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PDF versionWhat my father, who seldom called, taught me about my calling
by Jamie L Manson on Jun. 14, 2011
I can’t remember a time when I looked forward to Father’s Day. For most of my life, I had the dubious distinction of being the child of what some refer to as a “deadbeat dad.”
Deadbeat dads were those fathers who failed to pay child support, and who often ran off to another state (Florida and Arizona seemed particularly popular) and didn’t keep in contact with their kids.
My father fit that bill perfectly, though he wasn’t always a deadbeat. My parents were divorced by the time I turned three. And from the age of three to thirteen, I saw him every other Sunday. In his Suzuki Samurai, he drove the crushing, costly commute from his home in New Jersey to my home in the center of Long Island, to spend a few hours with me, usually bringing me to the movies and then to dinner.
And then in the early 1990s, his company moved from Manhattan to Allentown, Pa. He and many other colleagues were given a small severance package and left behind. Soon after, for reasons I never fully understood, he left the Garden State and headed for the Valley of the Sun.
The Samurai died of exhaustion soon after its cross-country trek. And my father, apparently, was gradually absorbed into a pod of deadbeat dads that I’ve always suspected exists somewhere just outside of Phoenix.
In the first months after his move, he called weekly. In one conversation, when I was a high school freshman, he told me he had met a woman half his age with two young daughters and was hoping to marry her. After that, the calls came in less frequently, and then, for a number of years, didn’t come at all. He resurfaced some time when I was a senior in high school, professing his continued love and desire for a relationship.
This cycle of reaching out, disappearing for years, re-entering my life with newfound commitment, and then quickly vanishing again became a pattern that characterized the next twenty years of our relationship.
Like many people who grow up with an emotionally or physically absent parent, this experience led me to pursue unhealthy relationships for years. I gravitated toward emotionally and/or physically unavailable people. And each of these pursuits ended with the same drama, disappointment, shattered hopes, and mental anguish.
A very good therapist helped me see that the root of this behavior was grounded in my experience with my father. I set myself up by pursuing people who, like him, were unavailable in the hope that I could somehow undo the harm of his repeated rejection. Armed with this new self-awareness, I was finally able to stop the madness of running after harmful relationships and gradually reoriented my time and attention toward healthy, available people.
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My capacity for building relationships was finally on the right track. Except for one. And it wasn’t until years after those therapy sessions that I realized that these old wounds were affecting my pursuit of a relationship with the Catholic Church.
Around the time my father left for Arizona, I entered my first year in Catholic school. Though I had been in public school for the previous seven years of my life, I was quickly swept up in the mystery and meaning of Catholic liturgy. Priestly ministry and the sacraments fascinated me. Even at the age of fourteen, I felt irresistibly called to be a part of it all, to serve God in the church. I wanted to immerse myself in the life of my parish and learn from our priests.
I was rejected at every turn. Female altar servers weren’t permitted. Young women weren’t allowed to work the evening shift in the rectory, which involved taking phone calls and dispensing Mass cards. That job, apparently, was reserved for high school boys only.
I even visited the diocesan office of vocations, and spoke to the director for nearly an hour. The priest I met with said little, yawned a few times, and, when I finally concluded my story, handed me a magazine with tear out postcards that I could send to different religious orders of women.
I was crushed, but what was I expecting? I wanted someone to help me discern what God was trying to tell me. But I was seeking answers and acceptance in a patriarchal institution that refuses to believe that God calls women to ordained ministry.
It took years before I was able differentiate what was an authentic calling to ordained ministry, and what were my old demons compelling me to pursue a relationship with a “metafather” who was certain to reject me.
I had to undergo a long and sometimes uneasy discernment to figure out what was an authentic passion to serve God and what was my falling back into the drama of an old, self-destructive pattern.
Eventually I understood that, for me, there is a crucial difference between wanting to be ordained and needing to be ordained. I realized that my calling to ordained ministry was a valid invitation from God, but that I no longer needed the validation of a small, privileged caste of men for my vocation to be true and real.
The cyclical relationship that my father and I shared for two decades came to a sudden end late last summer. My father was found deceased of an apparent heart attack in his apartment by some co-workers who were concerned when he hadn’t shown up to work.
As his next of kin, I took care of all of his final arrangements and affairs. For the first time in a long time, I felt important to him. Slowly, I have been able to make peace with him in a way that was not possible while he was alive. I have been able to see how much his parents had damaged him, and that the pain he suffered as a child was far greater than what I experienced.
It is not quite so simple in my relationship with the institutional church. As long as the hierarchy continues to degrade women, shame gays and lesbians, and refuse to account for protecting sex abusers I cannot make peace with their grave acts of injustice. For that reason, I will continue to fight for the dignity and just treatment of all those marginalized by the institutional church.
I can, however, make peace with that part of myself that sought ordination out of a wounded need for the approval of men.
As those needs began to pass away, I began to see clearly that God offers innumerable opportunities to be a sacramental vessel in the world. And I opened myself up to experience God’s ordination through the people who welcomed me and called me forward to share my gifts.
[Jamie L. Manson received her Master of Divinity degree from Yale Divinity School where she studied Catholic theology and sexual ethics. Her columns for NCR earned her a first prize Catholic Press Association award for Best Column/Regular Commentary in 2010.]
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This is a very honest &
This is a very honest & moving blog entry. If you feel close to God then you have found a treasure indeed & no one can take that away from you.
Jamie, I am very sorry that
Jamie, I am very sorry that your father behaved as badly as he did. my biological father was an irresponsbile jerk who abandoned my mother. As a result of this, I have tried to be as good a father as possible to my own children and while far from perfect, I at least tried to be there for them.
Why are some fathers so worthless? I cannot answer, other than to say that it is moral cowardnice and a total lack of responsibility. it is very unfortunate for so many children to have to endure this, but here we are. All we can do is to try to rsie above this and treat others with dignity and respect.
A beautifully written
A beautifully written article, filled with honesty. I especially appreciate your discernment of the call to ordained ministry.
A beautifully written
A beautifully written article. Thank you for your honest sharing. I especially appreciate they way you discerned the possible call to ordained ministry.
The thread on the rejection
The thread on the rejection of girl altar servers for the Latin rite mass has inexplicably grabbed me. I think, after reading Jamie's article, that i understand. Her very personal story might, by some, be seen as of lesser magnitude, sort of common, unique to her, individual, not related to the larger issue of women's exclusion. But, let's reconsider. It is at least siginificant to me.
I have always been intrigued by the "power of the one". One cannot adequately address the issue of the sexual abuse of children and youth, for me, without an appreciation of "that" child, my child. While all circumstances are unique the one 'flower' or one 'tree' is the platform for seeing and respecting the forest. So it is with Jamie's story.
The rationale for the exclusion of "girls" seems to be that the earlier rite, having excluded girls, now being reaffirmed should be consistent in all respects, including the exclusion. Right?
So, if it was right then, it is still right? But it was not right then. Granted, inculturation and tradition rendered it acceptable "then". We, the world have moved on and understand that the exclusion of women, let's stay with non-ordained functions, is based upon a mysogynistic justificatory interpretation of scripture and tradition. So, to allow the exclusion is to
say that it was okay to marginalize "girls" now as it was then.
I loved the latin rite, see it now as a museum piece, a grand operatic spectacular on the subject of faith and worship, would participate it in that light. I know now that its allowance is really a decision to return to "way it was", that includes not just the primacy of hierarchical patriarchalism but a reaffirmation that women have only a niche of servitude not only outside of sacrament but in sacramental ceremony. Thus all kinds of abuse are, well not necessarily okay, but not of sufficient moment to bear the weight of the moral authority of the Roman Catholic Church in the world. Sexual abuse, whether of marginalization, exclusion or of rape, whether state, tribal, state or familial is lesser moment than the real issues of male institutional domination. And they want to reaffirm that point in italic and underlined.
To have made the acceptance of girls mandatory and a condition would have been a bit of a risk. It would have opened the door to discussion of "escalation" but it would have been a piece of powerful and courageous holiness that would also have warranted the vatican a bit of respect; bought them a bit of time.
Thank you Jamie, for
Thank you Jamie, for sharing your beautiful and articulate story of insight and healing. Your writing is truly a gift of ministry to your readers.
.
The Lord's church is called to be a channel of God's healing and hope (the good news), but quite often the institution with its patriarchal relics does just the opposite... deepening old wounds and inflicting new ones — the 'Castor Oil school of punishing religion' that insists it must make you feel bad, or feel worse, to do any good.
.
Fortunately, the Holy Spirit is not hamstrung by the failings of men and their institutions. I plan to share your article with a friend who is in need of your wise ministry.
.
"It is not quite so simple in
"It is not quite so simple in my relationship with the institutional church. As long as the hierarchy continues to degrade women, shame gays and lesbians, and refuse to account for protecting sex abusers I cannot make peace with their grave acts of injustice. For that reason, I will continue to fight for the dignity and just treatment of all those marginalized by the institutional church."
I'm a white male, 6'+, 72, in complete agreement with you. But the hierarchy and clergy do not constitute the Church. We are the people of God. Edicts from on high cannot control or defeat us. The early Church was democratic in many ways. It will come back.
So moved was I by thinking
So moved was I by thinking about the Reverend Father John Dear SJ's powerful new article on Rabbi Heschel that I posted this response to Jamie's comment there rather than here, and hope it might show up here. Forgive me, please:
-------------------------------------------------------------------
we upon these pages recently read of the life-bringing, compassionate challenge from the Reverend Father Haring to the Reverend Father Charles Curran to forgive the Vatican as the father the Prodigal Son
I ask you please to forgive in this way your father, Jamie. Perhaps he did everything that was institutionally possible to keep you with him. Perhaps the pain of losing you was so great he had to go far off into permanent, oblivious exile, so torn by the profound and unbearable pain of losing you, a pain which makes death appear a relief, a pain without measure, to lose his beloved daughter when she was just beginning to grow and to know, to lose you when he most wnated to show you each day all of the wonderful things in this world, and to watch you grow strong, unquestionably proud, and full of joy with him.
Not just a few hours a week, watching a stupid movie and going to MacDonald's Playland, cause that is all that mom would allow.
Please forgive the father, and grow strong always, proud, and joyful.
The pain comes from Love prevented.
Love freely, once more.
Can you call him?
Know where Arizona is?
Near here. Not far at all.
Great *stuff*. I felt a
Great *stuff*. I felt a oneness with this article as I read same. Always read with delight your articles as I love your *open* personal style.
well done, Jamie, thanks and
well done, Jamie, thanks and keep up the writing..
and blessings, dncrowley
you know, Jamie, and again
you know, Jamie, and again just floating hypotheses here, none of my business at all, none of my knowledge, but just supposing, like the profound anguish of losing you forever and seeing from a distance you being raised and formed by others, not himself, so negatively affected his job performance that he was not invited to move with the company to Allentown, but bought out at a cheap price, and he was no longer marketable in Manhattan, hitting the Willy Loman distracted syndrome, and so the southwest was the only place he could find work at all, at all, and that just as your mom was replacing him with folks not him, just so, watching his replacement irreversible and irrevocable, and that there was nothing at all that he could do, he took the extremely desperate and anguishing move of trying, without wanting to at all ever, knowing this impossible, to replace you, to find the joy he knew with you, with another ready made family, and of course found none.
just saying . . .
I just need to say something
I just need to say something about this post....
Those who feel they must provide Jamie with a reason to "forgive" her father or to rationalize her father's behavior have totally missed the point.
First, this article is about how Jamie processed her father's absence and its psychological affect on choices she made as an adult or a sense of what she needed spiritually. Once identified as a contributing source of issues affecting Jamie, she was able to adjust. This article was not an attempt to bash her father. It is an attempt to identify what forms us so that we can make a positive change in our lives.
Second, although we may be able to extend compassion to Jamie's father because his own upbringing affected him or circumstances of his adult life contributed to his absence as a father, it is not Jamie's fault her father was not there. Naming what happened to her is not telling the story to shame her father [note that the story was not told until after her father died and is past shaming - although I am not indicating in any way that "shaming" was Jamie's purpose for writing]. Children are not responsible for adult problems but they are the often the victims. And while we should get on with our lives realizing that our parents are who they are and suffer from the same "demons" all humans do, she should not be considered a whiner because she has finally put all the pieces together to see how these demons of her father gave her a few of her own.
Third, Jamie's intuitive process is of benefit to others [and there are so many of them] who have endured the same abandonment. Her insight is helpful to people who have lived with absent or disapproving parents. It may not always be possible to exorcise these demons completely from our lives, but it is helpful to recognize them for what they are and acquire some peace.
Thanks for your well written
Thanks for your well written response with which I totally agree. I had a similar experience with both my parents. Although the details are not the same, it was the same process of putting the pieces together, to find some understanding and compassion for my parents, but just as important for myself. I too felt that I had a calling, and like Jamie I am a woman too, finding the doors closed within the institutional church. Again I too followed a similar journey as Jamie in finding a place to use my gifts. God works through us in numerous ways. God is often a God of surprises !
while well written,
while well written, wrongfully written.
God is Love.
Love thy enemy.
A phrase limited by the severe limitations of the tongue of the anglo.
Love those with whom you do not now share love.
Love the unloved.
THe forgotten
the rejected
the outcast
the sorrowing, alone
we pray
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us
who have offended us
who owe us
each day we must settle in silence and sit and see what comes up, for hours on end
thinking of God's infinite compassionate love and mercy and forgiveness
and feel all of those bumps on the road which pain us, still
and find these, too, our father who failed us
and contemplate, in struggling to forgive
and to love
the perspective of the other
the kafkaesque, beckettian hopelessness of the US "family" court system
for any man
where black is white and truth and justice do not prevail
ever
the utter betrayal of the most sacred
without recourse
contemplate this
the lose of dearest loved ones
forever
without any recourse
and what can a man do?
slaughter like Ulysses all with his bow?
we no longer live in the time of the Titans.
flee to exile, far from the injustice
and the sight of those we have lost forever irreparably>
like the courts reaching down our gullet and ripping forth our heart and its roots and our lung and our guts
by the root
what can we do
but flee
cowardly
powerlessly
to the desert
to wail
to the wind
contemplate
to know with mercy
and with dawning love
what occurred
not of our choice
it is extremely damaging to any child
and incomprehensible
that this apparently powerful person
who must be perceived as a powerful person
for healthy psychological development to come
has been rendered utterly powerless
and shame-filled
must be his fault
as all say
as all tell the child
all who are left
to tell
it is extremely damaging to the child
and painful
and incomprehensible
settle now in peace
and in silence
to contemplate this
come to wholeness
and into Lovingness
in peace
and in silence
this is not to "rationalize"
it is to heal
and to perceive
and to forgive
all involved
and to arise and to walk
for the first time
perhaps, anonymous, I was not
perhaps, anonymous, I was not writing as directly as Jamie courageously does here and always, but obliquely, from my own heart, about my own very sad life.
Had I Jamie's skill and courage this might have been more clear.
And I offer her, and you, all my prayers in our common quest for peace and wholeness.
We're all on spiritual
We're all on spiritual journeys here, trying to sort out what is true and what is not. It comes easier to some than others. For those who have commented with little to no charity, truth seems to have come easily to you. It would be nice if you would remember that perhaps others find your truth more difficult to accept. It is quite unkind to insult her intentions when she has been so open.
Jamie: thanks, as always, for your insights. God be with you.
Some of the comments listed
Some of the comments listed here are simply cruel. Ms. Manson has written about her personal anguish and others vilify her. I have to question NCR's standards in allowing such attacks.
Ms. Manson simply and elegantly revealed a deeply poignant personal experience. Space would not allow her to write her autobiography and include all her experiences with her mother, friends (or not), and others who affected her growing and maturing. She chose, then, to present one painfully significant facet.
This is an emotionally moving piece from a wounded young woman. The attacks on her so called "sinfulness" or her "misogyny" are simply out of line and reflect more those writer's narrowness and self-righteousness. Ms. Manson said nothing about sexual orientation in this piece, but spoke deeply about her human pain. To vilify someone for hurting is simply cruel.
Did I miss something? I
Did I miss something? I haven't read anything that sounded cruel, mysogynistic or that attacked her sinfulness! What blog are you reading, fella'?
Brave of you to expose your
Brave of you to expose your personal story to the nasty harpies.
Jamie, My family has
Jamie,
My family has generations of loving, present fathers stretching from my great grandfather down to my sons who are fathers. Nevertheless, I could feel your pain and anguish as I read this article.
You have a true gift for writing from the heart, and you minister to me and help me understand the discrimination and pain that my gay son endurs in the church and public arena. You are correct that females do not "need" to be ordained, but I believe many females have a true calling from Christ to be ordained. Those females, and I, need them to be ordained. I urge you to continue your fight for the dignity and just treatment of all those marginalized by the RCC. I look forward to all your writings.
Dan Pickett
God offers innumerable
God offers innumerable opportunities to be a sacramental vessel in the world...I love that line. Thank you for a wonderful article and a chance to see that God does indeed call women to service in the church....perhaps in much more powerful ways than men.
Thank you for a beautiful and
Thank you for a beautiful and heartfelt article. We know God does call women to service and we have the gifts to give so much to this church if only they would open the gates to true service.
I fight my thoughts of leaving for another denomination all the time. And if not for the long history I have with the Catholic Church I think I would have left many years ago...
6-16-11 ‘You’ve come a long
6-16-11 ‘You’ve come a long way baby’ as the saying goes, but you have a long road ahead. All the ‘life hurting events’ that everyone experiences are a significant part of life. But let us not forget the ‘life healing events’ that everyone experiences are a significant part of life. It’s the human condition. For me, escaping from trauma of a different kind, came from becoming a truly independent person. That meant seeing the world at large through a great deal of authentic reading, (we need a wide variety of human knowledge; we depend on each other); through gradually experiencing each life event like I was playing a certain role in a drama; using each event as a true learning experience through which I could make a better contribution to the world. Contributing people are happy people and make other creatures of the earth contented. Some people use electronic devices that offer nothing more than cotton candy, rather than pursue substantial reading that nurtures human potential and promotes needed contribution and real happiness. Perhaps we need more self-fulfillment and less self-gratification; more objectivity and less subjectivity. In the end, we need independence, dependence and interdependence, and to recognize when each challenges us.
Today is called Bloomsday,
Today is called Bloomsday, being June 16, celebrated worldwide as the day meticulously chronicled by Mr. James Joyce in which Mr. Leopold Bloom stepped out to stroll through Dublin.
Also chronicled of course is Mr. Stephen Dedalus. The original episodic titles were Homeric, recalling the search of TElemachus for his FAther, Ulysses, complete with a stay with Nestor.
Nestorlike, Jamie, I call you forth to seach for the father, trapped as on the isle of the enchanter Calypso, now in the smoky dust of the Arizonian wilds.
HOwever I may make this quest more easy, please let me know, and you have my prayers for this and for all good things
I wonder if we would include
I wonder if we would include in the pod of deadbeat dad's, clergy who abandon the women carrying the children they helped to create and brought into the world, permit their bishops to coerce them into relinquishing their God given right to acknowledge them, (by signing confidentiality agreements if paternity is established), to pay them off for services rendered, or have them adopted out to prevent scandal preserve the priesthood and inheritance rights.
"Oh well", I suppose someone is going to say, once out of the Confessional where they become Christ in persona, "theyr'e only human".
Imagine what these children are taught about "calling", many never knowing who they really are.
There lies an evil Jamie.
in what way may a child who
in what way may a child who has thus early suffered pray
Our Father, Who Art in Heaven . . .
I believe in God, the Father Almighty . . .
just asking . . .
Again another story of the
Again another story of the emotionally wounded from the pain of a childhood with a physically or an emotionally absent father. These wounds cause a condition known as the orphan heart. We are now in a pandemic of fatherlessness. Understanding what the conditions are of an orphan heart and the process for inner healing is of utmost importance. It is all about establishing an intimate relationship with the Father. Having an experiential encounter of the Father's love. I commend you on writing about your orphan heart experience. It is a condition the majority of people do not know about and do not understand.
In 2010 statistics showed that the number of fatherless children in the United States was 18 million and 163 million in the world. Today’s children seek affirmation from all the wrong places including gangs. They are longing to belong. They are aching for acceptance. They are trying to fill a void of a father’s love in their souls. There is an epidemic of soul sickness in this world.
We need to know who we are in God the Father's eyes. God wants to have an intimate relationship with us and will use any means available to draw us close to him and His heart. But, it depends on our image of God.
So how do we develop our image of God? As children, we develop our image of God and understanding about love from our earthly fathers. Children are growing up without knowing a father’s love. The results are that these children become adult’s with childhood emotional wounds, just like I did. You may be one of them. How can we be good Christians, parents, spouses, and/or friends if we have an unhealed inner child? We need to experience God’s love. We need a personal encounter with the merciful Savior Himself to enable us to personally experience the love of Jesus Christ and the Father. To receive his love and then give it away. Because of His love we are able to say “Jesus I Trust In You.”
Seek Him and His love and know that you are His beloved child in whom He is well pleased.
Blessings,
Bruce Brodowski
Author of:
My Father, My Son, Healing the Orphan Heart with the Father's Love
President
Carolinas Ecumenical Healing Ministries
Minister, missionary, author, publisher, speaker
www.brucebrodowski.com
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