Month: August 2025

24. First Year Winter Break and Spring Placement

~ toddgoddard ~ Leave a comment

Pass / Fail is a beautiful thing. I passed all my courses in the Fall and was set to begin Spring classes mid-January. The seminary would be a ghost town over break so it was time to return home for a few weeks.

Rick Stackpole and I had been friends over a number of years. He was the waterfront director at Casowasco when I was on staff. It was his underwear that we bagged in zip locks, filled with beer, and froze in the staff house freezer. What ever I gave, Rick returned in kind. Our practical jokes were the stuff of legend. We both were from central New York, he was from Bath and I was from Elmira, in the southern Tier. He was, and is, wicked smart. He was drawn in by his first term professor of Christian Education, Don Rogers, and felt like he was right at home. Both Rick and I were on the ordination track with the Board of Ministry. We shared the same District Board, based out of Elmira, and we were both scheduled for our annual interviews.

The District committee tracks candidates progress through a process that includes mentoring, supervision by the candidate’s local church, educational progress, psychological testing, and half a dozen other boxes that have to be  checked. They represent an ever widening circle of discernment to confirm a candidates call to ministry. During the third year of seminary, they pass the candidate off to the Conference Board of Ordained Ministry for possible membership in the conference and ordination. All in all, it was for me an eight year process. 

Rick and I carpooled and headed home over Christmas break. Night driving was preferable, so we set off from Dayton, Ohio headed to Elmira well into the evening. We drove into a wicked blizzard. Snow on the interstate between Columbus and Cleveland was piling up fast. No moon, it was as dark as the inside of a cave. It seemed like we were the only car on the road. I was just nodding to sleep when Rick yelled in terror. The car spun in circles, at least a 720, headed off road, and we ended up buried deep into a snow drift. 

Just great. Neither of us had any money. AAA was for rich people. And our luck ran out. We were going to be a day late and a dollar short. What are we going to do?

We keep the engine running and the lights on as we considered our options. After about a half hour we heard a tap on the window. An Ohio State Trooper had seen our tracks and lights in the snow drift, came to a stop, and hiked down to investigate. “You boys okay?” He asked. 

I don’t know about Rick but I was near tears in despair. He must have seen the look of fear and uncertainty in our eyes because he said, “Let’s see what we can do.” The trooper was massive, all muscle, built like a bull dog. I got out. Rick stayed behind the wheel. We pushed. Rick spun the tires. We rocked the car. Slowly, but surely, the car made its way back to the road, foot by foot. Both the trooper and I were drenched in sweat … poor guy. 

“Thank you,” I said as we were both bent over at the waist trying to catch our breath. “What do I owe you?” I naively asked. “What? What are you talking about?” The trooper replied. “This is what I do,” he said. “It’s all part of the job.” 

His job, his call to ministry, was to help young, idiot seminarians out of a snow bank, and get them safely back on their way home.

“Thank you, sir.” I said. Thank you, O Lord, for sending Rick and me a kind hearted, strong as an ox, Ohio State trooper. 

—

Laps are usually a time to quiet my mind, to meditate without interruption, to listen to the still soft voice of the Holy Spirit leading me in harmony with God’s will. Not this morning.

The pool was cool and I had a lane all to myself. I should have been content. Instead, my mind raced from topic to topic, issue to issue, from opportunity to threat that life was sending my way. 

“Be still,” I told myself. 

Drain the thoughts like pulling the plug in a water filled basin, I thought to myself. “Be quiet,” and observe the anxieties circle in vortex as the water is drained away. 

Ten laps of freestyle, I counted, along with another five of breaststroke. In the blink of the eye, I was standing under a hot shower washing the chlorine off my body. The water felt good, oh, so good.

—

The woman seated across the table looked pleasant enough. Roy C., a full time counselor in our Crisis Unit sat in the corner, observing, taking notes, looking at every aspect of my assessment. I was doing my best to appear non-threatening, kind, and respectful. The clinical phrase we used was “establishing a non-anxious presence.” Like a branding iron, pastors everywhere work their non-anxious presence.

“What brings you in today?” I asked quite innocently. 

“I had to wash my mother of her sins,” she replied. Her thick mental health record had tipped me off to a lifetime of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse at the hand of her mother. She showed no sign of fear, anxiety, or guilt. Not a care in the world.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I stabbed my mother with a butchers knife,” the woman smiled. My eyes widened. She proceeded to tell me that she then used the knife to dismember the corpse, cube the muscle, dump it all into the washing machine, added detergent, and set it on spin. “She’s all clean now,” she smiled at me. 

A danger to self or others, with the means and intent, was sufficient clinical criteria for admission to our locked psychiatric unit. Dayton Police handcuffed her and transported her to our unit located at the Dayton State Psychiatric Hospital. The crime was never mentioned on the news. I assume she was remanded by a judge to a forensic psychiatric facility, but I don’t know. I never heard from her again. 

Lord, have mercy. 

—

As spring term of our first year drew to a close, we were to be assigned to a student church for our middle year. I decided I wanted to stay on with Eastway Community Mental Health because I loved working with people in crisis and those with chronic mental health diseases. I was good at it and it was rewarding. I was young, needed little sleep, and it paid five bucks an hour. 

Regardless, I had to work in a parish setting twenty hours a week, supervised by a senior pastor, in addition to being a full time student, reading, writing, and attending class. Student churches treated seminary students like a new change of clothes. One would leave, another would take their place. The work was always leading the youth fellowship group, assisting in worship, and, rarely, filling the pulpit. 

I was assigned to the St. James United Methodist Church in Miamisburg, Ohio. It was a suburban community about ten miles south of the city of Dayton. The church was large, compared from my experience of United Methodist churches in central New York. Attendance was about 300, divided between two services on Sunday. I could give them all day Saturday and Sunday, but that was about it. 

The secretary smiled and pointed my way to the pastor’s office. My knock was timid. What was I expecting? I had no clue.

“Welcome to Miamisburg,” the short Italian gentleman stood from behind his desk, came around, and shook my hand. He appeared to genuinely want me to feel right at home. Hospitality on the half shell. “I’m Nunzio Donald Catronie,” he enunciated every syllable with a natural Italian accent. “But you can call me, Don.” 

I knew I was right where God wanted me to be. 

Don was a tenured elder in the West Ohio Conference. He was confident in his own skin. He’d seen it, done it, wrote the book on pastoral ministry. He was an exceptional mentor my second and third year of seminary. 

Don loved restoring old Toyota Celica and Civics in his garage, eagerly participated in youth events I arranged, and added many tools to my pastoral toolbox that would serve me well. One, was to always write out prayers in advance, otherwise “you end up saying the same old thing the same old way every time you pray. People deserve better,” he’d say. 

Two, when it came to setting the fee for doing a wedding, don’t fall into the same trap he had done in his early years serving the parish. “Never ask the groom, ‘how much is she worth to you?'” he reported. The first, and last time he did this, the groom pulled out his wallet and gave him a one dollar bill for his services. 

Don was such a blessing to me. He and his wife often welcomed me for lunch after Sunday services. He introduced me around town, with other Clergy, down at City Hall, the Rotary Club, and with families throughout the parish. The people of the Miamisburg United Methodist Church were kind and loving, gifting me with blessings and experiences that would serve me well. 

It was a Miamisburg city police officer by the name of S.K. Willey that would end up changing my life. 

23. God Talk, Ricky, and The Turkey in the Straw

~ toddgoddard ~ Leave a comment

As it turns out, a lot of people down through the ages have been thinking and talking about God. I wasn’t unique. Theology is quite literally God Talk. Theo- = God, -ology = words and the study of God. One doesn’t need to be Clergy to think and talk about God. Rather, it is everyone’s best interest for Clergy to spark discussions about who and what God is, how God has worked and acted through the ages, and one’s personal experience with the God of their revelation. 

What is God’s will; and, is my will aligned with God’s will? How does God reveal God’s self to humankind, in general, and to me, in particular? What are the benefits of God’s presence and influence? What are the characteristics of God’s divinity and, in the Christian experience, humanity? 

In addition to introductory classes in Old Testament, New Testament, Hebrew and Greek, I was privileged to take Introduction to Theology in my first semester at United Theological Seminary. Dr. Tyron Inbody taught the class. He quickly became one of my many heroes.

Ty taught us the unique language of theology, derivatives of Greek, Latin, and German, words found only in theological scholarship. It is helpful to discussion if everyone uses a common language, not so different than the language unique to medicine or law. Ty opened up to me an expansive cosmos, created out of divine joy and love. 

Whip smart, articulate, and a leading academic, Ty had learned his trade at the University of Chicago, from the presence of luminaries in the field, including Paul Tillich. He studied in the original French and German, taught with passion and context, and wrote prolifically. Ty was the real deal. Every single moment I was in Ty’s presence, I wanted to learn more. He had a talent of bringing the leading theologians of the age to United, many of whom were controversial, to expose us to the fullness the discipline had to offer. 

Doyle and I slid into our seats just as the class was about to begin, each of us sporting a big gulp from 7-Eleven. Before us was Norman Pittenger from Oxford, a guest of Dr. Inbody, to teach us about his work in the field of process theology. Pittenger spent a lifetime thinking, learning, teaching, and writing books expanding upon process theology. Long hair, unkept, very non-British, Doyle and I made our entrance. Dr. Pittenger pointed at Doyle and me and asked Ty, “what exactly is that?” Was he asking about the big gulp or Doyle and me? 

Process theology, was birthed in the later 1800’s by the writing of Alfred North Whitehead (I have all of his books, as I have read all of Pittenger). It gave birth to liberation theology, which spread with Evangelical fervor throughout central and south America and into Africa. No, it wasn’t communism disguised as church. It is the voice of the oppressed, the poor, the hungry and homeless. It opposed power, violence, and the evil of the world. Liberation theology was the movement of people who sought to be free, to live lives of meaning, to love and to be loved.

Now we are talking. 

What appeals to me about a process theology worldview is the intimacy of God. God did not create the world, set the earth spinning on its axis, and walk away with eternal disinterest.

It has been, and continues to this day, my experience of God acting and reacting in every moment (actual occasion, in process parlance) of life. I make a bad decision, God adapts. God acts, and I have the freedom to respond. God’s love is manifest in drawing me to make God’s approved choices (God’s will). God lures me towards a life of perfection, my own imperfection leads to the next actual occasion where I’m given an opportunity for redemption, to right the ship, and align myself better with God’s will for my life. 

—

As I approached the pool this morning, a swimmer finished his laps, got out and graciously offered me my own lap personal lane. “I warmed it up for you,” he smiled. “Why, thank you,” I replied. 

Lap speed is so over rated. The temptation is to pull too hard and injure a shoulder, kick too hard and run out of breath, try to keep up or draw ahead with swimmers in adjacent lanes. 

Avoid temptation, I tell myself. 

A half-hour swim is a half an hour, whether it is a half a mile or a mile and a half. The cosmos doesn’t care. Though my cardiologist might want me to do more, I’m trying to ride the fine line between quality and longevity of life, living faithfully, listening and responding to God’s encounters in every actual occasion. 

—

“Hello. Eastway Community Mental Health. This is the Crisis Center. How can I help you?” This was the corporate greeting with which we were taught to answer every call for help. 

“This is Ricky,” the barely audible, raspy voice whispered. His throat had held court to a lifetime of cigarettes, crack cocaine, and every form of alcohol known to human kind. As far as I could tell, none of the crisis counselors on staff had ever met Ricky in person. He was always a 3:00 am caller on the crisis line, calling from a payphone primed with his last dime. 

“How can I help you, Ricky?” I asked. The line was silent, but I knew I had to wait. Be patient, I told myself. His brain cells weren’t firing on all cylinders and his cerebrospinal fluid was intoxicated with industrial solvents, his recent MO, dumpster diving the factories in East Dayton in search of chemicals to sniff. 

“I need help, man.”

Prior attempts to get Ricky to come in had been unsuccessful. He was homeless and proud of it. He had rags and cardboard boxes sufficient to survive the coldest of winters. If he ate, it wasn’t much, and must have been whatever he happened upon in dumpsters. He was a black ring wraith who ruled the night.

“Can I get you to come in and talk to me? I can get you some hot coffee and something to eat.” I tried. Lord knows, I tried, not knowing these would be the last words I’d ever have a chance to speak to him.

Word of his death spread rapidly through our crisis team. Dayton PD had found his body in a dumpster, his head crushed when the lid fell on him. Factory-sized and scaled dumpsters were like that. Ricky’s life had meaning to his mother. He meant something to me, though I didn’t have the words to articulate it. 

Addiction is a ravishing disease. Progressive. Fatal. Yet, every actual occasion is an opportunity for God’s gift of grace to make a better decision, to hold addiction in hibernation, to suspend the craving and orient the whole self to God, light, and love. 

Years passed. Memories faded. Some attempted to keep Ricky alive with prank calls to new staff members. I couldn’t join in the cruel laughter. Ricky and thousands of other clients at Eastway deeply touched my heart, gave me a lifelong empathy for people who struggle with chronic mental health diseases or addictions.

Every parish I ended up serving had its share of people with mental health challenges and addictions. Experience at Eastway gave me the tools for my toolbox to work with these kinds of people, empathy to love when others judged or rejected, light in a world of shadows and darkness.

—

Common Meal at United and it was the day before Thanksgiving. Following lunch, campus would empty for the holiday weekend; everyone gone except for the few of us who hailed from a homeland too distant to return. We planned to get together for our own dish-to-pass thanksgiving meal at one of our apartments. We’d have plenty of time to study for the end of term and to get a jump start on the papers that were due. 

Dr. Jim Nelson stood and the room fell silent, upper class students with foreknowledge of that which was to come extended reverence where reverence was due. Jim was a professor of something that I don’t remember anymore, but it didn’t matter. He was an elder among professors, a teacher who’s pastoral approach and wisdom was absorbed by every student in his class. 

Dr. Nelson wore his life long struggle with depression on his sleeve. I could feel that it was a deep source of his empathy and love. You could see it in the contours of his face, wrinkles and shadows deep with meaning. Depression was yes, a struggle, but yet, even yet, a blessing, a gift from God, from which Jim drew and drank. 

Jim stepped onto his chair, then onto his table. The room was silent. He smiled. “Turkey in the Straw” was piped in from the public address system. Off came his pants, baring for the world to see Jim’s skinny, bony, hairy legs. He sang the lyrics and danced awkwardly as if the room was a Dodge City shindig.

We stood in awe of greatness. We clapped and stamped, whistled and hollered. We cheered Dr. Nelson and this encounter with God, humanity, with us lowly seminary students in the basement dining room of Fouts Hall. 

That actual occasion had meaning and I knew it. 

Decades later, I’ve emulate Dr. Nelson, dancing my own Turkey in the Straw for day programs, families, and friends in local churches I had the privilege to serve. Every time I’ve done so, it was with a smile on my lips and a prayer of thanksgiving in my heart for God’s enormous, amazing grace, and the lives of those like Ty Inbody, Ricky, and Jim Nelson.

God loves you. And so do I. Cue the music, please. 

22. Learning Church and The Dancing Lady

~ toddgoddard ~ Leave a comment

“Why do we attend church on Sunday?” I innocently inquired. The Sunday part, even I knew that Sunday was the third day after the crucifixion of Jesus when his tomb was found empty and he first appeared alive and resurrected to Mary and the disciples. Every Sunday is resurrection Sunday. But, why church? 

One would think that a preacher’s kid growing up and forced attendance to both Sunday school and church would have provided me a clue. But, nope. As a first year seminarian in the Introduction to Worship class led by Dr. McCabe, I sincerely didn’t know the “why” part of attending church.

Dr. McCabe’s tight lips betrayed a wisp of a smirk. “Mr. Goddard,” he began, pointing his index finger at my nose, “we attend worship to give praise and thanksgiving to God.” 

Boom! Like lightening and an energized light bulb above my head, I was given clarity to a question I long had wondered.

We gather, as a community of likeminded followers of Jesus, to praise God. Praise for God’s handiwork and marvelous creation, from atom to cosmos. Praise for God’s abundant, all encompassing, inexhaustible, unconditional love. Praise for God’s unmerited amazing grace that saved a wretch like me. I wasn’t feeling like a wretch, mind you, but, even I, a first year seminary student was self-aware of my imperfections. 

When we gather to worship God, we return our thanks. We thank God for the gift of scripture, God infused truth, Spirit filled insight and strength, that anchors my foundation of faith. We thank God for the gift of sacraments, initiation through baptism, sustenance for the journey with the body and blood of Christ. We thank God with such fervor that we sing out with hymns of praise, prayers of confession, intercession, and petition, and with silence to contemplate the awesome sauce of God’s plan. 

Praise and thanksgiving is a community effort on Sunday’s, as well as for weddings, and funerals. Praise and thanksgiving became my focus every time I placed the yoke of ordination around my neck, a stole resplendent with colors and symbols of the body of Christ across the centuries, at work to redeem and save the world. Sometimes praise and thanks were channeled to God by my labors of liturgy, sometimes in spite of me. Every moment at the pulpit or behind the altar, I experienced the awesomeness of responsibility, of privilege, of God’s imminence when leading worship. Leading worship is humbling, leading me to become greater disciplined, reflective, discerning.

In my 42nd year of leading worship I take to heart Dr. McCabe’s defining words that changed my life. I could get over Dr. McCabe’s pointy finger, and I did. Thank you, God, for Dr. McCabe and his impact on my life, call, and ministry.

—

The pool. My lane. This morning, I was uninterrupted. 

The water was cool and refreshing. The laps sailed by and in the blink of an eye, I was done. 

The water in which I swam, was the same water that baptized me in a little Evangelical United Brethren church (a predecessor denomination of The United Methodist Church) in Stillwater, New York. I swam in the same water that flowed among Jesus and John when Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River. The same molecules of water floated Moses, drifting him into the Egyptian bullrushes. The water that gave me buoyancy is the same water the Lord created, and found it good.

The water in which I swam is God’s gift of hospitality, of inclusion, welcoming even me into the community of sinners and saints, from time before, until time unending, salvation in the here and now and salvation into the eternal here after. 

We swim together.

—

The Rabbit died. 

My new-to-me yellow Volkswagen that carried me to Dayton to attend seminary wouldn’t shift into any forward gear. Reverse was good, but highly impractical in city traffic. My parents, poor as church mice, had nothing to give but empathy and prayers. Three days later (resurrection perhaps?), a check came in the mail from my older brother, Steve, 13 years my senior, and at that time, an unfamiliar brother who left for college the year I entered kindergarten. Steve wrote me a check to pay for the transmission repair. 

Did I mention God’s grace. Yup. Sustaining. Amazing. Thank you, Steve, if I hadn’t thanked you enough already. Thanks for throwing me a solid.

I arrived at my job as a crisis counselor at Eastway Community Mental health promptly at 6:45 am, giving the new shift an opportunity to be briefed by the overnight crew of any ongoing interventions before the start of the 7:00 am shift. Opening the double door to our lobby, I was greeted by a middle aged woman dancing barefoot on a coffee table, shrieking and laughing, obviously disconnected from reality, experiencing a psychotic episode. Now there is something you don’t see everyday. 

I passed her by, put my lunch in the fridge in the staff lounge, and took my place at my desk, waiting for report. Our desks were arranged in a circle, each with a telephone to receive crisis calls, under expansive skylights that welcomed in the daylight sun and gave sight to the rising moon. In the center of the circle was a rotating file with one dumb terminal, a Wang computer, that we all shared. It was State of the art, back in the day, a link with mental health records in Columbus. 

Dr. Rueth walked in, put his briefcase in his office and sat on a desk in our circle. “Anyone notice Mrs. So-and-so in the lobby?” Why yes, now that you mention it, I did. Dr. Rueth pointed at me and with a gesture invited me to follow him. We went to the waiting room. 

Slowly, gently, quietly, Dr. Rueth talked this psychotic woman off the table, took her by the hand, and led the two of us into his office. When he completed his assessment, Dr. Rueth walked her over to the day program, and brought her a cup of coffee, where she reconnected with reality, smiled, and thanked us. 

Wow. I was truly in the presence of greatness.

Afterwards, I learned that this woman was the wife of a prominent judge, who dominated and brutalized her in their marriage to the point where she would psychologically break from reality. She was a long term survivor of domestic abuse, her abuser protected by an unjust system of power and authority, disguised by the black robe of justice. 

In that time and era, in the absence of hard evidence, there wasn’t much that Dr. Rueth or I could offer her, except for a little bit of dignity, respect, and comfort. Our presence and undivided attention gave this woman a sense of worth and love, a lifeline of hope, as tenuous as it was, in a storm of uncertainty and evil abuse. 

It remains unknown to me how everything turned out, if it even did. She was a long-term client of Dr. Rueth, a woman he valued and treated with dignity and respect, simply because she was a child of God. She mattered. The lesson she taught me would last the rest of my life. 

People matter, much as I like to complain otherwise. Equal rights matters. People are not objects (the focus of objectification), where some are valued more or less than others. Power inequality cannot be dismissed as political wokeness. Life matters, because life is a good gift from God. 

Treat life kindly, beloved. Show respect. Love others, just as you are loved.

21. Suspended

~ toddgoddard ~ Leave a comment

My father’s ancient Royal wide carriage manual typewriter was too bulky and heavy to bring to United. An IBM Selectric was way out of my price range. In those prehistoric days a computer or word processor wasn’t even a twinkle in the eye of Alan Turing. So, I bought a brand new Brother electric portable typewriter to head off to Seminary.

I knew the demands on writing were going to be oppressive, but when we were introduced to the Turabian standard during orientation, I knew I was in for a steep learning curve. A math major has a lot of experience in proofs, logic, and computer programming on IBM punch cards, but when it came to the English language, not so much. A good Marriam-Webster became my Brother’s companion. Hundreds of papers later, both were thoroughly worn out after three years. 

Our three week orientation also required every student to take the Graduate Record Exam (GRE) and to sit for a day completing the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), an ancient device used to assess personality types and psychopathology. Apparently, the seminary faculty wanted to screen out mother rapers and father molesters.

I guess we all passed because no one appeared to drop out. There was significant grumbling among the women students who felt the MMPI was unnecessarily invasive when it came to questions about frequency of peeing. They rallied their courage and voice around one female student who was pregnant.

My first day at Eastway Community Mental Health found me in a classroom being taught how to defend myself from bodily injury if assaulted. “Good preparation for a parish minister,” I thought to myself. We were also taught effective methods for de-escalating violent clients and how to call for help by pressing the big red button on the wall in each of our interview rooms. 

It was a privilege to meet Dr. Thomas Rueth, a world leader in crisis management and my department manager. Over the course of the next three years, Dr. Rueth would teach me everything I needed to know. He was quiet, compassionate, and calm. He disciplined his body language and affect in such a disarming way, I was always left in amazement. The Dayton Police Department, Montgomery County Sheriff Department and all nine Dayton City hospital emergency depended on Dr. Rueth, his staff, and his training methods. My first year, I observed. My second year, I led assessments, supervised by Dr. Rueth or one of his experienced supervisors. My third year, I was conducting psychiatric assessments on my own. 

This was heady work. I was responsible to be thorough, to write with clinical precision, and to make recommendations to the staff psychiatrist regarding an appropriate level of care. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Illness (or DSM-3, as I first learned it) was the driver’s manual for diagnostic impressions. With a word, I could have a person restrained and locked up on a 72 hour hold. God forbid if I abused this responsibility and violate someone’s civil rights. In time, the staff psychiatrists began to trust me and Dr. Rueth gave me a longer leash. 

I had never seen a bicycle chain used as a belt before. The sixteen year old kid who stood up and faced off with me unleashed his belt and, despite using every communication tool in my toolbox Dr. Rueth had taught me, this kid was going to kill me. Not just dead, his chemically altered state meant to beat me bloody, make me suffer, kill me dead, and paint the room with my blood. What a headline that would have made in the Dayton Daily News. 

Remember that big red button?

Yep, I pushed it. As the chain swung and I ducked, the door opened and every male staff member in the building piled in and tackled the kid. He bit, spit, clawed, and writhed. He wet himself, pooped himself, and turned himself into a demon possessed person. Those demon possessed people Jesus exercised? Yeah, I’ve met quite a few of similar people over the years.

It broke my heart to watch the take down as if in slow motion. Dr. M walked in with a syringe. Held in a four point position the kid’s butt was bared and the shot was delivered. Within minutes the fight left this kid’s body, everyone breathed a sigh of relief, and Dr. Rueth pulled me aside to ask if I was okay. 

Me? How about that poor kid laying in a heap of his own mess unconscious on the floor?

No. Dr. Rueth wanted to make sure I was okay. His heartfelt empathy held enough room for both the patient and his staff. A few days later, sensing a teachable moment, we revisited the encounter in the privacy of his office. What I did. What I didn’t do. He didn’t pull any punches. Neither did I; the whole truth was laid bare before him. As our supervisory season came to conclusion, Dr. Rueth told me that there are times and circumstances in which the best intervention isn’t going to be good enough.

That’s okay he said. You did good.

—

I glide down my lane this morning pulling myself forward, kicking as vigorously as possible without running out of breath. My goggles provided me perfect clarity to the bottom of the pool. I was suspended on the surface, I thought to myself. The surface tension and viscosity of water was sufficient to counter the opposition of gravity, the capacity of my lungs and forward velocity giving me just enough buoyancy to keep from sinking.

Suspended is my lap swimming inspiration for today. Suspended; held aloft, held up, a force that counteracts drowning. 

The laps went by like a flash this morning, as I was deep in thought. My life has been suspended by God’s grace, allowing me to swim, find joy, maintain health, discern will, and provide strength. In the absence of God’s grace I’d lose buoyancy, veer of balance, careen out of control.

God’s grace has allowed me to be suspended and supported throughout my life and over 40 years of pastoral ministry, a fact as certain to me as stars are hung in the sky.

—

My next door neighbor recalled during his orientation for medical school that he was told to look left, look right, and know that by the end of the first year one of you isn’t going to make it. Seminary wasn’t quite as bad, but nearly so.

We had students attracted to graduate school who would never make it in the parish, even if their Board of Ministry granted them ordination (most never did). Some students were on an academic trajectory that would take them to a PhD and teaching. Other students transferred out, or transferred in, especially if they needed a degree from United (that was accredited). I was on the three year plan, while others took four years or more. I was determined to vacuum it all in, to experience seminary in its fullest, to learn as much as I could in the time allotted. 

I was reading 500 pages or more a week, writing papers as fast as my Brother could keep up. All the reading and writing was breaking me like a wild pony. I’ve often thought the first year of seminary was meant to de-construct faith and beliefs to the core foundation, jettison off the whey from the curds, the wheat from the chaff.

The second year was meant to build, to fill the mind with the faith and theology of great thinkers, scholars, theologians from the past 4,000 years (You read that right. To know 2,000 year old Jesus, one must know 4,000 year old Abraham).

My final year was focused on developing my own systematic theology, encompassing everything from eschatology to theodicy. 

The last thing I wanted to take was Bible classes. And no, God forbid if I had to take Greek or Hebrew. I had to, and I did. 

Bible classes turned out to be enjoyable. Taught with academic rigor, scriptural literalist and fundamentalist were exposed as frauds and turned out in droves. Ha! Serves them right. Take that, you filthy trout sniffers. Bible thumpers could harm me no more.

We learned critical thinking, methods of criticism, storytelling and oral tradition techniques, and language skills. We sought data from original documents, drew understanding or “sitz im leben”, and were taught to ask the question of God’s deeper truth. Biblical archeology was a thing, and my data driven scientific mind was thrilled. Don’t believe me? Go to https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/ and prepare to have your mind blown. My enthusiasm for Biblical truth was kindled in seminary and became as flames of the Spirit, experienced as grace, suspending me throughout my parish ministry. 

Suspended. There is that word again. 

Dr. Battdorf slapped the blackboard with his cane. Dr. Boomershine drilled the Gospel into our DNA through rote learning and storytelling until we were blue in the face. Dr. Barr and Dr. Farmer led us into Hebrew scripture that brought grace to law, revealing a loving, personal, interested God in place of the vengeful punishing God of my youth. Biblical studies are hard, but, oh, so rewarding work. I revel in it to this day. The rewards are better sermons, a healthier spiritual life, and a closer walk with God. 

Suspended in an environment of Theological inquiry, discovery, and curiosity, attending and graduating from seminary changed my life dramatically, molding me into a parish pastor. Seminary taught me to swim in God’s ocean of grace, how to serve with love and empathy those entrusted to my care.  Suspended. Thank you God, for hold me above water, suspending me in your grace all of my days.