COLLARED

Photo from Unsplash

I suppose I should get used to being stared at.  

A lot of people simply don’t know what to make of a priest outside of a church, and my being a female priest, I think, only confuses people more. I sometimes get strange reactions when I wear my clerical collar around town. People seem taken by surprise to see me getting my car washed or picking up laundry. Maybe they just don’t think about priests having a life outside of church - a bit like the first time seeing your second-grade teacher in the grocery store and realizing she doesn’t live at school. I also think that some of the double-takes come from people expecting a man under that collar, and they are taken aback to see lipstick and my admittedly full hips.  

I hear snickering sometimes, usually (but not always) behind my back. I know that some people think I must be a fool for being a believer at all, not understanding how complex—and how rich—a life of faith can be. Other times there are smiles, of course, and maybe a little more politeness than normal.  “After you, Sister,” someone once said, thinking I was a nun, I guess, and insisting I take his place at the head of a very long line at Walmart. Which I’ll admit I did. “Bless you,” I said in return, as I slid in front of everyone else, feeling a little bit guilty, though not so guilty as to turn him down. I’ve also had people challenge me or try to start arguments with me, sometimes quite aggressively, as though wearing that collar is an affront to those who don’t share my beliefs. A few years ago, I saw a young man walking toward me wearing a black t-shirt with “Satan is Lord” emblazoned on the front. As he got closer and noticed me, he put his hands in his pockets and stepped toward my side of the sidewalk. He seemed to pop out his chest and scowl a bit. What did he expect from me? I smiled back and popped out my own fairly ample chest as I slipped past him. Those situations can be unpleasant, but most of those I can deal with.  

The bigger challenge to me comes when someone sees that collar and expects me to be wise.  I’ve been a priest for twelve years now. Too often, I still find myself not knowing if I’ve touched people’s spirits in the way they need. When I was younger, I hoped it might eventually get easier to know just the right thing to do or to say, but it hasn’t.  

All of that is why, sometimes getting dressed on my day off, I hesitate over whether to wear that collar. I still wear it nearly every day, inside church and out, but it’s tempting to leave it off.  Not that I’m ashamed – it certainly isn’t that. The temptation is to blend in and to be free of other people’s expectations. Still, I usually I put it on, although sometimes I wonder if it would be better to hide my priesthood than to be such an imperfect representative of my faith.  

That all changed about a month ago when I went to Home Depot. It was my day off, and I was dressed as usual and wearing my collar. Spring was finally arriving, and I wanted to find a way to hang some new flower pots on my small back deck. I walked into the store and approached a middle-aged man with slumping shoulders who was wearing the orange vest that marked him as an employee. I described what I was looking for. He nodded and said to me, without enthusiasm, what they must all be trained to say: “We have a solution for that.”   

He walked me over to the garden section and showed me the hooks and chains that I could use to hang my pots. I looked through what was available and chose what would work. He had continued to stand there, and when I turned to leave, I realized that he was staring at me. I glanced over at him. 

“So…you’re some kind of a priest?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, and I thought to myself that ‘some kind’ was a pretty good description of how I often felt. I braced myself. Was he going to start an argument about religion?  

He stepped a bit closer to me. “There’s something that’s been bothering me,” he said. And right there in the crowded store, he began to tell me his life story; of decisions he had made, of how he had meant to strike out on his own and build what he had envisioned as a good life, but that nothing had worked out the way he had hoped. He described a profound loneliness, not just the physical distance from his brothers and sister, but a deep emptiness. It surprised him that this was where he had landed; in a city where he had no family and few friends, working at Home Depot.

I listened to him, as attentively as I could with people passing by us in the aisle, holding in my hand the hooks for my flower pots. I felt tired, and conscious of the eating up of the very little time I had for myself. And after all I’ve seen, I know there are no simple answers to people’s needs, even though that’s what many people want. 

 He looked at me expectantly. God forgive me, I wanted to get home. 

“We have a solution for that,” I told him. And there in the garden section, I closed my eyes and said a heartfelt prayer aloud for him. I prayed for him in his loneliness, and for how the whole world ached. When I finished, I looked up and saw that his eyes were moist. He thanked me.

I blessed him, wished him well, and headed for the cashier.  

I’ve worn my collar every day since.  

READ MORE