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University Daily Kansan / Thursday, April 28, 1988
3B
Female priest knew her destiny from an early age
Episcopalian quit a lucrative job with Muppets to enter seminary
The Rev. Anne Mallonee Clevenger
By Barbara Joseph
Special to the Kansan
In all of Kansas, only three resident Episcopal priests are women. And one of them quit a lucrative job with the Muppets in New York to become a priest.
She is the Rev. Anne Mallonee Cleveren, and she's the priest at Canterbury House, the Episcopal church at the University of Kansas. She's also the editor of Plenteous Harvest, the official newspaper of the diocese of Kansas.
You might not know she is a priest this afternoon. The starched white vestments she wears to preach and the black blouse with the white collar she wears at Canterbury House are replaced this day with casual wear – tannin garments, blue turtle neck and bone-colored sweater.
Her home exudes quiet. Here and there, splashes of color upset the pristine whiteness of walls and furnishings.
One watercolor dominates.
"I call it 'Avalanche.'" Clevenger said. "Seminary was like one. Everything seemed to fall apart. They tear you apart and put you together again."
There were indications at an early age that she was destined for the priesthood.
At age five, she asked her priest, "If God created everything, who created God?" At age 13, she determined her life would be God's. At age 14, she found it difficult to select classes because they would determine the rest of her life.
The flame was fanned in high school when a teacher she happened to observe women protested in those days.
"I was a pretty serious kid to be worrying about all that," she said.
"I never got that idea out of my head."
Clevenger said. She asked her priest how one woman asked her to help him. He said to ignore the feeling and pursue other interests until several years after college.
Always an "A" student, she left Wichita High School for KU and studied French. She became a Watkins-Berger Scholar and a member of the Phi Kappa Phi honor society. She graduated in December 1979 with distinction.
But once during those college years, while on a Princeton Work Abroad Program in St. Martin Vesubie, France, she decided to follow her own aspirations.
"I wrote for information on seminaries
that I was in France," she said. "I knew I
would."
With the Muppets
After college, her grandmother suggested
"T
I though I loved the people and the wholesome philosophy at the Muppets, my work got in the way of what I wanted to do in the church.
Anne Mallonee Clevenger
Episcopalian priest
she go to Katy Gibbs, a business school in New York.
"The idea was to get business skills to get a job, then kick in your degree and shoot to the top." she said.
From there, she filled in for an acquaintance as secretary to the vice president of marketing for the Muppets.
"The first day they asked me if I wanted to work there, I said no," she said. "I was in awa. All these famous people. The fairy-tale office. It was beyond me."
But she took the job eventually. Soon, she was an account manager.
The job responsibilities grew. the movie "The Great Muppet Caper" came out. So did The Dark Crystal. The "Muppet Babies" program for Fridays for TV program were secretly being developed.
Clevenger did press releases and arranged trade shows, movie previews and cocktail parties.
"It was fun," she said. "They gave me $10,000 and here, 'Here, throw a party.'"
But all through that time, she experienced an internal tug-of-war. She had become involved in St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church and was organizing events there, too.
"Though I loved the people and the wholesome philosophy at the Muppets, my work got in the way of what I wanted to do in the church," she said.
One year later, a year in which her tendency to overwork took its toll, she became so sick with mononucleosis that she couldn't move. Her boss sent a limousine to take her to the airport. From the limousine, she rode a wheelchair to the plane. In another mother retrieved her from another wheelchair. She spent the next month in bed.
"I was worried to death about her," said her mother, Barbara Mallonee. "I had gone on too long. I was afraid she had damaged herself."
Final stand-off
The illness proved to be a turning point for Cleverger.
"I had time to do some soul-searching about why I was working so compulsively."
she said, "I realized I was putting everything into the Muppets. The weekends were horrible because there was no work. Others had lives at home. I was trying to get it all from
She also decided that if she was going to work so hard, she wanted to do it in the office.
When she returned to New York, she
She went from the Mupupps to Yale Divinity School. There, she had the final stand-off with her tendency toward overachievement.
"Semiary broke me of that," she said.
"The volume of work broke my need to get the highest grade."
At seminary, she also faced the idea that her desire to become a priest was achievement-oriented.
“Anne was willing to look at the dams in herself,” said the Rev. Tom Bowers, rector of St. Bartolomew’s, Cleverenger’s New York and her spons during seminary and ordination.
"Becoming a priest is a very introspective process," he said. "You have to know what's driving you — ego, parents, lack of self-love. Trying to be successful can destroy you."
There was an additional struggle — that of a woman becoming a priest.
"It takes extra to become a woman priest," Bowers said. "I think every woman even now has to wrestle with that. It's not a settled issue in the church."
The seminary years also were tumultuous because Clevenger fell in love. Her husband, Mark, is a priest. He shares the Canterbury House job with her and attends law school.
Clevereng said she doesn't sense this in her diocese, but acknowledges it is difficult for women to move up to such positions as rector.
"I'm a much better priest because of
that he believed," Mr. Bengler said. "I learned from him
that I didn't need to be a priest."
Ability to listen
The change shows.
"She doesn't come across as a driving person," said the Rev. Grant Clowers, assistant rector at Trinity Episcopal Church in Windsor, N.J., and Cleveren has worked for just over a year.
The process of taming her drives has also enabled her strengths to shine through.
"Anne has the real ability to listen to what other people are saying." Glowers said. "She has a real wisdom that goes beyond her experience."
Todd Harper, Mission Hills senior and one of four residents at Centurion Bay, finds the way to the school.
"I'm a senior facing the reality of the world outside college," he said. "Anne's been there to cheer me on."
o cheer me on. Even her mother sees a change.
"She's achieving a balance now," she said
"She knows her limits and accepts that."
The struggles haven't completely ended, of course. At age 30, considered young for someone to take on the full responsibilities of the priesthood, Clevenger has the equivalent of six jobs. Canterbury House and Plentence are always plenty of demands for her time.
"There's never enough time to prepare for a sermon," she said. "Never enough time to make people feel better, never enough time to listen to all the hurts of the world."
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