Why I Haven’t Dropped out of Seminary
Posted: November 5, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized 11 Comments »Two months ago, I jigsawed everything I owned into four modest suitcases and boarded a Southwest flight from San Francisco to New York City, successfully completing my first cross-country move to begin a three year masters program in divinity at Union Theological Seminary in Manhattan. At some point after my arrival, that fabled, gnawing voice that seems to haunt most American twenty-two year olds stumbled upon a megaphone and began using it liberally to broadcast those hopelessly unanswerable questions I’d hoped to leave on the West Coast: the ones about vocation, purpose, and future.
A month in to my program, after preliminarily discerning that I don’t want to work in a church, I started a love affair with my Google search bar: “What can you do with an M.Div if you don’t want to be a pastor?”; “Ph.D programs in American studies”; “Top law schools US.”
I was drafting an email to a friend of mine whose spouse went to law school at Stanford, wondering if his husband would be willing to meet with me to help parse through some of these questions about where I hope to land after I graduate. “I’m just not sure what I want to do with this degree,” I wrote, struggling to remember why I applied to seminary in the first place. With friends settling snugly into careers in medicine, law, education, and business, I feel embarrassingly naked, knowing only that I love books, people, and Netflix.
Finally, just before boarding a flight back to the City after a weekend with my boyfriend in Phoenix, the clarity I was craving came to me.
Seminary, for me, is not primarily about utility, about what I will be able to do with my degree after I don the red robes of my institution and receive my diploma. Contrary, my years in seminary are an unimaginable privilege, a time and course that are encouraging me to continue becoming the kind of person I hope to be: a man who constantly interrogates his presence in the world, and tirelessly fights–in faith that his efforts matter–for those whose voices and experiences have been unfairly silenced. Seminary, I graciously remembered, is a purposed endeavor precisely because of its ability to subvert the questions my society teaches me matter most: will people be impressed by your job title? Will your salary buy you a designer living room? Will people know your name before you introduce yourself? Instead, it illumines far more pressing ones, questions that–if left unanswered–will compromise my character: will you be a person who sows love in the face of uncertainty and death? Will you be bold enough to decry oppression in all its pernicious forms, even when it means you lose your job and security? Will you choose your children over your career?
For now, these are question enough.
Todd, your father helped me through not only the most difficult moments in my life… but the most difficult years. I can’t think of anyone one person who held my family as if their own. The impact you are already having on people and will have is immeasurable. God knows the world needs gay Pastors. But more importantly, we need people who truly care as there are so few who really do and I am afraid you are one who does, sweet boy. (Sorry but you’ll always a boy to me xoxoxo) Also the letters after your name may help sell books
I’m sure you’ve looked into this, but seminaries offer a number of other degree options. The M.Div. will allow you to pastor, but an M.A. in Church History, or Theology, or Christian Ethics, will allow you to pursue specialized studies in these areas, any of which you can focus on your special interests. Is there a reason for the coursework in pastoral ministry?
Sounds like you want to keep the ministry option open, eh? Not a bad idea, after all.
Thank you for this. It showed up on the best possible day.
Good word, Todd. Its refreshing to hear the passion in your words. Knowing this WHY will help day in and day out – never lose it. And if it changes, follow wherever it leads! Miss you, friend.
-Nicole
Sometimes it is nice to hear that you are not alone, so thanks for this post. I am feeling the same way as you (except I’m 34), I’m in grad school after a hiatus from school, but I still don’t know exactly what I want to be. But, I love learning. You are right; this time is a privilege. I need to focus on that. The rest will come.
If your words were sugar, I’d eat them like I was trying to get diabetes.
Years of sculpting the soul are never a waste.
..and you can use your ministry as a Chaplain too. I know you like pastoring young adults already. I can put you in touch with one from Vietnam.. who is now an Episcopal Bishop, married his husband in Canada.
“a man who constantly interrogates his presence in the world, and tirelessly fights–in faith that his efforts matter–for those whose voices and experiences have been unfairly silenced”
Please don’t forget that, your voice even now matters and will continue to matter as you grow.
Thank you for writing! I’ve been meaning to say that for a while and hope to inquire about some things from you in the future…when I can get a break from my graduate studies as well.
Very well written man, really encouraging
L’Orion and my brother in Christ, Ron Goetz, has suggested that I add my commentary to their own. First of all, I agree with both of their suggestions and their concern for your future.
I am a man who approaches the seventh decade of my life, the fortieth anniversary of sacerdotal ordination, and the twenty-fourth anniversary of election and ordination as a suffragan. These milestones would not be extraordinary had I not known, in 1968, that entering a major theological seminary would entail hiding my legal, psychiatric and theological/canonical status as a gay man. After all, at that time and place, no one supported the legitimate aspirations on any level so described. eh! A saving grace of the period, I would suggest, was that our struggles were culturally closeted in all societal groups. We were declared psychiatrically disordered, legally criminal, and theologically immoral. Silence was indeed the option chosen by all who wanted to pursue ministry, and celibacy was my path. I chuckle because unbeknownst to me, some professors had “favourites” who were rewarded with exceptional grades for their “favours.”
My father was a career military commanding officer, and so, the choice of a chaplaincy career was a logical sequitur. Again, serving in silence made it necessary. Tractarian churchmanship provided celibate alternatives to a married priesthood. Then, four years after making all these plans for consistent celibacy and furtive encounters in vacation milieus, I met the man with whom I have shared thirty-six years of conjugal love. What we both felt was necessary to maintain our privacy is subject to today’s cultural mores and judgement. Nine years ago, in retirement for us, we married openly in our dual national Canada. He was born in Canada, of Canadian aboriginal parentage. My mother was first British and then Canadian, from which I inherited the nationalities that I legally bear. Nine and nearly ten years ago, our son was born in Saigon, VN and was adopted by us when he was several months’ old. Life in MA translated to life in QC when we realised that living our lives openly and with full legal recognition would require that step.
You are kind to have read my short clip biography. This is of course about YOU and your choices. I applaud them, I will pray for its successful outcome. Yes. the MDiv is the required step for commissioned chaplaincy status. The new regulations and the new openness requires many like you to offset the fundamentalist chaplains who are homophobic and seek to hurt many in our community. God bless you. Raymond.
You already write great sermons – even if your pulpit is a virtual one. Thanks for inspiring us.