Amy Russell

Opening chapter: Driving into the parking lot that first morning, I noticed the new addition to the elegantly painted sign attached to two stone pillars that identified the church , “St. Phillips, Episcopal Church, Established 1890.” The addition hanging below read, “Rev. Sarah Piper, Rector”. A little squeeze in my heart region was a silent reaction to this clear evidence that I was really here, my first day of ministry, and there wasn’t any getting out of it. All those years of seminary, all the nights of endless cycles of doubt. “Yes, I am doing the right thing!” Then “What the hell was I thinking going to seminary when I’m not even sure what I believe!” And then “Oh, well, I’ll finish the damn degree and then figure it out.” I did finish it, then on a softish belief that maybe I did have some kind of “vocation”, I went ahead and completed all the other requirements. A two year internship at an urban church in Boston and a three month chaplaincy at Mass General and endless meetings with my bishop. But even after all of that, I still kept returning to the remark my father made when I had announced I was going to seminary. “The world doesn’t need more ministers, we need more people who act like they give a damn about this sorry mess of a world!” I had replied, “Yeah, maybe that’s why we need more ministers.” A disgusted look appeared and he went back to reading the New York Times, his Bible. This morning as I was finishing up my 20 minute yoga and breathing exercises, my cell rang and I saw that it was from Marilyn, my closest friend from seminary. “Welcome to the first day of ministry, Sarah!” “I thought I was doing ministry during my internship.” “Oh, no, that was just the preview. You’re in the bunker, now, sweetie! Good luck today!” Marilyn had swept into the classroom in those first few weeks of seminary plunking down next to me in Hebrew Testament class. I noticed her right away as she was carrying not just the Hebrew Testament required for the class, but also a novel by Ondine Williams, a black feminist author who made wondrous fantasy worlds into spiritual adventures. Anyone who could study the Bible and carry it next to spiritual fantasy was someone I had to know. When she learned over and whispered, “And another day of the Holy Patriarchal Trio”, I covered my mouth to keep from losing it, and smiled to her, nodding. Later in the semester, we both received terse notes added to our papers about our “irreverent and arrogant” attitude toward scripture. Having someone who could love God and still joke about “what would Jesus do” when the toilet in the ladies room overflowed was really the only way I got through those days. Marilyn would stay up past midnight with me as we struggled to answer those questions about sin and atonement. We both felt it was more important that we figure out the relevance of Jesus’ teachings to the problem of homelessness rather than whether Jesus believed he was the Messiah or if he just wanted to do good work. So, here I was, about to walk into my first parish settlement, after having been chosen by a search committee of seven people. Five of the committee were over 70 and life- long members of this church, and two forty somethings who had moved into the newer neighborhoods when some older buildings had been condemned and demolished and replaced with “McMansions”. Last night I had attended a congregational welcome dinner where the Senior Warden had introduced me as “a breath of fresh air in our rather stale and outdated church”. I might be a breath of fresh air to him, but to me, right now, I felt more like a wisp of air about to blow away.

Amy Russell Assignment 1: Story Statement Sarah Piper, newly minted Episcopalian minister, must protect the vulnerable and vanquish the corrupt, namely a powerful and misogynist church leader, all with the word of the Bible as a tool, while simultaneously struggling with a personal betrayal and shifting faith. Assignment 2: The Antagonist The antagonist in this story is Jeffrey Trainer, the Sr. Warden of the church. Lacking a moral compass and driven by a thirst for power over others, Jeffrey continues to drive the story to gain his own objectives over Sarah’s resistance. Jeffrey may have believed that he was driven by love for a woman and a need to help her, but it becomes clear when he cannot achieve that, that he is simply seeking power over others. He wants to win all: the love object, prevent the church from moving forward with gay marriage, even to protect his family from the truth. Jeffrey proves to be Sarah’s greatest challenge forcing her to take a stand when she is resistant to do so, believing rather that if she just listens to people, everything will work out. His forceful maneuverings test Sarah’s resolve to find the best in people and push her to finally show her strength. But his way of using people also teaches Sarah not to trust so readily. She begins to understand that people are complex and cannot be judged with simple rules of moral behavior that the church teaches. Assignment 3: Breakout Title Casting the First Stone Blind Mercies Gnosis Assignment 4: Comparables- genre religious literary Search by Michelle Huneven, a funny, sharp novel about a congregational search committee. Evensong, by Gail Godwin, people in a small Smoky Mountain town and a woman minister whose world is altered by them. Assignment 5: Hook Line with Core Wound Sarah, a young, inexperienced minister uncovers a church leader’s secret affair with a young female congregant and his plot to get her hired as staff. Sarah carries a deep internal sense of personal guilt from her helplessness over the early death of a sister. She compensates with a relentless drive to “do good and help people.” Her inner sense of need for moral perfection leads her to judge harshly those around her. But her inner guilt gives her pause in acting on this judgment. When a new lover reveals a betrayal, she is thrown into a hurricane of judgment and indecision. Assignment 6: Inner conflict- scene in story when this inner conflict is triggered and then the secondary conflict involving the social environment. Other characters? Sarah suffered the early loss of a sister which left her with a sense of guilt and helplessness. Her call to ministry was centered on a need to “give back” as recompense for the congregation who helped her to heal. But her naivety about human failings creates in her a harsh judgment of others when she is confronted with the knowledge of the secret affair of the Sr. Warden, and a lack of ability to respond to this revelation. Secondary conflict appears when her lover reveals his married status. Sarah questions her ability to judge morality and to assist others in their moral dilemmas. She finds her new ministry unable to give her that sense of giving back. She struggles with the lack of clarity and relevance in religious doctrine and human behavior. She struggles most with not forgiving herself which makes it harder to forgive others. Final Assignment: Sketch out your setting in detail. What makes it interesting enough, scene by scene to allow for uniqueness and cinema in hour narrative and story. Imagine an interesting setting. Setting is an Episcopalian church in a working class neighborhood in Philadelphia which is changing with the addition of areas of redevelopment of upper middle class housing. The church has been a place where working people did as much as they could to support the church but could not afford to support a professional religious education staff. With the new growth of younger more prosperous families, the church is moving toward hiring a religious education director. The novel takes place around 2016 after gay marriage has been made legal but when many Episcopal churches were still in turmoil about whether to allow it. The vestry of this church still has reservations but the new minister wants to change that. The struggle over this issue demonstrates the internal differences within the church. Church is old stone church building with lots of stained glass, very traditional in a suburban/urban neighborhood. Congregation represents two value sets: working class- we need to do all this ourselves, can’t afford to hire someone vs. middle-class- our time is valuable and we want a professional doing it Downtown churches are more progressive and are considering development of a food bank. The new minister is interested in having her church support this effort but there’s a culture of scarcity. They haven’t done a lot of social action outside of food baskets at Thanksgiving. There’s still some families in the church who need help sometimes.