Sometimes I forget, that being ordained as an interfaith minister is a radical and subversive act. It’s radical because I am saying that I have reverence for all faith paths. That there are things to learn from all faith paths. That they are offering an opportunity to connect to the divine. And perhaps more radical still… I’m saying that there is a mystical golden thread that can be found in all faith paths. That in many different ways every faith path affirms that everything is interconnected. That we are all connected and that we too are divine.
It’s subversive.. because I’m a woman. At an institutional level a lot of faith paths are still deeply patriarchal and push the idea that only men can be ordained, serve as ministers, and have a direct line to the divine. Long ago when I was 18 and about to leave home for university I was stopped by my local priest at the end of mass. He asked me what I was going to read. I told him I was going to read Religious Studies. He asked me why I was going to do that. And without really thinking or understanding, I blurted out – ‘because I want to be a priest’. His face turned a very dark shade of red. His eyes bulged in disbelief. He couldn’t find the words for his rage but it was obvious that if he could, he would have kicked me out of the church for being so brazen. Forward to this year, the subversive nature of my undertaking was rammed home to me when a good friend of mine went to her local church to ask for a mass to be said for an ordination. The lady in the church was delighted by this but had to ask my friend to repeat my name several times before the penny dropped. It wasn’t a man being ordained. It was a woman. In the end, something in her received this information fully. This isn’t a calling that only men hear. Maybe there is ministry even in this small exchange that was catalyzed by me being ordained. That the mind of one of my sisters was opened to the possibility that women TOO can do this. That we ALL have a direct line to the divine.