Midlife Meditation

Charles H. King, Jr., in 1981. Changes in perception typically take time. The mind accumulates information through experiences, relationships, the media, and at some point, wakes up to a truth it has been stubbornly ignorant to. That's how it was for me with my understanding of homosexuality: I don't remember ever being taught that it was wrong, but my childhood was certainly steeped in the idea that it was a sinful choice some people made. I remember reading a couple of references to it in high school, and not really understanding them (one in an autobiographical essay by Tennessee Williams left me particularly confused). The first gay man I was aware of meeting was a theater major who lived in my dorm at Willamette University who struck me as outrageously flamboyant. Unbeknownst to me, one of my best friends in college was a closeted gay man who did not come out to me until our 25 year reunion. I also had no idea that a woman I was attracted to during my first semester...

If you're a young person hoping to strengthen your tentative faith in God, seminary is the last place you should go. And yet that's exactly what I did. I need to back up a bit here: in the fall of 1984, I took my newly minted Masters degree in music education to the only school in Oregon that would hire me. The place was North Powder, a tiny community halfway between La Grande and Baker City. I lasted eleven weeks. I spent the rest of the year subbing, growing more and more disillusioned with the profession I had believed was my vocation. In March, 1985, I attended a convocation for persons considering entering the ministry, heard several preachers (including Bishop Calvin McConnell and John Schweibert) say things that spoke directly to me, and decided on the spot to enter the candidacy program. I applied to two seminaries, Boston and Perkins (part of SMU), because they were the only Methodist schools with sacred music programs, and at this point I didn't want that...

Gospel took me by surprise. When I first arrived in Dallas to enroll in seminary, my plan was to do a double major in sacred music and theology. For some reason, though, it had never occurred to me that it might be a good idea to check out the program I was going to be entering before I actually moved myself and most of my possessions into a dorm room. I'd gone to Illinois sight unseen, and that had worked out reasonably well, so why should I treat my seminary choice any differently? The answer, of course, is that I wasn't even in the program that led me to choose this school over any other Methodist seminary in the United States. I'd gotten into the Master of Divinity program without a hitch, but that was a course of study I could've taken anywhere else. If I wanted to earn a Master of Sacred Music, my choices were limited to SMU and Boston. Boston misplaced my application, so that left SMU. Just getting into the MDiv didn't mean I could be an MSM, as well; f...