THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 12, 1996 TAG: 9601110147
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY CAROLE O'KEEFFE, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Long : 160 lines
IF JOYCE V. TRICKETT were called providentially to the ministry, as she says, overcoming major obstacles must have been part of a rigorous test.
She reached her goal recently and was ordained a minister in First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Norfolk.
But she arrived at ordination via a ``long and rocky road,'' she said during the ceremony.
A dozen or so years ago, the former Portsmouth resident had as her main life's goal to be a minister's wife.
She was recovering from a failed relationship with a clergyman when she heard ``in my head and in my heart, `You don't have to marry a priest. You can be one.' ''
She translated that to mean, ``You don't have to get your identity from a husband. Be your own person.''
She had already overcome many hardships. There were more to come.
Trickett was born in Portsmouth in 1944, while her father was stationed here in the Navy. But soon after her birth, the family moved back to their hometown, Cleveland.
It would be years before she came back.
She was scheduled to graduate from Kent State University when it closed during antiwar student unrest in 1970.
She married and moved to Virginia. She completed her bachelor's degree in anthropology from her new Virginia home, mailing her last paper the day before son Joshua was born.
When Joshua was 3, she and her husband divorced.
Now, she was away from home and raising a son alone. She got a job in social work. Mother and son lived from hand to mouth, for a time even living in a converted chicken coop behind the home of friends on White Marsh Road.
``It certainly was a most humble home, but it was the most fun,'' Trickett said a few days before her ordination in November. She wanted to save money to further her education.
She worked for the Department of Social Services in Portsmouth from 1975 to 1978 as a foster care social worker.
A former Olde Towne resident, she at one time was active at Trinity Episcopal Church and was confirmed there in 1976.
She earned a master's degree in social work from Norfolk State University in 1980.
After that, she worked at the Western Tidewater Mental Health Center on Constance Road in a position she helped to create: substance abuse prevention specialist.
Trickett was active in the Episcopal church in Suffolk. After her 1983 calling, she began moving toward becoming a priest, but that was not to be. The Diocese of Southern Virginia told Trickett to wait a year.
``Then they said wait another year,'' she said. ``I said `no' and went to seminary anyway,'' without diocesan sponsorship. Glebe Church did, however, endorse her decision to move ahead.
In a short time, she was accepted at Yale University Divinity School in Connecticut. She went with the strong belief that she was on the right track but with little or no money, and no financial aid no big loans. She gave away most of her belongings and left town.
During a routine exam before Yale, doctors detected bladder cancer. ``Fortunately, they found it early. It's gone now,'' Trickett said.
In April 1992, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. She had a radical hysterectomy and is now cancer-free.
While at seminary, Trickett maintained constant contact with Glebe Church, which contributed financial support and much spiritual and emotional support.
The diocese was still putting her off. ``The fit wasn't right,'' they said. ``But I kept working at it.''
She moved in with a Suffolk friend. Trickett's mother, retired in Florida, soon bought her a car. Then, in about two months, she got a job in Portsmouth, and a place to live in Ghent. ``Christ met all my needs through the love of many people,'' she said.
With work and a place to live, Trickett began looking for a church with a better fit. She had determination and a master of divinity degree to go with it.
``I went to a different church every week,'' Trickett said.
After searching several cities, she found First Christian Church, also called Christian Disciples Church, practically in her own back yard. ``I had never heard of it before. I loved it. I called Mom.''
Her mother, Carol Trickett, was ecstatic, too. As a girl, she had been raised in the same denomination, but then she had married an Episcopalian, Joyce's father.
``It's come full cycle,'' Trickett said. She believes not much happens by accident, a belief that helped her through many of her crises.
She isn't willing to say God intervened during her ordination. But she and other participants found it at least interesting that the only man scheduled to offer Communion to the congregation got sick before the service and canceled, leaving only women around the Communion table.
``We didn't set it up that way,'' Trickett said. ``But we looked around and said, `Whoa. Way cool.' ''
It was the first time in the history of this particular church that Communion had been celebrated totally by women.
The pastor of First Christian Church, the Rev. Dr. Jack Austin, acknowledged the service would be unique. And that was fitting, he said. ``Joyce is a unique child of God.''
Ordained Episcopalians are called priests. Those ordained in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) are called ministers. Apart from that, there is little difference in the responsibilities or in the acceptability of women in those leadership roles.
Only about 11 percent of both Episcopalians and Disciples churches have women clergy.
Both Christian Disciples of Christ and Episcopal churches are Protestant, although the Episcopal Church is much older, having been formed around 1500. The Christian Disciples Church was formed in the early 1800s in the United States and is a breakaway from Presbyterianism.
The rector of both Glebe and St. John's Episcopal churches in Suffolk, the Rev. M. Webster Maughan, said at the ordination that Trickett's going over to the Disciples from his church was ``our loss, your gain.''
Trickett's mother said after the ordination that she is ``so proud to have a daughter who is a minister. I wish her grandfather Trickett knew. He was Rev. Trickett. Episcopal. But I was raised Disciples of Christ,'' she said.
Joyce Trickett's son, Joshua, 25, said that at first he thought his mother's plans to become a priest were ``peculiar.''
But, he said, ``that's what she wants. She always seems to accomplish what she goes after.''
Her next goal is a church of her own.
Trickett said she has three strikes against her. She's female, older and divorced. What she has is faith, determination and lots of supportive friends and family. She said after the ceremony that she didn't get this far alone and sees no way possible to carry out the responsibilities of her new title, the Rev. Trickett, without the continued help of those surrounding her.
During a laying on of hands, a ritual begun by St. Peter, clergy touch the initiate on the head and shoulders, acting as conduits for St. Peter's spiritual energy.
``It felt very heavy,'' Trickett recalled. ``I thought at the time, `I'm going to remember this moment.' During the service, I was aware of the responsibility that would be coming. During the laying on of hands, I was feeling that responsibility.''
She was charged by several high-ranking district and regional Christian Disciples to work for justice for the poor and the sick, animals, the young and the ecosystem.
Now 51 and a Norfolk resident, Trickett is a licensed clinical social worker and has been affiliated with mental health agencies since 1980. Since July 1993, she has worked as an in-home clinical therapist with the Portsmouth Community Services Board.
``I'm part-time in the ministry now and full-time as a clinical therapist,'' she said. ``When I get a job with a church, I'll flip it, so the ministry will be the full-time job.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Cover, Color photo]
IN THE MINISTRY, AT LAST
Staff photos, including cover, by BETH BERGMAN
Joyce Trickett, second from left, sings along with the choir.
Trickett felt called to be a minister in 1983 and received her
master's of divinity from Yale University Divinity School in
Connecticut.
Church elders and clergy lay their hands on a kneeling Joyce
Trickett during her oirdination at First Christian Church.
Trickett leaves First Christian Church as an ordained minister. Her
goal is to have a church of her own.
by CNB