On Leaving Postulancy (Or: Not Becoming a Priest)

The past few years I’ve had my head cocked to one side, listening to whispers from the Holy Spirit that seemed to indicate a call to ministry. I’ve followed the path laid out by the Episcopal Church to discern in ever-widening circles of community, praying through all the highways and byways that have led to admittance into Postulancy for Holy Orders. And there I paused to catch my breath.

As I breathed, I scanned my faith and my intentions. I took time to examine the ways this path was impacting my relationship with God. I examined the ways it was impacting my relationship with my husband and my children. I took note of the sliver of doubt that had taken root almost from the very beginning of the whole process, and how it had deepened and widened over time. Some nameless something had never been right, and at some point the imperative to keep moving forward and ignore that sense of doubt became more important than anything else. And I ran and ran until one day I realized I’d run far away from everything I knew to be true, and everyone I loved and held dear, and I knew that God was not in this place. So I let it go.



Really, that should be more active—I am letting it go, as I am still in that process, endeavoring to let others know that I’m getting off this train while struggling to remind myself I’m not leaving discipleship itself behind. Somehow my faith got so tangled up in this idea of self-as-priest that self-as-self—as I was so wondrously created—seemed to somehow pale in comparison to that unrealized possible me.

I used to get up early and pray Morning Prayer just because I wanted to. Then it became a line-item in a paragraph in the Spiritual Autobiography various committees needed to read, and I still wanted to do it, but it felt a little heavier somehow. I used to pray for people out of a simple, organic urge. Then people started asking me to say prayers because they saw me through priest-colored glasses, and I gladly accepted, but felt even heavier still. The moments of lightness and connection to God that I’d felt as a lay person were fewer and far between. “Get used to it,” ordained mentors said. “You’re preparing for a life of constant submission. It’s stressful but you’ll find ways to cope.”

I witnessed those mentors coping in vastly unhealthy ways behind the scenes while shining brightly in the pulpit. I began coping in unhealthy ways myself. My priorities became fractured, disordered. I accepted a lay position that revolved around serving children in a different, very large church from the one my husband and children attended and became almost completely severed from my own children’s spiritual development. The drive to maintain my original enthusiasm for becoming a priest became more and more difficult. Then came the flood, or a day late last year when I cried for about four days straight. After that, the realization that I had to quit my job. After that, the realization that some of the very relationships on which I'd most depended during the discernment process were with broken, unhealthy people. Could I really view a sense of call born in connection to those relationships as a beautiful, true thing? After that, the realization I didn’t want to be a priest anymore, which is a place I still live and move and have my being. Like a mole breaking through dirt to too-bright sunshine, this place feels disorienting and new, but the warren of dead-end tunnels that defined my discernment are no longer viable places for me.

Coming to this decision wasn't all easy. “Some translations of Psalm 18:19 begin ‘He brought me out into an open place,’ ” my spiritual director said at one point as I flailed about, indecision and uncertainly a palpable weight in my chest. “I want you to pray about what that open place is for you.” I sat down alone and tried it. NOT PRIESTHOOD, my very cells seemed to scream, and there was a bittersweet peace there. In that space I rest, and it is a truth to which I've tentatively begun to give voice.

I feel much, much lighter.

Leaving postulancy is still raw and new. I've just barely made my wish to leave it official with the Diocese. In addition, my family and I have sought out a new church home where we can regroup and resettle, which is not a decision that makes sense to everyone but feels right to us. There are some people I need to thank, and some to whom I need to apologize, and there's a whole lot of grace I need to extend towards myself. That last thing might be the hardest.

Lots of questions remain unanswered, such as what it means to feel a call, and have it resoundingly affirmed, only to ultimately have it feel just as right to leave it behind. Maybe we were all mistaken. Maybe I was called, just to something else. Maybe entering and then exiting postulancy was some sort of necessary step that, in ten years, I’ll thank for gracing me with the strength to embrace a Something Elseness that’s yet to come. But spending too much time on pinning this whole thing down feels a lot like focusing on the rock that was rolled away rather than the empty tomb. At this moment, on these hot summer days with my family and messy house and messy thoughts, there is resurrection taking place. It feels raw and weird, but even more open and free. It's not the story I thought I'd be telling about myself, but it's so much more joyful than the places I've been the past couple of years. And whatever I know about God, I've learned to lean into joy, which is as rare and precious as anything in this wild and uncertain life.

Not ordained, then, but laity. Thanks be to God for the clarity and the confusion. I'll take them both.