Currents of Faith: Open and Unfolding Reflections

I did find a job in southern California. I was to be an assistant minister at the West Covina Methodist Church, located some twenty miles from the school of theology. I would devote thirty hours a week calling on families and cultivating new members. I would join an impressive staff: senior minister, Rev. Miles Acker, minister of Christian education, Rev. Max Graham and Paul Biering, another beginning seminarian from the Northwest. The salary was slightly over half of what I was earning as a faculty member, but it included a pleasant parsonage several blocks from the church on Cherrywood Street. I was content. I was where I wanted to be.

As church members helped us unload the U-Haul truck, they spoke of the nearby San Gabriel Mountains. Confused, I asked, “What mountains?” The smog had totally blocked them from our view. This was my introduction to the Los Angeles area smog, which would become a daily sight as we drove back from classes in Claremont into the dark layer of film covering the San Gabriel valley.

Classes began in September and I enrolled for ten credits, which included noncredit classes in New Testament Greek and Western Philosophy. I was amused that though I had earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree I had never taken a course in the history of philosophy. My schedule included attending classes in the morning, returning to West Covina for afternoon or evening tasks.

In October I attended a new student orientation. Among the speakers was Dr. John B. Cobb, Jr., a brilliant young theologian who had been recruited by the new president, Dr. Ernest Colwell, to be one of the central faculty members of the new school. In 1958 the school had moved from the University of Southern California to become the Southern California School of Theology in Claremont.

I do not recall the words spoken that day by Dr. Cobb, but I remember vividly my response, a light bulb came on! I heard that I could be a Christian and still be a thinker! I was stunned! The words confirmed my choice to come here. I was excited by the prospects of learning ahead.

As I began college I had been invited to faith by the organ music through emotion and later I called upon the willful part of me as I made my belief in God a decision. Now I would add to these earlier moments, coming to faith through thinking and reason. On that day I did not know the Wesleyan Quadrilateral: scripture, tradition, reason and experience. Unknowingly, I came quite close to it.

That day I felt a desire to be an ordained minister rather than a counselor on a church staff. I sensed a beginning of change in direction. I wanted to be at the center of the community speaking out of the excitement I had experienced and offering my trained capacity to relate to people. I reminisced on the gospel account of the angel speaking to Mary, “and she kept these things in her heart”. So did I.

I was thirty years old, which qualified me to be a member of the Older Guys Who Came Back. We developed a luncheon group where we invited faculty to share their latest thoughts. Here I met Ed Turner, then forty, also from the Northwest, who would become a cherished friend. Most first year seminarians were recent college graduates and at least eight years younger than us. I came with a doctorate, a counseling internship, six months of active duty in the military, a psychology license and four years practicing my profession. I was not the usual first year student. In light of this the only pastoral counseling course I took was a directed readings course with Dr. Howard Clinebell, another central figure of the theological faculty.

I realized soon that I had been well instructed in specialized counseling skills. I could do it and do it well. It was as if my education to date was a tall pinnacle and now I was being exposed to a large circle encompassing that spire. I was being ushered into a world view. I knew how to engage one on one, now I was engaging the cosmos. I remain grateful for and value both phases of my education
 
Our first year courses were foundational, giving us a taste of all the subjects offered and an initial acquaintance with the professors offering them. I gravitated toward biblical studies and theology. I especially wanted to study with Dr. John Cobb, but many of his courses were designed for graduate students at the Claremont Graduate School. I studied language, the required Greek and later chose one summer of Hebrew, to more adequately understand the Old Testament. I would learn that its real name was the Hebrew Bible. I enrolled in a class on the Apostle Paul with Dr. James Robinson, an eminent scholar, saying to myself, “I’d rather have a lower grade in his class than miss an opportunity to study with him.” I used the same reasoning with Dr. Rolf Kneirim’s seminar on form criticism of the Bible. He had joined the faculty late one quarter having just arrived on a flight from Germany.

In preaching class with Dr. Morgan Edwards we were to choose a preacher who had published sermons, study the content and style, then develop our own sermon. Dr. Cobb did not have such a collection then, but while he was in Germany on sabbatical that year, his book, A Christian Natural Theology, was published. I begged and pleaded to use this text though not a collection of sermons. Delightfully, Dr. Edwards allowed me to do so! I devoured the book, re-reading, underlining and making many notes in the margins. I found there a deeper understanding of the words I had heard earlier at the student orientation. In fact, I expect that Dr. Cobb was in the midst of composing the book when he spoke that day.

The complex philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead was correlated with Christianity, or as I thought  playfully, Whitehead was baptized. I doubt that many people have come to their understanding of process relational theology in the manner that I did—alone and with a red pen. This book still resides on my bookshelf, pages covered with red ink. It all turned out well. I did not expect to deepen my understanding of theology in a preaching class, nor did I ever expect that I would be granted the preaching award that year.

We were required to take a class in Methodist polity, learning church organization and doctrine. I wrote a paper proposing that in our worship ritual there is no “Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world.” Lambs were sacrifices for individual sin; the scapegoat took away the sins of the community. So I humorously suggested: “O Goat of God who taketh away the sins of the world.” Admittedly, it just did not have the same ring as the traditional words. The professor was amused and so was I.

At the conclusion of my first year I was ordained Deacon at Redlands University by Bishop Gerald Kennedy of the Los Angeles area. I now had a new credential beyond my long held local preacher’s license. That same summer I was one of two students chosen from our seminary to join with students from the fourteen Methodist theological schools to tour all the national boards and agencies of the church. This first hand experience added significantly to understanding and respect for my church.

A thesis was required and I requested that Dr. Thomas Trotter, the dean of the school whose specialty was religion and the arts, be my advisor. Using techniques I had learned in studying scripture and preaching, I researched the New Testament account of the “Temptations of Jesus.” After consulting nearly fifty commentaries, I wrote a poem, a  translation of the message of the passage into modern language. Several years later a friend set the poem to music.

It was difficult to work thirty hours a week and attend classes. I had to be quick and thorough. My second, or “middler,” year I added another ten hours of work. I learned of and applied for a position as a psychologist at Rev. Morton Kelsey’s Episcopal Church in Monrovia, located on Foothill Boulevard east of Pasadena. I was honored to be chosen to practice under their auspices since Morton Kelsey was an eminent thinker in integrating Christian faith and Jungian psychology. On the evenings that I counseled there, he would be leading seminars on Jung and Christ in the fellowship hall. The associate rector would be in the next room facilitating a group engaged in “glossolalia,” speaking in tongues. In the room beyond that I would be counseling with a client. It was a rich, invigorating setting!

The church paid my fee to offer regular counseling sessions with a woman, a victim of polio, who was in an iron lung. She had two young daughters and a full time care-person. Through her I expanded my appreciation of life, while also learning that the problems she faced were common to most single mothers, though greatly exaggerated by her health circumstances.

Another enriching event of my middle year was the birth of our second daughter. While living in Washington we had made application for adoption of a child, a process that was interrupted when we moved to California. We had been through all the fertility tests and were not hopeful that we could conceive. Now, while not actively trying, Patty became pregnant. We were delighted! Patty’s water broke during church services and we quickly drove to the Covina hospital. No surprise, we named her Joy. Joy Elizabeth Brizee was born March 14, 1965. We were convinced that our psychological and spiritual states contributed to this awesome gift.

That summer I was given the opportunity to visit Mississippi, a trip organized by Dr. Buford Dickinson, a faculty member who had earlier served as a pastor in that state.
A friend and I spent several days with the National Council of Churches at Beulah College outside Jackson helping to construct the first integrated swimming pool in Mississippi. We talked with segregationists, progressives, and saw where the three young men were abducted and slain in Philadelphia, later described in the book, Three Lives for Mississippi.

In my third and final year of seminary, the West Covina church did not plan to fund the staff positions Paul and I were filling. I count this a blessing in disguise. I would now work only fifteen hours a week rather than forty. It seemed a breeze.
During this year I was asked to supervise graduate students in the Claremont Pastoral Counseling Center, an honor and an enriching experience. We moved to Montclair and joined the Claremont Methodist Church. I rode my bicycle through the beautiful campus of the Claremont Colleges each morning for classes.

Graduation was thrilling. I had not been able to attend ceremonies after completing either my Master’s or Doctor’s degree. I was never “hooded.” Finally, I would wear a gown, hood and a cap displaying a tassel of red, the academic color of religion. Our three years in southern California came to an end.

We had decided earlier to return to the Northwest where I could be the minister of a church rather than an associate in southern California. I had been appointed to Mercer Island, near Seattle. The name brought visions of a quiet little isle with a rural atmosphere. What a shock awaited us! Mercer Island is a suburb, a bedroom community, connected to the city by an interstate freeway and a floating bridge. We arrived at the church property to find a small white chapel with a tall steeple encircled by five portable trailers for classrooms. One would be an office for the part-time secretary and myself. Another surprise awaited me. My task was to foster the construction of a fellowship education hall. Alas, I had good training, but none in finance or construction. An unexpected challenge emerged.

Serving for the first time as minister of a church was both exciting and demanding. At a district meeting where I was asked to speak about being a new pastor, I said, “It is much like boot camp!” A renowned pastor, retired from a most successful ministry in Iowa City, Dr. L. L. Dunnington, had founded the congregation three years earlier. His preaching skills had attracted many people, and his maturity gave them a relationship with a parental figure. A thirty-three year old could not fill those shoes. The activities of the church had been left to the members, so there was much organizing to be done.

I was eager to share the excitement I had felt by embracing process theology. In sermons and classes I spoke of a God who is intimately persuading us in each moment, of Jesus who was fully open to the invitations of God and of our opportunity to be enriched by God’s continual whispering to us. For three years I fostered small fellowship and study groups and encouraged the development of specific missions for our congregation. Together we watched the new building rise. During these years it became increasingly clear that Patty was not content and fulfilled as a minister’s wife, calling me to realize that it had been more my decision than hers to be ordained to ministry rather than spend only one year in seminary. And the world was changing. In 1968 we became the United Methodist Church by merging with the Evangelical United Brethren. In the wider world the fiery war in Vietnam had created a divided nation.

One Sunday morning Rev. Troy Strong, superintendent of the Columbia River District and his wife, Helen, came to worship. I was pleased to see them and just naïve enough not to recognize that they were there to check me out. Soon I was advised that the Bishop would appoint me to the Wenatchee church, a large congregation located on the Columbia River in the middle of the state. At age 36 I was appointed as senior minister to the fourth largest church in the Pacific Northwest Conference. This awesome opportunity postponed the conversation between Patty and me about her discontent.

The Rev. Paul Kuhn from Tacoma was appointed as associate minister. Our boyhoods were radically different. He had rejected a conservative Christian background and I had no church background, so we made an interesting combination. I suggested, and Paul agreed, that we would become co-ministers, rather than senior and associate, in an effort to avoid the usual church hierarchy.

Wenatchee First United Methodist Church was a quantum leap from Mercer Island, from 300 members to 1,500, from a few weddings a year to a wedding a week, from a rare funeral to weekly funerals, from two to three Sunday worship services, from a part-time secretary to several full-time staff members, and most vividly from mid-Westerners settling in Seattle to a vast majority of members related to one another as cousin, grandfather, aunt, or daughter. No gossip allowed here! This was a long established traditional family church, not a newly formed suburban church.

People said that they could not tell Paul and me apart, young, tall men with dark hair and black horn rimmed glasses. We told one another to behave! Things went well in spite of two of our staff members resigning within weeks after our arrival. With us present, they felt that they did not have important roles as they did before. I was surprised and hurt since I thought that good facilitating and relational skills were my strengths.

We began to do some important basic tasks, including an every member visitation, which the previous pastor, Dr. Henry Ernst, an eminent and prestigious member of the clergy, had been unable to accomplish because of ill health. Then, I made some mistakes. I listened to the reports of a key person about a situation rather than listening directly to the member involved in that situation. This led to an unpleasant confrontation with a significant group in the church. It was ultimately solved through several reconciling meetings, but not without pain and hurt for all those involved.

I was firm and clear in my opposition to the Vietnam war. I could no longer simply remain silent and began to join in demonstrations at the Wenatchee Valley College. All these converging events were very hard on Patty. Indeed, it was deeply distressing to me. The Energizer Bunny had run out of energy. I felt overwhelmed. I decided in December to leave the pastorate. Relief and sadness accompanied this choice. The superintendent required that I keep this decision private until late Spring. In addition, I was required to not attend the church if I were to live in the community and retain my elder’s orders.

I knew other ministers in the conference would be angry with me. One had said earlier that he would give his right arm to be appointed to Wenatchee, yet here I was throwing away this great gift! I have come to believe that any major decision is prompted by multiple motivations. In looking back I am able to identify some of the complex feelings driving this decision, one of which is that I thrive when doing one thing well. I do better when wearing one hat rather than many! Another was that I could give my total energy to keep the church afloat yet wonder if it were going anywhere. I had little time to think and create. I was running! Weddings and funerals were constant, consuming much more time than an observer would think. In the midst of this array of tensions, I could not face them without Patty’s support.

June 1, 1970 I entered a new phase of my life. I had retained my psychology license and  had written many letters during the spring months seeking employment in that profession. After few promising options, we made a new decision to begin a private practice of counseling in Wenatchee. We sold our cabin on Lake Alice near Seattle, bought a fixer-upper home on Miller Street, and rented a downtown office in the Congdon Building  within walking distance of our home. I had been counseling without fee one day a week in the church and assumed that a number of these persons from the church and community would follow me. I was wrong, as cost makes a real difference, even when it is a graduated fee based on income beginning at $7 per hour and ranging to a maximum of $30. The first month our gross income was $600.
 
I scurried to make a living. I worked part-time for the Educational School District as a consultant in guidance and counseling, administered a grant on drug abuse from the Chelan County Mental Health Center, and taught classes to teachers as an adjunct professor for Central Washington University. Between counseling and these other tasks, I frequently worked four evenings a week. It required several years to build a full-time counseling practice.

I did not attend any church for four years, during which I gradually learned that the church is my mother and I am lonely and lost without her. When I did return, it was with a firmer conviction that I belonged in the family of the church community.

As I became more established I reached out for new learning. I attended a seminar on Anger Management by George Bach in California and learned how to swing a bataca bat, earned credentials in Transactional Analysis and began leading group therapy, studied Parent Effectiveness Training and offered classes to both parents and teachers, attended programs of the American Association of Clinical Hypnosis and used this technique in smoking cessation, and later  became a Fellow in the American Association of Pastoral Counselors. I was constantly expanding my skills.

I first met Adrienne as a client. Several years later we would teach Parent Effectiveness Training together. Even later I would fall in love with her. I followed my professional ethics, allowing the required time lapse between the psychologist-client relationship and a personal relationship. My personal feelings were more confusing. I had experienced the cowardly feelings earlier in life when Alice responded, “Why didn’t you ask?” I did not want my responsible self to override intense feelings again. The comforting woman of my twelve year old imagination may well have appeared in the shadows, whispering, “Is this the woman who will fulfill all my dreams?” Still, I had a serious and responsible commitment to Patty, my marriage and my daughters. I became a “basket case.”

Adrienne had long been invested in the church, attending church school and the youth group as a young girl alone without her family, serving as a youth counselor and leader at high school camps. Children and youth loved her. She was physically beautiful, outgoing and deeply embraced the values which I held.

In contrast, it was not that Patty and I disliked one another or argued incessantly. In hindsight, perhaps we should have engaged in more open conflict. We had a working relationship. From my side there was a growing absence of feeling between us and I experienced a drying up and withering inside. Patty had for several years expressed unhappiness and I learned in my personal experience something that I knew well professionally, that though I tried to help I could not make her happy. She felt a listlessness and imagined that moving to a new location would bring her satisfaction. In contrast, I have always explored deeply rather than geographically. We had already moved several times.

I felt that our shared sexual embraces were largely for me, as I had few experiences of her moving toward me or initiating physical touching. I felt cheated, for early in our college relationship, we both knew that I was entering the ministry and I had the clear impression that we were together on this journey. I wondered at times if Patty were withering also, but more willing than I to endure being together without intensity and shared goals. Perhaps being a devoted mother was enough for her. I longed for more.

This was the early 70’s, the era of open marriage. We thought naively that we could blend two families and live together. We learned rather quickly through our experiences  that it would not work. I left my family, Patty, Judy,15  and Joy, 9. This was the beginning of radically opposing feelings and the birth of the “ping pong ball.” I bounced back and forth. I left once, returned home, and finally left again. I was elated and I was  depressed. I wanted to leave my marriage but not my daughters and, of course, I could not do both.

During this time of inner turmoil I sought out my dear friend from seminary, Dr. Ed Turner. I had comforted him several years earlier when his wife separated from him, so I turned to him for counsel. I have never felt so low as the afternoon I boarded the bus in Edmonds to return home after several days with Ed. Later, heavy depression and intense conflict would consume me as I drove north from Wenatchee on my consulting visits urging me to simply speed up and drive off the high cliff. Solving problems through a death, felt originally and intensely by the nine year old, arose once again with great power. Yet, this same nine year old stood at attention saluting, the good boy who always did what others expected of him regardless of his own needs. These were the leading characters in the ping pong ball existence.

After twenty-one years of marriage, Patty and I were divorced. Shortly thereafter on August 4, 1974, I exchanged vows with Adrienne under the trees on Lake Chelan at the home of our friends Judy and Ernie Robison. Through this action, we would lose most previous friends and face severe criticism from many, but we were with one another.
 
Within a four year period I had left a promising career in ministry and entered a new marriage. On the Thomas Holmes scale I would have been a prime candidate for serious illness. This, however, did not occur. It soon became apparent to both of us that we belonged in the church. Since I was required  to stay away from First Church in exchange for retaining my ordination, one Sunday morning in late fall 1974 we walked into the First Presbyterian Church. Shockingly, on that day we learned that the pastor who replaced me would soon be required by the Bishop to leave because of the turmoil and radical division he had promoted in the church. Soon after, Adrienne and I would walk down the aisle of the church I had served and she had been a member. Hard for us! Hard for people! But a new beginning!

Gradually, I was able to turn from my tumultuous personal issues back to my love of theology. The years ahead would be filled by supporting Adrienne in earning  a master’s degree in counseling psychology, our developing a joint counseling practice, clarifying the unique contribution of this theology to my style of counseling, facilitating a Sunday morning adult class, preaching on occasion, fostering the creation of the Albertson Lectureship in the church, writing several books, and participating in the founding of the Process and Faith Program at Claremont.

I have shared the great power of earlier parts of me and how they reappeared in new forms at later times. Especially crucial were the Coward, the Death-Wisher and the Comforted. Mingled with their later appearances I experienced an even greater Presence inviting, luring, whispering and persuading me toward life, even in the midst of feelings of confusion and raging conflict.

The varied ways in which process theology helped awaken my understanding of myself as a person follows.