Telling the Truth

Nearly 30 years later, my heart still pounds loudly when I relive this event.  It’s early fall 1985.  I’ve been teaching theology to seminarians since fall 1983.  I’ve agreed to make a presentation at an informal faculty gathering.

The group began meeting the previous semester.  I attended the first two or three meetings, then decided this wasn’t for me.  I didn’t tell anyone about my decision.  I just stopped going.

I felt awkward yet clear about my decision.  The purpose of the monthly meetings was to talk about spirituality.  A great topic, interesting to me personally and as a theologian.  In addition, as a relatively new faculty member, I welcomed the opportunity to get to know my colleagues better.

So I went for several months, once a month.  What happened to me wasn’t visible on the outside.  It was visible on the inside—my insides.  For reasons I couldn’t possibly have understood at that time, I experienced each session as an assignment I just needed to get through.

Why?  I was a junior colleague, not yet tenured.  I was a woman; my male colleagues were eager to have the few women on faculty attend.  Very few did.  I felt obligated to show up.

More troubling, the things I heard about spirituality were familiar yet alien to me.  I didn’t experience my spirituality the way it seemed most of my male colleagues did.  They weren’t necessarily wrong.  In fact, they said things that many Christians said about spirituality.  They just didn’t connect with me.

The longer I attended, the more uncomfortable I felt.  Every now and then I tried to express some of my own thoughts, but they were lost in what felt like a sea of words I’d heard all my life.  Especially from my father, other church members, and Bible teachers.

Was I wrong?  Were they all correct?  What would they think if they really knew about my spirituality?  Maybe they would wish they hadn’t hired me.

I sat at the table—the same table we used for formal faculty meetings.  I felt as though a rope was winding around me.  One loop at a time, tying me ever more tightly to my chair with no room to move, and no strength to get up and walk out.  My gut begged for relief.

So I decided to stop attending the meetings.  I had plenty of other work to do.  Still, I was nervous.  Not just because I was new and didn’t have tenure, but because I didn’t have colleagues with whom I could share what was happening.  I didn’t announce that I wasn’t coming back.  I just stopped going.

When I was asked to come and talk about spirituality from a woman’s perspective, I felt torn.  I’ve never liked being perceived as a spokesperson for women.  Nonetheless, I said I would think about it.  I decided it was time to show up and let my colleagues know how I think about and experience my Christian spirituality.

It took time to put my thoughts in order.  I wrote them out on one of my ever-present yellow legal pads, and brought my notes to the meeting.  I’d asked that we sit not at the table, but in a circle of chairs.  I thought that would make it easier for me.  Normally, it would have.  I was the only woman present.  Most colleagues in the room had tenure and/or a top administrative position.

I still have my hand-written notes.  I sat there nervously, waiting to be introduced.  My colleagues had high expectations about what I might say.  I took a deep breath and read from my notes.

To be continued…

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 10 January 2015