Dear Young Clergywoman, My pastor just announced to our congregation that she is pregnant. We are all very excited for her, but we also haven’t been in this situation before. What tips do you have for celebrating this news with her? What would be helpful? What should we avoid? Thank you! -An Excited Congregant
My body is heavy this Advent. Mary of Nazareth’s body was heavy too, or so we imagine in Advent. She is often shown so young and beautiful, demure and obedient, glowing though that may be the halo more than the pregnancy. If we have ever met a real live pregnant woman, we might more […]
“So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the […]
Hannah Shanks’ This is My Body came out the same week that I learned I was pregnant. I had already been planning to buy and read the book – the author is a friend – but that pee-saturated stick gave special urgency to my reading. On the first page the author finds out that she is […]
As young clergy women gathered in Vancouver, Canada, for YCWI’s tenth anniversary conference earlier this July, the scenery was gorgeous and the weather was spectacular. The conference was uplifting, invigorating, challenging, and exciting. The keynote speaker, the Rev. Casey Fitzgerald, inspired us with her biblical storytelling and challenged us to consider where our stories intersect […]
I spent the last two months leading up to maternity leave serving at All Saints’ Cathedral. It was a short interim, just enough to bridge their staffing gap, that allowed me to work a little longer after my previous parish was filled. Two other women in a row – both under the age of thirty – had […]
2 Timothy 1:5 I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also. About a month ago, this amazing thing happened: I became a grandmother. In and of itself, that doesn’t seem out of the ordinary; after all, […]
It was my third time in the fetal nursery. That’s what I had taken to calling the evaluation room directly across the hallway from Labor and Delivery. Fetal heartbeats echoed loudly throughout the room like a person incessantly testing a hot microphone. These heartbeats were hampered only by the screeching of doctors’ and nurses’ pivoting […]
Editor’s Note: This may be difficult to read if you have pain around not being able to have a child or to breastfeed. Holy Week is a powerful time. It is a time to tell a powerful story. It is a time to tell stories of death turning to life. My body has often felt […]
On December 19, 2012, I woke up early, went to the bathroom and crawled back into my warm bed in my dark bedroom. Then I realized that I was bleeding. This normally wouldn’t be a shock to a woman of my age – menstrual bleeding is to be expected once every 28 days or so. […]
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