This Sister answered her calling to spiritual service, social activism, community organizing, and other esoteric and ecstatic arts in 2001, under the watchful eyes of the San Francisco Sisters. Her mother, Sister Mary Timothy Simplicity, is a devoted Sister, deathwalker and queen who remains a life-long co-conspirator to this day. Sister Sharin’ was initiated as a fully-professed Sister on Jan. 8th, 2003 and took her vows in a backroom ritual that ended, as one would expect, with naked dancing around a hill-top fire under the witnessing gaze of a night full of stars. Her journey has been reflected in many of the systems and mysteries that make up the Western Esoteric Tradition, the guidance of queer ancestry, and the heritage of a lifetime of contact with artsy, witchy, fae, liminal people only found by piercing the veil of the profane. She is often introduced simply as “a radical queer drag nun!”, which is both affirming and will still make her blush.
Sister Sharin’ Dipity chose her name over a 3-day silent retreat in a moment of sheer divine revelation well within the first hour of setting forth on that journey. This is in keeping with her highly intuitive notions of self, her “can-do” attitude, and an early inability to tolerate liminal spaces. Full understanding of her name and the ministry it invokes are revealed to both the fully initiated and community alike. While some mistake her earlier antics as mere frivolity, those in more aware circles understand that frivolocity is indeed a nuanced and highly skilled area of study often needing tutelage to help the candidate practitioner become uninhibited by the confines and screaming demands of “consensual reality.”
Sister Sharin’ comes to the Portland House after a circuitous journey that includes being schooled in Salem, surrender in Shreveport, a 
spiritual awakening in Seattle, the seminal sojourn and settling in San Francisco (and in an attempt end alliteration in her life), finally clicking her heels…off, and slowing to invest in her own identity work and build community here in Portland. Since 2004, she has served in a myriad of leadership positions within the Order and now inhabits the role of Prioress of the Portland Sisters.
Her current journey is one of legacy work within the Sisterhood and often takes the form of exercising her flair for organizational structure and a passion for facilitating interpersonal-process amongst members. While the aforementioned is important inner-Order work, her joy and true essence can be seen when she is manifest within her community by witnessing others and living out her own self-proclaimed calling to “raise awareness and eyebrows”. Many who encounter her simply note the event as “having made contact,” whereby she quite serendipitously crossed their path in a moment of curious yet beneficial happenstance, much like her namesake would suggest. This can involve a simple invitation to meet in joy and understanding, while other times it’s a call to make deeper meaning of reality in which we live and move. This is especially true for those who feel othered within “affirming and safe” community, even as they try to take refuge from dominant culture. In all cases, you will know her by her trademark raised eyebrow meant to catalyze a quizzical and yet discerning penetration of any moment. The synergy and play of these moments often transmute shame into joy and can carve out new space for authenticity, meaning, conspiracy, and of course – Frivolocity!
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