Love, Spirituality, & Self, #115

[Unidentified voice]:

I could never have thought that my marriage would have this kind of fulfillment to have my husband say on his deathbed, your presence was deeply drawn into my soul.

[Unidentified voice]:

I mean, maybe there is no one right that's going to be right for your whole life. For some people I think that's true, and for others, clearly not. The paths change course and diverge and start. Then you get to make choices.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast show number 115, Love Spirituality and Self, airing for the first time on Sunday, November 24, 2013. Today's guests include Elaine McGillicuddy, poet, author and former Ursuline nun, and Suki Curtis, artist and former Episcopal priest. As humans, we gravitate towards certainty and stability. We like to believe that life has an inherent logic. What many of us learn as we progress through our lives is that things are far less logical than they seem. As humans, we gravitate towards certainty and stability. We like to believe that life has an inherent logic. What many of us learn as we progress through our lives is that things are far less logical than they seem, or at least far less intellectually logical. When we open ourselves to the logic of the heart, we find stability through a deeper sense of our own spiritual selves. In opening their hearts to the love of self and others, our guests today have done just that. We hope that our conversations with Elaine McGillicuddy and Suki Curtis will inspire you to open yourself to the logic of your heart and perhaps gain a deeper understanding of your own spiritual self. Thank you for joining us. I've always been a firm believer that life circles back around when you really need it to, and that people that you hear about and you think, I'd really like to meet that person someday, eventually you do end up meeting them. For me, Elaine McGillicuddy is one of these individuals. I've known about Elaine for many Years as the founder, the co founder of the Portland Yoga Studio. And I picked up her book at Longfellow Books, which was Sing to Me and I Will Hear your. The Poems. Started reading and reached out to her and she said, oh, good, because now I'm writing my memoir, Sing to Me and I will hear you. The memoir, A Love Story, which is about her relationship with her husband, Francis McGillicuddy. I'm really happy to have you in studio with me today, Elaine.

[Unidentified voice]:

I'm happy to be here.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Elaine. There are so many things that I believe you and I could talk about. You're a poet, you're a writer, you're a former Ursuline nun, you're a retired high school English teacher, and we've already mentioned that you're a yoga teacher. You're a certified Iyengar yoga teacher, and you do dances of peace. And you also have a permaculture at your house, right? And you're very active in the Pax Christi movement, from what I understand. So you've lived a very broad and full life in the decades that you've been with us. But let's start with this love story idea because I think that that is very central to why I thought it might be interesting to have you here today.

[Unidentified voice]:

The wonder of what happened to Francis and me has never faded, even now. And we were aware of it. You know, I was a nun and he was a priest when we met. And the fact that we were both sent to Waterville, Maine, the same month, the same year, 1968 in September, just seems to prove what we used to say, that ours was a marriage made in heaven. Everything seemed to work together to indicate that it was all right for me to notice that he was handsome, even though I was a nun and he was a priest. Around that time there was. It's probably too complex to get into, but after Vatican II had a big influence on the thinking of Catholics at that time. Now, I don't know how much our current culture is aware of Vatican II in 1968, but it was the council in Rome that opened the windows. And it fit with everything that was going on in the 60s, the peace movement and all of that. Anyway, there was an idea in the air called the Third Way. When I studied theology or religious studies at Providence College, one of the. I think it was a nun wrote a paper. Her master's degree was on the Third Way, which is like Platonic love. So when I met Father McGillicuddy as Sister Maureen, that was my nun's name. I Thought it was the third way. And then I was assigned as campus minister at Colby College. So I was teaching in his parish. So we kept getting thrown together because I was campus minister. And it was those heady anti war years. The students at Colby College occupied the chapel. I became friends as a campus minister with the students. And so I had two lives in a way. I was living in the convent, teaching in Francis parish school, and then being campus minister at Colby College. So in the book I'm writing now, sing to me and I will hear your the Love Story. I relate how Francis and I kept getting thrown together. I was teaching at his parish school, 8th grade in sacred Heart School in Waterville, Maine. I was campus minister at Colby College, and I was living at the convent, Mount Mercy Convent. And at that time, it was the heady anti war years, the Colby College students occupied the chapel. So I was taken up with all of that. And simultaneously the nuns were trying to decide whether they could wear. Let a little bit of their hair show. I didn't say this in the book, but, you know, whether they could wear blue or black or another color. And I'd come home from those. You know, the contrast between those two worlds was so strong. And then my attraction for Frances, which I thought was this kind of platonic love third way that was seemed to be fine. That was acceptable at the time. I really gradually fell in love with him. And that's how the first chapter ends. The first chapter is through the third way because I allowed a relation. I allowed a relationship to happen that ended up being more than I could handle as a nun, I guess. Anyway, it's a very interesting story.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, you preface the book by saying Frances and I were convinced the love given us was bigger than both of us. And so it's a love story meant to be shared with. With those who love love. And you also dedicate the book to your goddaughter, Rowan. So as I'm reading your book and I was pleased to be able to get a draft of your book, so I really relished every word that you wrote. And the entire story was so powerful to me. It really struck me that you were talking about more than just the love between two people. It was this love that came from this higher place. Higher or more universal place, let's just say. And I wondered if that was one of the moving forces for you as you both made this very difficult decision to leave the priesthood. To leave being a nun is the sense that perhaps you were given this love from God and perhaps there was no better way to celebrate God's love than to love one another.

[Unidentified voice]:

There's no better way to, to character. Well, who can speak of God? I just say God is love. And that is in the Bible. When Francis and I were married, we had this sense that our love was a witness to God's love that was very strong and it persisted through our lives. I think we were so aware of how extraordinary our story was because we were caught between the church laws. Man made laws too. Man made church laws because in the Eastern Church, priests can marry. And yet Francis was a priest in the Roman Catholic Church and he wanted to remain a priest. And I was a nun who left the convent. And so we had a two year underground period. That's the second chapter called Underground, where we were caught between our love, wanting to be married with him still as a priest. And at the Vatican, they were actively debating this. So it was a matter of, well, maybe they will allow married priests. It looked that way. Even now online people can go and find some of those articles and I mention them in my book, a few titles. So we, you know, we were hoping for that, but when they said no. And then I reveal in the book that a priest told a bishop about Francis and my underground relationship, you know, when Francis died. And I didn't say this in the book, although I alluded to it. When Francis was dying, the person who reported him to the bishop emailed and Francis said so? And so I forgive you. It was the biggest favor you did for me. And I only allude to that indirectly in the book. But, you know, he made peace and this person felt bad about having done that. But Francis said, you did me the biggest favor in my life because that was a big, that was the trigger, you know, his being in front of the bishop. And he said, we'll call it off. And then we had the second of two moratoriums. So it was not easy having an underground period. And, you know, so it was quite a joyous thing. In the book I call the third chapter, from Exodus to Avalon. It's so interesting. A young friend, Thomas Ambrose, whom we met through yoga, who's a principal, I think, or maybe a superintendent at a school. Now Thomas Ambrose was working for his degree at usm, a degree in psychology or counseling, whatever. And he needed a life interview. So he interviewed Francis in 1999, that's 10 years or 10 years before Francis was dying, just that recently. And Thomas was able to verbatim give me a written transcript of that dialogue with him. So in the book, I Have Francis own account of what it was like when he went to the bishop and when he went to Massachusetts to, you know, try to think it over. And when he decided and came home and told me so, I quoted his words. I had to have his own words. He lapses into, you know, incorrect grammar. He lapses into the present tense and refers to the bishop as the head honcho. So it's just so alive. And that second chapter, which is called Underground, ends with the Exodus. Francis said it felt like the Exodus. Yay, the Exodus. So the third chapter is from Exodus to Avalon, because the little house we bought that I still have is on Avalon Road without sidewalks. And then we ended up with permaculture for the last three years of Francis life, creating an edible landscape, which is really like an Eden. So, yeah, it's just a wonderful experience for me to relive our beautiful love story and to share it with the world.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You quote in your book, E. E. Cummings line, be of love more careful than of everything. And it is this care and gentleness, I think, that I sense around the love that you have for Francis. You treat it as something precious and something that. I mean, some people might leave the church and feel somehow bitter or angry or we were forced to do this, or because there was a lot of loss, you had to leave a lot behind. You had to leave your identities behind. But I really don't ever have that sense in reading about this. There's just this sense of gratitude that pervades the entire book. And in fact, it even gets to the place where Frances is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. And, you know, you don't have very much time left. And as sad as you are, I still feel gratitude. How do you manage to do that? Because so many people can't.

[Unidentified voice]:

Perhaps being older, you know, Francis was. I forget Exactly. He was eight years older than I. I was 36 when I left. And I think being a little older when we found each other gave us a sense of the preciousness of it, how our marriage would be a little shorter because we got married later in life. And I don't know. Yes, we did consciously care for it. We did a marriage encounter weekend, two of those weekends. And I mention in the book, in a sense, those shaped us because it. And it not only gave me a lot of primary sources to use in writing the book, because I have his marriage encounter notebooks and mine. We didn't identify with all of, you know, we weren't active in the movement as such, but those two weekends profoundly affected us because we kept up the practice that they suggest that we adopt of continuing to write. Do you know how the marriage encounter works? But we only did it on holidays and things like that. However, at Christmas or anniversaries or birthdays, I have these precious notes and it reflects the thinking at the time. And I have a section in the book on our marriage encounter. Notebooks and back and forth. I share what comes actually from our notebooks. But one, I remember one instance which I did quote in the Love Story, where Francis talks about how we keep the wonder in our relationship this way. You know, it was about reflecting together. I think that that helped us to not just take our temperature, but. And the other very important thing is to look outside of ourselves. I have a section on the baby question and the adoption attempt, and that's a whole other story. However, I think in the end, because we didn't have children, our lives, which we wanted them to be generative, ended up being generative in a different way. So that consciousness of wanting to leave something for the next generation was stronger because we didn't have children. So, you know, we had met over the peace movement. So of the four big things, the four big themes in our lives, the piecework, we met over that. But the other three are what came along and all providential. I'm big on Providence. I mean, I met Frances unexpectedly. I didn't expect this would happen. So I've been aware throughout my life how at the major points of decision making, I seem to have a gut knowing, you know, the enneagram. I have this one energy. And ones tend to have a strong gut sense about things. And I get a kind of a clarity about some things and it's strong. And Providence is mixed in with that, too.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

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Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Having read Thomas Merton's Seven Story Mountain, it was interesting for me to note that this was such an important reason for Francis having gone into the priesthood. I think from what I understand, he read it two years before.

[Unidentified voice]:

Exactly. That was another thing that that nudged him toward the priesthood to see that he was a sophisticated person who had had quite a lot of experiences and yet he was drawn to that. And yes, the mysticism of, you know, that Thomas Merton demonstrated or witnessed who drew Francis. Yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And also the beginnings of this understanding that there isn't as large a divide between the eastern and Western religious practices as we've once thought. Thomas Merton was very much.

[Unidentified voice]:

Exactly. Yes, yes. You know, in teaching yoga and learning a little bit about the Eastern thought, Francis was exposed to that too. That affected us when after we co founded Portland Yoga Studio in those days we didn't use the Internet as much so we mailed out brochures every season. So two photographers took photos of me alone at first and then when we had more teachers, a lot of us and we would use those photos on these brochures and eventually there were 12 of those photos that were pretty special of me doing advanced yoga poses because I had a hip problem. I was almost hit by a car when I was five and yoga unraveled my clenched hip that no one could diagnose what was wrong with it, you know. So anyway, my point is this that the graphic artist who helped me put those quotes together, well, who took the photos, I don't quite remember how it happened, but I created yoga postcards. I should send you some. There are 12 yoga postcards with quotes from the Western, from the Bible. They're called east west series. East west series. So those postcards sort of signal in their being there, the kind of marriage of east and west that we seem to have made spiritually, both of us. Because when Francis was in the hospital, when he was rushed to the hospital that first day on September 24th, and we learned it was a cancer we didn't know about, when I came to visit him the second day, he said to me, I'm not having dire thoughts. You know, I'm living in the present moment. You know, that was a phrase. Everybody says that nowadays, but that was a phrase, living in the present moment, that was kind of Eastern in a way. The word asana in yoga means posture, literally. And a literal translation for it is holding a comfortable situation. But I always used to share with my students the quote that I prefer. It's a translation by Judith Lassiter, one of the master yoga teachers. And it's this yoga asana is staying with ease. Staying with ease. Instead of holding a comfortable seat, it's staying with ease, just being present, staying with ease. Abiding in stillness is the other one. Ah, that was my second favorite. Abiding in stillness. It's all coming back. For me, yoga is like brushing my teeth. I mean, it's something I can't imagine not living without it. I mean, I realize it's not for everybody, but, yes, yoga is. And for Frances, too, for my mother, I was able to show her poses that kept her pain free. And Francis also was doing yoga even, actually, you know, and there's a sense in which, because I seem to be a little bit like BKS Iyengar in India, who used yoga to help people with almost any physical problem. I had that attitude. So when Francis started complaining about his sacroiliac joint, I think I thought it was musculoskeletal. Musculo. Musculoskeletal. So I tried all kinds of things to help him, and they helped, but in the end, it was cancer all along. But it delayed the discovery that it was cancer. But as I say in the book, it was probably good that we didn't know that it was this kind of cancer. It. It was. They couldn't have done anything anyway. We would have spent a whole year going back and forth to having all kinds of tests. And this way, Francis tried to live a normal life for a year. But he, you know, he was in pain for a year. I have instances, I have little stories in the book how he started to read to Rowan but it caused pain so he couldn't keep it up. You know little signs when you look back.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

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Dr. Lisa Belisle:

That is the challenge. When I was reading the book, I actually could feel your pain as someone caring for someone in pain. Love is wonderful in the abstract and more challenging on the ground, especially when you are as connected as you were to Francis. How do you move through a day in which this man that's in front of you that you care for so deeply is in such extreme pain?

[Unidentified voice]:

You know, in the moment. Well, to be a caregiver, I was his bedside nurse. In the moment, there's so much to tend to that adrenaline just carries you and it's as if you don't feel. You don't have time to feel it all. And in the reliving it, that's when it comes back. But I mean I certainly did feel it, but I was just so exhausted. I'm so grateful. I gave him everything I had, really, and I'm very happy about that. And he was able to be home when he died. But I think Grace, Grace and Grit, you know, that's the title of a book by the one who wrote a brief history of everything, Ken Wilber. His wife died, and his book is called Grace and Grit. So I think that just kind of came up spontaneously. I think you get the grace of the moment, you know. Yeah. And the energy. And as I said, I was driven to try to save his life with macrobiotics. But, you know, in the end, my request, through lots of helping hands, that wonderful little website that my students found for me to get help, I found Meg Wolf, who had just undergone surgery herself. And she saw this request. She was a stranger to me. She saw this request and called up or volunteered to bring a meal. And this is a Meg Wolf gourmet macrobiotic meal every day on a beautiful tray with different courses delivered to our home every day. The month before Francis died, I'm sure it prolonged his life because he was beginning to not eat. But he ate a little bit of this and a little bit of that, and everything conspired to give us this ending of his life that was so beautiful that it ends up being a big part of the book, that last chapter, because it started with Christmas Eve, when Francis started talking about his death. And I could tell, as I say in the love story, it was as if he was in an altered state. And I just grabbed my pen and I took down what was transpiring between us. I can't describe it, actually, I wrote a poem about that. It was so incredible, that moment when Francis was joking about eating two kinds of ginger cookies, a soft one made by one friend and a crisp one made by another. And yet he was in a kind of altered state, aware that he was going to die. It was such. I called. It was such an incredible exchange during it, at one point, you know, after we talked, he said, you're in my central core. No. How did he say that's what he had said in his love letter earlier. I need to backtrack, because there's two things that happened, two wonderful things that happened in his words to me. After I left the convent, he was still a priest. I was at Providence College studying religious studies, theology. And so he wrote me love letters. So after he died, I had these wonderful love letters. And in one of the love letters, he said, you're in my central core and I am in yours. And after Francis died, I read those, and I was just so touched by the profundity of it. It's like Jesus saying, abide in me. And I In you, I wrote more than one poem came to me as a result of that. So that was when he was, you know, before we married. He said that you're in my central core and I am in yours. So here we are Now, Christmas Eve 2009, he's talking about dying. And then he said, I've been very well served. So there are these two moments. Now that I think of it, I actually wrote a poem called you'd Poetic Soul that includes both of these moments. The first was his love letter to me after I left the convent, and the second was really on his deathbed. And this is the poem. It's in the first published book, Sing to me and I will hear your the poems. The poem is called you'd Poetic Soul. Two days before you died, you discovered yourself anew. I never thought myself a poet, you said, but I have a poetic soul. It steered me through a lot of decisions. Oh, Francis. Yes, but there's more. At 43, young lover, you told me my core was in yours and yours in mine. And on your Deathbed, this. At 82, your presence was dead, deeply drawn into my soul. When Francis said that, I felt it was the culmination. I wrote a poem that's not published yet called Nader and Zenith. Nader was remembering last Christmas. I wrote that poem. It was like the low point of going through the pain and the loss. But Zenith remembering my. I could never have thought that my marriage would have this kind of fulfillment to have my husband say on his deathbed, your presence was deeply drawn into my soul.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Helene, people are going to want to read more of your poems and to read your upcoming memoir, Love Story. How do people find out about Sing to Me and I will hear your the poems or a love story.

[Unidentified voice]:

They can go to the blog spot that one of my students created. If they just Google Elaine Ann Francis as if it's one word, they'll get to the blog spot. Elaineanfrancis.blogspot.com that website, blogspot, has the actual letters that I wrote to family and friends, starting with. Starting with September 24, 2009. I brought people with me through the process, and so I've continued to write a few. Actually, that blogspot has some poems that are not yet published because every now and then, it's there, you know, before this program is out, I will write a letter. Dear family and friends, I have been interviewed by Dr. Lisa Belisle, and so I will turn them to your podcast, radio story and all that. So on occasion, every now and then, I write Dear Family and Friends letters. And that's where I will also tell people the book is published. I have a feeling that Sing to Me and I Will Hear your the Love Story will be published in early 2014. Because I'm refining it with the help of my editor. Like, I'm still working on it. Better than the rough. It was almost a rough draft that you read. So it's going to be a good book. It's going to be a big book too, you know, Anyway.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I can't wait to read the finished product. And I appreciate your bringing me along with you not only through this draft, but also through the stories that you've shared with me today. I know that people who are listening will find some, some great meaning of their own.

[Unidentified voice]:

Thank you. It's been my privilege.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And we've been Speaking with Elaine McGillicuddy, author of Sing to Me and I Will Hear your the Poems and also Sing to Me and I will Hear your the Love Story. The goal of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour is to help make connections between the health of the individual and the health of the community. The goal of Ted Carter Inspired Landscapes is to deepen our appreciation for the natural world. Here to speak with us today is Ted Carter.

[Unidentified voice]:

One of the things I do often is place a compass rose in the landscape. And the compass rose points to the four directions of the universe. And it's something that I really love to do because it does call out those very powerful directions. The north is really the head based energy, the, the place of white buffalo. It's where wisdom and knowledge live, but it's also where conflict lives. We live in the Northern Hemisphere. We are part of that whole ethos, I guess you might say, where South America is a place of play, it's a place of innocence, a place of trust, it's a place of love. And if you look at the South American people, they are very much like that. The east is about bringing new beginnings into our lives. So when we look toward the east, it's always about what are the new things that can happen and come into our lives. And the west is moving into the darkness, into the mysterious, into the most powerful, I guess you might say, of all directions because we have to move through the darkness to get to the other side, to get to the side of rebirthing and bringing new things into our lives. And our lifetime is spent with a series of peaks and valleys where we move from a place of creation and the rise of that creation and the care of creating that creation to the maintenance of that creation, and then eventually we move into the disintegration of that creation. And we have to be looking toward the future and toward what's happening in our lives to not let that valley go down too deep and to start to pick up something else new and start to rise again with it. So if you look at your own life, I think you can see that pattern. It's quite evident and it's natural. It's the same thing as the seasons, the spring, the summer, the fall, and the winter. I'm Ted Carter, and if you'd like to contact me, I can be reached@tedcarterdesign.com

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

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[Unidentified voice]:

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Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Suki Curtis is a woman who has lived a few different lives, as I think many of us have. But her lives are very interesting because they are. There's such a contrast between them. I got to know Sukie as a fellow resident of Yarmouth and Sukhy used to be an Episcopal priest. No longer is she an Episcopal priest. However, her husband still remains with the church and now Suki is an artist. So I thought we'd bring her in and talk about what that was like, deciding to become an artist or continue being an artist and how she has made these big decisions in her life. How are you Suki?

[Unidentified voice]:

Hi Lisa. Well, as you can imagine, as you say, making that big a decision was not a simple matter at all. The people closest to me would concur that I thought about it and talked about it for probably 10 years or something like that. In Various stages of mulling over the way things go. And I think it began with perhaps a sense of somehow feeling I didn't quite fit in the role of being an Episcopal priest or something about it was maybe more burdensome to me than joyful. And it, it didn't feel like quite the right sort of mix within my own soul, I guess you could say. But there's a big sense of obligation and responsibility that I felt having taken ordination vows and really wanting to honor the commitment that I had made all the way back in 1980, 83, I think it was. My memory isn't always clear on that. So it was really a long process of kind of living in an in between place and kind of thinking about, you know, responsibilities and what might be calling me forward. At the same time that I was kind of mulling over that, I had a kind of growing hunger to be expressing myself in non verbal ways. I think one thing about my, most of my, the first half of my life, my, you know, schooling and then the priesthood, where you're doing a lot of reading, writing, speaking sermons and so forth, it was all very verbal. And that was always an easy road for me in terms of expression. But this hunger to find other means to express myself continued to grow and kind of require attention, I guess I could say. So there was kind of something growing, while at the same time my sense of myself as a priest was kind of more troubled or shrinking.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How did you feel called to become a priest in the first place? Because making that decision is not easy from the get go.

[Unidentified voice]:

No, I think I had the kind of benefit of youthful naivete at the time. You know, how that probably helps us get into some things that might be bigger than we had any way of imagining. And I think for me, I was in my 20s and even by the end of college I probably had what was for people of my generation in the mid-70s, when I finished college, you know, kind of typical spiritual quest underway. And in my case, it really led me to the Episcopal Church through various friends and mentors that I admired and love of music, which is a very big part of that church's worship. And so the quest for me, it was probably a lot of things rolled into one. Sort of a personal spiritual quest, maybe also kind of looking for a kind of identity in the. A place to fit in the world, to know who I was and that I had a purpose and perhaps sort of a home, you know, different from my family, but another place where I knew I belonged. So somehow I think all those things were rolled into. To the sense of calling. Actually, I get a little bit squeamish about claiming a calling because I think it's a pretty hard thing to say and to know for sure that we are interpreting what we claim to be God's desires for us. It's always been a kind of hard thing for me to dare to speak aloud, But I did have to get to the point of being able to articulate that when I was on my

[Unidentified voice]:

way to the priesthood.

[Unidentified voice]:

So that was, you know, it's quite a long time ago now.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So if part of becoming a priest was claiming some sort of identity and some sort of identity that was separate from your family, then part of leaving the priesthood then meant that you left part of your identity behind. What was that like?

[Unidentified voice]:

Well, it was very tumultuous. You know, sometimes I've looked back and I've thought perhaps I took on the identity of being a priest. You know, there are special clothes that go with the job too, so there's that the metaphor of clothing and garb actually fits. But of perhaps I took on that identity when my own kind of core identity was a little unformed. You know, I was still. Hadn't really lived out in the world a whole lot. So I've often wondered if, you know, maybe if the people who get ordained later in life have a different sort of way of merging those personal and professional identities. In my case, I remember the day after that I had officially signed the papers that were the technical term is renouncing my ordination. I was completely exhausted and I woke up. I wrote in my journal, I feel like somebody has died. And I think it really was, you know, my. I've never been through a divorce. I've known people who have been for sure. And my guess is it's about as close to that experience as anything I've known before. But a real wrenching. And as much as I felt like it was the right thing to do, there was a lot of grief with letting go of that life, some of which had already happened before for the official act and some of which happened afterwards. But it led to a period of probably a couple of years of kind of being back at square one and feeling like I really didn't know who I was. I mean, I knew personally who I was, but in terms of a place in the world and with an identifiable profession or identity, in that sense, I was kind of in limbo again.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

One thing that's interesting about your story is that your husband is still a priest. In fact, he's still a Priest in the parish that is in Yarmouth, is that right?

[Unidentified voice]:

No, we actually, we shared that role together. In the Episcopal Church the single title would be the rector of the church. We were co rectors and so we, because we'd been called to that position together, we felt that it would be a little odd for one of us to leave and the other to stay. And we both had reached a point of feeling we wanted to explore some other possibilities. So we left St Bartholomew's behind when many beloved friends and people there. David for a while worked solely as a hospice chaplain and now he's doing two jobs part time, one as the hospice chaplain and one as the vicar, which is a smaller Parish's pastor at St. Nicholas Episcopal Church in Scarborough.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You have two daughters, both of whom are out and about in the world but went to Yarmouth High School, is that right?

[Unidentified voice]:

Well, we actually lived in Cumberland, the church was in Yarmouth. So many of our parishioners lived in Yarmouth, but some in Cumberland, some Freeport and so forth. So our house was in Cumberland and our two daughters went to the Cumberland schools up through, well, one of them up through back when it was really

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

junior high

[Unidentified voice]:

and Anna through elementary school and then they finished at Waynefleet. So they've had, they have friends in both places and now one is really out in the world. Our older daughter has just spent a year in Ghana and is about to go to graduate school in London. We're all envious. And our younger daughter is going to be a junior in college.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How did it feel to them to have two priests as parents while they were growing up and then one priest as a parent and the other not?

[Unidentified voice]:

It would be an interesting conversation to have them here too because they might, you know, from time to time the dinner table conversations come around to that topic and they have a rather blunt, plain way of speaking about such things. But I actually will never forget when David and I were first engaged and we met. We were both already ordained when we met. And one of the teenagers in the youth group in my congregation, this was back in Concord, Massachusetts when he heard that I was marrying another priest. He said, boy, do I pity your kids. I've always thought like, oh, what are we doing to these children? This sort of double whammy of preacher's kids. I think they survived it pretty well. And much of that thanks to the fact that St. Bartholomew's was, is a very relaxed, child friendly congregation. And so there wasn't sort of the fishbowl eyes on the preacher's family that some congregations might have, I think they were a little bewildered at my decision. Not entirely sure they they got it. Maybe, you know, some of the subtleties of it were just not going to be accessible to them at the time, but very supportive. And now I think they just. It's sort of part of the fabric of our life. I'm not sure that they ponder it in a big way, but. But I sense that if anything it has modeled for them or I hope it has a freedom to reassess one's life and change course, which I hope is helpful to them at the place where they are in their lives now, where I know they feel a lot of pressure to kind of figure out what they're going to do and get it right and all of that. And. And clearly, if I'm any example, you don't have to get it. I mean, maybe there is no one right that's going to be right for your whole life. For some people I think that's true and for others clearly not. The paths change course and diverge and you get to make choices. So I hope that's something that supports them as they move along in the world.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Suki, how can people see your art? Where can they find you and learn more about the work that you're doing now?

[Unidentified voice]:

Thanks for asking that. I do have a website. It's suki curtis.com and that's s U

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

K I E C U R T

[Unidentified voice]:

I S and when I'm doing my job right, I keep my website updated. It's pretty good at the moment with new photos of paintings and so forth. I am on Facebook and I'd be happy to accept friend requests if you let me know how you heard about me. That would be even better. And those are probably, you know, an email. I'm happy to receive email too, but Facebook I do. I have made a lot of connections with, with fellow artists and people interested in art that way and I enjoy that means of connection as well as people who happen to see my work. Also, I am apt to have at least something hanging all the time at the Yarmouth Frame and Gallery, which is on Route 1 in Yarmouth.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I do encourage people to spend some time looking at your paintings. They are beautiful and they do speak to this sense of well, being in the moment. And I appreciate your coming here and taking time to talk with us about what it was like to be a priest and then decide not to be a priest and your spirituality and how you continue to sort of live in the world. Because I think this is something that people who are listening can probably relate to in some way in their own lives. We've been speaking with Suki Curtis, an artist and former Episcopal priest. Thanks for coming in and talking with us today.

[Unidentified voice]:

Thanks very much for having me, Lisa.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You have been listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast show number 115, Love, Spirituality and Self. Our guests have included Aline McGillicuddy and Suki Curtis. For more information on our guests and extended interviews, visit Dr. Lisa.org the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is downloadable for free on itunes. For a preview of each week's show, sign up for our E. Newsletter and like our Dr. Lisa Facebook page. Follow me on Twitter and Pinterest and read my take on health and well being on the Bountiful Blog. We'd love to hear from you, so please let us know what you think of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our Love, Spirituality and Self show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Sam. Sa.