The Presence of Women

Bruce Gentry, head of BSC on campus, sent me a clipping of an article written by Dr. Molly Marshall recently.   I have followed her in her career and find her to be someone worth reading about--whether she is doing the writing or making the news.  I like her in both roles.   I used to talk with my fellow seminarian, Billie Fair, about her.  Billie wanted to get her degree and get a job in ministry.  On the other hand, I had a job at the University and I was interested in getting a degree but not working directly in the field.

This subject is the core of Dr. Marshall's article.  So many women are working in a field that they consider out of the "mainstream" of ministry.   Her comment was:  "I think it is time to demystify our language about what it means to be 'called' and how we exercise our giftedness.  This will grow increasingly important as we realize that guaranteed lifetime employment in a congregational setting will most likely become less of an option for seminary graduates.  Rather than relegating persons who serve in other contexts to a differing status, it is important that we rethink our theology of vocation."  She adds, "I believe that some of the most important ministry will occur beyond the walls of the church.  Those not considered religious 'professionals' will offer much of it."

I thought back through my thirty years at the University with alumni/development and all of the contacts that I made in both fields.   I was "Presence" to my donors and many alums and was there for their birthdays, their illnesses, their joys and their death.   I could not count the funerals at which I officiated or the families who called when these arrangements were being made.  Did I feel like a presence?  No.  I had been there too long and too steady to feel anything but a true friend who cared!

Dr. Marshall summed up my feelings:  "They said that they sensed a new dignity in their professions and that they had not 'left ministry'.  I commended them for their remarkable work.  They have opportunity to be the hands and feet, indeed the very presence of Christ, with those lives they intersect."