Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, who forgives all our sins.
Including, one hopes, a delinquent seminarian, unsure if she should be writing an ember day letter at all.
I have, in fact, spoken with Mother Sara+ about the appropriateness of writing to you, cognizant that we have made a decision to move through a period of parish discernment this summer and fall but knowing as well that in sponsoring the General Ordination Exams for me, you have invited me into relationship around the discernment of my vocational call. So, if this letter is unwelcome, I do indeed apologize, and if it is not, I welcome the chance to begin what I pray will be a fruitful relationship between us.
I am quite grateful to be in my final semester of seminary. The formation of Christian vocation, encompassing but not exclusive to the vocation of ordained ministry, is a passion that developed in my return to the Christian life and has flowered profitably in my work with the Commission to End Racism. Residential seminary has given me a great deal to think about and I fully expect the next several years to be an intense period of integration - at least as intense as the last several years of disintegration.
The General Ordination Exams, as part of that overall formation experience have been fruitful as well. I have spoken with Alice Speers on the telephone about my results from the GOE's, and I believe she has some understanding of myself and the gifts and challenges I bring with me into ministry, and the ways in which the pedagogy of the GOE's don't show forth my best advantages. I am willing to do what remediation is required to fulfill this requirement and have already requested my seminary transcripts be sent to Canon Neysa+. As I told Alice, I have the papers and tests from my time here at seminary and am willing to send them along as well. I am also able to take a stab at those tests again. Janet Roth, one of my anamcara, let me know after the fact that this process might have been accommodated for my anxiety disorder, however I did not know that before I took the exam. It is a new place in my life to identify and learn to adapt my strategies so that this anxiety is not a god in my life, setting limits on the ways I am willing to let God use my life to good purpose. I leave the consideration of remediation in the capable hands of the Commission on Ministry, focusing my attention and discernment to the work in front of me.
My family is well. As expected, we are not thriving in all areas; my husband's commuting and the transition of my children from childhood to adolescence were places we knew would be challenging. I think that we are all looking forward to a time when my work/home boundaries are not bleeding into each other in this particular way. I finished college while my children were toddlers and the quantity and quality of attention they require now is something I did not anticipate in my considerations. I thought about how capable they are with their physical needs but pre-teens have a wholly different emotional and social need than toddlers. There is frustration and cross communication, but I suspect that we and the faith of our family will rebound from this experience. One frustration I am looking forward to alleviating is one that I purposefully caused for my own educational needs and it will be wonderful for us to find a church home together again.
My own faith life, throughout discernment and seminary has been a liminal experience. I feel quite called to something I describe as Saturday ministry, that moment in the transformation process that we reside in when we await the promised third day of resurrection, but cannot imagine it. What did the disciples do on Saturday? I think they went to seminary. I know this one did. I have spent considerable attention while in seminary to exploring authority, how it originates and perpetuates in the church as well as in my own life. I think I may be able to frame my seminary experience as a relationship with authority, beginning in confusion, trailing for a year in grief and mourning, and now finding it's voice in ways that existed before, but are newly clarified. As a listener of the null lesson, the lesson we do not intend to teach, as a voice for the marginalized and the dissenting opinion that does not feel free to speak up. As a change agent, an adaptive leader, who is brave enough and loved enough by God to say the unpopular or impolitic or unimaginable and willing to hold the safe place for others to speak their voice as well. This knowing was recently clarified for me from a conference leader at the Beatitudes Society Preaching Workshop I attended this past weekend. And I hear, also, as I write, the book on adaptive leadership that I am reading for my capstone class. In December, I had an idea that I had gathered enough sunshine to begin integrating, and many of my days do in fact feel like watching time lapsed photography of tulips - peeping up from the soil and unfolding leaves and flowers.
And so I will close, with that image that tickles my mind (and is playing out on my neighbors patio) and pray also that your time in Kanuga with the House of Bishops was Spirit filled with the springtime of integration. I pray you find yourself refreshed and invigorated in your own leadership as our bishop and as your own person, on a journey through this life with God and Spirit and Son as your constant companions.
A fellow servant in Christ,
heather lee
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