September 21, 2005
Nostalgia
Not many alumni, I suspect, have the rare experience of being the only surviving member of their school’s founding class. That my seminary over in Texas and I do and a buck will get you a cup of coffee.
Sometimes I feel about ETSS and the students, staff, and faculty there like they’re some distant progeny with only a faint family resemblance that I’d like to get to know better and probably never will. Even so, that doesn’t diminish my considerable pride in their accomplishments preparing church leaders over these past fifty years.
I spent a couple of weeks there last fall having graciously been invited to be a visiting fellow. That really got the vibes going again big time. I even entertained the fantasy that I could maybe have a more enduring part of its life than just an occasional visit. I wanted to teach that homiletics and standup comedy have a lot in common, but couldn’t figure out how to stretch that over a whole semester or ever sell anybody on such a silly idea. Anyhow, both the feeling and the possibility if ever there was one are pretty much over by how.
Our founder, the great bishop John Hines, and my classmates from the mid-fifties when it all got started would probably be as surprised as I am that I’m still around and that they’re all gone. That I was the youngest is only happenstance and coincidence. They became good, hardworking priests, Big John, himself, became the Presiding Bishop, and they all left their furrows in the vineyard and their seminary proud. I miss them and their collegiality more now than ever I realized it at the time. I’d like to think I am faithful to it, but one never knows those things.
[Visit Episcopal Relief and Development at http://www.er-d.org/ to make a donation to Katrina Relief or Episcopal Migration Ministries at emm@episcopalchurch.org to volunteer to assist displaced people with housing.]