I don't remember a time when I was not aware of the presence of the Divine. As a child the name I gave that presence was God, the gender male. Yet I never felt a sense of fear or trepidation. I knew God was a loving presence even through the grief of losing my mother at the young age of ten, and finding my way in the world, God was a supportive loving presence.
However, the teaching I received about God was confusing. God is love, but you must pretzel yourself into something that is not yourself to be acceptable to the “God of love”.
I struggled with the church's contradictions and as I grew towards adulthood and lay ministry in the church, I also struggled with gender roles and the domination of women within the patriarchal structures of the church, whatever the denomination.
I muddled through making meaning as best I could, reading copiously, journaling, doing the spiritual work in all the ways I knew to make sense of the church's teaching and reconcile that teaching with the God of love I knew was alive within me.
Then through the grace of the Beloved aka God my carefully constructed life fell apart. In the years following the 2008 crash we suffered serious financial loss, then our marriage fell apart in 2012. In 2017 I became very ill almost to the point of death, my health suffered as a result, and I could no longer continue in my work as an academic. Then finally our first granddaughter a precious little girl, lived for only twenty three hours. I felt like my life fell like a set of dominoes, and except for the passing of my granddaughter I can say with hindsight I am glad it all fell away.
In 2019 my life took another unexpected turn, and I found myself in seminary studying to become an Interfaith minister. That period of study and fellowship changed my life forever. I encountered the God of love without caveat. This was the God I had always known on the inside and now here was a theology of love and respect for all faiths, under the banner of love and the declaration that “Many are the ways we pray to one God” , (Rev. Dr. Stephanie Rutt). My heart and mind were blown open. This was my path.
Right after ordination I found myself saying a big yes to a very old dream of running spiritual retreats in the west of Ireland. At the time I was living in the United States and had no idea how this would ever unfold. I learned we don't need to know, we say yes to the vision, and surrender the rest to Love itself, taking each step as it's shown. The path is not always easy, but it is always life giving. It has led me here.
