God had been moving quietly, subtly, deliberately in my life, beginning with my conception, periodically during my childhood, throughout my public school years. I didn’t see it then, but I see it now. My call to Ordained Ministry began before my call was discerned, characteristic prevenient grace that is rooted deep in the heart of the United Methodist experience. The fingerprints of God’s prevenient grace is written all over the first chapters of my life and development. Did you perceive it as you read through my story?

1. Where I’ve Been – Embracing Change: https://breakingyokes.org/2024/07/30/where-ive-been-embracing-change/
2. From Whence I Came – Tears of a Birthing Mother: https://breakingyokes.org/2024/08/05/2-from-whence-i-came-tears-of-a-birthing-mother/
3. Epiclesis: https://breakingyokes.org/2024/08/10/3-epiclesis/
4. A Smidge of Grey: https://breakingyokes.org/2024/08/14/4-a-smidge-of-grey/
5. Discipline, Honor, Integrity and Herb Larson: https://breakingyokes.org/2024/08/23/5-discipline-honor-integrity-and-herb-larson/
6. Dairy Farmers, Bus Drivers, and Don Jordan: https://breakingyokes.org/2024/08/31/6-dairy-farmers-bus-drivers-and-don-jordan/
7. Advent in August: https://breakingyokes.org/2024/09/07/7-advent-in-august/
8. Addison and Vernon Lee: https://breakingyokes.org/2024/09/25/8-addison-and-vernon-lee/
9. Discipline Matters: The Education of Todd Goddard: https://breakingyokes.org/2024/10/07/9-discipline-matters-the-education-of-todd-goddard/
10. Becoming a Wolverine: https://breakingyokes.org/2024/12/17/10-becoming-a-wolverine/
11. The Smell of Hoppes: https://breakingyokes.org/2025/03/11/11-the-smell-of-hoppes/

My experience and perception of discernment is both personal and communal. God called me, pinging me like sonar. Even as a child, my spiritual antenna received the signal loud and clear. However, it took years for me to piece together the evidence that God’s hand was working in and through others at key moments in my life. It took a long time for me to get to an “aha” moment of recognition.

My call to ordained ministry wasn’t random. It wasn’t from out of the blue. Neither was it from a mentally delusional individual. God pumped the dime into the payphone and dialed my number. Over time, God worked through others, a community of disciples, to question me, encourage me, guide me to make choices that were consistent with a disciplined life of an ordained pastor. At first, it was informal. Friends and family. In time, others in the Church dropped hints. At the end of the process, it was the formality of Church polity; confirmation from the local church, the District Committee on Ordained Ministry, the Conference Board of Ordained Ministry, peer elders, and finally, the resident Bishop. My call took place over the first 26 years of my life.

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I couldn’t bring myself to the pool this morning. My weekly self-injection 36 hours ago leaves me nauseous and without an appetite. Tomorrow morning I will swim. Reach. Pull. Kick. Push. Glide. Breathe. Uninterrupted silence, space for prayer, meditation, reflection.

Come, Lord. Come quickly.

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Casowasco is a property on the shore of Owasco Lake, one of New York’s beautiful Finger Lakes. It is the former summer estate of Theodore Case and his family, an inventor who ran with the likes of George Eastman and Thomas Edison. Case on Owasco is 73 acres of woods, one mile of shoreline, and since 1948, it has served as a host for children and youth ministries operated by the United Methodist Church, as directed in the family’s bequest.

Summer, 1979. I graduated high school and prepared to attend Clarkson as an engineering student. Science and math came naturally to me. I took off two weeks from work to join my dad volunteering at a work camp at Casowasco. Bill Swales was the director. He was my dad’s District Superintendent. He knew of my interests. He was charged with building a solar hot water system for the Highlands, the camping area on the West end of the property. Bill needed a lifeline and he phoned a friend. I answered the call.

Over the course of two weeks I led the team clearing land (think chain saws, shovels, and heavy equipment), building the plumbing (think copper pipes, tin solder, valves, and couplings), and erecting a gravity system to provide hot water. It takes some serious planning and construction to safely locate a 500-gallon water tank eight feet above the floor and enable it to be annually winterized.

The buildout worked like a charm. The property manager, a pastor and Japanese scholar by the name of Bob Stoppert, took notice. He remembered my name. Mid freshman year Bob gave me a call and invited me to join his 1980 summer staff.

Confidence. Fleeting in adolescence, confidence is panned for like specks of gold. As it is discovered, developed, and amassed, it becomes a solid foundation for a fruitful life. Where is confidence found? In a phone call. Words of appreciation. Recognition of a strong work ethic. A twinkle in the eye; evidence of God’s greater will being lived out on stage and in the spotlight called youth.

What little confidence I gained in those two weeks at Casowasco would be shaken with a difficult freshman year at college. Everyone was way smarter than me. Alcohol and marijuana were as destructive to me as an unexploded time bomb. Fraternity life was a distraction and grades suffered. Developmentally, I wasn’t ready. It would take me an additional four years before I was truly prepared to grow up and move out to live independently. The summer of 1980 couldn’t come fast enough.

Move in day was as early in May as college let out. Maintenance staff were needed early to get the property ready for the first week of nippers, er, campers, as we called them. I went straight to Casowasco to open the next chapter in my call to ministry and life’s unfolding book.