In May Mother Sarah was asked to speak to the Lymington Road Residents Association on the subject of “How do you see me?” This is a transcript of her talk.
I’ve been ordained for almost three years now and I don’t think I was ever prepared for the fact that wearing a dog collar means people see me very differently. Obviously wearing clericals means that I am a public figure; people have expectations about what a priest should look like. I don’t know about how you perceive the clergy but certainly in conversations I have with members of the public it seems I don’t quite correspond to people’s archetypal image of a priest.
Being young-ish and female tends to provoke quite a lot of comment.
I’d like to share with you a couple of experiences I had in the first few weeks after I was ordained when I was still getting used to wearing a dog collar and beginning to realise that I could no longer walk through a crowd or walk along the street anonymously. Being ordained means being noticed and being ready to respond.
One afternoon I met my godfather for lunch in Westminster. As I pass a bus stop two men call out to me “Hey, are you a woman priest?” At that stage I was a deacon but I know what they mean and so I say “yes, yes I am.” And they explain that they are Christians also – one is Greek Orthodox and the other is Egyptian Coptic. We stand as a small ecumenical gathering and I’m dimly aware that we are attracting attention. That people in the bus queue keep glancing in our direction. As we chat the Greek Orthodox man asks the question that I face most often when wearing a dog collar:
“So, are you allowed to marry?” he asks.
“Yes, I am.” I reply.
“And are you married?” he asks.
“No, I’m not.”
“And, would you like to get married?
With a good degree of Anglican caution I reply,”Maybe.”
“So,” he says, with a smile and an extravagant gesture, “When can we meet again?” At this I bust out laughing, as does he, and even the Egyptian Coptic smiles, if a little warily.
There are numerous other funny encounters like this one that I could share with you but perhaps it is more important to think about what it means to be a public figure in this metropolitan city. In a city like London where we find it very hard to talk to one another I am aware that wearing a dog collar can represent something significant to many people.
For some, the clergy are like the fourth emergency service. Often people share things with me that are hugely important to them that they might not have spoken to any of their colleagues or friends about. They tell me about a relative who has died and they ask me to pray for them or they tell me a relationship which has broken down and share with me the grief that they feel.
For others I am a sign that this country has changed a lot in the last 50 years; once the Church of England could be seen to represent the male establishment. That there are women vicars is evidence that things have changed. Occasionally people who confess that they never go to church themselves nevertheless thank me for what I do. They believe that simply by being a woman priest I am participating in important social change.
For people visiting this country from Roman Catholic countries I represent something that they have believed is almost impossible and they simply have to talk to me and ask me in faltering English, am I really a priest?
For me it is mostly a huge privilege that I am not subject to the normal social boundaries that exist for most people. Other times it is of course a trial. I am after all a human being who needs times of privacy. I enjoy the feeling of blending in rather than standing out but I save that for my day off when I can pass through West Hampstead and become once again, invisible.
Mother Sarah