DIANA MACVEAGH (1977-1982): Living with Mixed Feelings

I was hesitant about writing a reflection for the commemoration; I didn’t want to be a “downer” in the midst of a celebration. My remembrances were not very pleasant. I wanted to express the challenges I remember facing as a woman who felt called to ministry, and the frustration and anger that inspired. Now, I can acknowledge that part of it was my fault for sure; I was difficult, irritable, and outspoken - which today still upsets me as I age, learn, and mellow. The bottom line was that I did very much want to serve the church. My hope was that study in pursuit of a deeper knowledge of my own faith and its traditions would allow me to ease the pains of the people I knew and would come to know and enrich my own faith as well, and I did find that at General.

As it happened, I loved everything I studied.  I had heard there was uncertainty about allowing women to go to General (let alone be ordained) by the older professors but they tried to be supportive, and in fact, I found the professors to be welcoming and helpful. I studied both history and biblical studies which I found fascinating. The chance to learn about the formation of the New Testament opened a whole new world for me. It is the kind of thing never mentioned in a sermon. Most of my closest friends at General turned out to be the professors.  We kept in touch even after I left for further study at Episcopal Divinity School when my husband got another job in New Hampshire. 

I remember very few women while I was at General, and less who were planning on being ordained. I remember a note on the bulletin board saying something about how awful the women at General were; there might have been four of us by then. I was, I think, the only person who was married; I had three children and commuted in by subway from our apartment on the upper East side.  Much as I would have liked to be ordained as a priest, I knew that my husband could not imagine my holding a job which would leave him making supper or my leaving and going out to people in need in the middle of the night.  I felt like the students were wary and kept their distance, and I felt like people were threatened by the presence of a middle-aged female who could afford to go to General while not 'living in'.

After arriving in New Hampshire, I hoped to apply my ministry skills as a member of the laity. Fair to say, ordained women were still quite new and threatening to many, and we in the laity, ostensibly scholars, were merely peculiar. I thought foolishly that the local priests would be delighted when I offered them help.  They were not.  When I asked the Priest in a nearby Church how I might help, he replied "I don't think we'd have anything to interest you." I just could not get over the hostility I saw directed toward women and the assumptions made about women in the clergy, as if there was an underlying notion that women were just not appropriate for ministry.  One friend who was an ordained woman told me that when she passed the Chalice a member of the congregation spat in it rather than drink the blood of Christ from the hand of a woman. I discovered that the Clergy seemed set against utilizing or encouraging anyone who was not ordained to a place in the ministry of the Church and didn’t think the un-ordained should have many opinions either, which made me have far more than I probably should have in exasperation and the inability to do anything about it. All of it made me a bit “bolshy” (a word used in England to say someone is tough, aggressive, and difficult and is not following the expected norms of society. It is NOT what you want to be), which of course got me nowhere.   I find that it is often my reaction to rejection, and I have learned it is never a good one. Of course, these are only my recollections and in hindsight I can’t say for sure whether this marginalization was particularly due to my being a woman.

I wonder if the admission of women to the priesthood created a "rupture" in the church so that people don't seem, any longer, to need to go to Church and the pews are not filled.... if even women can 'do this' it can't be that important.  This is a new idea for me - just in telling you - but I do know that the pews aren't filled, the kids don't
go to Sunday School and our Bishop is having a workshop for clergy to see if they can change that reality and how to change it. However, I also now see with the passage of time, the shortage of clergy, and the inability to offer adequate salaries for the care of souls in small, even tiny, elderly congregations, many of those concerns have slid away.  Now, at 84, I am beginning to learn to 'cool it' – high time for a slow learner. How wonderful that I can look back on these feelings with the knowledge that there has been some significant change; and that it is now more accepted for women to be educated and formed for both lay and ordained ministry.