For the sometimes-enlightening, often-exasperating, and always-complicated commissioning process, I had to write my "call story". Through the course of seminary and the ministry process, you end up writing and telling this story again and again in various forms to a large number of people. Over time, it becomes streamlined into a brief tale that hits briefly on the highlights on the way to saying, "So, can and will you help me keep writing the story?". However, in that streamlining, important bits of the story are lost. There are small anecdotes, rabbit trails off the main path, that I have to bypass in getting to the main points. Yet, these rabbit trails helped me to get to the main points. Without them, I might never have had call story to tell. Not to mention that, while there was a required bibliography for that section of my papers, it was aimed at books; my call was as much shaped by films as books, but that part is harder to describe. So, since I had to leave these influences out of my papers, but I still want to get them out there, I'll include them here.
The first time I really showed any evidence of a call was in early elementary. My parents heard noises from my room one night after they'd put me to bed and turned out the light, and came into the room only to find me singing to my stuffed animals. I had my illustrated children's book of Bible stories, from which I had done a reading. I had explained the passage to my plush congregation, and I was going on to the closing hymn when my parents came in to check on me. They told me that I could continue the service in the morning, but I had to go to sleep. I don't think I got around to giving the benediction the next day, and the incident was forgotten for many years.
When I was in junior high, my two favorite movies were "Auntie Mame" and "The Trouble with Angels". Interestingly, both of these movies starred Rosalyn Russell, and both gave me an image of who I wanted to become. I loved the way Auntie Mame found the joy in situations and lived a life full of adventure, travel, and exciting people. I loved that her escapades were considered unacceptable by some, yet she was incredibly loving and compassionate, if in her strange, disorganized way. I wanted to be just like her. I particularly liked "The Trouble with Angels" because of the mischief that Mary and Rachel got into. I wanted to emulate their cool, trouble-making ways. I was always a bit saddened by the end, though. I couldn't understand how Mary could make the choice she made. I didn't see how she could be both troublemaker and devout religious servant. Only later, as I began to discern my own call, did I begin to understand how I could be both Mame and Mary at the same time.
High school brought participation in ASP, which was one of the most formative experiences in my faith development. In the mountains of Kentucky and Tennessee, I wrote about faith, sweat, and sawdust. I saw God in the faces of Appalachian teenagers and heard God's voice in the buzz of circular saws. I watched hopes come to fruition and I began to recognize that God was working in my heart and through my blistered hands. Most of all, I saw God in JB, a man whose house I worked on my first summer as a volunteer. JB was a carpenter by trade, and he could have done all the work we were doing both better and faster. But he had developed a rare lung disease and could no longer work. As we worked on his home, he explained things and guided our work with a patience and a humility that amazed me. He sat on the porch with his oxygen tank, encouraging me as I used a power drill for the first time. Through ASP, I learned that God uses all parts of us: our brokenness and our strength, our skills and our inexperience, for a glory that we often do not recognize or understand.
As strange as it might sound, performing in a competitive showchoir also prepared me for ministry in ways I never would have anticipated. I was never a particularly good singer or dancer, but performing helped me to gain a confidence in front of people that I would otherwise have lacked. I learned how to use my facial expressions and body language as communication tools. I learned to disguise my nervousness and have poise, even when wearing sequins and fake eyelashes.
In early college, I was fascinated by semi-religious movies. I watched Saved!, Keeping the Faith, and Dogma over and over again, pulling out themes of religious life. I was fascinated at the way the characters in Saved! managed to hold their faith and their questions in tension and I was challenged by the responsibilities of call and commitment to church in Keeping the Faith.
By odd coincidence (or divine providence, I don't know which) I picked up a copy of a book called Grace at a publisher's booth at the Earth Day festival my sophomore year of college. As a sometimes-pianist, the keyboard on the cover caught my eye, and I bought a copy. I then promptly put it on my shelf and forgot about it for a few months. By the time I picked it up again, I had begun to discern my call to ministry, but didn't really know what to do about it. As I read, I saw connections with my own life, and gained the courage to pursue my vocation.
When I went home for Thanksgiving, just after I recognized my call for the first time, I was terrified to tell my parents. My father is Catholic, and I had never thought to ask him what he thought of women in ministry. So, when I got home, I told my parents to sit down, and I told them a very abbreviated version of my call story. When I finished, my father replied with, "Of course. We knew." I was stunned. I hadn't told them anything. When I asked about it, he continued, "Well, it was revealed to me in meditation a few weeks ago. I told your mother (at this point, Mom nodded) but we didn't want to tell you and mess up your discernment." I didn't know how to respond. I've never been one to put a lot of stock in mystical experiences, but that gave me an affirmation that was very valuable to me.
Then a stranger gave me a great gift: a district superintendent from a conference other than my own, after some consultation with me, assigned me a candidacy mentor. In our process, candidacy mentors can be either helpful or exasperating, but mine was an incredible blessing for me. I looked up to that mentor, who seemed at times to be the person I wanted to grow into in a few years. I saw a woman who was close to my age working in ministry, which I had never seen before. She showed me that I could be in ministry and still be myself. She inspired me to make progress in an arduous process of bureaucracy, which has allowed me to get as far as I am by this point. If we could put people in our bibliographies, she'd be on mine.
I'm sad that I had to leave these bits out of my explanation of my call for commissioning. The page limits on my commissioning papers forced me to leave out several bits of myself, my story, and my beliefs that I think would give the church a more accurate picture of who I am. And in all the paperwork, I often lost track of the call and the passion that led me to writing them in the first place. These help me to remember that God was forming me long before I began the process, and God will continue to shape me through and after it. For now, I think it's enough that I know where I've been and I believe in the road I'm on (at least most days).
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