Transitions

Transitions are a part of life, everything from the small transitions of going from one place to another throughout the day to the big transitions of graduating from high school or college or getting a job or getting married or having children. We have our transitions in life as we grow up, move from various roles to other roles or change jobs or move. We also have transitions in the church as we move throughout the church year, we change seasons of the church year, colors, music, pieces of the liturgy, we have flowers most of the year, but sometimes we don’t. We also mark some of the changes in life through liturgies in the church, such as baptism, confirmation, marriage, and ordination. We even have something called The Book of Occasional Services, that includes services to mark transitions such as the adoption of a child, blessing of a new home, and commissioning lay ministries within the church.
 
I have been through many transitions in life – from the expected: moving from grade to grade, graduating from high school and then from college, getting married, moving from one job to another. To the completely unexpected: being called to the priesthood and all that discernment, seminary and life as a priest would entail to losing my husband of 21 years unexpectedly.
 
The past seven years have been a season of transition for me as I entered the informal discernment process with the priest at St. Christopher’s and then the formal discernment process through The Diocese of Upper South Carolina. I transitioned from Inquirer to Postulant, to Candidate, to Ordinand for the Diaconate and the Ordinand for the Priesthood. I also transitioned from being a married woman to a widow and from being a layperson into the weird liminal space of being a seminarian to being a deacon and then a priest. At my ordination to the diaconate, I was no longer a member of St. Christopher’s, in fact ordained clergy are not members of any church, we are members of the diocese in which we serve. I left working at Wofford College to go to seminary at Sewanee and then was called to St. James as Curate. I moved from Spartanburg to Sewanee to Greenville. Lots and lots of transition.
 
I have also been through clergy transitions at churches. The long-time rector of St. Mark’s did not retire until after I had graduated from college, so that transition did not really affect me, except for no longer seeing him when I went home to visit. I certainly experienced the transition of assisting clergy, but I was also lucky that the priest who oversaw the youth came right before my 7th grade year and left the summer before I went off to college. Since I joined St. Christopher’s in 2003, they have had four different priests and I have felt various degrees of closeness to each of them and it was particularly hard to see the past two priests leave, even though one of them left as I was going to seminary.
 
As for our transition here at St. James, if you have been a member of St. James or any Episcopal Church, you know Rectors come and go, but the missions and ministries of the church will still remain. We are still called to proclaim the gospel and bring people to visit St. James. We have so many positive things going on and we have so much to look forward to as we continue to come out of the pandemic. We are in a much better place than we were when Father Stephen was called. We have done, are doing, and will continue to do great things at St. James, regardless of who our Rector is. For those of you who are new to St. James and the Episcopal Church since Father Stephen was called as Rector, all will be well. There is a process and our Vestry will work closely with the Diocesan Office to follow those steps. It is not left to chance and we will eventually have our next Rector. In the meantime, we will be supported by our by our Bishop and by Archdeacon d’Rue Hazel as well as the rest of the Diocesan Office.
 
With all these transitions, I felt varying emotions, as I do with our transition at St. James, but here’s the thing, God is in control of this. God, through Bishop Richards called Father Stephen to become Canon to the Ordinary and after much discernment Father Stephen answered that call. God already has someone chosen to be our Interim Rector and God is already working on the person to become our next Rector. Until then, we at St. James continue to do what God has called us to do.