Living the theology of a Bishop's spouse: Experience, experiment and adventure

Let me first introduce myself My name is Phoebe Griswold. I am a baptized Christian, a member of the Episcopal Church in the United States and therefore of our Anglican Communion. I am the mother of two grown daughters, now a mother-in-law and for 33 years the wife of the man who since January is Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States. I leaped at the topic "The Spirituality of Bishops' Spouses" when it was first presented to me two years ago. I wanted to explore not only what my own spirituality was as it related to being the wife of a bishop, but also to think about the spirituality of other bishops' spouses. What excited me most of all was to learn about the inner lives of our sisters (and now brothers) from around the world. Little did I know when I accepted the invitation a year later that my husband would be called to be Presiding Bishop and that I would then have the opportunity to know bishops' spouses around the world and draw close to them through this work. This is the beginning of an exploration that I will carry out over the next nine years, and one for which I am extremely grateful. While bishops may now be women, and have husbands, the overwhelming number of bishops' spouses are wives and mothers. I will speak primarily to this woman's experience. I am eager to have husbands of bishops contribute their understanding and experience and hope to hear their voices in the future. For now, I see this as a work in progress and am excited to begin it with you.

What I want to do is outlined in the carefully chosen title of this presentation. I came at these words "Living the Theology of a Bishop's Spouse: Experience, Experiment and Adventure" for the following reasons. I want to take the lived experience of our lives, their experimentation and their adventure, and then reach for God through them. With some trepidation, I redefined my topic by choosing the word "theology" instead of "spirituality." To me, at least, spirituality turns our attention to ourselves; it does not necessarily turn us to God or name the One who is the source of all spirituality. Theology, however, is for me the very audacious attempt of humans to speak about that Being who is at the center of all life. When I do theology I make statements about the nature of God that I draw from the experiences I've lived. When I have the courage to make a statement about who God is it comes from a deep inner knowing. When there is congruence of my mind and heart with what I have learned through long and up-close immersion in the Christian tradition and what I have experienced in prayer, I dare to offer an observation about who God is for me.

Anglicans understand that, along with Scripture and tradition, experience is a fundamental resource for "doing" theology. Much of the Bible, after all, is an account of peoples' lives. Our biblical ancestors lived by their knowing or yearning to know the living God; they also told their stories. Can we dare to do the same thing? In particular, can we speak to each other about our lives as bishops' spouses, about their unique and common identities, and then shape our theological reflections from those perspectives? As bishops' wives and husbands, we live very close to the center of the institutional church where intentional, articulate lives are dedicated to sacred story. I would like to suggest that we give back to the church our own theological reflections learned through the scripture of our own lives.

There is something new about what I am trying to do, and this novelty pertains to our context at the end of this century. To begin with, there is the impact of modern technology on communication. For the first time, bishops' spouses can be in touch with each other in a way we never have before, not only within our dioceses or in our own countries but also throughout the world. We can pool our experiences and learn from each other. Eileen Carey's small but important book The Bishop and I is just such a successful attempt to bring together spouses' stories from around our communion. The second characteristic of our time is the acceptance and confirmation of women's experience as a contemporary and unique approach to faith, complementary to the experience of men-an approach that can illumine, challenge and edify the church's exploration into the nature of God. I would like to challenge us to be intentional about contributing to the dialogue taking place in this seminal time. I want this talk to be an invitation to share personal stories that can make a needed contribution to Christian theology. I hope that by adding our voices to the conversation we can share whatever wisdom we have acquired and, above all, encourage the building up of the Body of Christ within the Anglican Communion.

Experience, Experiment and Adventure are three aspects of my life. I live the circumstances that have been given me-the context in which I was born, the relationships swirling around me and the stuff of my own gifts. I learn from that life, I experiment and then I build a path and a story, an adventure, from what I know. The adventure for me is to live beyond the given, to make choices and to write my own journey. It is both risky and exciting. My experience as a bishop's wife began when I married Frank. He was then an assistant priest in an affluent suburban congregation. I, on the other hand, was an early childhood education teacher who knew nothing about being a priest's wife. Nonetheless, I did have a faith that told me there was something for me in the life of the church. Soon after we were married, I left my job because I felt I wasn't being a good wife. I had discovered in the bathroom dripping wet socks that Frank had washed. Taking care of laundry was my job! Next we moved to a small rural congregation where our two daughters were born. I enjoyed the role of rector's wife, taught Church School and participated in women's activities as well as in community environmental projects. Yet, I stayed on the edge of Bible study and prayer groups. I can distinctly recall refusing invitations to go off on retreats. I could feel the apprehension within myself: what if I were to get there and discover no God for me, no inner voice in the silence. I had no idea how to discover or be discovered by a personal God, One who transcended my busy activities of family, church and community but who was also at work within those mundane worlds. I prided myself on being a master of busyness! I could cook more creampuff swans for the women's lunches, bake more cakes to give away and glue more cotton balls on the Christmas creche sheep than anyone thought possible. I was a good parish priest's wife. I listened carefully to what Frank had to say and could even make helpful sermon criticisms. The congregation flourished, thanks in part to my efforts to help the community grow by getting people together. I had created connections between people and built lasting relationships for mutual friendship and support. The Christian community was strong and happy.