Un-becoming a Priest

I have news today, news that is hard to write even as it is right to report.

I have un-become a priest of the Episcopal Church.

Some of you know bits of the backstory — how I grew up with no spiritual or religious tradition but with a deep reverence for the Earth, the land, the natural world. How, at age 52, a Voice called me to be a priest, notwithstanding that I had never been to church, not even once. How I resisted, was baptized, finally said yes, and went to seminary at Yale Divinity School.

How I was ordained a priest within the Episcopal Church and how the Voice returned and told me to “Start a church” in the woods. How I said yes to that, too, and created and led Church of the Woods in Canterbury, New Hampshire — among the very first communities of the emerging Wild Church movement.

After 12 years, in September I retired from that role, then went to Peru for 40 days of in-between, of transformation, of awaiting what comes next.

As I left New Hampshire, on my way to the airport, I put a letter in the mail to my bishop, asking to be released from my vows as a priest. This week, he granted my request. Soon the news will circulate around the church, and I want to explain why I have made this choice.

There are three reasons.

First, I have completed what I was called to do. I was called not as a church person but as a conservationist, ecologist, and activist, to bring different knowledge, skills, and perspectives accrued over 50 years of loving and caring for the land. I came without knowledge or experience in the church to create a different kind of church, built on a different relationship with the mother Earth who births us all. I have done what I was charged with doing, and done it well. It is time for a second generation of leaders to carry on.

Second, it is customary, when a priest leaves their congregation, to sever all contact and relationships for at least a year, often two, to allow new allegiances and patterns of relationship to form. But I cannot do that. I live on the land where Church of the Woods gathers. I am the guardian, caretaker, and “owner” of this land. This is my home, physically and spiritually, These woods — trees, rocks, water, moss, moose, mushrooms, and all creatures — are my community and partner in exploring what it means to become sacred space. I am in a new role, and I also remain part of this community. To honor and be clear about this new role, it is cleaner and more honest to not be a priest at all.

Finally, I wish to be free. I wish to be free to remind the church how it has forgotten and abandoned intimate relationship with the Earth. As Bishop Hirschfeld and I observed to each other, my priesthood was frequently in tension with the tradition, practices, and customs of the Episcopal Church (and most other expressions of Christianity). As a “prophetic priest,” the way I inhabited my role was inherently in conflict with the norms of the institution. That was the whole point.

The liturgy of priestly ordination includes these words:

The Bishop says to the ordinand

Will you be loyal to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of

Christ as this Church has received them? And will you, in

accordance with the canons of this Church, obey your bishop

and other ministers who may have authority over you and

your work?

Answer

I am willing and ready to do so; and I solemnly declare that I

do believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments

to be the Word of God, and to contain all things necessary to

salvation; and I do solemnly engage to conform to the doctrine,

discipline, and worship of The Episcopal Church.

I can no longer say that I conform to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of The Episcopal Church. Rather, I am called to challenge, to critique, to re-direct, to speak freely from the wildness of the woods. My obedience is directed elsewhere.

The ceremony of ordination is ancient, solemn, and powerful. In addition to spoken and written vows, the liturgy invokes the Holy Spirit and incorporates the laying on of hands by bishop and priests, transmitting body to body the energetic signature of “priest,” passed along century after century from the earliest apostles. Un-becoming a priest does not reverse this. The Spirit is not called out of the body, nor is there a “laying off” of hands. Rather, it is an administrative action that withdraws the license to serve within the institution known as the Episcopal Church. I no longer hold such a license.

I am enormously grateful to Bishop Rob Hirschfeld and all the people who supported, encouraged, and accompanied me during this great journey. It has been an honor and privilege to serve with and amongst you.

I am not leaving the church — that is, the community of faithful (and faithfully critical) people who seek to follow the way of Christ. I am taking on a new role, outside the circle of ordained leaders, trading the privilege and responsibility of priesthood for the freedom and faithful flexibility of the laity.

Thank you all.