regular updates on what to expect. Also, I had enough to think about as I finished my dissertation, got through the last of my teaching (online), planned my house move, and dealt with the emotional fallout of lockdown in a global pandemic. 

I moved on the same day I had planned, started working on the same day as had been agreed, and I have been doing the work of a new curate (in a pandemic) with only one difference based on my lay status. That one difference is that I sit in the congregation at services, in my smart work clothes, rather than in the sanctuary in robes. 

Laid out like this, it all seems like I should be happily bobbing along, content with my situation and basically unhindered by my lack of ordination.

However, I feel a little bit like I'm going mad. That sounds dramatic. What I mean is I have a slight, underlying feeling of being somehow fractured, unsettled, like some of my feathers are sticking up the wrong way just behind my periphery. This is not how things are supposed to be. I don't quite fit this state.

Now I know that in some dioceses this is actually a normal scenario, a new curate being ordained at Michaelmas, so I don't want to imply anything about that situation. All I can do is express my own experience, and it is one of a very disconcerting sense of an indeterminate and uncertain identity. I am one of the clergy and not ordained - this is not something for which my blueprint of the world has a reference point. 

One of the most tangible symbols of this is my clothes. "Well now", you might say, "what have clothes to do with being a minister? You're still ministering, right? Getting to know the parishioners, settling into the team dynamic, continued study, helping plan services, pastoral care, working on a theology project, updating the church website, leading the offices - how are any of the things you are actually doing with your time affected by your clothes?"

None. I will grant you, none of these things are being done differently because I am not in a clerical collar. But we are not simply the sum of our actions, and it is my sense of self within these tasks that is off-kilter, plus my theology of priesthood is ontological, not functional*. The collar is an outward sign of something of the self, and its absence - in a context in which it is expected - makes me aware of my lack. And it doesn't help that, whilst I spent three months knowing and preparing to be a lay curate, I previously spent years preparing to be an ordained curate. I can't throw off such long-held expectation so easily.

I walk the streets of this parish and pray, and I get what I can only describe as cognitive dissonance, and I feel guilty. I know it's irrational, but that's how my heart twangs. Cognitive dissonance occurs when a person holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values; or participates in an action that goes against one of these three, and experiences psychological stress because of that. 

The action of praying for the parish connects with my understanding of a clergyperson's duties - a deacon or a priest prays for their people and their place. But I ain't no deacon, and so my mind immediately connects with my lay status and boom, internal turmoil. And I feel guilty because part of me is disgusted that I would pretend to be ordained. And then I get annoyed at myself - obviously a lay person can pray for whoever they blooming like, what theology am I touting here?! I'll reach up and gently touch my exposed throat, and grief will rise up in my belly. 

I'll remind myself that I only have to wait just a little bit longer, but the time is not exactly flying by. I'm having a wonderful time, I have no complaints, but it's like going down a slide sideways. Not quite aligned to fit the groove and motion of travel.

I don't mean to complain. These are not problems of huge suffering, and I acknowledge that. Plus I am guaranteed an end, it is acute not chronic, and these three months will dwindle to insignificance as the years of ordained ministry pile up. But this is my reality right now, a lay curate who can't figure out what that means to me. It challenges my ecclesiology, and makes me question what the difference between 'ordained' and 'not' means. 

An ordained person is still a member of the laos, the people, for all in the laos have a calling to something, the baptismal priesthood of all believers, and there just happens to be a minority for whom that is vocational priesthood. They are 'set aside' somewhat, but not separate, not vaunted or raised up. In my opinion, it's ontologically a sideways move to a distinct place in the Church. So ordination is not some huge elevation, but it is important, and integral to how the body of Christ is on earth. 

I am functioning as a curate, that's my role, but I'm not in my place in the Church yet. My very nature is held back from slotting into place. I must admit my role is also a little held back, besides not robing - the collar will add to people's perception of me, so I have not done the exploration of the parish that I would have already started if I were already ordained. I want to go into the businesses of the parish and say hello, but I know that's going to be less awkward with the collar, so I'm delaying it until after I am ordained.

This is true even if you don't have an ontological view of priesthood - wearing a collar means something, it is affective

I am the curate, but I am only half way to what that means to me. It will be such a relief when it happens, even though my role here in the parish will not change from one side of the weekend to the other. I will be a member of the people of God's Church, and on top of that something of my being, my mind, body and soul, will be dedicated and empowered in a new way. Until then, I'm going to feel (irrationally) like a fraud, functioning in an ecclesial identity I don't actually have. Yet.



*there's an interesting pair of blogposts about this argument within Anglicanism from both sides, here and here.

2 comments:

  1. You express yourself well I can see the point It is about 5 weeks to your ordination �� that they will fly by and that they are packed with incident. Your order will last for the rest of your life when it comes! Dxx

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  2. You are in a lay-by! Only 5 weeks to go and then your orders are for life and beyond impressed with your lucidity

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