In Memory of Maggie: Where to Put One’s Purse and Other Such Questions.

With the news coverage of the death of Margaret Thatcher and stories of her powerful, controversial and interesting life, an image that has remained in my mind for decades now has come to the forefront.  I have a memory of flipping through one of the news magazines back when she was in office and the centerfold opened to show a long row of world leaders posing for photos at some summit.  There they were, men in dark suits and somewhere toward the middle of the row was a splash of color, the only woman standing there confidently, with her purse on her arm. 

The first time I saw that photo I had a strong sense of identification with the Iron Lady as I looked at her and asked her audibly, “So, Maggie, where does one put one’s purse?” 

Ever since then I think of that photo when I am at a wedding or a funeral, or guest preaching or processing in my robe in an ordination or academic ceremony.  The question always comes, “Where does one put one’s purse?”  It was a more frequent question when I was newer in ministry than now days.  Back then it was generally the case that I was the only woman in a room of clergy.  And where to put my purse was not the only question. 

When I first started seminary it took me a long time to find the Women’s restroom.  I went to the end of the hall in the area where the classrooms were and there was the Men’s room.  I figured that the Women’s restroom was on the floor below, but again it was a Men’s restroom.  Finally, I figured out that if I looked where the secretaries were I would find a Women’s restroom.  Sure enough!

When I was pregnant with my first child there was no provision in the personnel manual for maternity leave for professional staff.  Why?  I was only the second woman on professional staff of the more than 80 year old ministry organization and the first who was married and of child-bearing age.  My maternity leave of 6 weeks came as a special dispensation by the Executive Minister.  That worked well because we carefully planned to have our child at the beginning of summer and since I was a campus pastor I could actually take my baby to work until school started in the fall.  When our second child came there still was no provision in the personnel manual – maybe they thought that it was a fluke to have a married woman of child-bearing age on the professional staff and there was no need to be hasty about changing the personnel manual.  This baby was not as cooperative as the first and came at the end of the summer.  The Executive Minister decided that 6 weeks was not enough and so he gave me 8.

There are many other stories that I could tell that could be represented by the question, “Where does one put one’s purse,” but I will end this post with one other that I will never forget. On the day that I was ordained I received many lovely comments from those who came to celebrate with me.  It was a truly affirming experience.  One comment came in the form of a note from a woman who was married to a man who had been pastor of his first church for almost 60 years at that point.  Her note said, “I always prayed that my sons would grow up to be pastors.  Today I realized that I wish that I had prayed the same for my daughters.”

And so as the world says good-bye to Lady Thatcher, I would say this:  Maggie, you and I would have argued over many things – if I would have been brave enough to argue with you.  But I must say, thank you for stepping up in a world that thought a woman could not do what you did.  And thank you for not worrying about what to do with your purse.

They Even Had Me Fooled

It’s amazing how I have been able to go through the years thinking that I am so progressive when it comes to the advancement of women in the church.   When I first went into ministry I realized that there were women who came before me and paved the way, often times they paid a great price and made many sacrifices. 

There were those women who fought their way through seminary, trying to be taken seriously next to and by their male colleagues, only to be offered jobs as secretaries in churches and denominational offices – that is if they could find a paid position anywhere.  Many of those women never married because it was too hard to fight the expectation that they should be the one to stay home and raise the children and support their husband’s career.  Some of them married men who became pastors.  Those women were in fact partners in the ministry but never were recognized as anything but their husband’s wife.  Most of these women were not ordained, or were ordained many years later.  They took any job they could in order to do ministry – with or without recognition.

Those women opened the door for the next generation of women.  They still had trouble being taken seriously in seminary, but every once in a while they found men who were progressive enough to support and encourage them.  These women tended to be the more outspoken women.  They were the ones that started the groups and organizations that promoted and advanced the cause of women in ministry.  They were the women who, along with a few progressive and supportive men, were the ones who brought resolutions to the floor and created positions that were to open more doors for women.  They are the women I respectfully call the “bra-burners.”  Many of those women ended up in various mid-level denominational positions and as associate pastors.  Many went into campus ministry and then interim work.  Few, if any, made it to the position of senior pastor, or even solo pastor. 

Then there was my generation.  For the most part I felt like I was taken seriously in seminary.  There were a few incidents, but those will be left for another post.  Once out of seminary it was difficult, but not impossible, to find a job.  For a woman, positions in children’s ministry, Christian education, youth ministry and campus ministry were the jobs that were open.  A man, just out of seminary had all of those possibilities too, but also, solo pastorates.   All of the positions open to women were seen as a stepping stone for a man.  For a woman it was the first and final destination.  My generation knew that could change.  And that was what we were working toward. 

Then there were the women who opened doors and we didn’t even know it.  When I was in college I was a regional officer for Guild, a girl’s organization in my denomination.  Each summer I had the opportunity to attend what was called Western States Conference.  These conferences were planned by young women, like me… or at least we were under the illusion we were planning these conferences.  I now know that there were some women who were allowing us to labor away under that illusion.  They were lay women who were a part of the leadership of ABW, the women’s missionary society; you know, the ones that ate crust-less cucumber sandwiches, rolled bandages and cut quilt blocks – Ha!  What we didn’t notice was that they were the ones that managed to invite newly ordained women in our denomination to be camp pastors and conference speakers.  Sometimes the only opportunities these young women had to preach were those opened up for them by these lay women.  What that meant for a young woman like me was that we were exposed to these ordained women at an age when we were exploring what we wanted to do with our lives.  I never even considered that professional ministry was an option for me until I met the (newly) Rev. Margaret Cowden and the (also newly) Rev. Marilyn Marston, who were speakers at the Western States Conference held at Camp Burton, WA, in the summer of 1977.  I even needed a little push from my Guild Advisor, Anita Pittman, Kindergarten teacher "by day" and rabble-rouser on weekends and during the summer.    There were other women, whose names I don’t remember, but I do remember that a couple of them were a force to be reckoned with! 

Eventually, I went into ministry and was ordained.  I found various roadblocks, but I would always find an opportunity to preach or to speak at ABW events and conferences.  They would be the ones that would make sure that an ordained woman would be the preacher for Women’s Sunday at their church… often the only day of the year that a woman would step behind that pulpit to preach.  Occasionally I would even meet a woman who would let me know that she had been praying for me all through college and seminary – even though she had never met me in person.  I could see their strategy then.  But it wasn’t until recently that I realized that way back at those Guild Conferences, those ABW ladies had been strategizing while they were rolling those bandages and cutting those quilt blocks.  They had a plan for making a change for women in the church, one that they knew would take a while, but one that they knew was long-overdue.   They were just ordinary ABW ladies.  Yeah!  They had me fooled!

The Church at Cindys

                L.A. is a very big place, but nestled throughout the big city are little “towns” that make up the big city.  Ours was Eagle Rock.  We had our favorite places in Eagle Rock, most of them were places to eat.  One of them was Cindy’s. 

                Cindy’s was and still is a diner.  In fact, sometimes when there is a diner in a commercial or even a TV show or movie it is Cindy’s.  No joke!  It is such a stereotypical diner that it is used as such on the big screen.   It may have been the way that they could keep their great low prices, and every once in a while get new blinds or pie cabinet.

 Back then, in the morning you could find Helen and Laurie cheerfully waiting on tables.  James was there too.  He owned the place.  He mostly sat and talked with the customers, every once in a while going out to the parking lot to admire someone’s new pickup or motorcycle.  James rode a Harley.  We went there almost every Friday (our day off) for breakfast, after we got the kids off to school.  My whole family went to Cindy’s and so often I would find out what was going on with my sister or my mom from Helen or Laurie.  There were the regulars, people who ate there every day, some twice a day.  In fact, there was a group of guys that wanted to meet at 5 in the morning.  The restaurant wasn’t open until 6:30 so James just gave them a key.  They would start the coffee in the morning and would leave about the time that the restaurant would officially open.  They liked to pull pranks, so the trick was to find out what they had done.  One day the “specials” sign said, “Helen 50 cents.”  Helen and Laurie would always treat me like I was family but they would give Rod a hard time (I guess that is like family,too).  Laurie, especially, would smile and take my order.  Then she would just glare at Rod and when he ordered his usual biscuits and gravy, she would answer with, “hmmph,” and walk away.  One day we drove into the parking lot after being on vacation for a couple of weeks.  Before we got out of the car we could see through the big windows that Helen and Laurie had scrambled to the door.  Helen turned the sign around to say, “Closed” while Laurie opened the door and yelled, “And we’re out of biscuits and gravy, to boot! “

                One of the “regulars” was a guy who used a hand held electronic device to his throat to speak.  We could always hear what he was saying because it seemed that with the monotone mechanical voice there was only one volume.  It was not annoying, though, it was just part of being at Cindy’s.  It was fun to hear the banter between customers and the staff.  One day another of the “regulars” came in.  Micky looked a bit frazzled.  He picked up the restroom key that was attached to the long stick that customers would need in order to use the restrooms out the front door and around to the side of the building.  He said, “I forgot my keys to the house.”  Laurie said to him that those were the restroom keys, not his house keys.  Micky continued to insist that they were his house keys, not in angry way, more in a frantic way.  His friends among the regulars were all around him, mostly at the counter.  After a while they were able to get him to understand that these were not his house keys.  Meanwhile, Helen came to our table to refill my coffee.  She explained to us that Micky had recently had a stroke and since then he would occasionally be confused.  As things settled down we heard Micky say to the small group of guys around him, “I’m sorry.  I don’t know what is going on.”  And then as if confessing to something he had been trying to deny, “I guess there’s just something wrong with me.” 

                The next thing we heard was that familiar electronic monotone, “Don’t worry about it Micky.  Don’t you know?  There’s something wrong with all of us.”  All we needed was a closing hymn and a benediction.  We’d had church… at Cindy’s.

It Takes a Village

                When we were kids and moms often didn’t work outside of the home and there was no internet or cable TV (in the city where you could get channels with your antenna) or DVD’s, cartoons ended mid-morning and reruns didn’t start until the soap operas were over in the late afternoon, we were sent out to play.  We knew how far we could go in the neighborhood without having to come home and ask permission.  Basically we had to stay within the earshot of my mother’s whistle--about a neighborhood block.  My mother had no instrument other than her mouth, but she could whistle.  You couldn’t get away with anything because the “mom-network” was pretty tight.  Even though they had rotary phones back then, and “speed-dial” was a matter of dexterity, they still could get one another on the line pretty quickly and word would get back to mom of our misdeeds.  Lunch and snacks were provided by whichever mom was lucky enough to have the kids playing in their yard at the time.   It wasn’t until recently that I realized that, even then, it took a village.

                By the time that I was raising kids, I was working full time and so was my husband, Rod.  We had to juggle when each of us could work late.  We, of course, had help with paid child care and various afterschool options in the community.  We occasionally needed the help of grandparents and aunties and uncles (related and adopted).  Kids didn’t have as much time to play in the neighborhood.  They got home when we did, after work.  Their schedules were full of sports practices, games, music lessons and the occasional play date or birthday party.  We got to know other parents, even those who lived on our block, at the park, sitting in the bleachers for a baseball game or in our camp chairs, watching a soccer game.  It was not bad, just different.

                Rod and I were amazingly organized back then.  Somehow we were both able to manage late office hours (after dinner) and still not totally neglect our children. His office was across the street from the public school where our son attended, and just a few blocks away from our daughter’s school. Her Montessori school was over by 3:00 but she was able to stay for afterschool care until 6:00 pm.  The public school was also over by 3:00 but the playground was open and supervised until 4:30.  Our son would stay and play, then he could cross the busy boulevard through the (also supervised) tunnel that went under the street, and hang out in Rod’s office.  On Tuesdays and Thursdays I worked late and Rod would close the office before 6:00 pm.  He and the Boy would go pick up the Girl at the M. school and go home to make sushi together.  On Mondays and Wednesdays, Rod stayed late so I would get to the M. school before 6:00 (you wouldn’t want to be late as the principal of the M. school would give you that stern look and with her German accent say, “You’re late!” in such a way as you felt like you needed to go to the corner for a time out) and pick up the Girl and then go to Rod’s office to get the Boy.

                My office was 11 miles away from home.  On a good day (Sunday morning before 10 am) I could get to my office in 15 minutes--most of the time it took longer.  And it always took longer to get home.  If I left at 5:00 I could be home at 5:30.  If I left at 5:15 I could be home at 6:00.  If I left at 5:30 I could be home at 6:30.  I don’t know how it worked, but that is how it was.  Of course, all of that could be thrown off by an accident on the freeway or a Dodger game beginning or ending or some special event or crisis happening in civic center.  Sometimes there were options, various ways to work my way from USC (where I was a campus minister) to Eagle Rock, creeping along in what one hoped would be moving traffic. 

                One Wednesday night I opted for route B.  I don’t remember the exact details.  What is permanently engraved in my memory was being just a little more than halfway home and not moving on the freeway.  I was getting myself ready for the stern rebuke of the principal as I figured at the rate I was NOT going, I just might come running in to pick up the Girl at straight up 6:00, or worse, later than that.  All of a sudden, sitting there in my car on the NOT-moving freeway (and by the way, it was already dark) the memory of Rod reminding me that morning – one of several reminders – that he would not be at the office that night as he would be at a seminar across town, came to the front of my mind.  Suddenly the implications of that recollection hit me like hot lava: my poor 4^th grade child had nowhere to go since 4:30!!   It was now past 5:30!!!  No cell phones for ordinary people back then.  It would make no sense for me to get off the freeway (partly because it wasn’t moving!) and try to find a pay phone.  I just sat in my car alternating between praying incoherently, yelling at the cars outside of my windshield, and berating myself for being a horrible parent.  I hoped and prayed that the Boy would remember the instructions we gave him for when something might happen and we weren’t there to get him in time.  He was to go to Cindy’s, the diner next door to the school and order something, sit there and wait.  We had worked it out with James, the owner.  But by the time I would get there he would have been waiting over an hour and a half!  Did I mention what a loser parent I was?  And that it was dark out? 

                Finally, I got to Cindy’s and I ran in.  I looked from side to side as I came in the door but the Boy was not there.  I asked Ellie, the waitress, about my son and she said that he had been there but he left.  I was frantic!  Where would I look now!  I turned to leave with my brain racing and the Boy came in the door.  I looked up and saw my neighbor’s car driving off.  Mimi was Stevie’s mom.  They lived around the corner from us but I had spent more time with her at the park during soccer and baseball seasons.  I hugged and apologized to my Boy and then remembered we still needed to pick up my daughter.  The glare and sharp rebuke from the principal would almost feel good.

                The Boy remembered that I was supposed to pick him up at school.  When I didn’t come he went across the street and found Rod’s office locked.  He came back and went to Cindy’s.  One of his teachers was there and he bought the Boy a hot chocolate.  After a while the Boy assured the teacher that I would come and pick him up there and so the teacher left.  When I didn’t come he went to the pay phone and called his grandma who wasn’t home.  He thought about it and the only other number that he could remember was that of Stevie so he called and talked with Mimi who came to pick him up.  They sat in the parking lot in her car until I drove up.  When they saw me run into the restaurant she let him out of the car and when she saw our reunion at the door of Cindy’s she drove off.

                When I got home I called Mimi (only one of several people in Eagle Rock who now knew the truth about my deficit parenting skills).  She was so understanding!  “Oh, things like this happen.  I was glad that he thought to call me.  You would have done the same for me.  Feel free to call if you ever need me to pick him up.”  After thanking her profusely, I hung up.  How gracious she was!  She made it easy for me to face her again at the next sports event. 

                I guess it still takes a village.