{"id":23083,"date":"2019-05-28T13:05:37","date_gmt":"2019-05-28T20:05:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=23083"},"modified":"2019-05-28T13:05:37","modified_gmt":"2019-05-28T20:05:37","slug":"maternal-metaphors-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/maternal-metaphors-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"Maternal Metaphors Matter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Emma Percy\u2019s What Clergy Do<\/em> is a metaphorical glimpse at ministry, which examines the similarities between motherhood and priesthood. Percy\u2019s \u201cintegrated life\u201d principle is a key theme in the book that I plan on leveraging into my research on spiritual warfare.[1]<\/a> I believe the \u201cmothering\u201d traits described by Percy will successfully blend into the armor of God recipe for protection from spiritual warfare. This post will review Percy\u2019s understated egalitarian approach to ministry and focus on her feminine metaphorical language, which lines up nicely with Christ\u2019s arms around us as our metaphorical armor of God.<\/p>\n

First, I love my mother and am very thankful for the unconditional love and care she gave to me from the cradle to present time. She gave birth to me unexpectedly on a flight layover in Orlando, Florida while traveling to Scotland to join my father on his first Air Force assignment. Since then, she has always been there for me through thick and thin. Being my mother does not mean she always supported my actions or decisions, but rather first tolerated them and later came to accept them over time and become proud of me, despite her protective intuitions. For example, playing high school football was not one of her favorite things for me participate in because I did break a hand, had ligament knee surgery, and broke ribs. Nevertheless, she was always in the stands cheering for me and my team. \u00a0When I joined public safety and military aviation she advised strongly against both professions. Yet again, over time she came to tolerate the danger the jobs exposed me to and expressed her support and pride for her son. To this day, my mom still worries about me, I think that is just the way she is wired. But through it all, she was good enough and her unconditional love, tolerance, and eventual support helped promote my development into the person I am today.<\/p>\n

I think Percy\u2019s What Clergy Do<\/em> is a lot like my mom\u2019s love for me. My mom knew when to hold me close and when she needed to let me go. Percy\u2019s \u201cgood enough church\u201d is like that, knowing when to \u201chold close and let go.\u201d[2]<\/a> She describes her parish, like a mother, who knew what she needed to grow and develop from a youth into an adult. Percy reflects on how her parish gave her just enough unconditional love, tolerance, and support that helped sustain her quest for knowledge and promote her calling into the ministry.\u00a0\u00a0 For example, she writes from her own experiences as a priest, so she uses a feminine pronoun. Otherwise, she is very matter of fact about how she describes male-female roles in her narrative. I liked the way she described her metaphor of mothering as a gender-neutral characteristic that fits the parish priest role and is theologically suited to fit both men and women.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

David Warbrick reviewed Percy\u2019s book and said he was very encouraged. Warbrick, a practicing male priest, says What Clergy Do<\/em> gave him permission to \u201cexplore feminine imagery\u201d without feeling awkward.[4]<\/a> He said he felt \u201crefreshed, not marginalized\u201d by Percy\u2019s theological use of the mother caring for her children metaphor to represent the priest caring for his or her parish.[5]<\/a> I really connect with Percy\u2019s use of motherhood as a safe metaphor to talk around and dig deeper into the often contentious roles of a parish priest. I wonder if the use of feminine imagery, like a mother holding her arms around her children, could be leveraged into Paul\u2019s soldier metaphor of wearing armor?[6]<\/a> They both provide protection but the \u201cin the arms of a mother\u201d image might be a good and safe metaphorical space for some people to transition into wearing Christ as their spiritual armor of God for use in spiritual battles. I think I will explore the use of maternal metaphors in my dissertation research.<\/p>\n

Feminist Theology<\/em> published an accompanying article to this book about women and ordination in the Church of England. Percy describes women\u2019s ordination as an \u201cambiguous welcome\u201d that has been a \u201clong hard road.\u201d[7]<\/a> Percy says there are \u201cprofound inequalities\u201d for women in leadership in the Church of England.[8]<\/a> For example, the \u201cAct of Synod 1993<\/em>\u201d allows for Anglo Catholics who are opposed to the ordination of woman priests to preserve their \u201ccommunion with the universal Church\u201d by putting male bishops in leadership roles over women priests. In other words, this act allowed for the legitimate discrimination of woman priests based on the \u201cgrounds of theological conscience.\u201d Percy would say there is a lot of equality work that still needs to be done in England.<\/p>\n

Finally, are we integrating our ministry calling into a reasonable and healthy occupational balance and service matrix? I admire Percy for her wise and experienced reflection and self-evaluation as a priest. She says being a priest is not only a divine calling and profession, but \u201can occupation which takes over the entirety of a person\u2019s life.\u201d[9]<\/a> Percy measures success as coming from a type of necessary \u201ctension\u201d that one experiences when trying to live up to one\u2019s calling. She describes how she wrestles with her ministry tensions until she ultimately resolves to believe and accept the truth that \u201cGod had used me in this place.\u201d[10]<\/a> I believe Percy\u2019s insights and humble discernments are expressed clearly in her closing remarks. I am encouraged when I see others, like Percy, experience God\u2019s unfathomable greatness and then faithfully and obediently surrender her will for His.<\/p>\n

In conclusion, I would say that Percy promotes a positive maternal ministry of presence and agree that just being there, as the incarnational image of Christ, is many times good enough for God to work His sovereign plan in the lives of others. I will add Percy\u2019s work to my dissertation bibliography.<\/p>\n

Stand firm,<\/p>\n

Mike w<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Emma Percy. What Clergy Do: Especially When It Looks Like Nothing<\/em>. (London: SPCK, 2014) 163.<\/h6>\n
[2]<\/a> Ibid., 4.<\/h6>\n
[3]<\/a> Ibid., 16.<\/h6>\n
[4]<\/a> David Warbrick. “Emma Percy, What Clergy Do, Especially When It Looks like Nothing.” Theology 118, no. 5 (2015): 392.<\/h6>\n
[5]<\/a> Ibid.<\/h6>\n
[6]<\/a> Eph. 6:10-18.<\/h6>\n
[7]<\/a> Emma Percy. “Women, Ordination and the Church of England: An Ambiguous Welcome.” Feminist Theology 26, no. 1 (2017): 90.<\/h6>\n
[8]<\/a> Ibid.<\/h6>\n
[9]<\/a> Percy, What Clergy Do<\/em>, 143.<\/h6>\n
[10]<\/a> Ibid., 144.<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Emma Percy\u2019s What Clergy Do is a metaphorical glimpse at ministry, which examines the similarities between motherhood and priesthood. Percy\u2019s \u201cintegrated life\u201d principle is a key theme in the book that I plan on leveraging into my research on spiritual warfare.[1] I believe the \u201cmothering\u201d traits described by Percy will successfully blend into the armor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[967,1539,1039],"class_list":["post-23083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-emma-percy","tag-maternal-metaphor","tag-spiritual-warfare","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23083"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23084,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23083\/revisions\/23084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}