Last night was the season premiere of "Who do you think you are?"
Do you ever wonder what it is that drew you into your vocation? What was it that first captured your interest in the work that you do? Was it something in your DNA or just the exposure to something as you were growing up that captured your interest in the work that brings you fulfillment as well as provides your livelihood?
Honestly, I know, it may seem odd to imagine but I do think there is something that we pick up from our ancestors, whether we know their history or not, that has a positive effect on our own lives.
I first was struck with this thought when I learned about my great grandmother Bulachier. She came to North America through the port of Galveston from her homeland of Alsace Lorraine.
But before I learned about her, I had some internal attraction to the French Language. It didn’t matter that living in Texas and growing up in California, I would have been able to put Spanish to use immediately. Something within me insisted that I should learn French.
I did well in the language and for a time thought that I would become an interpreter and travel guide.
But then I fell in love…and got married….and decided that wasn’t a realistic career goal for me.
I worked many jobs, from theatres to retail stores to banking. Then we decided we were ready to start a family, and I became a mother.
And time went on, and I found God working in my life in mysterious ways.
Along the way, I had fallen so deeply in love with Jesus that everything I did began to be viewed through my understanding of my faith and God’s call on my life.
When I finally returned to college to finish my degree I thought I was being called to the profession of law, and so I studied political science as preparation.
But by the time I finished my degree we had also added to the family. And that was a good thing. But I also felt something stir inside me that said law school was not the path I should take. Instead the spirit seemed to press upon me to work in the community and Church at least for the time being.
And as time went along that was very satisfying, until a time when it was not. What I felt stirring in me was the call to return to school, to seminary and the call to ordained ministry.
When I finally trusted that this was a movement of the Holy Spirit and trusted God the way opened for me. And I did well enough to complete the studies and then was called to serve in Idaho. But regardless of how well I did, I somehow didn’t quite fit the denominational mold for where I had followed the call. The resistance that we felt toward each other, the United Methodist Church and I, became so strong that I felt that I had come to the end of the relationship. Not my relationship with Christ. Not my commitment to the Church. It was just my relationship with a particular polity that had reached a conclusion.
In the previous two years I had been introduced to the Church of England and reaffirmed my roots within the Episcopal Church.
During all this time, I knew that back in my mother’s family, following back into my grandfather’s ancestors, there was a three times great grandfather who was listed as Rev. Wright. There weren’t any stories passed down. Just a note on the genealogical charts that said Rev. Thomas Wright was ordained by the Rt. Rev. Ravenscroft. And I didn’t really think a lot about that. It was an interesting fact. Period. I didn’t even know what denomination he was, until I came across a reference to Bishop Ravenscroft in a History book on the Episcopal Church, a couple of years ago.
Now, in all my childhood the only thing I knew about my biological father, was that he had grown up in New York, he was a printer, and died young. I never met his family.
That sort of explains my fascination with words and writing, and computer generated
publicity activities. My mother was a journalist, and my father a printer.
Recently though, my brother and I began doing some more ancestry work.
I didn’t expect to learn much. Did it really matter at this late stage in my life? I didn’t expect to recover a lost fortune, and by now every one of the relatives would probably be dead. But it was an interesting question to pursue. At least I could tell my children and grandchildren something more concrete than what I already knew.
Well, I learned that my paternal grandfather was an undertaker.
Hmm… working with people at the end of life, and officiating memorials and graveside services have been among the most sacred acts of ministry I performed while serving as pastor.
But, then, when I was finally able to trace my father’s family back further I was to discover yet another ancestral depository of church leadership.
The lineage led all the way back to Colonial America and England. It led straight back into the history of the controversies of the dissenting church. I learned that my father’s ancestors descended from the “Mather Dynasty” which started with the Rev Richard Mather.
Who would have imagined?
When I began looking into my family history, finally identifying the ancestors of my father, I never in my wildest imagination could have come up with the thought that I would uncover such rich religious roots.
It was amazing enough to learn about my three times Great Grandfather, a respected Episcopal Missionary Priest. And then we learned that his Uncle was Rt. Rev. William Mercer Green, the first Bishop to Mississippi.
But then to trace back to one of the key dissenting church leaders was simply a bit too much for me to just think it up.
No wonder my theological positions confuse ecclesiastical examiners. Catholic, and Congregationalist, Episcopal and Unitarian; lay and ordained all saints above are part of my spiritual DNA.
If what Richard Piper wrote about his 90 minutes in heaven, I have so many saints watching and guiding, waiting to welcome me when I finally do enter into the glory of heaven.
Until then, I carry forward the message of the faith which has been handed down generation to generation, although sometimes imperfectly, but nevertheless to the glory of God.
SO, with a tip of the hat to Ancestry.com, “Who do you think you are?”
I am a child of God. Called to be a priest.
