Hopeful Compositions

<p>Just about every single day since being ordained as a pastor I have felt like Admiral James Stockdale at the 1992 Vice-Presidential debate when he said: “Who am I?  What am I doing here?”</p><p>Being a pastor was never on my radar.  I grew up or at least was born and raised in Findlay Ohio and my family attended a wonderful congregation there: First Presbyterian Church.  It was in this congregation and literally in their beautiful sanctuary that I was baptized confirmed and eventually ordained.  It is the only congregation that I have ever officially been a member of and I will always consider it “home.”  The two pastors during my entire childhood and teen years were  Terry Bard and Dean Carzoo.  Theirs were the only sermons I heard for the first 18 years of my life and they set the bar high for me.</p><p>I graduated from Denison University with degrees in Philosophy and Cinema and then wandered for a few years through Yale University (trying my hand at Philosophy) and Hollywood California (trying my hand at Cinema) before returning to Ohio to Bowling Green State University where I obtained a M.A. in American History.  I fully intended to go on and earn a Ph.D. but God had other plans.  While in Bowling Green I reconnected with First Presbyterian Church of Findlay and with Terry Bard who one day suggested I consider going to seminary.  It was and remains one of the most outlandish suggestions I’ve ever heard.  Yet I was unable to shake it and when I finally realized with some help from Saint Augustine that this might be more than a mere suggestion and the true source might be from higher up than my childhood pastor I returned to Terry Bard’s office to ask: “Now what?” Another question I have been asking ever since.</p><p>I graduated from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University and was ordained by the Presbyterian Church (USA) in 1997.</p>