I have just completed my first semester at Andover Newton Theological School. Theological school, also called seminary or divinity school, is an important step on the path to becoming a minister. I want to tell you the story of my first semester, but there are at least two ways to tell every story.
I could tell the story of my first semester at seminary like this. It was a hard semester. At the beginning, I struggled to find my way at Andover Newton, a Christian institution. I wondered if I really belonged there, or if I should maybe have gone somewhere else: to one of the UUA's seminaries, perhaps, or maybe Harvard, where there are more non-Christians than at Andover Newton.
Just as I thought that I was starting to find my way, my fiancée, Alexis, and I were in the storage room of our building one evening and found a kitchen knife with an eight inch blade stabbed into one of our empty cardboard boxes. We took this as a very threatening gesture, and couldn't shake the feeling that it was probably homophobic. The subsequent police investigation met with only dead-ends, so we have to be content with not knowing for sure. This incident made the campus feel very hostile and unwelcoming for a while.
As we began to put that behind us, we came to election season. Not only did the person I thought of as the greater of many evils win, but in addition, election day saw 11 states pass new so-called "Defense of Marriage Acts," which make same-sex marriages illegal. Several also explicitly forbid civil unions or anything similar. This was bad enough, but it also added fuel to the national and on-campus debates about all things pertaining to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) people including such things as marriage and ordination. The on-campus versions of these debates got very heated and very painful.
In the middle of all this, I was also contending with feeling intimidated by the vocation I am trying to learn to fill. My friends and colleagues are all so eloquent, so smart, so capable in situations which resemble pastoral counseling. I had periods of serious doubt that I would ever be able to live up to this calling - that I would ever be the minister I want to be.
Toward the end of the semester I thought I would drown in class work. During the last few weeks, I hardly left my room except to go to class or work, as I frantically tried to finish my three final papers and study for my final exam. While I am no stranger to academic stress, the end of the semester always seems overwhelming. When I finally finished, I came down with a cold and a cough that hasn't left me even yet.
That is one way of telling the story. Everything that I have just told you is true, but it is only half the story or maybe less than half. Here is another version of my first semester.
Sure it was hard at the beginning. What new venture isn't? I always feel alone and out of place when I begin a new school. Within a few weeks I was feeling better. I decided that I had indeed come to the right place. I had found my way into the on-campus UU group, even taking on the role of secretary. I had also connected with the GLBT group on campus, and the other members were becoming good friends and a great support network. I came to see the Christian environment as a challenge and an opportunity to learn more about myself and about Christianity than I would have in a place where I was part of the theological majority. I began to think I would be just fine.
After Alexis and I found the knife, we sought out Lisa, our residential representative, and Elisa, her partner, both good friends of ours. Lisa called the campus Housing Coordinator, Debbie, who had left for the day but came back to campus within 20 minutes of the call. Lisa, Debbie and I went to see the President of Andover Newton, Nick Carter. Nick reacted with all the concern and seriousness that I could have wished for. He made it clear to me that the Andover Newton Administration was on my side and that he would do everything possible to make us feel safe again and to make sure that the campus understood that acts of hate and intimidation have no place here. He was true to his word, holding a meeting for all the residents of my building and then sending an email to the whole campus with the details of what had happened and his commitment to support us. He then turned the investigation over to the police, despite some misgivings about the effect it might have on the school's image if this became widely known.
As soon as word got out on campus, I became the recipient of an incredible outpouring of love and support. For a while, I was the campus celebrity. Everyone came to know who I was, and people I barely knew would come up to me and tell me how sorry they were about what had happened and voice their support. This incident occurred less than a month after classes started, but I already had a circle of amazingly good friends. Two of them slept on my floor the two nights following the discovery since Alexis had gone back to Gloucester for the weekend and I didn't want to stay in my apartment alone. Others, especially in the GLBT community, were wonderful listeners when I needed someone to talk to about the fear this incident evoked in me. The entire Andover Newton community rallied around me, and to a lesser extent, Alexis as they didn't know her as well. Within a week of finding the knife, I felt more at home and more accepted at Andover Newton than I had before we found it.
This took us to election season. Following the election, the debates about gay marriage and ordination were difficult and painful. In the middle of all of it, other students and my class readings began to stress the need to find a way of centering so that the winds of discord didn't shake me so deeply. Around this time I resolved to set aside time in every day for prayer or another spiritual practice. I ended up alternating prayer and yoga, which compliment each other nicely.
Taking this time every day did amazing things in my life. I recovered a sense of joy and wonder, and a connection with God that did succeed in holding me through challenging situations. Taking time for myself also had a noticeable effect on my relationship with Alexis, as I could be more present with her and less obsessed with the difficulties of school. While I must admit that this practice faltered and then slipped away during the final frantic weeks of the semester, I have returned to it, and find that it sustains me.
In addition, this semester, I began doing labyrinth walks every week. A labyrinth in this sense is a large area with a path that winds back and forth around a central point, leading the one walking it into the center. One pauses for a moment or longer time in center, and then continues back out, usually by the same path. Labyrinths are used as a meditative or prayer practice by people of many different traditions. Andover Newton has a labyrinth on canvas that is put out once a week for whoever wants to walk it. I have found that walking the labyrinth helps focus prayer in different ways that simply sitting quietly. The center of the labyrinth has come to hold a powerful meaning for me as the place where I can encounter the center of myself and encounter God. It was the difficulty of the time following the election that pushed me to these daily and weekly spiritual practices which have enriched my life.
There were other joys this semester. One of my classes was Pastoral Care and Counseling of GLBT people. Toward the end of the semester, the professor gave us some very concrete steps to follow during counseling, which work even in counseling situations apart from GLBT issues. Later that week, one of my friends told me that she needed to talk. She came to my apartment and told me about a problem she was having with one of her other friends. As I listened and talked with her, I was very conscious of following the guidelines our professor had given us, and they worked! My friend told me she felt better after talking to me, and I felt like I was doing some good. I began to think that maybe I would be a good minister after all. It was a wonderful feeling.
My two final papers were a challenge. One was for Pastoral Care and Counseling of GLBT people, the other for Creating the Public Church. They took forever to research and write, and both had to be significantly re-written after I had thought I was getting close to finishing them. However, they provided a chance to reflect on all I was learning, and they both represent things I didn't know about myself before this semester. One deals partly with the place of God in my life and in my future ministry. UU congregations vary in their willingness to talk about God, which is good. I've discovered that I need to find one in which I can acknowledge the place of theism in my life and be honest and open about this vital piece of my theology. The other paper is about the power of ritual and rites of passage. I didn't know before I wrote it that I thought so highly of the power of ritual, but I guess I do.
When I was finally done, I was so relieved and excited to have come through my first semester. I have enjoyed being on vacation from school since, but I am looking forward to going back to face the challenges of the new semester and to see where they lead me.
There is a time for everything, the author of Ecclesiastes tells us. In the middle of one of my periods of feeling overwhelmed by it all this semester, someone read this passage at one of the UU worship services on campus. It struck a chord, and I thought to myself that all the periods of breaking down and scattering were but preparation for rebuilding. This is the point I want to leave with you. There are at least two ways to tell every story.
My professor for New Testament Foundations told us that some reporter had widely publicized the idea that in Chinese, the word for crisis is also the word for opportunity. My professor, who was born in China, told us that that is not in fact true of Chinese, but it is true in Greek. The word krisis in Greek means decision, judgment, crisis, and opportunity. In the moments of difficulty, we sometimes see only the breaking down, the scattering, the tearing, the mourning, the crisis. But they are preparation for re-gathering and rebuilding, for sewing together, for dancing. They are also moments of opportunity.
I have still not told you the whole story of the past semester. I could go on for hours, but instead, I'll use the rest of my time for discussion.