Panoramaseminary Vol
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Pittsburgh Theological PANORAMASeminary Vol. XLVI No. 3 Spring 2007 ISBN 8755-0954 A Seminary of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) ■ Founded 1794 All in the Family Lenten Journey to Russia College Chaplains’ Association Peace and Justice Fellowship PANORAMA CONTENTS All in the Family 3 is published in the spring, late summer, and winter seasons by Pittsburgh Theological Lilly Award to Dr. Creach 6 Seminary. It is intended to address timely issues related to the Seminary and to inform alumnae/i and other friends of the activities and programs of the school. It also commu- Peace and Justice Group 7 nicates information about alumnae/i news and recent location changes. Cunningham New Vice President 8 Zeitah Excavations 9 Editor: Lisa Dormire ’86 Meetings with Supreme Court Justices 11 Assistant Editor: Melissa Logan A Dinosaur for Mr. Rogers 12 Designer: Kathy Boykowycz Lecturer Links Evolution and Religion 15 Lenten Journey to Russia 16 Pittsburgh Theological Seminary Offi ce of Seminary Relations Chaplains’ Association Meets at PTS 20 616 North Highland Avenue Pittsburgh Faculty-Staff News 22 Pittsburgh, PA 15206-2596 Theological Alumnae/i News 23 412-362-5610 fax 412-363-3260 Seminary Driving Lessons 26 www.pts.edu Mourning, Past all tears now, But today, Mary sits very still In these dark woods Holy Like a rabbit Where preying wolves howl, Saturday Frozen Hope lies, In underbrush of cover, Like a faraway angelic dream Waiting for time, like danger, to pass Of Messianic ideals, Teresa L. Stricklen Over and around and through her Among shattered limbs In the hope Cut down by high and mighty winds, Th at by marking its fl ow, So that, frozen in time’s unnatural stream She can bathe in its mourning Babbling the obdurate eternity of love, Until all will somehow be safe Mary sits still, And cleansed into deliberate motion again. Very, very still. Perhaps then, Refreshed and renewed Th rough grief’s undying vigil, Th e promise that was hers Will rise reborn someday, And she will revel once more In Love’s eternal entangled forest Th at holds both her and time secure. The Rev. Dr. Teresa Lockhart Stricklen is assistant professor of homiletics and teaches courses in homiletics and liturgics. Her research interests are in the areas of homiletic theology, revelation, hermeneutics, phenomenology, ritual-symbolic thought and action, and arts and culture. She has had several sermons published, including some in the Abingdon Women’s Preaching Annual. She has also recently contributed a chapter to a forthcoming book by Chalice Press on the future of preaching and is currently revising her dissertation, “Preaching and Theology in Light of Theological Education: The Early History of a Troubled Marriage or What Went Wrong How” for publication. 2 Th e Hebrew term Nahalah describes the core While he considered still trying to do his family unit, which was essential to ancient own thing, he knew that he’d be miserable if All in the Israel’s understanding of herself. But as the he did. “I’m not stupid,” he said. “I know how understanding of YHWH got further and things turn out. I’m not going to pull a Jonah.” Family further enmeshed in western ideals, a new At the same time that Sean was starting form of relationship with God was founded, college, Tom was nearing the end of his this one upon more individual experiences. career. An Air Force offi cer for 30 years, Tom Jeff Schooley Currently, the family unit—while still glorifi ed, earned the rank of colonel before retiring in Junior, M.Div. Student especially socio-politically in America—no 2004. As he considered what to do with his longer carries the same sort of religious future, Tom grew more involved in church; meaning and necessity as with our Israel this was the beginning of his own stirrings. ancestors. Yet, there are still some examples of “Th e more I got involved, the more I felt that Nahalah fl oating about, especially in the called to ministry,” Tom said. halls of Pittsburgh Th eological Seminary. In March 2005, Sean met with Director of the Summer Youth Institute and Admissions Tom and Sean Hall Associate the Rev. Ellie Johns ’00 during her visit to his college. She arranged for him to Sons following in their fathers’ footsteps are explore the PTS campus, and Sean convinced nothing new. But, when a father and son walk his father to come along. For Sean, who was in step into the same experience, though fi nishing his junior year, PTS was the objec- separated by many years, something special is tive. Tom, however, was still weighing other afoot. Th is is the case for Tom Hall, middler, options, including a post as the commandant and Sean Hall, junior, a father-son combina- of the Citadel, an extremely prestigious posi- tion who are both currently attending PTS. tion. Th e trip, however, did prove fruitful During Sean’s sophomore year at Presbyte- for Tom, as he began to feel further inclined rian College, he began to feel that the path toward Pittsburgh rather than other schools. he was on—to be a lawyer— was not what he With a new-found interest in Pittsburgh, Tom was meant to do. “One day I felt cut off from made plans to visit the Seminary again in July, God. In worship and in prayer, there was just this time with his wife Jana. It was during this no connection with the Spirit,” he said. “I trip that Tom was told that he did not get the spent more time praying and couldn’t focus commandant job. With that door closed and on anything.” a recent acceptance to PTS, the decision was He was beginning to understand a comment made. made by a former professor, a self-professed Tom entered PTS in fall 2005, while Sean was Christian Wiccan, whom Sean had discred- still a senior at Presbyterian College, but the ited when she told him he was to be a pastor. real fun would begin the following summer, “She was my social dance instructor and the bound when both signed up for Greek, an eight- only real assignment we had was to write week immersion in the language. “We had a by an essay on what we wanted to do with our good time,” Sean said. lives,” Sean explained. “When I turned mine family in, she said, ‘Oh, I know what you’re going to do, you’re going to be a pastor.’” Th inking she must have waltzed her way into a wall by accident, Sean didn’t give her words a second thought. But, then the uncom- fortable distraction and disconnect set in and forced him to focus more than in the previous years. “Out of the clear blue I heard Sean and Tom Hall God say, ‘I’m calling you to ministry.’” 3 “Yeah,” Tom responded. “Except he’d always left behind a good salary and took a leap of bound want to take a break on the car ride home. I’d faith because “I just knew I had to quit,” she by want to keep studying.” said. “It was just a matter of Him having to convince me to do something else.” family “I’d always sensed Dad worked too hard and was a bit of a perfectionist, but now I know,” In March 2006, she came to PTS for a Sean retorted. “In class, he’d tell me ‘quit fi dg- continuing education class and to see Eliza- eting,’ ‘sit up straight.’” beth. Th e experience moved her to more seriously consider seminary and, since “It’s a real advantage to have someone else in leaving her job, she had the time to commit the house going through the transforming to education. Still, she waffl ed, until just a experience,” Tom said. “It’s helpful for me few weeks before the beginning of the 06–07 to be able to run ideas by someone else. I school year. She got her paperwork in three can’t always do that with my wife—you can’t days before orientation and became the do that with people who haven’t had that eldest and newest Glaser to join PTS. experience.” Benjamin, who had started his seminary education during Term III of the 05–06 Th e Glaser Family school year, has a much diff erent path to seminary, including a four-year stint in the If two can be fun, then three is an outright United States Marine Corps. His time in the party. military was not fraught with holiness, but Joanne Glaser and her two children, did prove formative in his call to ministry. Benjamin Glaser and Elizabeth Troyer, are “While I was in Japan, I didn’t go to church,” students at PTS. Add to this crew Benjamin’s he said, “but I did spend a lot of time bored eight-month-old daughter, Lily—who spends and reading.” time in the Seminary’s day care while dad, aunt, and grandma take classes—and at any What he read was a return to theological given moment during the school day, up to material that had deeply interested him as four Glasers and three generations can be an adolescent. He says he was soon spending found on campus. $100 per week on new books and gobbling them up. But he still needed a bachelor’s Benjamin claims to have been the fi rst to degree before seminary was even an option. consider ministry, though he did start two Having been a good soccer player in high terms behind his sister, Elizabeth, but the real school and being in the best shape of his origins probably lie in a family unit that has life from the Marines, Benjamin found the been steeped in church.