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.