Priesthood after politics
WINNIPEG, MB—Elizabeth May would rather be a priest than a politician. The energetic 55-year-old environmental activist, writer, lawyer and leader of the Green Party expects a vocation in the Church would be more fulfilling than one in Canada's highly acerbic culture of politics.
But church ministry will have to stay on her back burner—at least for now.
"I do politics out of a sense of service and a sense of mission. This is what I should be doing now; it's not what I most want to do," May said to ChristianWeek during a visit to Winnipeg to introduce Jacqueline Romanow as the Green candidate for Winnipeg Centre.
Her party's newest strategy is to put all its muscle behind getting its leader elected into the House of Commons as the nation's first Green MP. Come election time (May says she's bracing for the fall), she intends to run in the riding where she has the best chance of getting elected. Last year May lost to Conservative incumbent Peter MacKay in the riding in which she lives in Nova Scotia.
May says her grandchildren are what motivate her to stay in politics—despite what she describes as its "abusive culture."
"I have an obligation to those children that they have a world to inherit. And we're at risk of losing that," May says. "So that's a huge moral imperative for doing what I'm doing. The fact that I don't think this is the most fun thing or the most rewarding thing I could do doesn't mean that I'm in any doubt about the fact that this is what I must be doing."
But that doesn't stop her from studying theology on the side. May studies at St. Paul's University in Ottawa, taking one class every semester that there isn't a federal election.
"I love studying theology. I find it fascinating, rewarding, stimulating, and it uses a whole big part of my brain that politics doesn't use," says May. Eucharist, ethics and exegesis are topics she finds "endlessly fascinating."
When her harried schedule allows, May participates in the life of the church at one of two Anglican congregations—St. George's Anglican Church in Nova Scotia and St. Bartholomew's Anglican in Ottawa.
"I work really hard most Sundays," she admits. "I was pretty sure that I kept all ten commandments until I really thought about it and realized I don't keep the Sabbath."
May hasn't always been a churchgoer.
Her mother quit attending the local Episcopal church in Hartford, Connecticut, where May grew up, after the rector wouldn't sign a petition against nuclear testing.
When May was 13, she decided to become Jewish. Her best friend was celebrating her bas mitzvah, so May made an appointment with her friend's father, a rabbi.
"I went to meet Rabbi Stanley Kessler—a lovely man," says May. "It was my first experience being treated seriously. He made my mom wait outside. We had a meeting in his office and he asked me about my practices, my faith, my beliefs. He asked me why I wanted to be Jewish, why I wanted to be bas mitzvahed with Abby. I wanted to worship and I wanted to have a relationship with God.
"At the end of our meeting he said, 'You would be a good Jew, we'd be very happy to have you in our community.' But he said, 'I think you have formed a stronger relationship with Jesus Christ than you realize. And you would miss it. You would miss Jesus in your life, and I recommend you find whatever church your grandparents belong to and you go there and see if they would confirm you."
May took the rabbi at his word, looked up the nearest Episcopal church and started taking confirmation classes.
The Anglican priesthood will be her first choice of vocations whenever her political career ends, May says.
"My current commitment is to make sure I'm in [politics] for quite a while. But if that doesn't happen I have good things that would be probably more fulfilling."
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