Bread and Roses

Bread and Roses

As we go marching, marching
We bring the greater days
For the rising of the women
Means the rising of the race

No more the drudge and idler
Tender toil where one reposes
But the sharing of lives glories
Bread and roses, bread and roses

-James Oppenheim

On June 18, 2006, I was serving as Curate at All Souls’, Point Loma. My rector, the Rev. Mike Russell, was a Deputy to Convention. On that fateful day, he sent me an email with a quote from “Bread and Roses” (posted above). I knew it well. As a teenager, I was a big fan of Judy Collins, and she had included Bread and Roses on her 1975 album of the same name. I knew that it spoke of love, beauty, and the equality of women, but I did not know that a year after James Oppenheim wrote “Bread and Roses” it inspired the Bread and Roses Strike led by women workers in textile mills of Lawrence, Massachusetts.

On June 18, 2006, The Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori was elected as the first female Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. Mike Russell sent his email in response to that joyful, momentous occasion! Women were now represented at every level of my beloved church!

As it turns out, June 18, 2006 was also my daughter’s 12^th birthday, and as sometimes happens when you reflect on your children, I recalled my own 12^th birthday in 1973. I was a faithful member of St. Charles’ Episcopal Church in Northridge, California, where twelve-year-olds were allowed to be acolytes . . . Ah, but not so fast, only twelve-year-old boys were allowed to be acolytes. Girls were not permitted to serve.

Even at twelve years old, I knew that God was calling me to something in the church – but it certainly wasn’t clear what it would be. My options were very limited. My Junior High School career aptitude test told me I could be a funeral director – I guess that was the best the algorithm could come up with since, after all, girls couldn’t be priests.

The 1970s were filled with watershed moments for the Episcopal church–the Philadelphia Eleven being ordained in 1974, General Convention approving women’s ordinations in 1976, and the adoption of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. When I again became involved with church in the late ‘80’s, I assumed that the ordination of women was old news, that everyone was on board. That was far from the truth.

Today, I serve as Canon to the Ordinary to Bishop Susan Brown Snook, the first female Diocesan Bishop in San Diego. I have served as priest-in-charge at several congregations. I have led the Standing Committee of the Diocese during a transition period, and, just as my Jr. High aptitude test suggested, I have walked with countless families as they celebrated the lives of their loved ones who had passed away.  …And I have even served as an acolyte!

The Episcopal Church continues to work together to include all, to welcome all, and to recognize God’s gifts to all of us created in the divine image. There’s still much work to do. And so this June 18, not only will I celebrate my daughter’s birthday (her 30^th!), I will remember all those faithful women who have gone before me, and I will give thanks for their courage, their struggles, and their love for God and God’s church.