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By Melissa Lauber
UMConnection Staff

On May 4, 1956, in Minneapolis, the General Conference of the Methodist Church approved full clergy rights for women. On May 25, 2006, the Baltimore-Washington Conference honored the fruits of that decision with a worship service that acknowledged the journeys of its 267 clergywomen.

The evening?s celebration began with a musical meditation from Bernice Johnson Reagon, a professor, social activist, singer and founder of the a capella group Sweet Honey in the Rock.

In a presentation that blended words and song, Reagon encouraged each person present to embrace their history and the struggles of the past in order to transform the world in which they live.

Her rich, powerful voice filled the Grand Ballroom of the Marriott Waterfront Hotel in Baltimore:

'I don?t know why the angels woke me up this morning soon;
I don?t know why the blood still runs through my veins;
I don?t know how I rate to run another day;
I am here still running, I believe.'

She began by inviting the audience to join her in singing her 'jail song,' which she sang when she was imprisoned in Albany, Ga., during the Civil Rights movement. The refrain was: 'I feel better ? since I laid my burden down.'

'I didn?t know a body could be locked up and feel such freedom,' she said.

Reagon recalled the words of Harriet Tubman, a slave who escaped and helped thousands of others achieve their freedom on the Underground Railroad. Tubman believed so strongly in what she was doing, 'she figured there were one or two things she had a right to: liberty or death, and claimed, ?when I surrender to a path I will be free or I will be dead.?'

'She freed a lot of us,' Reagon said. 'But she said she could have freed many more if we had known we were slaves.'

Reagon encouraged those present not to be complacent about the things that enslave them still.

'The first step in any kind of being beyond your exploitation is being willing to say goodbye to the person you are in that condition,' said Reagon.

Reagon also recalled a story about Eli Weisel, who lived through the Holocaust and said, 'You may not have been in one of those concentration camps, but you could live your life as if that was your experience.

'You could choose to remember that that happened and there?s something in the fact that it happened that could change your living, if you embraced history that way.'

She applauded The United Methodist Church for its '50 years of good sense,' but warned that struggle still lay ahead.

'Do not go looking for the storm to be over,' she said. And don?t forget that 'success is not equated with comfort. ? Falling on the ground means it?s the bottom and that?s the place you can get up from.'

Fully claiming one?s history allows you to understand 'the sweetness of the struggle,' said Reagon, who concluded with song:

'My God, call to me in the morning dew;
The power of the universe knows my name.
Gave me a song to sing and send me on my way,
I raise my voice for justice, I believe.'

As her song faded, a drumbeat was heard, and a processional of clergywomen began.

'I can feel it; feel the movement. The women must be gathering!' they sang.

The song was written by the Rev. Susan Beehler, a retired member of the Baltimore-Washington Conference.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s the clergywomen faced significant discrimination and gathered together to support one another. They wrote songs together and formed a clergywomen?s choir. The music, said Bishop Susan Morrison, gave them strength and hope.

Several of these original songs were featured in the worship service.

In a lighthearted Top Ten List, Bishop Morrison, of the Albany Area who began her ministry in the Baltimore-Washington Conference, explained how 'this is not your grandmother?s church.'

'Mama Mia is no longer an exclamation, it?s a prayer,' she said ? 'The Commission on Archives and History needs to provide a bit more detail when they request a bust of the bishop ? and a chair is not just something to dust. It?s someone to be.'

In the midst of the laughter, the clergywomen also took time to remember when they were made to feel as if they didn?t belong, when theirs? were often the only female voices in a room, and when congregations dealt awkwardly, and sometimes brusquely, with them claiming the authority of Word, sacrament and order.

As the service drew to a close, all of the conference?s clergywomen stood on stage as they raised their stoles and sang, 'Here I Am Lord.'

The conference?s three women superintendents, the Revs. Laura Easto, Terri Rae Chattin, and Ianther Mills, offered an invitation to any women who might be feeling a call to ordained ministry. Several came forward.

The anniversary of full clergy rights for women was also celebrated in a number of other ways during the annual conference session, where women delivered sermons at the opening worship, memorial and ordination services, art by clergywomen was on display and the video 'Wouldn?t Take Nothing for My Journey,' was debuted.

The celebration will continue on the national stage at the United Methodist Clergywomen?s consultation, which will be held Aug. 13-17 in Chicago.