Anna

Welcome to Call and Response. The project where we hear the stories of women and their calls to holy orders. Today, I have Anna with me. Do you want to introduce yourself?

Thank you, Juliet. My name is Anna. I've been ordained for almost seventeen years and have served in two different dioceses in that time. I served in a couple parishes as a deacon, and I've been in my current parish now for about twelve years. I have really enjoyed the progress of ministry. It's great to talk to you.

What is the story of your call to ministry?

I really love to tell this story, because it's not just about me. My calling was really nurtured in community. I grew up in a very close knit, family-like Anglican church.

When I was about 15, my church held community-wide youth events a handful of times each year with many different churches working together. All the surrounding youth groups from the area participated, and they would have somebody give their testimony. My youth pastor asked if I would give my testimony. That was my first public speaking experience. I was in camp ministry and was given lots of opportunities for leadership. I was consistently affirmed by parishioners and leaders in my church, mentors, and godparents. It was the voices of the community adding to the confirmation of this Holy Spirit in my life saying, “You really should think about this. This is what you're gifted to do. This is what you're naturally good at.” I think, even though I'd had people in my family that were ordained, and lots of ordained people in and around my life, there was always a sense that you do ordained ministry when you become old and wise. You have to pass some kind of unknown threshold of wisdom or something. It was people in my life, from my church and in my surrounding community, that affirmed the gifts and calling that God had placed on my life. That was really helpful because I think I probably would have put it off. I probably would have attempted another career first.

Ministry was always the thing I loved to do most. It was always the thing I came back to. I had aspirations to teach history at one point, but ministry was always calling my name. The Holy Spirit was pretty persistent, but it's so important to have the voices and faces of the people around you articulating and confirming what the Lord is saying, so you can't ignore it.

Absolutely. Are you ordained to the diaconate and the priesthood or to the diaconate?

I've been a priest since 2010. I can always remember the dates because I was pregnant with our first child when I was ordained a deacon. The timing of everything was a little tricky having maternity leave in there, but I was priested when my daughter was two.

Can you tell me a little bit about what it was like for you to discern between the calling to the diaconate or the diaconate and the priesthood?

That's an interesting question. I had a vocational deacon in my parish growing up and watched their ministry. I really appreciated that example of servanthood and support. So I had seen that role embodied throughout my life. My grandfather was a priest, and so I had also seen the priesthood embodied. I was always much more interested in whatever he was doing than what the deacons were doing. It was great what the deacons were doing, but being up front and being in more of a leadership role, being vocal, teaching, celebrating the Eucharist, all that stuff was much more resonant with how I wanted to disciple and care for people. The whole sort of postulancy process took about three years, and I don't even recall a discussion about the diaconate. It was just, “this is what Anna's gonna do.” It was full steam ahead, and I appreciated that.

What a gift that you got to see both a priest and a deacon embodied. These weren't just roles that you were thinking through in an abstract way. You grew up actually seeing them. It makes a lot of sense that, in the discernment period, you knew what you were called to, and your community also knew.

Community discernment is incredible. I was meeting with a person just last week who said one of the reasons they chose our church was because their daughter was excited that there is a female priest. People need to see that. We need to see living, embodied examples of the call of God on people's lives. So that we have the imagination for it, and we know what it is and how it can be lived out in the world.

Yes, that really is the heart of this project. All the different priests and deacons embody ministry in such unique ways. It's a gift to see how the Holy Spirit has called us each uniquely to our own ministries and to hear, as you said, the embodiedness of that.

I work with a lot of deacons now. I'm actually walking two people in our congregation through discernment to the diaconate at this moment. We're talking a lot about that. What does ministry look like to you? What does your sense of calling look like? It was interesting. These two people in our parish are already in ministry in the community, and they very much see their calls to the diaconate as a complement to that. They already have that sense of clarity. For me,  it was really life in the church and the priestly vocation that I was excited about.

I love that. What struggles and barriers have you encountered during your journey to ordination and since being ordained?

My goodness, there's not enough time in the world.

I know.

I've served in two different dioceses in and two different contexts. One on one side of the ordination debate for women and one more on the other side. The difficulty I found is that no matter who you are or how you present yourself or how your call is articulated or what your educational background, as a woman, you're never able to fit whatever it is that people are looking for. In one diocese, I was too outspoken, too female, too evangelical, or too orthodox. There's a sense that whatever people are looking for (bishops, committees, whomever), I do not fit that. It’s a sense that people have an unspoken and unarticulated expectation of how you should be. There’s some kind of prototype that you are expected to fit.  I have never fit the prototype. I was in a very liberal diocese at one time, and I was far too evangelical for them. I was always getting in trouble and having to go before the bishop to explain myself.

Now I'm on the other side of things. I'm in a more evangelical and orthodox diocese. Again, I'm too outspoken, too opinionated, and too whatever. There's always been this sense that whatever expectations people have, I'm never going to meet them. My ordination and my ministry are about the call of God, and His confirmation on my life, and living to serve and be in obedience to Him. 

My diaconal ordination was in a cathedral. We're lying prostrate on this very cold floor. I was very filled with emotion, because I knew without a doubt that I would not be there without the Lord's hand. There had been so many obstacles that there was just no way it could have happened otherwise. So many people had to sign off to make my ordination possible, and there's no way they would have all been in agreement if it wasn't for the Lord's intercession. In a sense, I'm grateful because, there's just no pleasing people. I'm definitely not here because of the favor of others, that's for sure. It really is the Lord's supernatural intervention in my life and in the church. That's an incredible gift because I know this isn't due to someone’s influence or that I got the wrong idea one day or whatever. This is all the Lord's doing. It would have literally been impossible without Him. That gives me a lot of peace and a sense of purpose. I'm here to do His work and not to please others. I often describe myself as a loyal opposition. I'm loyal to Christ and His church, and I'm loyal to my bishop, but I definitely speak up when I feel that it's important and the Holy Spirit is prompting me. Given the cultures of ministry and society today, there will always be a sense that women and minorities have to endure, survive, succeed, and persevere because they don't fit the traditional stereotype that people  envision for a priest. I'm always adamant that just as I had to see examples of ministry around me embodied as a child, other people need to see that today. That's a lot of the reason why, when our diocese is looking for people to be on committees or councils, I always stick my hand up. Somebody has to be that living embodiment. The  Lord made me stubborn enough that I'm willing to be. I don't know how wise that is, but it is what it is.

I've cried each time I’ve interviewed someone, listening to how the Holy Spirit is leading. It's so beautiful to hear. As someone who's very young in ministry, it's a gift to hear that you just keep going. I am so grateful, Anna, to hear you say that some of us are, “the loyal opposition.” I think some of that is a Holy Spirit call. I will probably have to repent of much arrogance in the future.

It's tricky, right? You're taking a risk every time you stick up your hand or raise your voice or bring up a point that's inconvenient. The Lord made me risk averse, but I definitely get in trouble on the regular. I'm grateful now because however annoying and persistent I am, I think my bishop understands that I do it for the good. I'm doing it for the betterment of our fellowship together.  I think he's slowly coming to that. But I also know that if I had been a man, if I had been a white man, I'd be a canon by now. I would have my own large church, and all these other things. So I have to know that God, in His wisdom, made me as I am. Even though I might be ambitious for other things, this is the work He's given me to do. So, I'm going to do it.

What would you say to a woman who is thinking about ordination?

I would say, “God bless you, because it's a long and difficult road.” I would tell her to try to gather supporters around her. Find people to pray for her. Find advocates and mentors. Make friends who have been ordained longer than you and really want to support you. I was so fortunate. I didn't know that when I was interviewing for my postulancy, there were people that barely knew me that were advocating for me behind closed doors. I didn't even know that was happening. Somehow the Lord put all those people in place. Just know that it takes more than you alone to get there. If you're going to embark on this long obedience in the same direction, you need people and encouragement to keep you going. It is a long road, and it's hard, and we get tired. It's easy to succumb to bitterness or unforgiveness. God preserve us from that temptation, because it's really hard to resist. But the beauty of our Anglican identity is that it's a collective one. We don't come to ordination alone. Even as people will be questioning and interviewing you, have people at your side and at your back too. Have them walking with you. The system is designed that way. We're asked to have a supporting parish and a supporting rector and support committees. Get all your people in place, and don't do it alone.

The second thing I would say is try to entrust yourself to trustworthy people. I think serving in different dioceses, I've served many different bishops over the years and had many different relationships with them. I've learned that we will always have differences. They will all always see things differently than I will. But can I trust their walk in the Lord? Can I trust their heart's intention? We can't know that entirely. What gives me peace of mind now, and the reason why I stay where I am, is that I trust that my bishop, even if we may not agree on everything, desires to do the Lord's will. That hasn't always been the case everywhere I've served. I was very aware when I was a new deacon, that there were political dynamics going on. In that context, it was advantageous to leadership to have an articulate young evangelical woman standing up and teaching on their behalf or representing them. I would just say a word of caution about who you're entrusting yourself to. Ultimately we're in the Lord's care, but hopefully our bishop is a Christian person that we can trust is trying to do the will of God, and you can serve them without violating your vows. That comes back to the loyal opposition thing. I will voice opposition, but I am loyal. I did take vows of obedience, and I seek to fulfill them as best I can. If I ever come to a place where I don't feel I can be obedient, then I do need to leave. I have had to do that before. It's really complex, but hopefully God leads us to the right place in His time.

Amen. Yes. Thank you for all of that. Did you pick a favorite collect from the BCP to close us out?

Yeah, it's hard to pick one, but I settled on the third Sunday in Lent. Do you want me to pray it now?

Yes, please.