All Saints, Pasadena sponsored me for ordination, but there was not unanimous enthusiasm.

George Regas looked at me sadly, shaking his head as he said, “You know, Maggie, there are an awful lot of women your age looking to be ordained,” to which I replied truthfully but rather disrespectfully, “And there are an awful lot of men your age who are already ordained.”

Tim Safford was more blunt: “You don’t have a chance in hell of making it through the process.”

Fast forward to 1996, the year I received my M.Div. from EDS, started working at All Saints, and was ordained to the diaconate.

By the time I was priested in 1997, there had been ordained women in the Episcopal Church for more than twenty years and I in no way considered myself a trail blazer. And yet over and over people would tell me on the way out of church how moved they were to see a vested woman at the altar.

Because I was often the only ordained woman on the staff, I frequently preached on Mary Sunday and the Feast Day of Mary Magdalene. Once, my male colleagues dared me to preach on the Feast of the Circumcision. No problem!