Transcript of Noreen Mooney’s Talk:
 The Good Ol' Boys Club: I was about to say that you don't hear much about any
Good Ol' Girls Club, but looking around the room made me think that this mightn't
be the most apt comment.
 Leadership: If you think you're a leader, stop and turn around. If there's no one
behind you, you're just out for a walk!
 Differences between leadership styles of men and women: Not so much along the
lines of Men are from Mars . . . or Maureen Dowd's recent op-ed re Hillary Clinton,
"Granny Get Your Gun" (the testosterone/oxytocin spectrum), but looking at men as
traveling in packs (like dogs) and women as solitary hunters (like cats). Men are
much more concerned with what the rest of the pack thinks, and if women aren't
prepared for this, it rears up and bites us when we least expect it.
 Topics/concerns: When was the last time you heard of a conference on "Men in the
Church." (I think I said this. If I didn't, I meant to; in the notes, you know.)
 The Diaconate for women: A little bird told me that some people were saying,
"Don't bother," "It's just multiplying clericalism," etc. My read on it? If
powerful, important people are viscerally disturbed by the concept that may well be
a sign to go after this!
 Male clergy: A big caveat, as it were. Where did I get my ideas of what a good
priest was like? I felt called to the priesthood since I was about eleven, and there
were no female role models out there.
 Cursus honorum: Laughing at ourselves is a regular cottage industry amongst
Anglicans. For example, Dave Walker, an English cartoonist (you can probably find
him on the Web) did a cartoon about the various hurdles a candidate--in this case, a
woman--goes through on the path to ordination: getting the support of her parish,
rector and bishop, going through whatever her diocesan hoops are, graduating from
seminary, passing whatever they call the General Ordination Exams over there and,
finally, ordination. In the last frame of the cartoon, she is setting up rows of
chairs in the parish hall. Zen-like, no?
 Gender advantage: Men have told me that they find it easier to open up to a female
priest, since they can let go of pretending that they have everything under control,
as they often feel they must with other men. Here are some of the scribbles I
didn't have time to develop:
 Success: It's a peculiar line of work. Hard to tell, sometimes, if you're doing it
well. So I hold on to moments such as the time a woman who came to our church for
help told me, "You're the mother I never had."
 Holy Mother Church: A feminine image, remember? We want her to be a fairy
godmother; sometimes she seems like the wicked stepmother.
 The basic task: According to Urban Holmes, whose reflections I much admire, it's
"naming things." And not just, "This is my body . . ." We are called to be liminal
people, on the borders and thresholds.
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My Secret Weapon: As I once told a bishop, my secret weapon is that I have no
secret weapon!
American religious demographics: An Alternative Radio talk by Cornell West
reinforced the same statistics on religious affiliation amongst the under-30s. Our
youth are un-churched, un-synagogued, un-mosqued, he said. Music is their only
remaining source of transcendence.
The Glass Ceiling: On the drive down to Maryknoll on Friday, I caught VOX POP on
Northeast Public Radio. It was their regular Friday food show, with three wellknown female chefs from the region. They discussed the "glass ceiling" in the
restaurant business, and how odd this was in America, where women are
traditionally the cooks. Then one of the guests spoke about the phrase, "woman
chef." I'm a woman, she said, and a chef, but I never think of myself as a "woman
chef." Something for us to ponder?
o Enough, already.