Paul Bickford
Northern News Services
Published Monday, January 7, 2008

FORT SMITH - Being a member of the clergy is more than a career.

"It's very much beyond that," said Rev. Ann Bush, an Anglican minister in Fort Smith. "You're not entering a career, it's a vocation."

The duties can cover 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Rev. Ann Bush leads the faithful at St. John's Anglican Church in Fort Smith. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

"Once a priest, you're always a priest," Bush said.

She is often sound asleep in the middle of the night when a call comes that she is needed to help someone.

"I don't think you do this unless you had a sense you were being called by God," she said.

The job involves helping people find strength and comfort in the darkest times of their lives, such as the death of a loved one, she said.

"They look to you to make sense of tragedy, trauma and accidents," she said, adding that may not always be possible.

Bush tries to be honest with people in times of tragedy within the limits of human understanding.

"I think it can be dangerous when we think we have all the answers and come out with some clichés," she said, Bush believes a priest has to be rooted in his or her own faith to do the job.

"You have to be strong in your own sense of who you are and what you believe in," she said.

While the job of a priest can be tough, Bush said it can also be joyful in sharing baptisms, marriages and people's journeys in faith.

A priest lives the whole spectrum of human emotions, she said.

"You can easily do that in one single day."

"I think there's no greater joy than to see someone know what it is to have a living faith in God," she added.

Bush looks at her job as opportunities to do God's work.

"This is a huge privilege," she said. "You can't put a price tag on that."

Bush has been an Anglican priest for almost 15 years.

In her native England, she spent nine years as a chaplain in the prison system.

"There's no more lonelier place, but it was very rewarding to see how God could impact lives for the better," she said.

Bush trained at St. Stephen's House Theological College, which is associated with Oxford University.

"It was pretty arduous," she said of her three years of theological school.

She was then ordained a deacon, and continued training for another three years before being ordained a priest.

Bush, 59, has served in Fort Smith since 2001.

"I love the people," she said, adding she also loves the community's diversity and cultural richness.