In August of 1987, my husband, Frank, our dog, Gretchen, and I moved from Southern California onto the Close of General.  I remember making my way to the Chapel of the Good Shepherd, finding a place in the choir.  I sat down and looked around, taking in my surroundings.  My eyes caught sight of the Alpha and the Omega, symbols of beginning and ending, built into the brick flanking the stained-glass window above the reredos.  The Greek letters could be seen faintly through layers of soot that had collected on the stones from years of burning candles and incense.  I sat there and thought about beginnings and endings.  We had quit our jobs and sold our home and cars to move east to study – both of us students.  And I thought to myself, there are so many who would give their right arm to be here, and yet I am here.  We are embarking on a new beginning.

We lived, worshipped and studied on the Close beginning Michaelmas term 1987 and ending our time at GTS with commencement in May of 1990.  Our graduating class had a majority of women by one student that year – a first.  It was a time of new beginnings.  Barbara Harris was the first woman elected bishop in the Anglican Communion in 1989;  a busload of GTS students traveled to Boston for her ordination and consecration.  Later, when she visited GTS, I would hear for the first time a student’s son ask Bishop Harris if boys could be bishops too.

It was a time when many women at General, unsupported by their diocesan bishop, received help to find a bishop and a diocese that would validate them in their vocations to the priesthood.  It was a time when what we knew as the Gay-Lesbian Caucus met in seclusion for fear of their bishops.  Few women, both lay and ordained, were on the faculty back then, and we followed their lead at celebrations of the Eucharist or at Evensong.   At times other female priests from New York parishes were invited to preside at our eucharistic celebrations and officiate at Evensong as well.  These women’s voices and presence informed many of us who had few female models up until then. 

We tested prayers that would enrich our worship, capturing ancient texts for more expansive and inclusive language.  What some of us called the Three Musketeer’s “one for all and all for one” doxology, fortunately, did not make it into the approved supplemental texts!  But some beautiful language was included.  One of my favorites is “Canticle A”:  A Song of Wisdom Sapientia liberavit (Wisdom 10:15-19,20b-21):

…And then, Lord, the righteous sang hymns to your Name, *

and praised with one voice your protecting hand;

For Wisdom opened the mouths of the mute, *

and gave speech to the tongues of a new-born people.

Beginnings and endings in the Church punctuated our years at General with the attendant upheaval that comes with change.  It took our class of 1990 until our senior year to agree on a traditional chapel prank.  At times it seemed like our class was a mixture of poster children reflecting a diverse spectrum of resistance that accompanies the Alpha and the Omega and those who embrace it. 

My time at General taught me to ask questions of Scripture and tradition: to ask what difference does the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus make?  How does our tradition make sense to us today?   What have we learned from the three-legged stool about the contribution of women?  Where do all the children of God find ourselves within the Alpha and the Omega in a Church and a seminary steeped in rich tradition and the essentials of a lively faith? 

Over the years, I have returned often to the image of the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, knowing that with every ending there is a new beginning found consistently in the overwhelming love of God in Jesus Christ.  It is a love that can handle the questions we ask faithfully and honestly.  I am grateful to have studied at General back then.  It was the right place for me at that time.  As I look back, I like to think that we all found, and still find, ourselves in that right place, when, with the Spirit’s help, we can open our eyes to see beneath the soot with open hearts and minds to ask our questions and hear God’s loving response.