S PART of my on-going vocational discernment, I’ve decided to look at clergy that I admire and pull out common traits. Actually, there’s a modicum of parallels even with some clergy I despise…

To use an over-abused word, all of ‘em are Mavericks. A maverick is an unbranded range animal, especially a motherless calf. It can also mean a person who thinks independently, a lone dissenter, a non-conformist or rebel. Other definitions report that the origin of the word is one Samuel Maverick who used to leave the calves of his heard unbranded. A crucial comment on the definition is that traditionally, whoever found a maverick, got to claim him for their own. Clergy who are Mavericks do tend to buck the system: sometimes they spend their entire ministry doing so. I think of two rectors who have spent the last 20 – 25 years bucking the system of ECUSAn clockwork and have built successful parishes and ministries. I think of a few young clergy who have not bought in to the system at all.

Usually the maverick clergy (admired or despised) are cutting-edge liberal sorts who want to re-do liturgy and/or theology, but in a few not-very-rare cases they are admired or despised conservatives. I can think of two such conservative rectors off the top of my head in ECUSA whom I love and admire greatly, and even a couple in Orthodoxy. I know: mavericks in Orthodoxy, how scary! But, as Glinda the Good Witch says of the Ruby Slippers, “There they are. And there they’ll stay.” These priests are building (or have built) ministries against all odds and, while I mightn’t like all of ‘em, I have to admit they’ve done some good (and some not so good) by Maverick-Rolling Along.

To point at one obvious example and, perhaps, one that is not so obvious, St Gregory of Nyssa Church in San Francisco and St Nicholas parish in Asheville. The former is one of the most vibrant and growing parishes in all of ECUSA. And, while it might surprise you, until a round of troubles took over the later was one of the largest and most-active Orthodox parishes in the entire South East for a while and, yes, being a Maverick did that – and, to a certain extent, also caused the problems. But it is an example to hold up for admiration. Other examples can be found around the web. There is a string of ECUSA parishes revitalised and rescued from certain death by one priest. There are also several bishops who have acted in what they see as the best spiritual interest of their people and led them away from ECUSA. I disagree with their various actions, but it’s clear they want to save the souls of their flock. And they have the cojones to do so.

There are also the cases of my two Patron Saints: St Francis of Assisi and St Raphael of Brooklyn. Although they were both loyal sons of the Church (Western and Eastern respectively), both were, in their way, revolutionaries who raised a banner – Holy Poverty and Radical, in-person Mission & Ministry.

All of these people did what “the system” might refer to as “damaging to your career”. All of them struck out as the spirit led them to do what they were called to do and, reluctantly, the church ultimately went along with the vast majority of good things, and ditched the bad things and – in two cases – made them Saints.

The main point being not that I imagine myself to be such a radical, but, to be 100% honest, exactly the opposite: I am rather a wimp. A case in point would be this very essay (as you’ll see later).

I know (and have connected with) several clergy who fit my own mould. They have nice jobs. They have nice families. They have nice lives. I’m very bored by them and find them to be tedious company. Although I love and pray for them, they are not ministries I’d like to write about or interview. They are not people I’d call “friends”. In one case, a certain priest worked as Canon to the Ordinary for one of the most conservative bishops his diocese has had in recent years and now is working under one of the more liberal ones. There was nary a hitch between the two administrations. I think also of all the very liberal and very conservative folks I know who just passively put up with (rather than actively connect to) all the people of the opposite polarity. Contra this, my own (very liberal) rector has often been friends with the most-conservative clergy in the diocese where both are cut-off by the wider stream of “normal” folks. (And since I’ve already been asked, if you and I know each other by first name, call each other on the phone and have lunch, at least, from time to time: don’t worry.)

Again, the point is: I’m not one of these Mavericks. I’m one of the Nice People. In all the jobs I’ve had where I’ve been unhappy, it’s taken years (nearly a decade) to actually act on my dissatisfaction. I’ve often taken better positions only by accident – never actually engaging in a betrayal of my current boss no matter how annoying I found him or her. I usually find myself flustered with a style that I see as dysfunctional, but pissed off at my own inability to either fix or escape the problem.

Examples: when a job I was in began to take advantage of my technical skills (while still paying only for my secretarial skills) I only acted to save my neck after about 2 years of abuse. Prior, the same company had made me “assistant manager” of the bookstore while still paying me to be a cashier. This also lasted nearly 2 years – and only when I finally threatened some sort of legal action did they take the right steps. But even then, I didn’t fix it without going to therapy. And then there is the instance of spiritual abuse about which I’ve blogged here. Even when invited to write the Bishop, I simply sighed and went on my way weeping.

To put it succinctly, I have no well-honed “flight or fight” skills (if any at all): only passive resignation. It would be just as much when I became Fr Milquetoast – at the whim of a Bishop, or Deanery or Vestry, and terribly annoyed at the entire thing.

Now… apply that to what I know of THE PROCESS in ECUSA. Most clergy take it as a given that the process will be abusive. Most clergy take it as sort of an inside joke and a bit of an initiation. I’ve been warned that ECUSA is not a nice place to work (I know that, after 10 years at the Episcopal Church Center in NYC, which Sunday I referred to as “our Guantanamo Bay”). I’ve seen it: my future colleagues are often a bunch of back-stabbing administrators who often have a sense of competition on a win/loose model; who can smile benignly at ecumenism and make fun of “them” all at the same time; who are, essentially, human sinners like the rest of us. But something about that all too human moment is to heavy to bear when it comes not only from someone who feels threatened in their employment, but who happens to be wearing a Clerical Collar at the same time. I know people who wondered innocently and unwittingly into the maw of this beast. Ordained at 25, they were in their first parish in 6 months and out, resigned and on their way to law school (or secretarial school or teaching elementary school, etc) before 18 months has past. I don’t want to be one of those people.

Some wonderful emails were sent to me in response to my last discernment posting. My favourite is about the “voice we need to hear articulating the wonderful, Anglican vision you have of Church.” Readers have seen my vision articulated in these pages and close friends have heard me speak of it in person.

What I’m trying to figure out is would I have the cojones to institute that vision, or would I just be trapped in some falling down building doing pledge drives for the parking lot, with a thermometer stuck to the side of the reader board?

To phrase the question more directly: John Plummer ordained me in Asheville (before I had “officially” left Orthodoxy and before I “officially” became Anglican again) it was so that I could be empowered by the Holy Spirit to bring my vision of Church into reality. ECUSA rejects that ordination as “invalid”. (One Orthodox priest told me, he treats it like any other Anglican ordination – “Valid within your own tradition”. And several Episcopal clergy have said, “Ordination is Ordination”.) In some of the most-staunchly Company circles of ECUSA they, in fact, would treat indy ordination as a mark against me. The discernment question at hand: is that Ordination a gift from God to go out and act – without worrying about things – or should I wait until I get a “real” Church to give me the go-ahead.

You can see a bit of my wimpiety in my asking of the question at all: several times, recently, I’ve come close to a decision one way or the other only to be afraid to actually speak the decision aloud, including a couple of times being afraid to mention it to Mom or Brodie. I keep coming back to the paycheck: it will be hard to have a paycheck as an Indy. I’d be working in bookstores or coffee shops for the rest of my life. Truth be told, however, I imagine I’d be happier doing so.