Uncomfortable Heat in a Momentary Spotlight

Monday night, I was installed into a position I have now held for two and one half years before an audience of 3000 women gathered from all corners of the nation. I was commissioned before this sea of faces to live out the PW purpose, as well as guide and govern my sisters of all ages as they do the same. Yet, throughout my time on that stage, I felt a nagging desire to abandon that platform, to hide myself in the back of the audience, to fade into the cloud of witnesses that had accumulated in the Kentucky International Convention Center. It felt showy, as if I were on parade as a mini-celebrity to wave at the masses, and give them a bow before going off to make staggeringly important decision about the FUTURE of the INSTITUTION.

My call experience for the Churchwide Coordinating Team was much more intimate, and felt much more genuine. I had returned to my hometown of Olympia for Christmas, trembling with excitement and intimidation because I knew that the next afternoon held my first meeting with the committee that would guide me through the ordination process; it was their role to either accept me or reject me; affirm me or dissuade me in my call; this was to be my first official step toward ordained ministry. On the eve of this momentous afternoon, I was returning home to a broken family situation, in the midst of a year of mission that would end up wracking my soul and devastating my spirit.

When I arrived at the guest room of a family friend, a close comrade and nurturing soul who welcomed me as the crux of my conflict with my parents descended along with the plane that took me home, I discovered with that small joy of recognition that I had a voicemail. That voicemail was from Kelsey (with whom my few readers are already familiar). She was at that time, and still is, one of my closest and dearest friends. Hearing her voice, and knowing that she thought of me enough to call that cold December afternoon was a bit of glorious encouragement. And yet, there was a professional tone to her voice that did not lend itself to the chatting of old roommates.

Kelsey also happened to be serving as the national intern for an organization I had belonged to all of my four years as an undergraduate, and to which I had introduced (and started to indoctrinate) her. That afternoon, she was calling with an institutional affirmation that would sustain me throughout my experience in Cincinnati. One of the representatives from the National Network of Presbyterian College Women to the Churchwide Coordinating Team of Presbyterian Women (their national governing body) had resigned because of academic commitments, and the Coordinating Committee of the NNPCW was asking me to fill out her term, six months after it had started. My first meeting was to come in two months, in Puerto Rico, where I would take an active role in the governance of the single largest entity to support the Presbyterian Church (USA). My life, and the life of PW, became intertwined. There, in that guest bedroom as I struggled with both my vocation and my sense of home and family, I received the blessing of true calling, all the stronger and more affirming because of its timing and the voice that delivered it.

Throughout the remaining eight months that I lived in Cincinnati, as I spoke up about the structural problems that were plaguing my Young Adult Volunteer site, as I was belittled and betrayed by my co-workers, as I wrestled with the isolation and loneliness that came with living 3000 miles from those to whom I wanted to cling in my pain, the CCT provided an avenue where I could serve and feel affirmed through it. When I felt like those I worked with and for simply wanted me to disappear, Presbyterian Women took and celebrated what I had to offer. They were a validation during a year of seeming futility. They provided me with a different mission to support and enjoy, when mission itself had left me dry as Ezekiel’s desert of bones.

I wrestle with the idea of my installation, in part because the position I am bringing to a close throughout the next year has already brought tangible joy and hope to my ministry. The two and one half years I have spent working with the last Churchwide Coordinating Team have helped define me and support me. An installation is intended to be a new beginning, yet for me it was an overstated demonstration of work that I was already doing. My term truly began that evening in Washington. In addition, I remember that I was, indeed, the second choice, the younger daughter, the substitute. In fact, I think I prefer it that way. The evening before the installation, as I was enjoying a drink with acquaintances new and old who share that vision of women’s empowerment and service to the church, one of the new members of the national PW search committee referred to my co-representative and I as the "bigwigs." I was rather shocked. I am not, nor will ever be, able to identify myself with that term. Rather, I am the support staff, the back up, the interim, who steps in when others falter and allows all of us to simply carry on. I am the catalyst for what is already happening.

And, so, on Monday night, I longed to sit and enter back into that crowd, to watch as my sisters entered into their own new vocations as the CCT, to pledge to support them in their efforts and pray for their wisdom. I did not feel as if I belonged alongside the new officers, even though we work together as sisters. They will govern PW for the next three years; I will simply accompany them for the first third of their time. My term extension is simply to allow the staggering of rotation between our two co-representatives; it is an effort of practicality. I am, once again, the substitute, filling the gap between the beginning of this Triennium and the time that my co-representative will be able to welcome and assist my own successor. I am, still, the interim member. When my time is over, I will enter back into the crowd and take the place where I feel most comfortable