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.

Video: Curacy and Lockdown

Being a third year ordinand

Some things are common across any ordinand who is in their final year. We are in a weird limbo where curacy conversations have probably started over the summer, and for many, visits, confirmation, a bit of bureaucracy, then an announcement might actually come before Christmas.

So first term is a lot of extra effort arranging the next step, but by the end, it might all be set up, and you've still got two terms to go before actually taking it. It is one of the most common comments about final year, that one is both now and not yet (yes, that's a theological reference, a-thank you) excited about curacy but having to concentrate on dissertation or ILP, assignments, lectures and placements. Plus still dealing with the infantilisation of being a student, accommodation issues, finance juggling, and trying to actually have a life beyond college.

This week I had a curacy visit, and everything else at college has been an extra effort; my motivation has been seriously affected by the future talk, going round the parish, getting to know the team (and I'll reiterate what I wrote last time, no, I can't tell you where it is yet) and all the exciting details that are triggering my imagination. My mind is time-travelling to next summer, my Pinterest is full of furniture I'll never be able to afford, and wait, what further biblical studies essay?

On the horizon I will be ordering an ordination stole, inviting people to the ordination service, buying other vestments and clerical wear, that day that is coming when I will put on a clerical collar for the first time, and eventually organising moving dates. All that will come with more academic deadlines, leavers events and who knows what else will be thrown at us before we can finally get our teeth into this curacy business.

Other things are singular to third years, who are commonly very much a minority, as more people have two years of ordination training at college than three. I have made several comments this term to the effect that being a third year means pendulum-swinging between cynicism and nostalgia, adding to an already complex long-term relationship with the establishment. In getting to know yet another bunch of bright-eyed, bushy-tailed first years, it is hard not to feel some empathy with the ancient of days (oh my, another reference, this time biblical - that'll be the evangelical influence!) using phrases like some old codger in the nursing home - "back in my first year, it was all very different. You don't know how lucky you are!"

This is probably true of most third or further year students across academia, but I think there is something particular to an ordinand - most of us had a life before this, a first degree, a career, friendship circles and established favourite drinking holes, and now we've moved, we're retraining, and we're going to move again; the world-weariness is deeper, with those extra laters, than a 21yo finishing their economics degree is going to have.

Being a third year ordinand means finally feeling confident on placement but not having the collar of authority and invitation that a lot of friends and peers who have already gotten ordained have in their ministry contexts.

It's being incredibly bored at this point of explaining the discernment and training process to people in your life who, let's be honest, have actually heard it fifteen times already, but unlike the people at college, aren't living it, and therefore it slips from their memory.

It's looking at the four walls of your student accommodation and seeing the ghosts of piles of packing boxes, both as a step back in time to arriving at college, and a glimpse into the future of leaving, finally, getting out, and getting on.

It's being determined within all this nonsense to be present, to not make the mistake of some of the two sets of third years you've seen go before you of checking out early. So yes, get to know the shiny new first years; go to college events as if a party in a lecture hall is still incredibly exciting fifth time around; complain about the food (whilst incredibly grateful that you have it, especially with enough experience to know what is worth having and what is worth avoiding); and yes, make stupid theological jokes in general conversation/blogposts because you're still here.

You're still in this confessing college environment. You're still chained to the academic machine that demands words in chunks of 1500, 2500 and eventually 12,000. You're still living your life, every moment, every breath God gives you, and each of these days is of equal length, and ideally of equal value, to any days coming which are the other side of that line in the sand that is ordination. The line in the sand that was going to theological college is a distance memory, disappeared over the horizon behind you, and it seems like such an age since you crossed it that surely this stage is over. But it is not. It is still going, and you are called into this moment, as with every moment, to be blessed, and to be a blessing, whatever that means in this context, right now.

These lines in the sand are useful reference points; we are but only human after all. But they are not set by us, they are not in our control - what we do between them is.

As a third year, I am constantly reminding myself that I do not want to look back at my time at college with a glumness that it was a grind to get through and thank God I'm out of it. No, I want to look back and remember thanking God that I was here, now, with these people and in this place.

I'm trying, and I'm failing, and I'll keep trying. For one more year.

Video: Named, Known, and Called 2017

Video: Young Women - Your Call

On Saturday 23rd April, I went to Coventry Cathedral for a young women's vocation's conference. There were 87 young women attending and about 20 ordained and lay women organisers, with a handful of husbands helping! It was the first all-women event I've been to, and I was having flashbacks to my school days at a girls school.

I videoed a quick summary of my thoughts as I waited in the train station, and below is a run down of what we did, and the notes I took during the sessions.

I had train issues but still managed to get there in time (go contingency time!) and we were welcomed before sharing in morning prayer. Celtic morning prayer, which was cool (I recently book the Celtic Daily Prayer book, which I'm looking forward to using). The first key note was Bishop Anne talking about vocation as a woman.
Notes from the welcome:
- under 40 and especially under 30 women under-represented as priests
- feeling of sisterhood! Surrounded by others, all have a story
Notes from the first key note
- God's voice is richer for being the living Word as opposed to human words
- what does God trust me with? Trust me to do?
- courage - embrace pain and joy, the risk of trusting the next step
- phrase 'anunciation moment' [useful to describe my moment in September]
- have sense of the potential of who I can be in God
- children and ministy = careful planning
- lifetime of discerning God's call that weaves in and out of the tapestry of our lives [this was an overriding theme and a really good analogy, such as only being able to see the mess at the back rather than the picture God is weaving on the front]
- women reject job descriptions if they don't think they can do 10% of it
- trust God through fear, like fear that you're on the wrong path - you can't fall beyond the reach of God's will and God's love

After a tea break, the second key note was basically a session on how to defend when someone brings up arguments against the ordination of women. I gotta be honest, I started getting uncomfortable at this stage, and realised that being at a targeted event about vocation may be great for young women who might not otherwise look at themselves as potential priests because of their gender, but I did not have that problem. It also rankled that a) I was basically being defined primarily by my gender which is an attitude I don't tolerate in my life and b) it played into the system of the gender binary, which is itself a factor in the patriarchal systems of female oppression, as well as just out of date thinking that I reject.

But speaker Lis did use the phrase 'the Gender Agenda' and sadly, people do have an agenda based on repressing the female gender. I made notes, and it was, I suppose, useful to hear positive interpretations of scripture, but I'm making the decision not to put them here, as a statement of my belief that we need to get past this position of defense; it was needed 20 years ago, but my generation is putting gender aside. It is not relevant to judging my aptitude at ministry, and as much as I love my gender and am proud to be a woman, I will not even give the space for the possibility of argument any more. It is finished.

I enjoyed talking to the young woman who I ended up sitting next to for the morning, but at lunch talked to others who migrated to the appropriate seating area designated by geography (ie south, south east etc). But sadly, because there were so many of us, and we weren't really pushed to stay in one area and talk to the same people, I spent most of the day feeling a tad isolated, and didn't bond with anyone the way I had at all the other, smaller, events I've been to.

Like in Kettering and York, we took seats at tables, and stayed there for most of the sessions, and lunch, which meant we had motivation to get to know our neighbours. Without the anchoring of a consistent place, I was really lucky to talk to anyone, and even luckier that I bumped into the woman I sat next to in the morning, at the train station, which was great.

After lunch, we split into smaller groups to attend short seminars that we had picked in advance. My first was 'Young and Ordained' and two women, a new curate, and a vicar, introduced themselves, told their stories, and asked us to talk to the person next to us about a person in the Bible that we related to.
My notes from this first half:
- hard to leave settled life - calling is not static, God 'sends'
- ordination is not peak of calling
- I related to Peter; the start and end of his calling by Jesus 'Follow me' and 'Do you love me?' - that's what Jesus is saying to me too
- but what can I, and only I, do in answer?

Then they talked about the challenges and joys of ordination.
Challenges
- 'Wisdom beyond your years' - expectation that clergy know what to say. Not necessarily 'the right quote', 'the right psalm' - no formula. God gives us words, just be yourself.
- 'Making and maintaining friendships' - friends spread out as you move around, especially young people move more. Be intentional - use holiday, make effort to go and to host. Who is important to make time to see?
- 'People taking you seriously' - not as bad as you might expect. Blagging it so people feel calm and reassured. People expect to see a representative of God. God equips.
- 'What people expect of the Vicar' - afraid to tell vicar that they [the vicar] are wrong as the priest should know. Can be asked about ethical and moral decisions.
- 'Being true to yourself' - look like self in dog collar. At first very aware of the collar. Feel judged. Alright to have friends in the parish. Rise to the challenge and adapt. Blurred lines especially for ordained with big personalities [!!] in different situations. Still forming in 20s/30s, getting to know yourself now in a public space.

Joys
- meet lots of different people
- feel right place, time and doing. Not what people expect lead to opening conversations.

Straight into the next seminar, it was really great to have sessions on other callings that parochial ministry, but uniquely in my experience led by actual practitioners of those other callings. I listened to three chaplains talk about school, prison and university chaplaincy.
Notes:
- spontaneous, holy spirit-led ministry
- broad, in every sector
- "religious/spiritual care in an organisation"
- finding God at work
- can volunteer to get experience, go through vicar or DDO
- multi-faith model, for the world
- creative, opportunities
- round peg, square hole in parochial ministry
- God also calls to stop
- drop in income doesn't matter if happy in position
- not imagine self in parish
- [thought to self, could there be an LGBT chaplain, rather than a place chaplain?]
- chaplains are on the edge
- prison - intense and emotionally demanding
   - large capacity to love, love those otehrs would find difficult, and can't loveselves
   - gift of love to loveless place, and bring hope that anyone's broken life can have meaning
   - structured expectations - visit new prisoners within 24hrs, visit segregated, visit hospital
   - paid by prison service, but critical friend eg on policy
- uni - students have less baggage
   - Christian community
   - wider community - all faiths and none, generous
   - element of mission but not priority
   - religious literacy - prepare students for a world that is 85% people of faith
- 'friar' in community [I like this image]
- "be you, there"
- school - welcome and hospitality, mental health
- resources for worship
- put on services for organisation
- "be a good guest"
- not of the organisation whilst in it
- talk to anyone, full access
- earn trust and show integrity
- lovely, a privilege
- transience, let people go
- listening

Bumped into a familiar face from CPAS!

More tea and coffee, then a final session for a panel Q&A.
Notes:
- have to be recommended by vicar
- know where you could engage the debates, and where you can't
- trust each other to be under scripture and under God, and walk together in prayer
- mental health difficult in church context
- at first, revisit feelings of incompetency
- it will cost for family
- look at all college options - not straightforward - what experience do you want, needs in academic theology, time, community, tradition, somewhere you can come alive
- official discernment process comes under Equality Act
- call is complicated - follow and obey but also life does happen and can change course - God works through strange ways
- husbands not so hot on clergy spouse support as wives - careful of boundaries with your spouse - are they called to be part of ministry
- take ordination vows seriously eg obedience - can be part of the Church's own discernment - Issue of Human Sexuality "content to live within these guidelines" - have to accept to be put forward for ordination
- BAP - vulnerability of being 100% convinced whilst also knowing that you're coming into the possibility of being told you're wrong

After one more cup of tea, we have a lovely Eucharist, and as I said, I had a lovely chat with one of the other attendees at the train station, just after I filmed the video.

Why I don't think I'm called to be a Lay Reader

Won't be in my wardrobe

The discernment process is not a series of tests and interviews for me to convince the church that I should be a priest, or at least it should not be seen as such. It is not just the hoops I have to go though to attain a dog collar as the end goal. No, the goal is the discernment what I am being called to. The doctrine is that everyone has a vocation, all Christians have a calling (see 1 Corinthians 12), so when someone like me gets the urge to consciously put the effort in the reorientate my life to follow God's will for me, it is key not to just assume that ordination and the priesthood is part of God's plan.

A question amongst the many in this process is "If not ordained ministry, then what?" and it's a question I am rather terrified at looking at. Obviously there's the angle that if I even dare contemplate living my discipleship in another way, it feels like I'm undermining my desire and pull towards the priesthood, like I have to be 100% otherwise I'm a fraud. This is nonsense, but it is my response, irrational as it is, nonetheless.

It's also scary because it throws the net so much wider, and I feel like I'm 15 again in PSHE class, looking at career options. The vastness is daunting, in a murky way, for I know not where to begin and certainly have limited understanding of what my other options actually are.

But there is a clear option top of the list when given alternatives to being priest. Lay Reader, or just Reader I think is the official term. Writing this post was inspired by reading the excellent discernment process blog The Pilgrim Explorer. I've been reading his story in order, and I've just reached 17th Feb 2014, weirdly exactly two years ago last week, when he met an Examining Chaplain who asked him "So why do you want to be an ordained priest and not a Lay Reader?"

Now defining a Lay Reader is tough. I just read through this short but thorough piece, but it is still hard (as the pilgrim explorer himself discusses) to work out a concrete difference between them and non-stipendiary priests. They have some training in theology, and preach/teach, and step in when a parish doesn't have an incumbent. There's a pastoral element to their ministry, and they are often the quiet face of the church, having authority but without the baggage that comes with a dog collar that can put some people off. They also have a job and a secular life. A good blog post by a Reader who contemplated ordained ministry can be found here.

Basically, I get the impression that a priest lives the theology of Sunday, and a reader is involved with the theology of Monday. I think I am the former.

I definitely want to be sacramental, be a direct conduit and facilitator for people's relationship with God. My focus when I think about helping people like that is towards the spiritual within people's lives, not spiritual within the wider world, if that makes sense. I think about serving God, and there's less of the every day - I'm built for the crisis stuff, the stress and emotion including big transitions like marriage and death, and I am drawn to live in the the world of story where people understand their lives, not necessarily in the day to day living of their lives.

ASMing, not what I'm built for

It's very similar to my feelings on being a deputy stage manager not an assistant stage manager. An ASM is on ground level within the cast, just like a Lay Reader operates within a congregation. In stage management, I prefer to work on the behalf of the cast with authority and distance, even though we do create a bond, and know and trust each other. I'm not the voice from on high, but I'm not one of them either.

That's linked to my aversion to the fact that they are most often based in a parish. Yes, there are Reader chaplains, and I'm interested in chaplaincy, but I relate to the clarity that a dog collar provides - being identified as a disciple of God as a defining part of who I am and my role resonates more than just doing the job as a lay person.

It's that focus, that full time lifestyle that suits me better than fitting my ministry around another job. And I also want to operate within the formal structure of the church.

I wonder if I'll remember all that if I get asked the same question in an interview...

Video: Thoughts after Westminster Abbey

Reaction video - how did the service at Westminster Abbey make me think about my calling?