If only the rich can answer the call of God, then we’re not giving our Church a fair shake at all the gifts God has provided us.

When I started seminary, I had a kid who was a sophomore in college and two kids in junior high. I had to deal with $35,000 a year in tuition for my daughter, not to mention my seminary expense, and the loss of my income and my husband’s income. We had to cash in all of our retirement funds and all of our savings and sell our house so that we could make it through. After working all of our lives to build up savings, I came out of seminary with nothing.

I continued to be amazed that my family maintained the level of support they did, knowing what we were giving up. When I graduated from seminary, my husband was 55. It was not a good market for a 55-year-old to be looking for a job.

Financial concerns affected all of us seminarians, especially those who already had kids. In my first year, a couple of times my husband and I couldn’t eat meals in order to make sure our kids had enough to eat. We were absolutely destitute the first year. I had to process that spiritually and emotionally in order to focus on my schoolwork. I was already a parent, and then I was called to be a priest. The longer we went with nothing, the more difficult it was for our families to cope and the more distracting it became to focus on studies.

The Episcopal Church is one of the only churches in the country that doesn’t provide seminary funding. The costs of seminary are laid on the person seeking to answer the call. It shouldn’t be up to the dioceses or bishops with the most financial resources to be able to make life livable for the seminarians. Somehow that’s a church issue.

If only the rich or those who can find rich people to support them can answer the call to God, then we’re not giving our church a fair shake at all the gifts God has provided us. It shouldn’t be about money. We have enough money in this Church to do something about this.