Galship: A rant.

This is a very tender topic for me.  I started out in ministry before women were thought to be of much value  in my family or the Church.  Consequently I didn't value my womanhood for a long time.  It was only when I entered the convent that I began to realize the real talent and intelligence that I found there.  It was there I experienced a wide ranging experience of women who lived out that wonderful Kinsey spectrum of female sexuality as celibates.  But most of all I found women who could think, not just follow the social convention of the day.  They had opinions, and wrestled with what it meant to be women in orders but who thought differently than the local hierarchy. They

were women of prayer and transformation.  We were all struggling to be what we understood God called of us.  But I did not know 'support' as we know it now. No hugs and tears comforted or pats on the back. It was prayer that was to be our support.  There were sisters who lived their lives of prayer so that it supported you.  But there were no long talks and warm fuzzy sessions with wine that so often characterize today's support.  'Galship' or 'sisterhood (as we called it) was just a compassionate smile in silence as we left chapel.  I knew I was in the prayers of my sisters and they were in mine.  An hour of meditation in the chapel at 4 am with the whole community allowed one to center ones prayer on those I lived with.

When I left the convent because it was not my vocation, I began to meet with a group of women who were lobbying their judicatories for the ordination of women in many different denominations. (1975)  It was the

height of the Feminist movement and was full of strident women.  I was strident alongside of them and  I found myself falling farther and farther away from my Roman Catholic faith.  I was looking for 'sisterhood'
but it wasn't in that group either.

 I did meet J in that group and found in her the kind of sisterhood that I imagined the convent was trying to imitate.  It was a companionship and love that centered in our ministries rather than on a 'coupled' life or making a family.  We have lived together for almost 40 years growing to know what it to live through hardship, fear, misunderstanding simply because neither the Church or 'sisterhood' could really open their eyes to what it means to live holy lives without the support of either marriage or partnership.

Early in women's ordination movement there was a figment of 'sisterhood' because we were all working for the same thing.  We had many different ways of addressing the common goal.  But it was not long before the women embraced the same hierarchical thinking as the men.  It was this characteristic that I hoped women would be able to show a different way of living in the Church with Women's Ordination.  I had hoped to find the kind of sisterhood that I had known in the convent, but the ordained ministry is just as cutthroat as finance, banking, academics or any other secular job.  I believe that the Christian message says something about the commonness of our lives--the same level of our lives where ideas and hearts were supported, personalities were respected, and even dumb ideas shared and enjoyed.

I must admit that I do not trust 'galship' much.  I have met many in revgals that I have come to know and cherish just as I do members of parishes and those who do not even believe in God.  I have been iced by women colleagues just as surly as I have been men.  Maybe I am a horrible person but I really think I am just 'odd.'  I am different, not fitting into anyone's pigeonhole .  I don't mind being in that spot.  It is how I have been called to live my life--but is not one where there is a lot of support and friendship.  I speak my mind.  I resent being excluded.  I work hard to make sure that people are accepted as they are.  I am also very short on those who 'pee on my leg and tell me it's raining.'  I have a hard time accepting insincerity from colleagues.  I can tolerate a bit more from parishioners--but not from those who have sworn to live the Truth of Christ.

I find younger women incredible dense when it comes to us older ones. They want everything the way they invision it without having had to pay their dues by working for it.  They do not realize they will be where we are in the future and they are scared pissless of it.  The thought of being stoggy doesn't even cross their minds.  They too will become what we are--what I am becoming simply because we are being excluded from the ministry, society and shuffled off into age 'appropriate' residents rather than accepting and listening to us.

So much for "Galship".  It may work for some but do not count on it.  The time will come when all will be just those who are smiled at, called 'Sweetie' and ignored.  

If we were about real sisterhood, we would be trying to organize what is particular to women's gifts for the ministry and highlighting those particular gifts even if the 'boys' don't like it.  If we were about real sisterhood we could sit quietly in prayer with one another and not play one upmanship simply because we cannot abide someone else getting ahead or the silence of real togetherness.  If we were about real sisterhood we could tolerate the wide ranging differences among us rather than dwelling on the samenesses that make us look like the male-imaged priesthood/pastorhood that we seem to emulate.

Ok, now that I have shot off my mouth, I would invite you to agree or disagree.  You are welcome always.