Rev. Yolanda —Sacred Refractions #4
Each month, Rev. Ava Schlesinger poses four questions and invites a community blessing as she turns the lens of curiosity toward One Spirit’s kaleidoscope of alumni. This evolving series celebrates the prism of lived experience and reflects the radiant, raw, and beautifully human expressions of sacred action and service.
Four questions. One blessing. A moment of sacred refraction.
This month’s Sacred Refractions spotlight centers on Rev. Yolanda, a 2011 One Spirit graduate whose work weaves together ritual, artistry, ancestry, and embodied spiritual practice.
Yolanda’s ministry emerges from lived experience at the intersections of gender, illness, transformation, and devotion, offering a deeply personal and expansive vision of sacred service.
To learn more, please visit Rev. Yolanda at https://yolanda.net/.
(The following is paraphrased from Ava and Yolanda’s Zoom interview.)
What first called you to ministry, and how did that calling take shape?
Some people arrive in ministry through a single doorway, one tradition, one language, one clear yes.
I arrived through many.
From an early age, I felt drawn to God not as a concept, but as a presence. At sixteen, I encountered a music minister whose sincerity changed my life. This individual embodied devotion without judgment and made room for my queerness at a time when such welcome was rare. That encounter planted a lasting seed: this is how faith can feel; this is how love can move.
In New York in the 1980s, my spiritual curiosity widened. New Age practices, tarot, paganism, and earth-based traditions expanded my theological imagination. Eventually, I found my way to the Radical Faeries, a queer spiritual community rooted in goddess traditions, ritual, and shared life. There, I experienced deep belonging and reclaimed my name – Yolanda, aligning my outer life more closely with my inner truth.
Later, after being diagnosed as HIV positive, I was prescribed testosterone as part of my medical care, a common protocol at the time. The medication profoundly altered my body and how I was perceived in the world. Although I had never understood myself as male, I found myself navigating life in a more male-facing presentation, holding an identity that did not fully reflect my inner knowing.
It was during this period that I entered One Spirit Seminary, doing so under my birth name, Roger; this was not a declaration of self, but rather, as a reflection of how my body was being read at that time. What I carried with me into seminary was not certainty, but devotion, curiosity, and a willingness to listen deeply for truth.
How did your time at One Spirit shape your embodied understanding of identity and ministry?
Seminary became more than an education. It became a place of discernment.
As I moved through my two years at One Spirit, my understanding of myself continued to unfold. Like many students doing deep inner work, I encountered moments where language, identity, and institutional forms did not always easily align. These moments invited reflection rather than resolution, asking me to listen more carefully to what felt most true in my body and spirit.
Alongside this unfolding, I was deeply supported by mentorship. A mentor who saw me clearly, encouraged me to trust my inner knowing and to stay in conversation with what was emerging rather than rush toward answers. I was reminded that ministry is not only about honoring inherited structures, but also about responding to what the world is asking for now.
Through this process, I came to understand that trans ministers carry a particular wisdom – one rooted in embodiment, resilience, and the capacity to hold complexity with compassion. I was enthusiastically encouraged to recognize that trans ministers were truly needed out in the world to work with and companion others living into their own true identities. This understanding continues to shape my ministry today.
My orientation is non-dual: all life is one; everything in life is holy. I listen for what is already sacred and already present. I do not seek to correct experience, but to witness it until truth reveals itself.
What has transformation come to mean in your life?
As ordination approached, I felt a quiet but unmistakable invitation to step more fully into alignment. I knew that entering ministry required presence, honesty, and integrity – not perfection or certainty.
With care and intention, I asked to be ordained under the name that had always named my truth.
I crossed that threshold as Reverend Yolanda Mapes.
Transformation, as I understand it now, is not about becoming someone else. It is about remembering who we are beneath fear, shame, and separation. My life, shaped by illness, medical intervention, spiritual seeking, love, and loss, has taught me that holiness does not require comfort or coherence. It asks only for presence.
Grief, especially after the death of my beloved Glen in March 2024, has deepened my capacity to sit with suffering – my own and others’ – without rushing to fix it. I have learned that love does not disappear with loss; it changes shape and continues to teach.
Where does sacred action show up in your life now?
My ministry lives in building bridges of compassion between differing communities.
I teach, sing, preach, and guide in sanctuaries, classrooms, study groups, and everyday conversations. Sacred action shows up not only in ceremony, but in how conversations are held, how differences are honored, and how people remain in relationship, even when it feels uncomfortable.
My work does not seek spectacle. It seeks sincerity.
I am a minister not only in what I offer, but in how I live.
If you could offer a blessing to One Spirit alumni (and those who may find their way here), what would it be?
May we give thanks for all who have said yes —
Yes to Spirit.
Yes to Truth.
Yes to Becoming.
May we honor the teachers, mentors, and companions who walk beside us, especially when the path is still forming.
May we trust that simply showing up, with open hearts and open minds, is already a sacred act.
And may we remember that the world is changed not only by certainty, but by presence, courage, and love.
Amen.
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A note from Rev. Ava
The beauty of our One Spirit community is that the light and love keep moving, bending, shimmering, and finding new forms through each of us. If you’re a graduate or student of seminary or ISCC whose work in the world reflects this light, and you want to share your story, I would love to hear from you (contact me: beautyandgraceink@gmail.com) so that we can discuss spotlighting you in the future. Sacred Refractions is meant to be a living conversation – a collection of stories that show how ministry continues to take shape in every imaginable place and form.
