Although seminary seems like the place a student should be concerned with growing in holiness, it's often the time and place to grow in other, less holy ways. Though most of us had lived away from home before, the competitive field at seminary is significantly smaller. Nearly from day one I knew that, intellectually, I excelled most of my classmates. That may sound like arrogance, and it may be, but grades and accomplishments would later prove the case. I knew, too, that I was far and away one of the better looking single men at the seminary. With those two things combined, I was confident that I could impress and perhaps land a girlfriend. I've written before about my unhealthy obsession with dating while at seminary that led me down some dark corners. If I could pinpoint a reason, it was because I had no interest in college--working hard to be holy in an unholy environment--and also no luck surrounded by many more and many handsomer men, and so seminary finally gave me a chance to see what I may have been missing. Constantly I did battle with desires I convinced myself were harmless with the person I thought I was and wanted to be.
Perhaps no better example exists than the night I found myself alone in a room late at night with a girl, E. We were studying...
Because of the serious lack of actual studying, and the time of night, the obvious question was whether I was supposed to make a move. She had invited me to her room. E had a roommate but, it appeared, had knowingly invited me to her room when her roommate would be out. The two of us had developed a rapport and it seemed like now she hoped to take things to the next level. Aside from the fact that I had no experience popping the question, "Hey, should we make out?" or smoothly inching in for the kiss, I questioned all night whether I should bother trying. What if E just wanted to be friends? What if I just wanted to be friends? What if I wanted to be the type of person who had good, close friends of either sex and no one had to worry about my being a creep? What if that's why E invited me over at night, because she knew I wouldn't make a move? To make matters worse, near the end of our time together, E sold me hard on joining the new intentional community that the seminary was soon opening in downtown D.C. Was she inviting me so that we could live together? Or because she hoped I, too, shared a commitment to deeply biblical and holy principles of living?
The night with E ended without a kiss and without a proposal. Not long after, I started dating someone else. Interestingly, E seemed to get jealous when I told her and said, at the last, that she hoped at least we wouldn't spend less time together. I genuinely hoped we could continue playing ping pong, riding our bikes, and studying late at night, too, although my promise to stay close friends was quickly forgotten.
Honestly, one of my major regrets in life, not merely from my time in seminary, is that I didn't work on my friendship with E and chose instead to date. Over time, it became clear she really loved our friendship and wasn't expecting anything else from me. Together, we pushed and challenged one another intellectually, spiritually, and practically in enjoyable ways. That's what a good friendship is and does: co-builders and practitioners of virtue and discipleship, and accountability in the process.
We were unlikely friends, E and I. She was from the deep South, I from the suburbs of Boston and Worcester. She held progressive theological positions, I conservative ones. Later I'd learn how serious that latter divide was when she married a woman. Yet she saw in me, and I in her, a spirit committed to digging deeper and going further in faithfulness. Our friendship was the first of many opportunities to capitalize on unintentional community that I let slip away or never appreciated as I should have, and thus never learned or grew from as I should have. Obviously, I never joined the intentional community living area.
There were other opportunities to experience meaningful relationships, even if not deep or lasting ones. There always are when we live life. I think of some of the strongest friendships I know in literature. Or, at least, the ones I most prefer reading or watching. Sam and Frodo come first to mind, and then Crowley and Aziraphale from Good Omens. If you are familiar with LOTR, you'll remember that Sam tags along with Frodo by accident as much as anything else. He was a gardener who happened to be overhearing the conversation Frodo had with Gandalf about the ring of power and, voile, became part of the Fellowship. In Good Omens, Crowley is a demon, Aziraphale an angel. The friendship is funny and complicated but, to the two of them, eventually more important than any Grand Plan.
So often the most meaningful relationships or experiences in life are the ones we didn't expect or didn't seek out. When people suggest that high school, college, or young adulthood generally is the time to "experience" life, I don't disagree, although what I mean, I think, is slightly different. We shouldn't bother doing drugs or having sex. We should instead keep an eye out for the unintentional communities, friendships, and causes that might become a lasting part of our life. Seminary, and all other similar times and places in our life, is a time and place to keep an eye out for what we don't expect. My friendship with E could have been, should have been, one of those unexpectedly meaningful delights.
Other unexpected and unintentional communities could have been found all over the place. I'm going to talk about friendships in the next essay and instead focus here on the unintended and unexpected nature of life's most pleasant offerings.
Take, for example, the annual phone-a-thon. Few people on earth, I assume, actually look forward to a phone-a-thon. Even fewer, I imagine, do so at a seminary, where, if statistics about clergy are also true in the halls of education, most of the students are introverts. From a small population of students came an even smaller number willing to talk on the phone with complete strangers for the purpose of asking for money. The only reason I participated was because my roommate more or less guilted me into it.
Yet in the school's conference room that week, something magical happened. Quite a few things, actually. First, I came into contact with staff members of the school I'd otherwise never have known and came to see them as persons rather than merely as officials. That alone gives a worthwhile perspective on the operation of a school or government or any other structured hierarchy as we don't need to, and shouldn't, think of inconveniences or disagreements as "them" versus "us." More importantly, I discovered a strange part of myself I hadn't realized existed: the "speaks will with older ladies" part of me. It's true. For whatever reason, I had a relatively high success rate with older women. I should note that women were more likely to give back to their alma mater anyway, but even above and beyond that I was like Ken Griffey, Jr. in his prime with the older women on the call list. High average, oftentimes hitting it out of the park. Soon, the director of alumni relations, or whatever the title of the phone-a-thon manager, was handing me a specially chosen list of prospective donors.
Why was I successful with older women? I don't know, because I stopped helping out with the phone-a-thon after only a couple of sessions. Over the course of my three years at seminary, I only made calls to support the school for a total of four hours. Abandoning ship not only hurt the school but also cost me an opportunity to learn more about myself and how and why I interact with people the way that I do.
Or what about World Cup 2012? Our school had and has a large percentage of South Korean students who, we learned, are passionate about their football/soccer. Now, before I go any further, I should share with you that I had established a practice of watching my hometown teams alone. Every New England Patriots game I watched alone, in my bed. Every Bruins Stanley Cup playoff game I watched alone, in my bed. Normally I'd also anxiously rock back and forth. That my team won was the most important part of the sporting event and, somehow, my nervous watching contributed to my team's winning (indeed, for a few years, the Patriots never once lost while I watched alone).
Compared to me, our South Koreans wouldn't think of watching anything important alone. Many of them lived in their own family apartments on campus. Not all of them had a TV set but enough of them did to make the number crammed into our common room in the dormitory surprising. Why watch with others when you can watch by yourself? Further, you could hear the screams, groans, cries, cheers, and laughter emanating from the common room wherever you were in the dormitory whenever the South Korean team played. Soccer fans will know that the South Korean national teams have never been particularly strong. That apparently didn't matter to anyone. There they were, having a blast, not because the team they cheered for was winning but because they were watching with beloved friends and compatriots. I am ashamed that I never joined them to watch with my fellow South Korean students but did sit in silence while watching the Americans nearly disastrously fail to live up to expectations and then nearly faint after Landon Donovan scored a last-second, dignity-tying goal because I held in all my anxiety. Likewise, I remember being frustrated with my dorm companions for watching a movie part-way through one of the American men's Olympic ice hockey games. I mean, it was Olympic ice hockey, didn't they know?
Missed opportunity after missed opportunity to develop meaningful and beneficial relationships. I thought I was at seminary to learn, get good grades, and prove to my Board of Ordained Ministry that I was a potentially great pastor. Because of that, I didn't seek out anything else that could have helped me grow. As a pastor now looking back, I can see that the relationships I ignored could have been the most fruitful part of my time.
Another good example of a missed opportunity was going to see Legend of the Guardians: Owls of Ga'Hoole with my roommate's fiancee. To this day it remains the only time I went to see a movie with a girl I was not romantically interested in. Of course, it felt weird, and only partly because we were the oldest attendees who were there by choice. Some of what makes a good pastor, as well as a good person, is the ability to set and protect healthy boundaries. Learning how to have a deep relationship with a woman whose pants I was not trying to get into could have been good for me. Probably good for every man, and vice versa for women. Yet I never again asked my roommate's fiancee to do something just the two of us.
You may be an introvert. I certainly am. Reading my encouraging you to build relationships, especially those you don't seek out, may make you feel exhausted. Thinking of spending more time with people exhausts me, that's for sure. Again, though, there are countless unintentional communities, acquaintances, and friendships that we can make and develop that can further our own growth. Whether we're learning how to passionately cheer for a team even if they're terrible or how to set healthy boundaries for ourselves, with our time, emotions, or otherwise, or learning what makes others tick as well as why we are who we are, the relationships you don't go looking for are probably the ones you'll be most thankful for later.
Essentially, reflecting on my time at seminary, I think of The Art of Neighboring. Jay Pathak and Dave Runyon ask a simple question in that book: what if, when Jesus told us to love our neighbors, he meant our actual neighbors? So often we think of "our neighbors" as the strangers "out there somewhere." The story of the Good Samaritan is partly to blame insofar as Jesus encourages us to consider everyone our neighbor. Also to blame is the ease and convenience with which we love people we can't see. If we do that, we can just throw money at loving strangers by helping various organizations. You know as well as I do, though, that our actual neighbors have become as much strangers to us as anyone else. We know their faces, we may even know their names. Do we actually know our neighbors? Do we love them? Often not. We usually don't know or love our neighbors because, a) we didn't choose them, and b) we think of our homes as private refuges. Building relationships with those we didn't choose rather than constructing private refuges is exactly what can help us fulfill Jesus's command to love our neighbors as well as learn more about ourselves and grow in any number of ways.
Besides, what you learn at seminary in classrooms will constitute about 20%, at most, of your life as a pastor.
If you go to seminary, then, study hard, but don't ignore what's most important: relationships. If you don't go to seminary and plan on being a lay person all your life, the same advice holds true. Studying and working hard at school or your job may bring you tangible success but none of it will help you understand yourself or grow. Place your emotional and spiritual emphasis in life on relationships, particularly the ones you don't choose or go looking for. Spend time with the people you would never choose to spend time with. Listen to them, help them, support them, pray for them, learn from them. They'll teach you a lot.
Kind of sounds like a church. As long as you commit to listening and living together as a church, not as a faction. The ideal of a church is a community that unintentionally finds themselves living together and sticking together, no matter what, learning and growing all the time no matter the challenge.
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