Columbus woman sends handmade gifts to Methodist clergywomen
Rebeka Maples was looking at the extra fabric she had lying around last summer after making masks to donate through her daughter’s clothing store when she had an idea.
What if she used it to make clerical stoles — a Christian liturgical vestment that consists of a strip of colored cloth worn around the neck of ordained clergy — and sent them as a surprise to women pastors in Ohio?
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“I thought, gosh, wouldn’t that be nice if you were working in your church and you’re tired and then all of a sudden you get this package in the mail and it’s a stole?” said Maples, 73, a retired United Methodist pastor.
Eventually, she got the names and addresses of all the female pastors in the church’s West Ohio Conference — 164 — and began making a stole and matching face mask for each one.
She’s made 105 so far and has already decided she’d like to continue after making one for every clergywoman in the West Ohio Conference. She’s considering moving on to women in the state’s only other regional conference, East Ohio.
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Maples, of Grandview Heights, retired from ministry in 2016 after serving for 16 years at Thurston United Methodist Church in Fairfield County.
She now spends her time running in the mornings and sewing in the afternoons and evenings, in addition to serving as the director of spiritual formation for the United Methodist Church’s Course of Study School, a training program for people who want to minister but not be ordained.
Maples, who used to make clothes for her daughter, Laura S. Howe, when she was a child, got back into sewing during the pandemic. She sewed masks — 1,000 in total — for her daughter’s Los Angeles clothing store, Matrushka Construction, to donate alongside the ones it sold.
Acts like donating masks inspired Maples to do more in hopes of showing people there is good in the world — and good people, too.
“We forget because the negative stuff is so powerful,” Maples said. “Everybody could do something.”
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The Rev. Amy Aspey, lead pastor at Short North Church, said she was surprised when her stole and mask showed up on her doorstep.
“It was like a bundle of sunshine and a virtual hug that just arrived as a surprise in my mailbox,” she said. “The creativity and the giftedness and just love and brilliance that went into all this is pretty remarkable.”
In her note to Aspey, Maples indicated that she knows that Aspey and her ministry make a difference and that she is praying for her.
“I got a little weepy when I received it because those are the best kinds of surprises,” Aspey said. “Just as a beautiful reminder of the beloved community that we share and a source of encouragement and a reminder of our connection. And in a socially distant time, those things I think are profoundly meaningful.”
Though Maples has gotten several thank you notes from women who received her handmade stoles, she said she doesn’t want any praise. She just wants the women to think of ways to pass on the kindness to someone else.
“You receive something, then maybe you’re inspired to think of ways you can do something,” Maples said. “We can make the world a better place by each of us doing something. Maybe it’s just calling someone or saying ‘thank you’ to the people in the stores who have worked through this whole pandemic.”
Getting back to sewing has been a prayerful, contemplative act for Maples.
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“It’s kind of like since I’m doing this alone, the whole process is prayer,” Maples said. “It’s been real rewarding for me to do that.”
It takes Maples about eight hours to make each stole and mask combination, both of which are reversible.
Nestled inside the package, Maples adds a label that says they are part of her COVID challenge called “sewing seeds of kindness.” There’s also a note about what’s inside, a promise that she’s praying for the recipient and a poem titled “Sewing for you” that talks about how all people are connected.
Maples wanted to send the stoles to female clergy in particular because she knows the unique struggles women in ministry can face, she said.
“There’s still a lot of discrimination in the church, and women get isolated and ignored and don’t get promoted in the same way I think, still, as men do,” Maples said. “It’s changed a lot, of course, but it’s still there.”
The Rev. Linda Middelberg, superintendent of the denomination’s Capitol Area North District, agreed and said there are still churches that don’t think women should be clergy.
“It’s better — it gets better every year — but it’s still there,” Middelberg said.
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And during the pandemic, clergy often have been on the frontline caring for those who have lost loved ones to coronavirus, which can weigh more heavily on women, she said.
“Every single person in ministry faces a unique situation, I’m sure, but we’re still at a place in most of our households where women are carrying the majority of the emotional work with family and then with your parishioners,” Middelberg said. “During this pandemic time, I think that’s been particularly heavy.”
Aspey has found that it can be exhausting to have to remind people that she also has a place at the table as a female clergy member.
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“When people have an image of a pastor, the default is rarely women,” Aspey said. “There can be a fight to be taken seriously. … Women have to explain and even rationalize their space.”
When she’s with her husband, people often mistake him for the minister, she said. Other times, her people refer to her not as “minister” but as “honey,” “baby” or “sweetheart.”
Aspey knows Maples understands the unique challenges of being a female pastor, and that also made the gift more meaningful to her.
“When other women are also cheering us on and encouraging us from a place of someone (who) has come before,” she said, “it’s just this affirmation of ‘keep going, you’re seen and you’re valued.'”
@DanaeKing
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