Becoming
A love letter to new clergy and to all of us in the midst of Big Personal Change.
My friends, sometimes you have to make it ‘til you make it.
What I mean is we create our new selves by practicing them. This isn’t the same as faking it til you make it, although it can feel like that the first fifty or so times you get up to preach. The first month of my ministry internship, I secretly tucked plastic grocery bags in the pulpit. In case I barfed. In front of everyone. Every time I put on my vestments, a voice in the back of my mind suggested (again) this might just be an elaborate game of dress up. Would I ever stop feeling imposter syndrome?
Embracing a new identity takes a lot of guts. Doing so in public? That’s a whole other level.
This is the time of year when new ministries, new internships, and new seminarians have just begun. It’s also close to National Coming Out Day. That reminds me of a sermon an intern minister, Matt, preached a few years ago at First Unitarian in Albuquerque that resonated deeply with me.
In his sermon, Matt spoke of the many things a person might take into consideration when deciding when, whether, and to whom they would come out. He described why, even in this day and age, even in progressive spaces, a person might not come out for a long time, if at all. It was a side of the issue we had never discussed in the pulpit before. I wouldn’t have known how to. Because what Matt didn’t know was that I, his supervisor who had served there for more than a decade, had been wondering how the hell to come out after all that time.
I entered into a heterosexual marriage when I was nineteen years old and a new mother— before I’d had a chance to leave my rural Oregon hometown and learn more about who I was or what else love could feel like. The marriage was never an easy fit, but we worked hard and made a nice family together. So nice that we raised two kids (and ourselves) over the next two decades.
Our family life was great, but I was plagued by a deep sense of loneliness and invisibility. It took me long time to figure out why. In my early thirties, I came out to close friends, but I felt ambivalent about doing so publicly. My spouse was uncomfortable with the idea. And I wondered, what does it matter? If I came out, wouldn’t I just be centering the voice someone who was passing as straight and benefiting accordingly? When I imagined coming out, I felt like an imposter. When I imagined not coming out, I felt like a liar. The longer I waited, the harder it got.
But a couple of months before Matt’s Coming Out Day sermon, my marriage ended. People knew about my divorce. Now I was on lesbian matchmaking sites and going out on dates with women. It was time. Matt’s sermon opened a door for me. I came out in a sermon the following month.
Hilariously, the lesbians of the congregation welcomed this news with cheers, cards, bouquets, gift baskets, and inside jokes. Other people also expressed support. It was really touching. But it wasn’t all good news. Two people left the church due to “the new gay agenda” and the minister “making the church about herself” (something no one had ever said when I referenced my more conventional life). To my surprise, I lost friends I hadn’t come out to earlier, while others distanced themselves due to the divorce. I caught wind of some mean spirited rumors going around. Enough people asked, “Is this a queer church now?” that I eventually preached a sermon by that title. (Yes, it is and it has been for decades. Enough with the microaggressions.)
To paraphrase my daughter, who was a hospital nurse during the early months of COVID:
People were being peopley.
Meanwhile, a divorce and coming out are intensely vulnerable experiences for anyone. In this midlife transformation, I was filled with a wild mix of grief, terror, liberation, and joy. I felt like a caterpillar that had turned into goo without its cocoon. I wanted that cocoon more than anything. I longed to step away from the public eye.
I have thought many times over the years of the words of my mentor, the Rev. Gary Smith. (Gary was my internship supervisor. I don’t think he knew about the plastic bags.) At my ordination, Gary said something to the effect of, “As a minister, Angela will face the same big questions as everyone else, but she will be doing it in public.”
When we enter into religious leadership, we do it fully human. We try on that mantle of ministry, step into new roles, grow as individuals, fall in and out of love, navigate changes in ability and in seasons of life, alter our appearance, face health challenges, and launch new chapters to varying degrees in public. As we change, we often go through a period of “making it until we make it.” Of practicing the thing we are becoming. Unless you are a vault of secrecy unknown to the people you serve, leading while human takes a daring combination of strength and vulnerability.
Roshi Joan Halifax speaks of meeting the world with a “strong back and soft front,” with the soft front representing compassion. In leadership, I think of the soft front also as vulnerability. I don’t mean vulnerability without boundaries. Boundaries are essential in all healthy relationships. I mean the kind of vulnerability that comes from allowing ourselves to be seen… and being authentic in that.
A strong back comes from clarity of our personal calling, from knowing who or what we really serve. It comes from understanding where we end and others begin—that other people’s reactions are primarily about them, not us. (In therapy, that’s self-differentiation.) A strong back comes from trusting that leading with authenticity and love creates communities of authenticity and love. It is the antidote to the dehumanization and individualism that hurts our souls in this world.
A strong back also comes from self care. We become weakened when we refuse to refill or rest, and we become overwhelmed and exhausted. And we who lead—who hold space for others and shoulder whole services and are guardians of cherished institutions— we need to be held, too. We need people in our lives who know us apart from our roles. Being a clergy person is a big role. We need to be able to feel “small” sometimes, too.
To any clergy out there who are starting something new, to any of you who are going through some kind of big personal change while leading, and to new seminarians trying on this vocation for the first time:
May the high aspirations and deep calling that led you into this work give you courage.
May your integrity and authenticity open the doors to healing and wholeness for others.
May self-love and self-compassion guide you in tending all the parts of yourself and listening to your innermost needs.
May you be whole.
And as you enter this next phase of your becoming, may you continue to live with a soft front and a hard back.
Thank you, exactly the reminder I needed 🙏🏽💕