Written for the occasion of her mother’s 41st Ordination Anniversary

(Sing, my tongue the glorious battle)

My dad writes

Πεγ

on the front of envelopes for my mother 

sanctifies a language 

of love, of holy mysteries,

birthday cards and valentines, 

the name plate of her

Easter basket: hole-punched and

looped through with slippery 

curling ribbon, a banner over gummy bears

and licorice, a magazine about British

royals, and everyone’s discarded black jellybeans that she

eats on the couch in a prone position, as she says, 

recovering from four days of back-to-back

Holy Week services

(Of the mighty conflict sing)

Πεγ, he writes, 

the way they learned while studying ancient Greek

in seminary I didn’t think women should be

Ordained, he says 

the punchline being of course, 

but then I met your mother.

They told me about a talent show 

and how they did the magic trick of putting

my mother in a box, 

(she agreed to this), and pretending 

to saw her in half. 

I held my breath each retelling

What if this time was the end?

(tell the triumph of the victim) 

Πεγ he writes

invisible

in white wax crayon, then the dipping of 

the Easter egg, a rose-blush revealing 

the protesters 

at her ordination not loud enough to stop 

the lighting of the Paschal candle 

the laying on of hands 

the blessing of her call.

(to His cross thy tribute bring)

Πεγ. 

“Peg,” yes, but 

her full name here: 

Margaret. 

Breathed, invoked. Come, 

Holy Spirit. Veni, Sancte Spiritus 

Bring fire 

Send dove

Protect. Anoint. Sustain.

Ordain.

And make her a priest in Your church.

The Rev. Margaret Duncan Holt Sammons (1948-2022) was a trailblazer in the Episcopal Church. She graduated from the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1977, becoming one of the earliest women ordained an Episcopal priest in the United States, and the first from the Diocese of Western Michigan (May 1978). In her 45-year ministry, she was known as an inspiring preacher, a gifted teacher of adults and children, an advocate for racial justice, a pastoral caregiver of extraordinary compassion and wisdom. She is deeply missed by her family, friends, parishes she served, and all who knew her.