Lyn G. Brakeman, God is Not a Boy’s Name: Becoming Woman, Becoming Priest (Eugene OR: Cascade Books, 2016).
In a previous life, I wrote book reviews as part of my job. It’s been 16 years since I did one outside of a seminary assignment. So why am I writing this? Why am I introducing a new element into this blog? Simple: Lyn asked me, and I wanted to read her book. I’m glad I did.
Lyn’s memoir takes us through her journey from little girl playing communion under the dining room table to her hard-won ordination as an Episcopal priest, and beyond to her experiences in an around the Church. Her story is both distressing and inspiring, and not only because of what she goes through. While she experienced God’s presence as a young girl, that intimate bond was violated by a man who looked like the God of the picture books, a man who violated her. She makes personally clear the cost of identifying God too closely with a particular gender or race or role: when the people who serve as the model for that picture fail us, we often lose God along with them. Can anybody say, “Amen?”
Lyn is searingly honest about herself and what she experienced. Born to an alcoholic father, married to and divorced from an alcoholic husband, filled with confusion about her own use of alcohol, she takes us through all the places “respectable” women aren’t supposed to go. As she does she paints a picture of the first generation of feminist women in the Episcopal Church.
Feeling called to the priesthood in the early 1970s, she applies to enter the ordination process as soon as women are canonically allowed to be ordained. But “canonically allowed” and actually included are two very different things. She faces rejection after rejection by the relevant committees and bishops. She wants to give up, but the Spirit keeps pushing her along, mostly through other people. Finally, in 1988 (I think), she is ordained, only to find that the road continues to be rocky for those whose priestly call doesn’t fit within parish boxes. Can I get an “Amen?”
The most distressing thing in this story is how common it was, and is. This week I talked to a new female priest, a fully competent and flourishing human being, who found herself challenged by a committee that was, I suspect, threatened by her considerable gifts. The pattern of misunderstanding and bias is stubbornly resistant to change. The Episcopal Church’s Committee on the Status of Women, on which I served, labored hard to change this and provide resources for congregations and dioceses to educate themselves, as well as resources for women seeking ordination and call. (Let’s just note that this committee has now been defunded. No comment.) And now, forty years in, there is the added challenge of complacency. We aren't done, people!
But with dismay, there is inspiration. Lyn’s persistence, and the support of the people around her, has enabled her to serve others in many ways. All the people who keep pushing, not only for advancement within the institutional Church but also for the Church beyond the institution, bear witness to the Spirit working among us. Lyn’’s journey to personal wholeness reminds us, as her ordination bulletin stated, that “the glory of God is the human being fully alive.” (What would Irenaeus think if he knew who used his words, and to what ends?) The Spirit is stronger, more persistent, than any wall. Lyn’s life is testimony to the divine/human urge to renew creation. The light does indeed shine in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.
If you’re looking to get a glimpse of hard reality and enduring hope, order this book! Lyn gave me the Amazon link, but I try to stay away from them: I’m sure you can find it for yourself. And please, pray for stories such as hers (and mine) to become part of history.
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