The Bishop - Chapter One: "Rev." Maddie

Chapter One: "Rev." Maddie

What Maddie wanted was a good fight.  At least that’s what she thought she wanted.  Perhaps she had some sort of half-baked romantic notion about it, that perhaps it was even righteous in some way.  The narrative she thought she had been told is that she couldn’t be a priest.  She’d imagined it would be a struggle, even a battle to get there, but it hadn’t been.  She had wanted to take on the Church and make them accept her but the Church had welcomed her with open arms.  She had wanted to fight for her vocation and the powers-that-be had robbed her of that privilege. She had been an ideal candidate, her vocation was clear to all her examiners, and she stood head and shoulders above most of the other candidates.  Her ordination, the late bishop had concluded, was a no-brainer. Her supervising priest, the former Archdeacon, admired her, respected her, and trusted her. He gave her much more responsibility than most assistant curates are granted.  The people at the church loved her. She had never, at least until today, found the struggle she had been longing for, had been seeking out, and had persuaded herself was hers by virtue of her gender. She was, brilliant, capable, and mature beyond her years. She mastered most tasks with ease.  Even her acts of defiance were admired as strong and confident.  She longed to lift up the lowly and bring down the mighty from their thrones, but it just never seemed to work out.  

Did anyone know of her drive or understand it?  She had never really shared this longing with anyone, but her restlessness was apparent. It mystified her mentor, Archdeacon Thomas Fulman, who had caught a glimpse of her angst but didn’t quite understand what it was all about. After all, he thought, she had it all.  Why did she always seem to be spoiling for a fight? Her friend, “Young” Tony (as he was known in church-land, although he was in his forties) had a bit more insight, and was a bit more sympathetic. He tried to understand her, to tentatively inquire further, but he was actually a bit intimidated by her and never quite stirred up the courage to ask her outright what her longing for a good fight was all about.  This was a shame. If he had been able to stir up the courage, she would have enjoyed sparring with him. Sometimes, she wished Tony would challenge her. Perhaps it was our old friend Mr. Perkins, now Bishop Perkins, who had the clearest insight into what drove her, and thus laid before her the opportunity to really learn what it means to fight in the Church when he appointed her the incumbent of his former parish, Christ Church, Hampton's Corners.

“Are you sure that’s the hill you want to die on?” Young Tony asked her.

“Well, it sure isn’t going to be ‘Rev. Maddie’,” she replied.  The Archdeacon had drilled into her that the term “reverend” was adjectival, a “style”, and certainly not a form of direct address. Amongst the educated, it was an abomination to address someone as “Rev.”  Yet it had fallen into common usage, between all the Protestant clergy (who didn’t seem to care) and the female priests of her own church (who didn’t feel they had a better option), “Rev.” had now become the normal way of addressing the clergy.  But Maddie would have none of it.  She just wanted to be called “Maddie”, not “Rev”, not “Mother”, not “Ms.”, and certainly not “Father” as even a few of her female colleagues were doing.  Titles were pretentious, she thought, and divided the clergy from the laity.

“Seriously, Maddie…you’ve only been the rector of Hampton’s Corners for a few months. Just tell them what you’re comfortable with and move on.  It doesn’t need to be a fight.”

What Young Tony didn’t understand, though, was that Maddie’s church warden, Judy Jumblejump was prepared to make a big deal of it.  On her first day in her new office, the indomitable Judy had stood at her door, arms crossed, and demanded to know how she wished to be addressed.  “Just ‘Maddie’ is fine,” she had said, and Judy had told her flatly that it wasn’t fine.

“Don’t you want them to respect you?” She said aggressively.

“Respect is earned,” said Maddie.

“There’re a lot of old men here that will never respect you…They won’t disrespect you…intentionally…but they’re old men…you have to let them know you’re the boss around here.” It actually felt to Maddie like Judy was the boss.

“Well, it will be obvious soon enough that I’m not Mr. Perkins,” she said of her predecessor, now her bishop, “and they will have to get used to things being done in a different way.”

“Hmpf,” Judy had muttered, unconvinced, “I just don’t want you getting off on the wrong foot. I’m trying to protect you!” She said, waving a finger at her. Maddie wondered from whom she might really need protection in this place.

“Well Maddie,” Young Tony continued, “it is true that you are following in some big footsteps and you will be judged pretty quickly.  Maybe Judy is right. Just save your itch for a fight for the stuff that really means something.” 

This did mean something Maddie. Her choice in how she would be addressed mattered to her.  She would not buckle under the pressure of proving herself by submitting to the need to have a title. Yes, Mr. Perkins had chosen “Mr”, the antiquated form for addressing a gentleman cleric, but he was a bit of an antique and it fit him perfectly. And it was his choice.  No one had ever questioned it. Everyone accepted it. Even his wife had referred to him as “Mr. Perkins” in front of others, but on Maddie’s first day, she was being told who she would be to these people. She wasn’t having it. After several months of them calling her “Rev” by default, she had decided to put an end to it. She stood up in church one Sunday and had assertively told the congregation to stop calling her “Rev. Maddie”.

A week later, Judy was at her door door again, worked up into a rage: “Do you know what they’re calling you now?”

..."The Bishop" continues tomorrow...