priest

An Uncommon Priesthood

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / 3 Comments

Uncommon: not ordinarily encountered: unusual; remarkable, exceptional

Priest: someone who is authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion especially as a mediatory agent between humans and God

Priesthood: the office, dignity, or character of a priest

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

On the first day of the Christology course that was part of my ministry training, our (female) professor asked those of us who felt called to ordination to raise our hands. The men in our class, as was to be expected, raised their hands as they were on the track to becoming deacons. My friend, Karen, and I also raised our hands. That got us a giggle because women, of course, are not allowed to be ordained, either as a deacon or a priest, in the Catholic Church.

I was a preacher
My heart broke for all the world
But teaching was unrighteous for a girl
In the summer I was baptized in the mighty Colorado
In the winter I heard the hounds and I knew I had been found
And in my Savior’s name, I laid my weapons down
But I am still around… (Highwomen, lyrics by Amanda Rose Shires / Brandi Carlile / Jimmy L. Webb)

That was thirty years ago, and yet still today, women are barred from priesthood in the Catholic Church. That prohibition, however, has not lessened my call to be priest. In the years since, I have discerned priesthood through two denominations outside of the Catholic Church, but in both instances, the prevalence of clericalism in those institutions dissuaded me from completing that path.

Clericalism:  a policy of maintaining or increasing the power of a religious hierarchy (to Merriam-Webster’s definition, I would add: lauding, flaunting, defending, and enforcing that power and in some cases, using it to justify non-loving acts)

To me, priesthood has never been about power. It has always been about service. Neither has it been about hierarchy. Instead, it is a collaboration of gifts in support of individual and collective need. This is the priesthood I see in Jesus and what he drew forth from those who gathered around him. Jesus was not a leader who wanted followers. Instead, he was a catalyst who empowered people in their gifts. By humbly serving those most in need, Jesus’ example challenged the religious and political institutions of his time. These institutions valued their power and privilege over the people they were meant to serve.

Sadly, Jesus’ example did not stand as the early disciples (Peter and Paul in particular) traded the collaborative empowerment that Jesus’ taught them for patriarchal and hierarchical power. This model still stands today in nearly all Christian institutions. This is why I did not, cannot, and refuse, to fit into any institution that values power over service.

Instead, it seems, I have carved out a priesthood all my own. One that has been ordained, not by a bishop’s anointing and laying on of hands, but by careful attention to the call of Love, and living out that Love in all the many ways I have been called. Sometimes this call looks priestly in the marriages and funerals I officiate. Sometimes this call looks formative as I create and facilitate classes and write books in support of participants’ personal/spiritual development. Sometimes it looks pastoral in the one-on-one spiritual counseling I provide. Sometimes the service I provide supports people in their healing, in finding direction, and in experiencing comfort.

Most commonly, however, my priesthood is confirmed in unexpected and surprising ways. It is known in the 6am phone call from a distant friend seeking support for a family member in crisis. It is known in the generous financial donations I sometimes find in my mailbox. It is known in the confidences people have shared with me during challenging times. It is in the many acquaintances who suddenly seek my support and my own wondering of why they chose me. Why would they trust me with this, I barely know them? And yet, time and time and time again, this is so. People who I know – but not really. Amazing, lovely people who I have come to know and love along the way – but we don’t really hang out. People who I know from simply being me in the small community where I live. People, in whom I’ve likely seen something (love, kindness, generosity, honesty, integrity, authenticity) who are somehow seeing me, and trusting me with the most intimate and challenging times of their lives.

This is the priesthood for which I am most grateful.  A priesthood that is unexpected and surprising and looks absolutely nothing like what we have come to associate with being priest. And yet, it is exactly what the Catholic Church preaches in its invitation to participate in the priesthood of all believers (Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraphs: 1267, 1268, 1141, 1143, 1268, 1305, 1535, 1547, 1591, and 1592). Whereas the institutional church does not recognize my priestly calling, I am profoundly humbled and grateful to all those who have invited me to serve in this role.

Poet Prophet Priest

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

Over twenty-five years of doing the work I do in the world, and I still don’t know how to explain to people what I do!  Recently I landed upon three words that at least approach the idea of how I function and how that leads to the work I do and the gifts I share in the world.

Poet: Patti Smith once said: “To be an artist is to see what others cannot.” This is how it is with me. I see the world and all of life’s experiences through a depth beyond normal sight. I look beyond appearances to the mystery wherein lies the signs and symbols revealing meaning. I see through my eyes, but more directly, through my feelings. I feel what I see and what is beyond what I see. Herein I seek the beauty beyond the tragedy and the death that lies beyond the veil of perceived beauty. All that glitters is not gold. THEN, I am compelled/forced to put what I see and feel into words. Whether poetry or prose, all that I write is poetic.

Poetic: having an imaginative or sensitively emotional style of expression.

(Oxford English Dictionary)

Prophet: Albert Nolan defines a prophet as “one who is able to see the signs of the times.” More specifically, Nolan says:

Prophets are people who speak out when others remain silent. They are watchful of the areas in need of reform in their own society, their own country, or their own religious institutions. True prophets are men and women who stand up and speak (or act) out about the practices of their own people and their own leaders – while others remain silent. True prophets are not part of the authority structure. Prophets are never appointed, ordained or anointed by the religious establishment. They experience a special calling that comes directly from God, and their message comes from their own personal experience of God.

(Jesus Today – a Spirituality of Radical Freedom (Orbis Books, 2008, pp. 63-67)

Guilty!  If you have observed my work, my writing, my sharing, my community and global participation, you will agree. I speak what I see. I call out systems of injustice. I hold the world to the same standards I hold myself. AND I see where things are going and where we will end up if we continue along the current path.

Being a prophet is not like being a fortune teller.  Instead, it is made up of the practices of deep observation, a knowledge and understanding of human behavior, and applying my own skills of reason and logic. Prophecy isn’t miraculous. Seeing prophetically is a skill accessible to anyone with eyes to see and the logic to comprehend what we are seeing. Being a prophet isn’t really any different than understanding that 1+1=2.  The only difference is that being a prophet, we are compelled to speak what we see.

Priest: Calling myself priest is a tricky one, as the word and vocation itself has been corrupted beyond recognition and for centuries used to inflict all kinds of evils upon our world. In the pre-patriarchal traditions, a priest was a woman or man of the clan who were recognized as possessing certain gifts – gifts of healing, counsel, and teaching. The priest’s gifts came through a deep sensitivity to mystery and an ability to see, hear, and feel beyond the tangible world. The priest communed with the beyond and as such, was able to guide people during the transitory times of life – specifically: birth, growth, loss, and death. The priest was recognized as a leader and of great value to the clan, while being just one in the intimate workings of the community. The priest wasn’t above any other member of the tribe, but stood in circle with all the other gifts required to ensure the tribe’s survival and thrival.

If I claim to be priest, it is more in line with this pre-patriarchal imagining of priesthood and not at all like what we have come to know through institutional religion. Bottom line:  I am here to serve humanity through the gifts that I have and the calling I’ve been given. It’s no wonder I’m the person people turn to when the shit hits the fan, the bottom falls out, and all other efforts have been exhausted. I jokingly say that I might be the Pastor of Oshkosh, but this is not far from the truth as many of my local community will attest.

Poet. Prophet Priest. Yeah.  I can live with that and it’s the best I can do in a world where the work I do still defies definition!

Poet

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The End of the Guru Age

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / 1 Comment

For the past 5000-10000 years (since the advent of hierarchy), we have been conditioned to believe that there is some outside force who:

  1. Is the source of Truth (universal Truth and our own truth).
  2. Is the cause and source of salvation.

Every tradition has its own names for these outside perceived authorities: guru, priest, savior, psychic, etc. For all these years, people have sought after these outside perceived authorities for guidance and direction in their lives, hoping for them to tell them what to do and how to live their lives. During this time, people have also sought after those who others have told them will save them (from whatever it is they need saving). For thousands of years, people have given their money, their soul, their devotion, and their worship to these outside perceived saviors when all along they have within them the vehicle and knowledge for their own salvation.

There is no one outside of us who can save us! Period!

Jesus knew this. The Buddha knew this. Indigenous teachers knew this. And yet humanity has taken and twisted their messages in such a way as to further condition society’s addiction to outside saviors.

Jesus did not come to save us in the way we’ve been taught! He was not some divine sacrifice for humanity’s “sins.” (In the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, Jesus is quoted as saying, “There is no sin.”)  Jesus never said that we had to proclaim him our personal Lord and Savior in order to be saved. These are the hierarchy’s words used to enforce humanity’s obedience to the religion they created in Jesus’ name.

Instead, Jesus taught his companions how to access and take root in the salvation that was already present within them. He showed them how to unhinge from the hierarchical conditioning under which they had been enslaved. He supported them in finding the source of their own inner truth and to understand that this source (which Jesus called Love) is God within them.

It was for this that Jesus was killed. He spoke Truth to power, questioning the status quo, and challenging the culture of codependency that had been fostered by the self-appointed religious and political authorities who benefitted from those who feared them.

Two thousand years ago, Jesus, and others like him, presented a new (original) example of personally responsibility to our own Truth and to the Source of salvation within us. Today, we find ourselves at the threshold of the world they envisioned and where the fruits of their labors are finding their fulfillment. Here we are being given a profound choice: we can continue to remain enslaved by the guru mindset where our salvation and the path of our truth are only accessible through some outside perceived authority, or we can enter into the new world where we are our own guru – knowing that the Source of Truth is within us, and that this is the true path to salvation.

In other words:  stop throwing your money and obedience to some external source of Truth and learn how to find the answers within.

The Silencing of Freedom-Speaking Women

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / 1 Comment

Have you noticed how a priest has an automatic platform for his voice? Through no gift of his own or his own message to give, he goes to school for a few years and viola, he gets to stand before tens, if not thousands, and they listen to him. His message might be shit, or his words the same old sermon they’ve heard a million times, but still they listen. The priest did nothing to deserve this, and nothing to earn it.  He simply gets a platform from which to speak simply by virtue of his collar, and the penis that got him there.

Not so for women. Not so. Instead, there is no place for our voice or our own message except that which we’ve wrestled for ourselves – in back alleys, in dark corners of coffee shops or bars, between bookstore and library shelves where the women’s literature hides. A hasty, hushed whisper is all we’re allowed while priests gather flocks through no merit of their own.

Were it not for the vagina, I might have been a priest. Thank Goddess The Mother knew better. My skin crawls over the harm priests have caused – those who are men, and more recently those with breasts who also strive to wear the collar. Only slaves wear collars. In the case of the Church, slaves that seek to enslave.  No Thank You!

How can one preach freedom within an institution that enslaves? You can’t! This is why freedom-speaking women are rarely given a stage – especially those who point out the hypocrisy of those who tell freedom lies. The Institution’s response instead, is to silence these women.

The Church doesn’t want us to be free.

And yet, we persist. Speaking of love and the promise of freedom til the very day we die, even if all who ever hear us are the desert’s grains of sand.