Holla at the Collar

Several weeks ago, I went to a wine tasting at a restaurant bar with a girlfriend of mine. Because I had come straight from the hospital, I was still wearing my work clothes, including my clerical collar. We sat at the head of the bar, talking, enjoying our wine, and splitting a pizza. Little did I know, I was creating a big stir. Eventually, a couple came up to us and said, “Excuse me, but are you a nun?” I smiled and told them that no, I was not a nun; I am an Episcopal priest. They looked pleasantly surprised and informed me that they were Catholic. The next time I went to the same restaurant bar, this time with my husband, the bartenders were highly amused that so many people had been curious about the woman + collar + drinking wine bit. Over the past year that I’ve been wearing the collar in the buckle of the Bible belt, I’ve received some different reactions, most notably confusion and ignorance. This article by Catherine Caimano confirmed what I had been suspecting – most people have no idea what the collar means, particularly when it’s a woman wearing it.

Another time, I ran out for lunch shortly before Easter weekend. The cashier asked me if I had any big plans for the weekend. I laughed, gestured towards the collar, and said, “Yeah, it’s Easter weekend.” He just looked confused. As Caimano puts it, the purpose of wearing the collar or any kind of religious habit is “to identify the wearer as religious, as someone who bears the traditions of the church even in the secular world and sometimes calls into question the values of that world.” But what good is it if people don’t really know what it means?

I live in a very religious part of the country, but as one of the bartenders in Amerigo put it, “People assume you’re either Baptist or Catholic.” There’s not a lot of room for anything in between and not a lot of knowledge of religious practices outside those two expressions of Christianity. I still fight to be recognized as an educated, called, and ordained minister on some days. Families at the hospital have referred to me as “that nice lady who prayed with us” and not as pastor, priest, minister, or chaplain simply because they don’t have a religious framework that puts together female and minister.

I love wearing the clerical collar. I love what it represents, even if I have to explain it, and I hope that more people will be like the couple who asked me if I was a nun. Because yes, I am a woman, and yes, I am 27 years old, and yes, I drink wine with my friends or husband at a bar after work sometimes, and yes, I am a priest, and yes, I love Jesus and serve God and God’s Church.

The bigger issue, as Caimano names it, is one of living in a world where Christian signs and symbols are no longer the lingua franca. We (I) can’t just assume that everyone knows what the collar means or what a priest does, even (especially) living in the Bible belt. And that makes it even more crucial to talk about it.

Reflections on the XXX Olympic Games

I love the summer Olympics. Maybe it’s because I didn’t grow up in a football family or a soccer family or a baseball family. I grew up in a running, swimming, and biking (and sometimes all three in the same event) family. I spent weekends at swim meets. I watched my brother from steaming hot bleachers at track meets. So the way other people feel about the Super Bowl or the NBA Championships, that’s how I feel about the summer Olympics. Thanks to NBC’s weird broadcasting deal, I didn’t get to see as much as I would’ve wanted, but I did get up super early on both Sundays to watch the marathons live. I’ve devoured commentary and re-watched videos and been brought to tears by some wonderfully touching moments and stories. And I wanted to write about it.

1. During the Olympics, I wanted to push myself harder in my workouts. I am, by no stretch of the imagination, a fast runner. But watching each athlete perform in his or her sport, and thinking about the training and time commitment that went into that performance was and is very motivating. Even as a slow amateur athlete, I want to do more. More hills, more miles, more core work, more strength, more form drills, more speed. I’m not ever going to be in the Olympics. I probably won’t ever qualify for the Boston Marathon. But I want to be the best slow-ish amateur athlete I can be.

2. There was a big to-do made about the women in these Olympic games. Every participating nation sent a female athlete! Look at the gold the women brought home! And yet…the NBC coverage of women athletes was embarrassing. Did you know that women can have families and still be professional athletes? Wow! And how many times did we hear correspondents ask male athletes how they balanced training and family life? Not to mention the rude and crude remarks made about women’s bodies and appearances by men and women (Gabby Douglas’ hair anyone?). The patriarchy is alive and well, my friends.

3. In America, we’re mainly accustomed to Protestant evangelical expressions of faith and thankfulness in a sports context: Tebowing, thanking God for a touchdown scored, the gesture of one finger towards heaven, etc. So it was fascinating to me, as someone who straddles the Protestant/Catholic divide, to see equally heartfelt and faithful expressions from (mainly) Eastern Orthodox athletes. At the beginning of the women’s 5000m race, I noticed Dibaba crossing herself. And when Ethiopian Meseret Defar won, she unpinned an icon of the Virgin Mary and child and held it up, kissed it, and draped it over her face. It was stunning and beautiful. I also noticed many of the East Africans in the men’s marathon crossing themselves when they finished.

 

4. I love when athletes freak out. Mo Farah and Galen Rupp; Carmelita Jeter finishing the 4x100m relay with a world record time; Missy Franklin; Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings; the look on Stephen Kiprotich’s face when he grabbed the Ugandan flag and headed for the marathon finish line with a big, goofy smile on his face. Pure joy. It’s a beautiful thing to see, and something our world needs more of. It’s a good reminder that they’re called the Olympic GAMES. Get out and play.

5. Watching the Olympics has given me a different appreciation for my own body. Not that I’m nearly as fit or gifted as these athletes, but my body shape is a lot more like Jessica Ennis than Jessica Biel. It was refreshing to see women who looked a little like me – muscular legs and strong arms and shoulders. I bet they have trouble finding jeans that fit too. So instead of cursing my body because I’m never going to look like Jennifer Aniston, I can celebrate that my body does a lot more than look pretty. It runs marathons and works out aggression in spin class and can hold a plank. I wouldn’t mind a six-pack though.