Anonymous ("You know me. I am your daughter, your pastor...")

You know me.

I am your daughter, your pastor.

You nurtured me, encouraged me, ordained me.  For over 20 years I have served at every governing body level.

Yet I cannot tell you my name.  For me the risk is still too great.

I work and pray for the day when I am free to say who I truly am.

The video "So Great a Cloud of Witnesses; The Story of the Shower of Stoles Project" opens with camera shots of the inside of a sanctuary: a vacant pew, an empty pulpit, an organ bench and darkened choir loft.  At the same time, a woman's voice is heard reading this stole:

You know me.
I am your daughter, your pastor...

This stole eloquently speaks for all of us.  It declares that we are not "someone else;" we are not outsiders.  We are your family member, your pastor, your musician and teacher.  We are your elected official, your governing body staff, your deacon, elder and bishop.  We are the person sitting right next to you in your pew.

Several years ago a group of students at St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, MO arranged to have a display of stoles about a hundred stoles at one of their chapel services.  They selected twenty anonymous stoles from this group and draped each one over a random spot in a pew throughout the chapel.   There was a large turnout for services that day; students and faculty quickly filled in the pews around the scattered stoles.  At the beginning of the service a student noted the presence of the twenty anonymous stoles, adding, "You are sitting next to someone you know."  The response from those nearest the stoles was palpable.  The unnamed and unknown had been "embodied."  One closeted student -- whose own anonymous stole, unbeknownst to the those on the worship team, had been included with the others -- later told me in private of the powerful effect this had on her: "That wasn't just my stole there; it was me."

Martha Juillerat
Founder, Shower of Stoles Project
2006