The Young Clergy Women Project
A network of the youngest ordained clergy women.
God Above All Things, In these moments while the document loads and my fingers rest on the keyboard grant me first an emptiness. Remove the to-do list that waits impatiently in the corner of my mind. Quiet the voice saying, “You’re not ready, you’re not good enough, you don’t have anything to say.” Shield me [...]
Has anyone else noticed that the liturgical calendar and the academic calendar seem to sync up from time to time? Think about Advent… The eager awaiting spirit we hold as we celebrate the birth of Jesus lines up with the anticipation of surviving fall exam week and beginning Winter Break. As a last semester divinity [...]
“It is finished,” I said, turning toward the altar. It was sparse and striking, with only a black cloth and a candle. A crown of thorns pierced the wax, seeming to hang as some horrible halo around the flame. The Good Friday service I had planned and preached was drawing to a close. I blew [...]
Riding in the car with a close friend from home the other day, I was engaged in a lively conversation with her about some of our friends and their charismatic religious beliefs. A few recent Facebook status updates triggered our bewilderment on the possibility of physical healing. “I just don’t know if I believe it,” [...]
I am twenty-eight years old, and my father still reads to me. It’s only once a year, but each Christmas Eve, my father still reads to me and my brother. We hop on the couch in our pajamas, glass of eggnog in hand (the bourbon is a relatively recent addition), and sit back to listen. [...]
May 17 – Almost exactly five years after my husband proposed to me, we flipped over a pregnancy test to see a small plus sign. In that moment our life changed. We had taken one huge step toward being parents. I found myself between simply being an adult who could focus almost completely on my [...]
Last Sunday I was ordained. It was a beautiful service with everything one would expect, including cherished hymns, a charge to the candidate and congregation, the presence of a beloved tapestry of people I am blessed to call my community, and, of course, the laying on of hands. Then there were the elements of my [...]
The gray walls whisper goodbye to me as I walk through them for a last time, making my way down the long hallways to surgery. Or perhaps I am the one extending silent goodbyes to this space as I wrap up my final day of Clinical Pastoral Education at a hospital on Chicago’s south side. [...]
There I stood, looking at myself in the mirror. I had done this many times before. As a little girl playing dress up, I recall stuffing tissues into the backs of my mom’s heels and proudly stomping around the house. I recall putting on deep red lipstick, borrowed from my five-year-old best friend, a precious [...]
On February 26, 2010, my brother Cameron died of an overdose of heroin. I was in the middle of my first year of graduate studies for my Master of Divinity degree. I was 27 years old, and after a few years of post-college floundering, I’d “discerned my call,” as we clergy-types say, and began the [...]