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.