Seventeen years later, the clock ticks down the seconds until Tomorrow night, December 11th at 5:30 when I will be ordained to the sacred order of priests in God's one holy catholic and apostolic Church. How did this happen? Simply put, our God calls is persistent. Yet, I have found that ministry with one another and with God requires that I must slow down, be quiet, and listen to what form that ministry will take.
In the years after Mrs. Sallie prophesied at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church about my future vocation, I attempted to follow other passions to see where they led. For a while, I wanted to be a professional soccer player or a sportscaster, but when career day came around I decided to follow around my priest. On that day I allowed myself to wonder if working in God’s Church could be more appealing than I had initially thought. Mrs. Sallie’s words were echoing in my heart.
During college I joined every Christian group imaginable, but by my junior year I struggled with my belief in God. What if God does not exist? What if God does not care about me? What if? After a difficult breakup, I felt emotionally raw, and I hurled accusations at God. I questioned God’s presence in my life all those years growing up. “Could it have all been a lie?” I asked my mentor, the Rev. Annwn Myers. “Even when you slam the door shut in God’s face,” she told me, “leave the back door open or at least leave a crack in the window, so the breeze of the Holy Spirit can blow through.” I tried desperately to disconnect from God and the Church.
I stepped back from commitments at the college chapel. I attended atheist lectures. I tried my best to become a secular person. All the while something within me was drawing me back to God, like the undertow in the Gulf of Mexico on a red flag day all my struggling against the tide only seemed to pull me deeper into life in Christ. Yet, as I approached God, who was there with me the whole time, I felt a new gift of freedom. Instead of “having to believe” the same things as family or friends, I was able to experience God authentically from my own point of existence.
Through this freedom I felt called deeper into ministry with God in the Church. After college graduation, I applied for and received the position as the lay chaplain for undergraduates at Sewanee. In this placement I was able to “try on” ministry for three whole years. During this time I reaffirmed my baptismal vows at the Great Vigil of Easter, which was where I finally fully heard and accepted my call to the priesthood that Mrs. Sallie foretold ten years earlier.
At the Great Vigil I reaffirmed my baptismal vows and served as a Lay Eucharistic Minister. After receiving the bread and the wine I took my silver chalice to distribute this gift from God. As I approached the first person, I realized it was none other than Fr. Francis Walter, my childhood priest. He smiled the same grin that I remember from when he first gave me communion as a child. Pulling back the chalice after serving him I saw in the cup’s reflection all of the people gathered around the altar. “We are the chalice,” I thought, “We make up the Body and the Blood of Christ. We are Jesus Christ.” Whoa! I almost fell over with this simple, lighting bolt of God’s inspiration. Those gifts at the Table are important because we are important.
Since that moment on that Easter Vigil night I have been open to accepting the call to be a priest in God’s church. I finally heard what others had heard long before I did. After much discernment within myself, with committees, with friends, with family, with the Church, and with God, I am ready, or as ready as I will ever be for anything in my life. Tomorrow night I will kneel before Bishop Santosh to be ordained in God’s Church. I ask for your presence and your prayers. I will be made a priest, but the service is about us as a Church and God’s people. We are entering into a new ministry together and I hope that you will be there to celebrate.
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