The Rev. Linda Grenz, one of the first 100 women to be ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church, was present on July 29, 1974 when the Philadelphia 11 were ordained at Church of the Advocate in Philadelphia. She was present again, as a deacon and member of the Episcopal Women’s Caucus, on September 16, 1976 when General Convention approved the ordination of women to the priesthood. The founder of Leader Resources, she was the diocese’s canon to the ordinary from 2013 to 2019. She was interviewed by the Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg.
The Interview
Question: Let’s start back at the beginning, so to speak, 50 years ago. Where were you when you heard about the Philadelphia 11, and what was your reaction?
Answer: I was at Harvard Divinity School. I was a non-Episcopalian having wandered over to EDS [Episcopal Divinity School] and was beginning to get drawn in that direction. I had started at Harvard Divinity School originally looking for an academic degree, planning to teach sociology of religion; was not going to get ordained. My older brother was [an] ordained minister, damned if I was going to follow in his footsteps again. But I got drawn over to EDS, and I think it was like the night before or two days before the Philadelphia event happened, I got a call from a woman seminarian who had sort of taken me under wing and said, “Hey, this thing is happening where a bunch of us are driving down. You want to go along?” So I jumped into a car with five other women and we drove to Philadelphia and arrived just in time for the service. And if you look very carefully at the photos of the congregation, you will see me as you’re facing out from the altar on the right-hand side right next to the column. I had to sort of stand up to be able to see what was going on. For me, it was almost a curiosity. It was an amazing service. It was wonderful. But I wasn’t an Episcopalian, so I didn’t have that kind of investment that the other seminarians did, and I wasn’t at that point on the ordination track yet.
Question: So where had you been living at the time? I know you were at Harvard, but …
Answer: Yeah, I was living at the dorm in Harvard but, hanging out a lot at EDS.
Question: Did seeing that, you said you didn’t have the investment in it that the Episcopal seminarians did, but did it make any difference in your sense of call? A movement from an academic degree to … ?
Answer: I am sure it did. I mean, it was not conscious, but that was what, and that’s why Kathleen pulled me into this. I’m sure she saw that and assumed that she could begin to nurture me on the ordination path, which she did, and she was very supportive. This is [the Rev.] Kathy Piccard, who you probably know. [Piccard’s grandmother, Jeannette Ridlon Piccard, was one of the Philadelphia 11] And so, I’m sure it did have an impact, not a conscious one, but it certainly imprinted.
Question: And so, what year were you at Harvard? In ’74?
Answer: I was in my second year. I was finishing, or I guess I just finished my second year. So, I actually took the MTS [Master of Theological Studies] degree at that point instead of going for the PhD and transferred over to EDS to the MDiv [Master of Divinity] program.
Question: In 1974.
Answer: In the fall of ’74, I started at the MDiv program at EDS.
Question: And what were your intentions […] by then? Was there a sense of call [to] ordination?
Answer: Yes. And then I began to explore the call to ordination and went through a whole process. Very interesting. I got sent off to meet with Bishop [Suffragan Morris] Arnold. Bishop Arnold had a nice conversation with me and said, “Have you considered being a nun?” And so, I went off and I began to get involved in both Cowley Fathers [now the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Cambridge] and at St. Anne’s [an order of nuns founded by a Cowley Father]. And I spent some time at [the Society of] St. Margaret’s [an order of Anglican nuns with a convent in Boston] and explored that, and I went back to him after many months and said, “No, that’s not quite it.”
“Well, have you considered marriage as a vocation?”
I mean, it was sort of sending me out. He much later said, when he had finally ordained me — he ordained me both to the diaconate and to the priesthood — he finally said it was like the importunate widow [in the Gospel of Luke]. “She just kept coming back and I finally decided, ‘Okay, let’s just see where this goes.’” But he could not see me as a South Dakota farm girl fitting in with what he understood as the New England church, Episcopal Church. I was not a good fit from his mind. Oh, well.
Question: That’s funny. I mean, just as an aside, I came into the Episcopal Church in Montana, and I do think the church is different in the West, in the Midwest than it is back here. So, this was Bishop Arnold, diocese of?
Answer: Of Massachusetts […] I came through Massachusetts. Christ Church, Cambridge, ended up sponsoring me.
Question: Now we’ll go forward a few more years to September ’76, General Convention votes to okay the ordination of women to the priesthood and the episcopate. Of course, we were already allowed to be deacons.
Answer: And I was there as a deacon. I was there. I was one of about a dozen deacons, and I was involved with the Episcopal Women’s Caucus at that point. [The Rev.] Pat Merchant [who read the Gospel, as a newly-ordained deacon, at the ordination of the Philadelphia 11] was the president of the caucus […] And all of us sat on the bleachers [in the House of Deputies on Sept. 16, 1976] for the vote. This is interesting […] So, we all sat there and everybody stared at us. We were there in collars and everybody knew we were the deacons. And there were maybe, I’m going to say 12, 15 of us, not many of us at that point, and all the cameras. And so, we all decided to do needlework. And at the time of the vote, [House of Deputies President John] Coburn [who shortly thereafter became bishop of the Diocese of Massachusetts] was running the vote, and he was very good. He said, “Now we’re going to have five minutes of silent prayer, and then we’re going to take the vote. And no matter where it comes out, I want no reaction. After the vote, I want silence and we’re going to take a recess at that point.” And so, we sat there, and we all did needlework so that we could look down […] and that’s my needlework [shows it on the camera.] I found this the other day. And that needle is what I stuck in this at the moment the vote was done.
Question: No! That’s great.
Answer: And I still have that piece of needlework. I’ve always just kind of carried it around with me. It’s my one little memorabilia. And it went the way he said, we all dutifully got up and went out the doors, and then the doors closed. We went, “Yes!” It’s really sort of funny. But that was ’76. Your question about that was?
Question: My question about that was you were feeling, I assume, as if you wanted to continue in this process, but there was still this question about what was going to happen because, of course, three years previous when coincidentally General Convention met in Louisville, Kentucky where you will be next week [for the 81st General Convention], convention said no.
Answer: I know. Yep.
Question: So how did this change your ordination process, the vote in ’76?
Answer: Well, fortunately for me, it was right on track. I had another year of seminary I needed to do. And so, I was one year sort of behind my colleague group, or a couple of years. I actually did five years of seminary, but my last year I was a deacon and I was working in a parish and […] my senior project is about all I had left. So, yeah, so the question was only was I going to be a deacon for a while longer or was I going to be able to be ordained to the priesthood? So, I had some adventures around getting through from the deacon to the priesthood part.
Question: Well, tell us about that, please.
Answer: Bishop Coburn. He was the bishop in Massachusetts at that point […] I think he was still a priest when he was, yeah, he was a priest at the convention, but he was then consecrated the bishop right afterwards, shortly after [on October 2, 1976]. Anyway, so the time came for me in the process, and I went through the Commission on Ministry and Standing Committee and got all the appropriate approvals. So, I was working at a shelter workshop for [the] handicapped. I had a lot of passion for the marginalized people. And so I was working and got a congregation in, I guess it was South Boston, a poor congregation that could afford basically just expenses and a little stipend. But I went to him because you had to have a cure in order to get ordained to the priesthood. So, I went to him, and I explained that this church was ready to hire me, and he asked about the conditions and stuff, and he said, “No, that won’t do. You can’t really be a volunteer. You need to have a real job.”
Okay. So, I went out hunting, and then on the South Shore, one of the churches was looking for an assistant, a curate position, standard issue but they only had a halftime salary. So, the priest and I went in and spoke with the bishop and the priest made the pitch for why he should [approve the arrangement]. And Coburn said, “Nope, it’s got to be a full-time salary, can’t ordain her until it’s a full-time position cure.”
So, I went and talked to [Harvey] Guthrie, the dean of the [EDS] seminary. I said, “Here’s the deal. I found a priest who [is] willing to hire me, but he [doesn’t] have any money.” I said [….] “I have got this amount of money. I will give you that money if you will give it to [the Rev.] Fred [Emrich, rector of two combined parishes in Newtonville and Auburndale] and he will hire me with my money.” And Guthrie did it. And I went back now with Fred Emrich, and we went to the bishop and [Emrich said] “Yep, it’s a full-time position. We really need a deacon. I have two parishes. I need the assistance, yada, yada, yada.” At that point, Coburn gave up, let Arnold ordain me.
Question: Now, so Arnold ordained you, even though John Coburn was the bishop?
Answer: Yes. But Arnold was sort of in charge of all the seminarians and the deacons and stuff. That was kind of his shtick […] Finally, in retrospect, I realized that part of the problem that Coburn had with me was that his son was getting married to a woman priest, and my husband was going to be a priest. So, he was not comfortable with clergy couples. He was really upfront with us that he was not comfortable with clergy couples. He did not think that was going to work.
Question: Did he say why?
Answer: Well, [he thought] because you really have to be committed to your congregation and you need a supportive spouse in order to function effectively. And so, two of you being committed to [different] congregations or competing with each other in a single congregation doesn’t give either one of you the at-home support that you need in order to survive this ministry, which I thought was a very interesting approach to life. […] Now, as I say, he was really upfront with Lance and me, Lance and I. When we went in, he was real clear that he didn’t think there was going to be a job for us in the Diocese of Massachusetts. He didn’t think it was going to work.
Question: And so where did Lance wind up, or what was his first call?
Answer: Well, actually, he was a deacon, and I was priested ahead of him. He was a year behind me.
Question: That’s kind of interesting, isn’t it?
Answer: Yes, it is, and he was out of Ohio, and I always laugh, he was a Lutheran who came into the Episcopal Church, blonde hair, blue-eyed, looked just like you would expect. If you needed something for the Almy catalog to model clergy attire, Lance would’ve been the look, right? He had a one hour or less than an hour interview with the Commission on Ministry, a few minutes with the Standing Committee, a half an hour meeting with the bishop, and that’s it. He went right through the process. He was so different. So, no, we ended up in Delaware. The bishop in Delaware (William H. Clark) was supportive of the ordination of women. And what we did is we wrote to all the bishops who voted in favor of the ordination of women and said, “Here, we are. We are two of us. We’re willing to take just about anything, and we have lots of other entrepreneurial … we’ll find ways to make ends meet.”
So he had two positions open and we went and Lance interviewed at the big church as a full-time assistant, and that was the mother church to a little mission church nearby that had about a halftime position. And so I interviewed with the little church and he interviewed with the big church as a deacon, and I’m interviewed as a priest. And the little church was ecstatic. They would have their own priest instead of having to share one with somebody. Oh, no, I think it was a halftime and halftime because usually they had a share with the big church, so Lance would’ve been assigned to the big church halftime as a deacon. And then eventually, obviously priest and I would’ve been halftime at the little church as their sole priest. They were ready to roll. The big church said, “No, we won’t have the husband of one of ‘them.’”
Question: Oh no.
Answer: So, we went to the other church, which did hire us. But I got to tell you one other story about that. So, we got the other church job, and a year or two, I don’t remember if it was a year, whether it was the next Palm Sunday or the following one, but very early on there was a clergy day, just, I don’t know why we were doing a clergy day on the Saturday before Palm Sunday, or maybe it was the Friday before Palm Sunday. I think it was the Friday before Palm Sunday. It may have been something around Good Friday, but that doesn’t make sense because clergy would’ve been doing their own thing. May have been the renewal of vows, but why we were doing it on a Saturday makes no sense to me now. But anyway, it was a clergy gathering and we were having lunch after this.
It had to be the renewal of vows thing, and their priest [from the big church] was ill and had fallen and had broken his leg and needed surgery. I mean, it was a big deal. He was clearly not going to be functioning on Palm Sunday the next day. The wardens approached the bishop and said, “Are there any clergy here who can help us out?” […] And the bishop looked around the room and he said, “Well, Lance and Linda have two priests at a tiny church. One of them should be able to be free. You can ask them, but you may not specify which one of them will come.” So, the wardens approached us, and we looked at each other and said, “Oh, well, Linda’s just celebrating. Lance is the preacher. So yeah, Linda’s free. She could come and do your service for you.” It wasn’t until we were driving home that it dawned on me. That means I had to put a sermon together.
We were just being practical, we thought. But so, this church who would not hire the husband of one of “them” ended up with me on Palm Sunday as their celebrant and preacher, and I came down the aisle and one family, once they realized that I was it, stood up and walked out. A few people didn’t receive, but the rest of them, God bless their souls, took a deep breath and came up and got communion. And I remember one guy in particular who was the most adamant about not hiring the husband of one of “them” came up and his hands were literally shaking […] as he took communion from me. And then over the years, we became really good friends. He went to General [Theological] Seminary and he and another seminarian and I lived together and served a parish together. But they got over their anxiety about ordained women fairly abruptly.
Question: And did you find that happened elsewhere as you moved through your ordained ministry?
Answer: Yeah.
Question: Can you say anything about that?
Answer: I would tell the story about where I was a deacon and when I was getting ordained to the priesthood. So there were two churches. One was in Newtonville, and it was a very conservative, largely elderly women, not in favor of the ordination of women. And the other one was liberal … lots of families, young people, a lot of people who played in the orchestra, symphony orchestra and things like that. So, [the Newtonville church was] not happy about my coming as a deacon. But within months, and I mean a very few months, when my ordination was coming up, they flipped entirely because once they got to know somebody, it was very different. I was ordained in April because I did not want to get ordained in January, February [of 1977] where you got all the press, and you got all the picketing and all that.
Plus, I was the baby of the group. I mean, of the first 100 women, which are the Philadelphia [11] and Washington Five plus the first years’ worth of ordinands turned out to be exactly a hundred women. I was the youngest, so I was the baby of the group, and why would I take the limelight from women who had waited for 10, 15 years for this when I had waited a few months? I mean, like really. So, I was ordained at the end of April. By the time April rolled around, and people were challenging these same elderly women [but] they were like, “That’s our Linda and our Deacon Linda is getting priested, and we are going to do the reception, and we’re going to be part of that.” It was totally different because — and that was my experience over and over again — it is getting to know [a women priest]. Not so much in getting jobs. I’ll tell you a story about that, too.
Well, so, the [Episcopal] Women’s Caucus, [the Rev.] Pat Merchant was the president, and then [the Rev.] Carol Cole Flanagan became the president, and I was the vice president […] in the early eighties. And we as the caucus had set up sort of a whole network for women to find jobs because a lot of the people who were on diocesan staffs would not share job openings with women. I mean, that was how we were kept out. And so, we created a whole underground network where women […] once a priest left a church, they would let Pat know and then I took over from Pat in the early ’80s. So I was the transition officer for the Women’s Caucus, and women from all over the country would let me know where there were job openings, and if they were looking for a job, they would contact me. I had facilitated all of that for a number of years. […] In some dioceses […] all the churches were required to interview a woman. We did have the bishops who voted in favor of the ordination of women [who] usually required search committees to interview a woman. And so there were a group of us who would do those interviews, and we would take turns because there only so long you can do these interviews. I did 42 job interviews. I came in second 41 times, and almost every time they said no. They said, “We just aren’t ready for a woman yet.”
So, trying to get from that first position to the second position was the hardest transition for me. And I ended up taking a job at 815 [the Episcopal Church Center at 815 Second Avenue in New York]. Because of that, I went into sort of corporate church as opposed to being the rector of a parish because it was really hard to get a position. […] Lance and I shared a halftime position.
Question: Right. So you came into the Church Center. What year would that have been?
Answer: Shoot, damned if I remember, but in the early eighties … no, actually I can remember, it must’ve been ’84 or ’85, somewhere in that timeframe. Because I was in that first parish for six years and I left in ’83.
Question: So, what was your job title? What work did you do at the Church Center?
Answer: I came originally […] with Ann Smith in the Women’s Ministries Office for a year as a consultant to help them determine whether they would create that second position. It was a way to sort of create a position without creating a position. So, I did that for one year, and then I went as the associate director of the Overseas Development Office with my primary responsibility for our relationships with Africa. So, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Ghana, and Sierra Leone were the churches we were working with in Africa. And then we also did South America and the Philippines.
Question: And remind me, how long were you employed at the Church Center?
Answer: Gosh, I did that for about three years. And then we did the first downsizing. Do you remember when the first downsizing was?
Question: No, I don’t [but] can I go back for just a second? So, you’re working as the overseas development officer. What kind of reaction did you get from folks in those countries to a female priest?
Answer: Yeah, that was very interesting because basically I was told not to wear a collar. So, I went basically incognito. People were curious. I think that’s really the word I would call it is “curious.” I did have one marvelous experience in Zimbabwe. There was a bishop and a priest who were really supportive and advocating for the ordination of women. And so, the priest set up for me to do a Eucharist, to preach and concelebrate with him, concelebrate, because of course, it wouldn’t have been legit for me to celebrate because the [presiding bishop, Edmund Browning] was very clear, I could not function as a priest in Africa, but [the Zimbabwean bishop] had a little mission. And so one morning we bundled up and we drove and we drove, and then we got off the road, the gravel road, and we got onto the dirt road. And then we got onto the savannah, and we drove, and we parked next to this tree in the middle of nowhere. You could look out and there was just nothing. And so we took out the loudspeakers and the table, and we start setting up. And I looked up and on the horizon you could begin to see heads popping and people gathered from all around, and it was a couple of hundred people. I mean, it was a huge gathering. And they all gathered around this tree, and God, thank you, Lord, it was the lesson about the wheat and falling on whatever, on the path and on the rock and so on. And I’m a farm girl, so I’m preaching, being translated sentence by sentence, but I’m able to preach as a farmer. And they got it. And they were so amazed, first that an American would understand them and understand some of their life and what salt-of-the-earth life is like. And they were all fine. […] The priest and I both passed out communion, they all lined up. It was not a big deal. It was still one of my most memorable times of serving as a priest, standing under that tree and looking out and seeing all those people just arrive, bringing their offerings of melons and gourds and piling it in front of the altar.
Question: Fascinating. That’s amazing. What a great story. […]
Answer: Yeah […] and they eliminated the Overseas Development Office entirely. It was Bishop Browning. I do remember that because I went to see him. They did the corporate number. I was not happy with them. I said, “Look, most of us are really loyal to the Episcopal Church. A lot of us are clergy. You do not need to give us a notice and then tell us we have two hours to pack our personal belongings and walk us out of the Church Center.” And they did that on a Tuesday and on the following Monday, the guy who was the head of the World Mission unit called me and said, “Linda, can you come back in because we have no idea how to close down the Overseas Development Office. We don’t know what’s going on. You know everything that needs to happen, and we’ll hire you as a consultant.” And I said, “I’ve got a severance pay.” He said, “I don’t care. I’m happy to have you have double pay. Come in and help me.” So, the next week I came in and I archived everything and closed down all of the records and stuff.
Question: How did your ministry take shape after that? I mean, where did you wind up going?
Answer: I was out of work for a while, and they provided all of these sort of services, and I did them. And the people who were doing the [out-placement] service wanted to hire me, actually. But actually, the adult education position was open. And Bishop Browning asked me if I would come back and take the adult ed position. […] Then we started going through the next couple of rounds of downsizing. Then they added lay ministry, and then they added leadership development, and then they eliminated that position. […]
At that point, I had a whole cadre of consultants who were doing those various kinds of trainings and things around the country. We had published the “In Dialogue with Scripture” book. That was fun. I don’t know if you remember that one. I decided to do a book on Bible study because when I walked into the adult ed office, there was a cardboard box in the middle of the room and a phone sitting next to it. No furniture. That was it. That’s what I had to work with. And in that box though, were a bunch of conferences that John Vogelsang, my predecessor, had done with a bunch of seminary professors around Bible study. And I thought, “Oh heck, what’s the one thing conservatives will not hate out of 815? Let’s do a book on Bible study.” And of course, it was a very subversive book, but most of them didn’t know that because it was a book that gave people many different ways to do Bible study. And it did not imply that Father knows best. It implied that you could explore this scripture from several different perspectives. And I remember getting interviewed at General Convention one year by one of the really conservative group’s guys […] He was the reporter for a conservative group. I’ve forgotten his name now. And he looked at me at some point and he said that “I keep telling people that book is the most subversive book out there because all of our congregations are loading up on it and doing all of these things, and they don’t understand that it’s going to change their theology.” I just smiled. Anyway, so I took all those consultants and all of that work out and started Leader Resources.
Question: And this would’ve been, do you remember the date?
Answer: 1990 something […] I think ’94. Let me see. Yeah, we got married in ’92 [to her husband Del Glover], and I was still at 815 at that point. And I think we went to Canada in ’93. And I had just started, so I guess it was early nineties [when] I started Leader Resources.
Question: Wow. Now say a little bit about Leader Resources for the folks who are listening.
Answer: I understood that computers were going to change everything about how we did everything. And I assumed eventually that things would be downloadable on the internet. And so, I built the business with the vision that we would create, collaboratively, education resources and that we would draw from the best of around the church, but we would use a process of continuous improvement, which meant if you took one of our resources, education programs, and you created other lesson plans or you created improvements, we would incorporate those. So, we would be working together as educators and clergy across the church to continually improve on the education resources that we developed. So, I started with that. So, initially we had photocopiable masters, and then we went to those big discs, and then we went to the little discs, and then we went to CD ROMs. And then we went to downloadable. […] Journey to Adulthood, […] was the youth ministry program that took off like crazy and was really the driving force […] that really ran everything. And they brought it from St. Philip’s Church in Durham. They brought it to me. It was the notebooks that the instructors, that their youth leaders, used and some random files. I mean, it was really not a publishable program. And they had tried to get a couple of other places to publish them, and I could see why they wouldn’t publish them because it was really not a finished program at all. And we finished it up and put together a cadre […] of 19 people across the United States trained to do the workshops and train youth leaders in using that program. And that’s where I spent most of my life, frankly, is running Leader Resources, which, at one point, we had roughly a third of all youth groups were using J2A in the Episcopal church.
The thing that’s funny is now I go to visit churches, and even though the J2A program is still operative, but it’s not the way it was, but I walk downstairs and […] they had the rooms labeled J2A and YAC [Young Adults in the Church] group and the Rite 13 room. And I’m like, you’re not using the J2A curriculum, but you’ve labeled your youth ministry rooms by those names. And a lot of people now, where we used to talk about EYC [Episcopal Youth Community], Episcopal Youth, Young Churchmen it used to be then, but now [when] people talk about youth ministry, they just say J2A.
Question: So, during that time, you’re running Leader Resources, and I just want to chronologically want to deal with something. When you were trying to pinpoint the start of that, you talked about, you said, ‘we got married in ’92.’
Answer: That’s Del and I […] My first husband and I got divorced when we were in Delaware.
Question: Again, just clearing that up for our listeners.
Answer: Right. My first husband went off into computer land.
Question: Okay. So, during this time when you’re running Leader Resources, are you operating liturgically anywhere? Are you doing Sunday supply? Are you affiliated with a church?
Answer: Yeah, it depends on where we lived. I mean, we were in Toronto for a while, and I was basically a non-stipe[ndiary] associate at most places that I was. So, I was [at] Grace Church on the Hill. And then we moved back to Wilmington, Delaware, for a while. I didn’t actually do much there. We weren’t there very long. And then we moved to North Hampton, Massachusetts, and I was affiliated first with St. John’s, North Hampton, and then later St. John’s, Ashfield. I always had a home-based church where I would function occasionally. I was an interim priest down here in Silver Spring [in Maryland]. That’s part of what drew us back to the Washington area at one point for a year or two. Getting back into parish ministry after having been out for so long […] some churches would say, “Well, she hasn’t done parish ministry in 20 years. What does she know about parish ministry?” And then others who would say, “Well, she worked for the presiding bishop and ran this company. Why would she want to step down to just being a parish priest?” So, it was like, can’t win for losing here.
Question: And when was that and what prompted you to do that?
Answer: Well, that was when I got tired of Leader Resources. There was a point when I really, you know, I didn’t get ordained to run this, but once J2A took off, I couldn’t abandon it because […] so many churches were really dependent on it, and I was sort of a linchpin at holding the thing together. But over time, that got frustrating, and I really wanted to get back into parish ministry, and Del was getting to the age where he was going to retire. So, that was kind of the deal was — he’s 11 years older than me — and so the deal was, well, when he gets closer to retirement, then my vocation will take a lead and his will step back. So that’s what led me to start looking for a position. But it was challenging. Until Bishop [Nicholas] Knisely called me.
You know the story about Bishop Knisely? It was way back in Delaware, that parish that I did the Palm Sunday. He was a graduate student in that parish. And I was the first priest that he talked with about his vocation to priesthood. He invited me to lunch one day with him and his wife and had that conversation with me. And so, over the years, we checked in with each other periodically, and at one point he was out taking, I guess, his daughter was at high school and was starting to look at colleges and he was out East. So I met them at a restaurant and we were chatting. That was the point where I said, “So, if Rhode Island ever comes open, you should apply to Rhode Island. That would be a good diocese for you because of various reasons.” And I gave the reasons I thought that would be good. And then we went our merry way for a couple of years. And then I got a call from him saying, “Okay, I’m a finalist. They’ve just told me I’m a finalist in Rhode Island. If I get elected, I want you to be my canon to the ordinary.” And I ironically, one of my interns from General [Theological] Seminary who [had] worked in the Overseas Development Office with me, called me about a week later and said, “I’m a candidate in Connecticut and if I get elected, I want you to be my canon to the ordinary.” The elections were on the same weekend.
Question: Was that Ian [Douglas]?
Answer: No, it was not. It was somebody who did not get elected.
Question: And so, you worked as Bishop Knisely’s canon until …
Answer: Until ’19, 2019. And loved it. And that really was my vocation. I realized [it] after I got there. I was asked to stand for election a couple of times as bishop once in Maryland early on when they just needed somebody to, again, be on the slate. And Carol Cole Flanagan was on the search committee and she was honest with me. She said, “They’ll never elect, but we need to have a woman and there aren’t very many women out there.” So, I was in the process … I was eliminated just before they went to the finalist list, which was fine by me. And that was when we were up in Toronto even. They came up to Toronto to interview me. And Maine asked me to be on there, and I was a finalist in Maine. And when we left Maine, I said to Del, “No, this is not my vocation.” The bishop is too much of a politician. I mean, you had to be really good at schmoozing. And that’s not my skill. My passion is, I like to fix things. And the canon to the ordinary is the fixer. You’re the person who’s got to handle all the stuff. And that’s what I love. And as soon as I got into that job, I realized this is really my vocation. So, I was really grateful to have that opportunity to serve in Rhode Island in that ministry.
Question: That’s great. Second-to-the last question. When you think back on these past 50 years since that hot afternoon in July when you were at Church of the Advocate in Philadelphia to now, and as you look ahead to where the church may be going, what are the lessons you think the church should carry forward from these 50 years?
Answer: You need to adapt. That is probably the most important thing. Stop trying to hold on and assuming that whatever it is you’ve done in the past is what must be done in the future because that’s not going to fit. I don’t care where you are. And that’s what is creating problems for us now, people who want church to just stay the way it was in 1950 or go back to the way it was in 1950 and hold on to some tiny remnant of that. And I’m like, “No, what we need to do is adapt.” We have got to figure out how to do church today, and it’s not going to look like how it was when we grew up. And I think that’s part of what we as women did, is we broke the mold.
Question: Exactly. What haven’t I asked you that when you thought about you and I having this conversation, you wanted to be sure to say or what came up during our conversation that you want to put a pin in to end this interview?
Answer: Well, I just looked at my notes. I did make myself some notes. […] Women today, in particular clergy women today, are just so fortunate. I walk into a room at a clergy day and I think, “Wow, over half the people in this room are female.” And they went through the process and it sucked because it always does, because we’re terrible at that process. That process is the worst one around. But it was a lot harder in the early days. It was a tough row and weird things [happened]. I was so fortunate to land in that little parish in Delaware. I’m forever grateful to those people. They were a great parish and they taught me how to be a priest. They were kind and supportive and they had odd questions. I mean, “So do they let you cut your hair?” I had hair almost down to my waist, and I cut it up to my shoulder, touching my shoulders, and they were amazed that they let me cut my hair. And then they let me wear earrings. My little round gold posts. And the junior warden would come to me and say, “Oh Lord, I’ve got somebody else who’s complaining about your skirt length.” Because some of them thought my skirts were too short, and some thought they were too long. They hit the middle of my knee. How much shorter or longer should I do? I mean, that’s about as discreet as possible. But it was a tough time.
I’ve been told no by the church more times than I’ve been told yes […] and I survived. And I think that’s the other lesson about this is that if God calls you and you walk in faith, it’ll be fine. It’ll work out. You’ll get there. You do have to be adaptable though, I mean, if I had fixated on “I just have to be a rector,” I would not have done as well.
Question: I think that’s a good place to end.
