Boy world

I was recently at a meeting about ministering to men in our churches, and more to the point , those not in our churches. We need blokey things, we were told, places where men feel safe.
All well and good but then the bit that made me fume. The speaker mentioned he had invited the bishop to think about the gender breakdown of one of the groups he spends a lot of time looking at, confirmees, and in particular adult confirmees. As I imagined for a moment looking through a bishop’s eyes I wondered about another group bishops uniquely face and that is ordinands. So,stupidly,because I knew the answer,I asked whether that was a factor that ought to be considered. The fact that from a predominantly female confirmation slate (not a good thing) we move, at least for the workhorse stipendiary clergy, to a still predominently male ordination list.
That was nothing to do with lack of men in the Church, I was told. I exchanged glances with a female colleague next to me who took up the baton, but to no effect – it was a different matter. We gave up. We have both been around the block enough times to know that there are times when the implicit mysogeny of he Church of England is not going to be taken seriously as an impediment to our growth and so we put it back in the bag until next time – or until we are in female clergy company.
This may sound like a feeble whine – but it isn’t – it is a thunderous rant. I do not whine. Public ministry is a risky undertaking for anyone. It might look from the outside like rather a cushy number – and I suppose it can be if you switch off an actual prayer life and actually listening to God and maybe even doing what God calls you to now and then. But that is not what most clergy do, most clergy spend a lot of time thinking and praying and honestly trying to discern and do God’s will in an environment which is often hostile and if not hostile then mocking.
Women are at a disadvantage in this already. Although we have been the backbone of parish churches for centuries we have not always or often had public voice. Those who have risked public voice have often been crusaders and campaigners and those sorts of on fire people are not the easiest to get on with and are often very easy to knock down with genderist comments – after all would you want to really have dinner with Jeremiah or John the Baptist.
There are realities to being a woman which strengthen us, and there are those moments at which we seem to be at war with the flesh in which we find our current existence. Writing down the joys and woes of womanhood sounds like a rather pathetic drip, but we all know that real life brings real challenges,whoever you are. In the Church strong women are accused of wanting to be men, women who show gentler traits are accused of being ineffective. It is a buffeting and baffling process to get through the ranks of the church to the ordination process. I once read that boys tend to play fight to show affection and often the process seems like this – kick after kick – but you know we love you, right?
There are layers and layers underneath this. Women have begun to express them over the past few decades and I have huge sympathy with the older feminist theologians such as Mary Daly who have found the image of God so completely shredded in the Church, the language of God so abused that they have rejected both – not because the should be no reverence to deity but because every instrument we use and know has been tarnished by the oppression and suppression of both female humanity and the female divine.
We have to deal with this – somehow and soon. We cannot engage either with society or, more vitally, with the true nature of God as community, if we do not hang up for good some of our ancient, deep and often assumed shackles. Sector ministry to encourage those outside in is all very well, deep rooted and dangerous experience of God is something much more central to who we all really are.
There are no easy diagnoses, there are only those glimpses and snags which we all have as we journey through life, our fascination with female mystics I think tells us that there is something we hunger for in this purer experience of the divine but we do not really know how to access this without reference to our ancient and mis-drawn boundaries.
I don’t like the feeling that comes from being adamant and digging my heals in, I do not enjoy a rush of power or use authority as a weapon, but too often in this ministry we are engaged in we are talked down to and belittled. Perhaps men experience this too – there is so much we need to learn.
There is concern over the women bishops debate about navel gazing, I am worried I might be encouraging us to more introversion – but is it introversion to find the still small voice which whispers in each heart and sets it free to truly live?. Is it introversion to accept that there is both unity and difference in all humanity and that these are not exclusive and do not have to break down, but can make truly alive?
Perhaps putting women in purple will change all this, perhaps a different way of being church will emerge – perhaps not radical, perhaps not even describable, but discernible. Or perhaps we are offering food to ravening lions of ancient and broken institutions – God can close those mouths and bring us through safe  – but who is God to us anyway?