Dayton, Ohio is hot in the summer. I arrived in early August, 1983 in my new-to-me yellow Volkswagen Rabbit. My two-room apartment in Fouts Hall was right out of 1930, complete with steam radiators and huge windows painted shut.

Down the hall, I met my first seminary chum, Doyle, who’s dad was a district superintendent from North Dakota, where the wind blows so hard one leg of a chicken is shorter than the other, simply to stand up straight. Doyle was one of the few classmates who was fresh out of college. Most of the others were second career budding preachers, who sold their mortgaged homes and moved their families to Dayton.

Doyle sported a bushy beard and a ponytail that hung to his waist. In other words, we became instant friends. We set out together for supplies and to scout the neighborhood. Kroger’s would become our main go-to. One week worth of groceries cost less than twenty bucks.

The first day of our three-week orientation found us in Breyfogle chapel, eight to a pew. There were about 40 of us, early morning tired, fearful of the great unknown. The Master of Divinity degree is a three-year master’s degree, ninety hours of post graduate reading, writing, discussions, classroom lectures, and practice. Add in a six-hour Clinical Pastoral Education stint (both an MDiv and CPE were required for ordination at that time) and each of us sitting in the pews were wondering if we could cut the mustard.

Home conferences would have their say, too. Just because a candidate for ordination presents themselves with the proper credentials does not mean the Board of Ordained Ministry would approve a recommendation to the elders and full clergy members of conference for ordination. The process was fraught with risks. Discernment sought increasingly large circles of people who would support, or not, an individual’s perceived call to the ordained.

Ordination may be the best union in the world, but it can be the most difficult to have entry granted.

In walked Dr. Kendal Kane McCabe, professor of preaching and worship, son of a bishop, single, perfectly comportmented, dressed in full blown Anglican cassock (black) and surplice (white lace), clerical dress unknown to all but a few. A full clerical collar completed his persona. This should be interesting.

Dr. McCabe passed out copies of the Daily Office. I had been used to my mother reading me the daily devotions from the Upper Room over breakfast cereal when I was young. It was always a relief when the closing prayer did not end with the Lord’s Prayer, drawing out the pain.

The Daily Office was a scripture-based collection of short, small, three times a day worship experiences that we were all expected to practice. The faculty had authored the Daily Office, tailoring the content for us young seminarians. It invited us to contemplate deeper questions of God, call, grace, and love. It was neither painful or drudgery, rather, it would serve as a common talking point during coffee breaks or before class.

Opening worship was led by Dr. McCabe, joined by various seminary professors, and the president. Dr. Schafer played the magnificent pipe organ and I attempted to sing without my voice breaking.

Around me were students from Iowa, Oregon, Kentucky, New York, Pennsylvania and all places in-between. The Eucharist balanced the scripture and sermon. It was without question, high church, complete with sung responses, bells and smells. This was quite a departure from my experience where one groveled at the feet of Jesus seeking undeserved table scraps. Instead of little cut cubes of white bread and Welches grape juice served in shot glasses, the elements were consecrated pita bread and a common chalice; actually, two chalices. One with fermented fruit of the vine, the other, not.

I recall a lot of silence in that opening worship. In between time were filled with large gaps of nothing, separating scripture from sermon, sermon from prayer, prayer from Eucharist, Eucharist from benediction. The magnificent chapel was a space of awe and wonder, reflecting an image of the God from our shared United Methodist experience. Immortal. Indivisible. God only wise. Alpha and Omega.

—

An open lane! Five other lanes were packed with lap swimmers and water walkers. I hurried out of the locker room and stood at the pool’s edge claiming it for my own, when behind me I heard the question, “mind if I join you?”

Crap.

“Yes, please do,” was my polite response. I slipped into the water and began my crawl stroke. Of course, my new lane buddy must have been an Olympic goal Metalist, slicing past me like a rocket shot out of a cannon. The only thing I saw of her was the fading bottom of her kicking feet.

Halfway through my meager attempt at exercise, the lane next to me lost both of its swimmers, becking me to come hither. I slipped over with the smile of freedom on my face. Just as I made the turn I noticed a mountain size of a man standing at the end of my lane.

CRAP!

I eased right as I approached the end. He leaned over and politely asked permission to join me. “Yes, please do,” I repeated, making me question my own honesty. Requesting permission is more about etiquette; to alert the other swimmer to one’s presence, to avoid collision and the potential of broken bones. My new lane buddy was more like an out-of-control washing machine, threatening to swamp me each time we passed.

Needless to say, when I finished, I dragged my sorry excuse of a lap swimmer out the pool and found serenity under a refreshing hot shower.

—

Common Meal was a tradition at United. During orientation it was held daily. During the school year, it was held every Wednesday at noon, following 11 am chapel. Faculty, staff, and students were strongly encouraged to attend. Over food we would grow to know one another, explore the latest lecture or book, talk about papers that were due, or just enjoy each other’s company. Our diversity invited us to challenge our personal beliefs, faith, and culture. Women and ordination, sexuality, doctrine, and the next General Conference (the global gathering of Clergy and lay delegates that speaks definitively for the United Methodist Church) were common topics about the tables.

I so loved sitting at Dr. McCabe’s table for Common Meal. He was an ideal model for a parish pastor, far different from my experience with my father. Being a preacher’s kid (PK for short) meant your father was also your pastor, definitely a conflict of interest, especially when it came to personal questions and confessions.

Dr. McCabe was proper. He spoke with clarity. He stood and sat as if he was schooled in a military academy. He knew his specialty through and through, presented at international conferences, publish widely, and spoke of prominent scholars on a first name basis. He probably knew the Lord’s first name.

At the conclusion of our first Common Meal, we were sorted into Core Groups; a collection of eight diverse students, matched with a professor and with a prominent pastor of one of the large local churches. Dr. Kathleen Farmer, a professor of Old Testament and Don, Brethren pastor, served as our leaders.

Core Groups were required to meet weekly for all three years of our seminary experience. We discussed the classes we were taking, classes we wanted to take, challenges in our student churches or community agencies, shared devotions and prayer, and often didactics (word-for-word renditions of our work experiences).

The curriculum’s expectation was that first year students would work in a social services agency, second year students would serve as a student pastor in a local congregation, and the third year was reserved for time to complete CPE. A Federal work study program allowed each eligible student to work for $5 an hour for up to 20 hours a week at a community agency. That was enough to buy groceries and put gas in the car.

That first week we visited at least three agencies who were willing to take on student interns. My first visit would be sufficient. Eastway Community Mental Health Agency (https://www.eastway.org/) caught my attention. I ended up working for Eastway all three years of seminary, granting me a deeper understanding of the human condition and the previously unknown world of mental health.

Eastway was a large agency, led by a United alumnus, that served people with mental health concerns. It offered short term in patient treatment, drop in centers for individuals with chronic disease, a battered women’s shelter, a crisis center, individual and group counseling, and probably a whole lot of other things I never knew about.

Crisis Services provided intervention, stabilization, and referral 24/7/365, on the phone, on scene, or at one of our offices. We had the contract to conduct psychiatric assessments at all nine city hospitals, Dayton Police Department, and the Montgomery County Sheriff’s department. If it was breaking news at 11 pm, there was probably an Eastway counselor present to talk the person off the ledge. I had been a math major, with a concentration in computer science. What was I doing working in a 24/7 crisis center working with homicidal or suicidal people?

Eastway would change my life in profound ways, giving me the skills and tools to conduct comprehensive clinical psychiatric assessments, deescalate conflict, establish control out of chaos, and respond with newly discovered empathy towards others. I’d learn to become the Quiet in the midst of the Storm.

What was I doing at Eastway? Only God would reveal.