Healing Life’S Hurts—The People Who Got Me to Be Who I Am and Do What I Do

By Rev. Dr. Gail Keeney Mulligan

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 11, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462886814

Rev. Dr. Gail Keeney Mulligan

Rev. Dr. Gail Keeney Mulligan is an ordained Episcopal priest. She studied theology at the Jesuit university in St. Louis, earned her MDiv at BexleyHall and Crozer (Baptist, Episcopal, and Methodist seminaries), and her DMin at New York Theological Seminary. She was mentored in mission-minded ministries with Fr. Kenneth Leech of London and conferences with Archbishop Desmond Tutu and with Phoebe Griswold in the creation of Anglican Women’s Empowerment (AWE) with the UNCSW. She was ordained an Episcopal priest from the Christ Church Cathedral of St. Louis and served in New York, Panama, Oklahoma, and Connecticut, where many racial challenges and struggles of poverty were faced. But in spite of the challenges, she was deeply fed by mentors, teachers, bishops, and priests who empowered her to be and do what needed to be done to shine hope in the midst of darkness.

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Copyright © 2011 by Rev. Dr. Gail Keeney Mulligan.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2011909849

ISBN: Hardcover    978-1-4628-8680-7

ISBN: Softcover      978-1-4628-8679-1

ISBN: Ebook           978-1-4628-8681-4

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Contents

About the Author

A Father’s Love, Where?

Other Men Who Fathered Me

Diversity Molded Me

Never Looking Back (Off to College)

Intimacy and Love—A Void

Lured by Loneliness

The Shame of It

True Love—Father, Friend, and Lover

Seminary and Liberation

End of the Road

Proposal with Qualifications

Permission to Marry

Leaving the Parent for a Wife

The Passing Years

A Past That Had Me Pinned

Journey to Israel, Egypt, and Palestine

Move to the Diocese of New York

Life South of the Border

To Us, a Son Is Given

The Healing of My Relationship with My Dad

House of Bishops Event—Tom Shaw and Frank Griswold

The Ghost of Years Past

Doug’s Ghost Comes with Us

Street Priest

A Pain in the Neck and Osteopath

Wake Up and Listen

About the Author

Rev. Dr. Gail Keeney Mulligan is an ordained Episcopal priest. She studied theology at the Jesuit university in St. Louis, earned her MDiv at BexleyHall and Crozer (Baptist, Episcopal, and Methodist seminaries), and her DMin at New York Theological Seminary. She was mentored in mission-minded ministries with Fr. Kenneth Leech of London and conferences with Archbishop Desmond Tutu and with Phoebe Griswold in the creation of Anglican Women’s Empowerment (AWE) with the UNCSW. She was ordained an Episcopal priest from the Christ Church Cathedral of St. Louis and served in New York, Panama, Oklahoma, and Connecticut, where many racial challenges and struggles of poverty were faced. But in spite of the challenges, she was deeply fed by mentors, teachers, bishops, and priests who empowered her to be and do what needed to be done to shine hope in the midst of darkness.

As I write the story of my life regarding the challenges of racism, threats, harm, and suicides regarding homosexuality, sexual abuse, homelessness, and poverty, I am who I am because of the people who molded me and empowered me. And so I dedicate my life story to those who walked with and worked with me, those who taught me in the things they went through in their lives and gave me hope that I too could, with one act of random kindness at a time, change the world. And so I dedicate this story to those who have made me who I am: the Rt. Rev. David Thornberry of Wyoming, the Rt. Rev. Bishop Patrick Trujillo of the Old Catholic church; the Reverend Dennis Serdahl of the Episcopal Church in Green River, Wyoming; the Reverend Tim Solon, mentor of my priesthood in Casper, Wyoming; the very Rev. Michael Allen, dean of the Cathedral of St. Louis, Missouri, from where I was ordained; Canon Charles Woltz, deacon and mission-minded minister in Oklahoma; Episcopal Franciscan priest Emmett Jarrett; Jesuit Fr. Daniel Berrigan, SJ; UK Anglican Fr. Kenneth Leech; Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming; Bishops Robert Spears of Rochester, Paul Moore of New York, James Ottley of Panama, Robert Moody of Oklahoma, and Andrew Smith; and presiding bishop, Frank Griswold. It is also an inspiration the too beloved, fearless, and faith-filled saints of modern days: Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa. It is as he has said: We are Ubuntu. We are who we are because of the people around us and invited me to join him on Facebook. At the heart of this is the message of ‘who is my neighbor,’ ‘no future without forgiveness,’ ‘share our wealth with the poor and needy and follow our Lord in his faith, hope, and love,’ ‘in as much as you do anything for the least of God’s people, you do the same to our Lord.’ And we are one body in our one Lord. We are all God’s children.

Also I give thanks to my grandfather Jim and my mother Jean for doing everything they could to mold and enable me to be what is right for me, and to Ken Graham, doctor of osteopathy, and the empowerment of women of faith and power too whose history also made me who and what I have become . . . Rosa Parks, Sojourner Truth, Bishop Barbara Harris, Phoebe Griswold, Bishop Cathy Roskam, as women who by their life, their faith, hope, and mission-mindedness have empowered and encouraged me. And ain’t I a woman too? And through Wendy Denn, I came to be blessed with empowerment through Dr. Hugh O’Doherty, who led me to have a dear Muslim friend, Sajeer Mam of the Mandela Peace Center in Sri Lanka. Also I give thanks to my rabbi friends Norm Koch and Gary Grenfell, who were beside me in the death of my husband and the challenges of times of risk.

There were so many challenges in my life from the time I was a small child growing up in Rock Springs, Wyoming, with so many challenges in a time of such racism as well as real challenges for my mom with a dad who really did not show love for her the way she deserved and needed. It was an era of several suicides of people we knew and harassment of others by race, religion, and sexual orientation. But it was the building of unity, reaching out by others to me and me to others, that helped us rebuild our community, our family, our churches, and our lives. Life is all about looking at everyone as family, learning to love our neighbors as we would want others to love us. Mine was a long road of many challenges, but because of those around me I was molded into a healing ministry and life with others too. I am who I am because of the healing of life’s hurts by awesome people around me, and I am ready and willing to give my life to others the way they gave their lives to me. "There is no greater love than laying down one’s life for my friends . . . and you are all my friends."

A Father’s Love, Where?

Growing up, I know now, I longed for my dad’s love, but he didn’t seem to know how to love. He was an artist, and his own heart seemed filled with pain. He had never really known his own father’s love, and his mother emotionally abandoned him when, at fourteen, his twenty-one-year-old sister died unexpectedly. Still, he found my mom and, in her, someone who could and would love him unconditionally. Yet the void created in his life left him with insatiable pain and angst, which he would attempt to numb through drinking, gambling, painting, fishing, and hunting. Dad’s life was wrapped in art on weekdays at school and a town art museum, and was a night and weekend life of smoking, hunting, fishing, drinking, and gambling. While an awesome artist and teacher who was loved for his teaching and for his painting, he missed his need at home.

So in many ways, my two siblings and I grew up without Dad, except for our summer fishing and camping trips. The only time he could or would show emotion was when he was drunk. And those emotions were so volatile that the occasional I am so proud of you never made up for the embarrassment to friends, other family members, nightmarish holidays around the table at home, in restaurants, and even at church. He did teach us to fish, and I loved that. We spent many breaks on Fremont Lake, north of Pinedale and south of Grand Tetons. The hard thing was using a rifle and teaching me to shoot and to kill prairie dogs, ordering me to shoot them. I would do what he ordered, though I was pained by doing it as they stood out in the fields and wilderness of Sweetwater County. If we were killing to eat, I was okay with that, but not to kill animals that were no danger in any way and were a part of God’s glorious creation—in my heart it hurt to do it. But with his order I shot at the head and always killed it instantly so as to keep it from pain rather than aim at any other part of it and miss killing and cause suffering.

My greatest pain was his constant absence from my mom and all of us, except in the fishing trips. He would come home late from school, having gone to bars, and he would leave after dinner, saying he had errands to run when in fact he went back to the bar and apparently put a lot of money into gambling too. Money was tight for our family because of this, and my mom went out to teach art too in order to provide for our family needs, including the tuition for our college education. She was an awesome art teacher in grade schools, but I know her heart was burdened by the lack of love from her husband. Still she loved her daughters and son, and she loved the kids she taught as well as being ever faithful in attendance and community with friends at Holy Communion Episcopal Church in Rock Springs. She enabled me to see that God’s love comes to us through people around us, and she shined God’s love in her ever-forgiving and hope-filled life with our dad, in spite of the things he did and did not do. I woke up to the call as a young child of shining the love of God through me to those around me, to love others, as I would want them to love me. Love is, as Paul said, the greatest of our life as Christians in faith, hope, and love. And it was the priest in Green River who shined the love on all of us, living the Gospel he preached, literally using words only when necessary. And so I was able to get through tremendous challenges in my life through faith in God through Christ that I would never walk alone, hoping that I can make a difference, that in little ways, I can do acts of random kindness one step at a time, and that at the heart of all of this is love. Love is patient and kind. Love forgives all things; love never fails. And God is love, and all of us are made in the image and likeness of God, and so God help me that I can turn the darkness of my life to light and love for me and for all others.

Other Men Who Fathered Me

The paternal love I came to know was in a magical relationship I had with my maternal grandfather, Jim Yates, and with some clergy, including an Episcopal bishop; David Thornberry, Episcopal priests of the diocese of Wyoming, and a couple of Roman Catholic priests. Granddad Jim owned a small furniture and appliance store which occupied much of his time from nine to three every day except Sunday. He also worked and work as an electrician on the railroad from three to eleven, five days a week. In my early childhood, at the end of each workday, I would sit on my grandfather’s lap as he would read the poetries of Longfellow, Tennyson, Wadsworth, and Browning; the stories of Shakespeare, and recount our English and Scottish cultural heritage; play the bagpipes on the stereo; teach me the polka and waltz; and tell me that our purpose in life was to serve the common good. He was the leader of the Republican Party in Sweetwater County, and unlike the Republicans of today, he had the biggest heart of anyone I have ever known.