Last year - I came out of a chaplaincy year that wrecked my idea of what I thought I wanted for my ministry.
But what do they say – make plans and God laughs.
God laughs and I get whiplash.
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I am Clergy. My name isn’t on a roster for it anywhere; there’s no organizing body that ordained me and all my fellow clergy; I didn’t attend a seminary school. Still, I am Clergy.
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We’d never had a woman pastor before.
When the United Methodist Church in my small, rural, mostly Mennonite town found out that the Bishop assigned us a female pastor, the conversation around town was in full force.
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Don’t you want that baby doll?
She’s pretty and you could dress her and feed her.
How else will you learn to be a good mommy?
Girls wear dresses, not pants. Those are for boys.
You’re not a little boy.
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About two weeks ago, I officiated the wedding of two good friends, both Christian ministers. The prospect of officiating a ceremony where pastors were not only a fair part of the audience but also the main participants was daunting to say the least, but in some ways not as daunting as the text they had picked for my homily.
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It is ingrained in my brain like nothing else has ever been. I can still smell the gel that they put on the ultrasound wand. I can still see my husband’s tears as he hears our baby’s heartbeat for the first and what would be the only time. I can still feel the anger at the ultrasound tech, who was so joyful at our first appointment and called my baby our little bean.
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It was 3 o’clock in the morning when I attempted to rouse my husband.
“Um, baby, I think I’m pregnant. There are two lines on this thing I peed on.”
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This lack of interest and compassion still haunts me to this day. I keep on wondering if I am entitled to my pain. Am I just carrying on? Am I being overly dramatic? I was and am hurting. Right after my loss, I was sad. I was angry. But above all, I missed my baby and all the things that could have been. Yet, it was just I, missing my little bean. And I still miss my baby. Maybe not everyday but I think of my little bean a lot and try to imagine what it would look like now. I keep these thoughts hidden from most people and they feel like a guilty pleasure that no one should know about. In these instances, the thoughts about being entitled to my pain and grief creep up on me again.
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Because earlier today the promise of growing life in my belly was silenced just like the exam room as the nurse searched again and again for the heartbeat at a routine prenatal visit. "Is this how people find out?" I thought, suddenly floating though a cloud of emotionless reality, confused why I had felt kicks just last night in bed.
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I do not know what it is like to be a mother. I am not sure if I ever want to. But I know that I could never be who I am if it was not for the mothers before me. My Mother’s Mother was one of the toughest and prickly people you could even encounter. However, she loved her children and her grandkids more than anything. She may not have been sweet but she made sweet treats. She may not have always been prim and proper but she told you the truth and always stood up for herself. Her life was rough but through it all she found love and gave love and that is what truly mattered.
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Dear Mom,
One of our mini stories together has been playing through my mind a lot recently, reminding me of the beauty and wisdom you weave into my life each and every day.
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For the longest time in my life, I thought people could only be all good or all bad. Slowly the two moms I had and lost taught me value in seeing how people are imperfect creatures filled with good and bad.
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“And then Cinderella realized she was much too young to get married and went to college instead.”
That’s the ending I remember. My mother began the practice of changing fairy tale endings before I was old enough to realize it, and then continued the practice with my younger sister. By the time she came along I had seen the Disney movies enough times to know that the princess always got married, but I parroted the bit about college to Katy, six years my junior, none the less. It had become ingrained.
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Love. Wife’s love, mother’s love, sibling love. I witness love applied in very generous and uplifting ways by my mother. Do I believe my mom’s love sustained our family for a time? By sheer force, Mama Book’s strength lifted our spirits and kept out dark thoughts with anything less than positive feelings. Her love with her faith and incredible hope carried our family through dark times. Often I hear the following verse quoted in weddings, but my mom practices her brand of love in just this way.
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My mother didn’t have an easy time giving life to me. In fact, she nearly lost hers bringing me into the world. She spent her time, finances and overall health making sure I was still breathing. I owe a lot to my mother, but there is one thing that I will always be indebted to her for - giving me the ability to feel.
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Mom
in Texas
you hang a picture over your bed
of a silhouette lost like a wrinkle
in the folds of the desert
you understand
at 19 and an immigrant
one-way plane ticket from Hong Kong
hen I was 14, I walked into a church youth lock-in and fell head-over-heels in love with the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. I immediately knew four things:
1. I liked a girl. A lot.
2. I was a girl.
3. Girls couldn’t like girls.
4. This was an especially bad situation given that I was at church.
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I never really confided in my family about who I dated. My attitude towards dating was nothing like my parents'. I saw dating as a series of experiments that eventually lead to something amazing or absolutely nothing. My parents, on the other hand, moved in together on their second date and didn't approve of me dating anyone that wasn't a potential marriage prospect for me. SO to avoid conflict I just didn’t talk to them about who I was dating. I figured if my feelings for someone ever stuck then I would tell my parents. I don't like most people so I thought I was pretty safe from having that "I'm a lesbian talk.”
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I cannot recall how we even started chatting about lesbianism. We hadn’t known each other very long, maybe just a few months. I remember thinking how I would be kinda of nervous to bring up something like that with someone I barely knew, but really loved how open and comfortable Emma was in conversation.
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After shaving my head for the first time at 21, I suddenly, for the first time in my life, had game. That whole summer was a glorious festival of flirting with the brave and visible queer ladies of Ann Arbor, Michigan. We danced like goddesses at Necto nightclub on Pride night, leaving the straight males alone in their college-night shark tank.
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