On Being an Ordained Minister

I got an e-mail from my old friend Doug Holt today. He offered some advice on getting ordained:

"Always remember re diaconate, priesthood and episcopacy that the being of the one is not defined by the doing of the job."

I've struggled with this one a lot, as you might imagine. That I will be a different person when I am ordained is now obvious to me because my identity is, in part at least, continually being co-created in the relationships in which I participate. Since others will obviously see me differently after ordination, I must change my identity.

The question about whether my relationship with God will change after the laying on of hands is one to which, at present, I am minded to offer a tentative "yes". If so, my identity will change even further.

But then, once one leaves the notion of identity as a state and sees it as a pattern which emerges from all the relationships into which an individual enters, it is obvious that identity is always subject to change. (Indeed, it is stability which needs more explanation!)

Identity involves both continuity and change. I know that I am not the same person as I was twenty years ago (or even yesterday) and I also know that I am the same person as I was twenty years ago (and even yesterday). The interesting questions are around the influences which lead to both the change and the stability.

Doug also wrote that, "I find the old ontological: functional distinction re orders unhelpful, but I know that the psychology is so strong always to build an identity on one's role or function, and that is not helpful."

I must admit I struggled with this one: will ordination change the very nature of my being; my ontological status, or will it do no more than give me permission and authority to perform certain tasks? But perhaps a dichotomy between 'I am what I do' and 'I do what I am' isn't helpful. Perhaps, like the photon, both are true in a quantum sense and one or the other only becomes actuated in specific contexts - but the actuation of one does not negate or destroy the validity of the other.

It will be especially interesting for me because I will continue to play my professional role. I am currently working with Dublin City Council, helping them with a participative approach which aims to involve a lot more people in the process than they had last time. I will be ordained in the middle of the contract (it runs until the beginning of December) and it was a bit weird when I first realised that I will change by title and my mode of dress half way through. (Though, of course, this will remain hidden from them unless I choose to disclose it).

The above makes me sound (and feel) like a bit of a prospective cross-dresser: appearing like a 'normal' man to my client but dressing in strange clothes and assuming a new identity when in secret! There is a frisson to this:that I will have a secret identity about which my clients may know nothing unless I choose to self-disclose. This seems very childish - I need to deal with it pretty quickly I think.