Not many people who see this blog have read my journey from the start. A search of the label "faith journey" will give you lots of links to past entries if you're interested. It has been a long, very strange, sometimes terrifying (for me), intensely joy-filled trip.
I'm posting the link to the Video of the service at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, Valdosta, GA. Officially, I am now the Priest-in-Charge at St. Barnabas. People wanted to know "Why not rector?" It comes down to money; they don't have enough in their bank account to afford a full-time priest, so I am very part-time and bivocational. My massage clients are thrilled, even if I am not as available to them as I was before seminary.
I'm sure I will have more to say about my experience of being ordained at some point. I'm still processing my emotions. It was incredible, not because anything "happened" in the moment. But I do feel as if people at St. Barnabas are taking me just a little more seriously than they did before my ordination on the 22nd of January.
One of the things I was the most nervous about was the time following the service. I knew that was a time when people line up to be blessed by the new priest. This is something they don't prepare you for in seminary. There is no class in "blessings." There is no textbook. There is just you. And God. And a person kneeling before you.
And, as has happened many times in this journey, God showed up. It was as if my one and only role was to greet the person and then lay my hands on their head and begin to pray. The words were sounds coming from my mouth, but the actual statements were coming from somewhere else. I cannot recollect what I said to any individual. I just met them, as a priest and a person who has known what it is to turn to God in desperation and celebrate with joy when I see good things come together. And then the words poured forth lot a steady stream of crystal-clear water.
The first person to ask me for a blessing: the bishop of Georgia who had just ordained me and made me a priest. This was an amazing statement. Once upon a time in this diocese, the likes of me were intentionally, deliberately, and cruelly excluded from entering into this ministry. That changed at the diocesan convention in 2013 (you can find the stories of this if you research "Episcopal" under the 2013 entries. And here we are, almost nine years later, and I am blessing the bishop who was the Canon to the Ordinary at that important change in the diocese of Georgia. Meanwhile, in Florida, LGBTQ+ Episcopalians must still search for the crumbs falling from the table in Jacksonville, and if it's a call to ordained ministry they seek, well...they might as well study what happened to Hagar in Genesis 16. We can serve near the altar, but we are not allowed to get behind it.
As part of the weekend, I was given a break from preaching. My good friend from seminary, the Rev. Hailey Jacobsen, did a magnificent job of setting the stage for me and this flock I'm called to lead to pay attention to the Spirit as it has been laid upon us. What a joy to have had her serving with me at my first celebration of the Eucharist.
I'll have a sermon up for the 4th Sunday After Epiphany, and the remarks that I am making to the congregation of St. Barnabas at our Annual Meeting.
Peace be with you, my readers...whoever you are and wherever you may be. God is love.
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