The Rev. Jessie Smith’s tattoo sleeve on one arm has an Alice in Wonderland theme. The other may be called her religious arm: There’s a tattoo of a seraphim, an angel that accompanies God’s spirit, a cross she got done while in Jerusalem, a wheel within a wheel as seen by the prophet Ezekiel and an Easter lily.
“I have a beet. That’s not secular. It’s in between sacred and secular,” she said with a laugh, lifting up her pant leg to show the green and ruby tattoo.
Smith, 34, is the vicar at St. Anne’s Episcopal Church in Washougal. The idea for the beet tattoo near her ankle came while she was weeding beets at a Catholic Worker community and still figuring out her religious path.
She had left the Episcopal faith she grew up in. At one point, she was part of the Pentecostal Church, then followed a guru for a while and lived in different farming communities and communes around the country until someone encouraged her to check out the Catholic Worker movement. It’s a movement that takes the gospel literally in that followers want to offer hospitality, work for peace in the world and stand up against injustice. She lived in a community in Eugene, Ore., for a while before it closed and she moved to Tacoma.
“That’s when I started discerning ministry and seeing the potential for all of the values I was trying to live out on communes,” she said. “The church actually holds the structure to support all of those values. … I went back to the Episcopal Church because it was in my blood — it was who I was. I was drawn back to the sacraments, the rhythms of the church.”
Episcopalism is part of the Anglican communion and is similar to Catholicism; sometimes it’s called “Catholic lite.” Smith attended Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, Texas, one of 11 accredited seminaries of the Episcopal Church in the country. About half of her class was women, though most Episcopal priests are men.
Seminary of the Southwest “was a smaller community, and it was also in a part of the country where I would get out of my liberal, white, progressive bubble. It would be challenging politically and socially, and I wanted that kind of challenge,” she said. “It’s a school that had more diversity of thought than, say, if I went to Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., or the one in California.”
Occupy Wall Street was happening during Smith’s time in seminary, so she started a chaplaincy where she would hold interfaith services for protestors. It was a different struggle in Austin, she said, and the church system is different in Texas, too.
“It’s kind of assumed everybody goes to church,” she said. “As opposed to up here, maybe somebody goes to church.”
When she visited Washougal, she fell in love with the area and with St. Anne’s, which is part of the Diocese of Olympia. At the time, Amnesia Brewing was coming into the small but growing downtown area.
“This is a place where there’s growth and things are happening, where it’s changing. I saw a church that was on the edge of downtown. That’s a lot of potential,” she said.
Nowadays, she holds theopubs at Amnesia with other local churches.
Standing up
During her first couple of years at St. Anne’s, the congregation discussed what LGBTQ acceptance really meant for the church. It was a conversation that had to happen before she did any same-sex weddings.
“It’s different to just love and welcome everyone than to say we are going to make it very clear that we are accepting and loving in the fullest way of including you. We believe you to be part of God’s kingdom, and God has made you this way,” Smith said. “This community says ‘Yes, we absolutely are inclusive.'”
Speaking out against hate is close to Smith’s heart; her partner is transgender. If people value God’s creation, then they should stand up for his creation, whether that’s standing up for people or the environment, Smith said. That’s why social justice is such a big part of her faith and her life.
Smith was one of hundreds of clergy who joined Standing Rock Sioux and other Native American tribes near the construction site for the Dakota Access oil pipeline.
She’s also is on the Interfaith Coalition of Southwest Washington, held a vigil at her church for the Orlando nightclub shooting victims, serves on the Episcopal Peace Fellowship and leads the only church in Clark County taking part in an official car camping program for the homeless — just to name a few efforts.
“Because we worship and believe what we do here, we go into the world and we live that out. That’s where it all happens — out in the world,” Smith said.
Guest speakers have included Northwest Gender Alliance, Black Lives Matter and the Washougal Bah?’? community. She’s found strong partnerships with groups and churches that may not theologically align with St. Anne’s but want the same good in the world.
“Just the fact that we’ve had interfaith services here, that we value worship that comes from other places and traditions, that’s changed. That didn’t used to be part of the culture in this church. It’s very much reflected on Sunday morning,” Smith said. “My perspectives and convictions are reflected from the pulpit.”
A calling
The priesthood is hard to escape.
For about a year, Smith was on the Storm City Roller Girls, a Clark County-based roller derby team, because she felt she needed to do something drastically different from what she experienced day-to-day in her vocation.
“People came to me for pastoral issues, and I did a funeral for somebody’s grandmother,” she said.
She does yoga, and when the weather is fair she’ll ride her Yamaha V Star along the Columbia Gorge. She used to exclusively ride bicycles and motorcycles. It wasn’t until taking the job in Washougal that she started using a car.
She attends a lot of community events in her spare time, but that’s also part of her vocation as a priest. Everything blurs together.
About 75 people attend Sunday services at St. Anne’s. Smith said there are about 200 members, though the way she counts somebody as a member is open-ended. If someone goes to theopub or is involved in the car-camping program, they’re considered part of the St. Anne’s community regardless of whether they go to Sunday worship.
The way church is done is changing and St. Anne’s reflects that change. It reflects where people in Washougal are at and what they value, and Smith is at the forefront of all of that.
