Today, I wore my collar to school for the first time.
I hadn't worn it since my ordination day just over a month ago. The day after the ordination we boarded a plane for two weeks in Costa Rica, and then came back to GOEs and one more week off... and having had no official "deaconing" duties scheduled during that time, I had had no reason to wear it.
At the seminary, there is a tradition of "dressing up" on Wednesdays, which is our main community day. (When I was visiting as a prospective student, someone explained it to me by saying, "Wednesdays are our Sundays at the seminary" -- since many of the students are working in churches on Sundays as part of their field education experience, there isn't an opportunity for the community to gather on Sundays, so the principal worship service of the week is on Wednesdays instead of Sundays at the seminary.) Part of that tradition of dressing up includes those seniors who are ordained to the diaconate in December wearing their collars on Wednesdays for the spring semester, even if they're not scheduled to serve as deacon at the Eucharist that day.
Today was our first Wednesday of the new semester. All five of us who were ordained in December who were on campus (there were six of us total, but one of our deacons is currently on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land) wore our collars today. It was exciting to me to look around the chapel and see my classmates in their collars, looking very official and clerical. Every one of them looked natural and normal in the collar, not a bit out of place, even though this was the first time I'd seen some of them in a collar in real life (I'd seen pictures from the ordinations). My emotion upon seeing them in the collar was pure, unadulterated joy, but my emotions around walking around campus in a collar myself were more mixed.
When I wore the collar for my ordination day, it didn't feel strange at all. I was excited for that day and had tried on the collar several times that fall as I tried to find a clergy shirt that fit me properly in preparation for ordination day. I was excited to wear the collar and it felt natural, I thought, to wear it. But there was something unique about that day -- it was a special day, a special ceremony all about ordination and ordaining. The collar was highlighted that day, literally and symbolically. But today was just another day. A "business as usual" day. And suddenly I was walking around, in normal life, not just on a special day, with a strip of white plastic around my neck that symbolizes an ordained office in the church.
I changed my email signature to "The Rev. Tracy Wells Miller" the day I was ordained, as well as all references to myself on my blog and other areas where my name is listed, and I've had a month to get used to looking at that, and it hasn't felt entirely strange. But somehow it was easier to adjust to the title than to the change in dress. The title was abstract, words on a page. The collar is physical and visible, an outward sign that makes me stand out. And as much as I love attention, there was something unsettling about becoming a physically-marked religious symbol in the world.
As I walked around campus, some classmates and professors commented on the collar. "Lookin' good in that collar!" or "I like the collar on you. It's a nice look." or "Congratulations on your ordination." Others didn't say anything, but I watched their eyes make a brief dip down to my neck before they made eye contact and said hello. Others just interacted with me the same as they ever had, seemingly not noticing the collar at all. But I was aware of it. Every move I made felt different, felt public and scrutinized in some way. I began to think about Muslim women who wear headscarves and Sikh men who wear turbans as outward symbols of their religious faith, and who know what it is like to live as a physically-marked religious symbol in the world.
I thought of Amardeep Singh, Director of Programs for the Sikh Coalition, who appears in the documentary film about post-9/11 hate crimes that I worked with, Divided We Fall. In the film, in speaking about why wearing the turban is important to him, he says,
"Every day when I get up and tie my turban, I'm thinking, 'Be true to the articles. Be a good person.' Because I'm representing not just myself, but my entire community."
I also thought about my friend Susan Werner, an amazingly talented songwriter who calls herself an agnostic but spoke powerfully about faith in her 2007 album, "The Gospel Truth." After writing songs with a Gospel twist, she once told me in an interview for a church magazine,
"Since doing the Gospel project, I’ve had to hold my tongue a few times -- I had to live up to the better messages of the project -- and be a good 'Christian' because I knew I was going to sing these songs that night and I could not let myself be a jerk. Really."
I thought of Susan when I felt myself choosing my words more carefully as I felt the grip of the collar on my neck and thinking twice before I made careless comments or used curse words that have slipped into my vocabulary over the past several years, despite my "goody two shoes" upbringing and my time among evangelicals. I hadn't thought much of it, but now I thought twice. Is this really the image I want to project as a deacon, and as a future priest? Susan's words came back to me. I'm going to have to live up to the faith I profess with my words, the faith I will soon sing as well (in chanted Eucharists!), and be a good priest because I know I'm going to have that collar around my neck and I cannot let myself be a jerk. Really.
Unlike Amardeep, I'm fortunate enough to wear a religious symbol that will be largely respected in this culture, not make me a target for hate crimes. A classmate greeted me today with a respectful nod and a simple, "Reverend." He must have noticed my subtle internal recoil as I laughed, because he responded, "Get used to it!"
In much of the U.S., a collar brings with it respect and deference, sometimes excessively so. "Oh, here, Father, have the best seat in the house," or "let me pay for your lunch," or somehow you wind up with a warning instead of a speeding ticket. These kind of stories I've heard about "special treatment" for the clergy make me uncomfortable, but perhaps I'm naive to think the responses I get will be entirely positive. There are enough people who have been hurt badly by priests and there is enough controversy over women priests that I may need to expect the collar to bring me some animosity. A male clergy friend of mine once told me about a female priest friend of his who was shopping in a Christian bookstore with her collar on and had someone come up to her and say, "Take off that costume, Satan!" I certainly won't be mistaken for a Roman Catholic priest, as my male colleagues will be.
Maybe one day I will be so used to wearing the collar that I won't even notice it. Maybe it will become the "new normal," it will be business-as-usual, just part of my regular identity and I won't think twice about my words or my actions while I'm wearing it. But I hope not. I hope it always rests a bit uncomfortably on my Adam's Apple as I swallow, reminding me, "Be true to the faith. Be a good person. Because I'm representing not just myself, but my entire community."
