Transcription of Sukie Curtis for the show Love, Spirituality, & Self, #115
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Dr. Lisa: Sukie 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 there’s such a contrast between them. I got to know Sukie as a fellow resident of Yarmouth. Sukie used to be an Episcopal priest.
No longer is she an Episcopal priest, however, her husband’s door remains with the church and now Sukie is an artist. 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, Sukie?
Sukie: Hi, Lisa. 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.
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 didn’t feel that quite right, sort of mixed within my own soul, I guess you could say.
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 1983 I think it was. My memory isn’t always clear on that. It was really a long process of living in and in between place and thinking about responsibilities and what might be calling me forward.
At the same time that I was mulling over that, I had a 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 schooling and then the priesthood where you’re doing a lot of reading, writing, speaking, sermons and so forth, those are all very verbal and that was always an easy road for me in terms of expression. This hunger to find other means to express myself continued to grow and require attention I guess I could say. There is something growing well at the same time, my sense of myself as a priest was more troubled or shrinking.
Dr. Lisa: How did you feel called to become a priest in the first place, because making that decision is not easy from the get go?
Sukie: No. I think I had the benefit of youthful, naïvete at the time. I’m thinking about that from the … helps us get into some things that might be bigger than we had any way of imaging. 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, a kind of typical spiritual quest underway. 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.
The quest for me, it was probably a lot of things rolled into one sort of a personal, spiritual quest. Maybe also looking for an identity and a place to fit in the world to know who I was and that I had a purpose and perhaps a home different from my family, but another place where I knew I belonged. Somehow, I think all those things were rolled into 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 hard thing for me to dare to speak loud, but I did have to get to the point of being able to articulate that when I was on my way to the priesthood. That was quite a long time ago now.
Dr. Lisa: 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?
Sukie: I was very tumultuous. Sometimes I’ve looked back and I thought, “Perhaps I took on the identity of being a priest,” but there are special clothes that go with the job too, so there’s the metaphor of the clothing and garb actually fitting, but perhaps I took on that identity when my own kind of core identity was a little uninformed. I was still really lived out in the world a whole lot. I’ve often wondered if maybe if the people who get ordained later in life have a different way of merging this 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 a death. 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 … 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 the official act and some of which happened afterwards. It led to a period of probably a couple of years of being back at square one and 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: 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?
Sukie: No. We shared that role together as in the Episcopal church, the single title would be ‘Director of the Church,’ we were co-rectors. Because we’ve 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. We both had reached the point of feeling we wanted to explore some other possibilities. We left Saint Bartholomew’s behind and 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 is the hospice chaplain and one as the Vicar which is a smaller parish’s pastor at Saint Nicholas Episcopal Church in Scarborough.
Dr. Lisa: You have two daughters. Both of whom are out and about in the world but went to Yarmouth High School, is that right?
Sukie: 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. Our house was in Cumberland and our two daughters went to the Cumberland Schools up through … One of them up through, back when it was Greely Junior High and Annette through elementary school and then they finished at Waynflete. They have friends in both places. 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. Our younger daughter is going to be a junior in college.
Dr. Lisa: 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?
Sukie: It would be an interesting conversation to have them here too, because they might … From time to time, the dinner table conversations come around to that topic and they have a rather blunt, plain way of speaking about these such things. I actually will never forget when David and I were first engaged, and we met, we were both already ordained when we met. 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 always thought, “What are we doing today?” I think they survived it pretty well. Much of that takes to the fact that Saint Bartholomew’s is a very relaxed child-friendly congregation 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 bit wildered at my decision, not entirely sure they got it. Maybe 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 … is sort of part of the fabric of our life. I’m not sure that they ponder it in a big way. 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 configure out what they’re going to do and get it right and all of that. Clearly, if I’m an example, you don’t have to get it. 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 past changes course and diverge and you get to make choices. I hope that’s something that supports them as they move along in the world.
Dr. Lisa: Sukie, how can people see your art? Where can they find you and learn more about the work that you’re doing now?
Sukie: Thanks for asking that. I do have a website. It’s ‘Sukieecurtis.com’ and that’s S-U-K-I-E-C-U-R-T-I-S. 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’d let me know how you heard about me, that would be even better. Those are probably … An email, I’m happy to receive email too, but Facebook, I have made a lot of connections 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 and not to have at least something hanging all the time at the Yarmouth frame and gallery which is on Route one in Yarmouth.
Dr. Lisa: I do encourage people to spend some time looking at your paintings. They are beautiful and they do speak to this sense of being in the moment. 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 live in the world, because I think this is something that people who are listening can probably relate to you in some way in their own lives.
We’ve been speaking with Sukie Curtis, an artist and former Episcopal priest. Thanks for coming in and talking with us today.
Sukie: Thanks very much for having me, Lisa.
Dr. Lisa: You have been listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, show number 115, ‘Love, Spirituality and Self’. Our guests have include Elaine McGillicuddy and Sukie Curtis. For more information on our guests and extended interviews, visit ‘Doctorlisa.org’.
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