I hear the dawn chorus outside my study window and consider that it was one year ago on this day that the Wittenberg University Board of Directors invited me to be their 16th President. I look at the fireplace and the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves built over a-hundred-and-fifty years ago, now filled with my books and tchotchkes, and I reflect on how I came to take on the challenge of leading one of the most endangered species in North America, a liberal arts college.
‘All theology, like all fiction,’ Fredrick Buechner often noted, ‘is at its heart autobiography.’ After reiterating this in the introduction to his first of four volumes of autobiography, Buechner goes on in The Sacred Journey (1982) to reflect on his past in order to hear what God is saying in and through his life. ‘What quickens my pulse now,’ he writes in the introduction, ‘is the stretch ahead rather than the one behind, and it is mainly for some clue to where I am going that I search through where I have been, for some hint as to who I am becoming or failing to become.’[1] I am not writing (or at least I don’t think I am) either theology or fiction, but perhaps Buechner’s insight gives me license to be somewhat autobiographical in this essay, to reflect back upon this past year of my life, which was spent so much in reflecting not only upon what has led me to this point in my life, but looking back upon nearly two centuries of the institution I now lead. All in hopes of receiving some hint as to who we are becoming.
Buechner does not indicate what motivated him to write The Sacred Journey, other than that he felt it was time to look back as he considered going on towards the end. If he began this work, say, two years before publication, then at the time of writing he was about fifty-four and much closer to his midlife than beyond it, living as he did to a good age of ninety-six, “falling asleep” in 2022, just a month after his birthday. Buechner was convinced that the contemplation of what has formed and shaped us in our lives enables us to more fully grasp the possibilities that lie before us. As he takes us on his sacred journey, he shares quite openly and with vulnerability the events, thoughts, and happenstance that shaped his life, through which he heard God speaking. ‘The question is not whether the things that happen to you are chance things or God’s things because, of course, they are both at once.’[2]
In the days leading up to joining Wittenberg, I spent time in prayer and contemplation in an attempt to discern if this was God’s calling. I reflected upon my own past, what had led me to this point as well as considering the future of an institution facing the challenges common to all small liberal arts colleges in the United States. It seemed an unlikely fit. Most of my academic life had been spent in large, research institutions. In fact, the only exception was a brief three-semesters at Wheaton College where I completed an MA in Biblical and Theological Studies. That period deserves an essay on its own, yet from my undergraduate days to my most recent administrative posting I had otherwise been in massive state universities. Now I was contemplating not just joining, but leading a small, Lutheran-founded liberal arts institution. Why should I feel called to this work? Could I hear the voice of God in these events?
Ironically, it was the very concept of discernment that drew me to apply in the first place. Helping students discern their calling is clearly stated in the heart of the Mission of Wittenberg University. ‘Reflecting its Lutheran heritage, Wittenberg challenges students to become responsible global citizens, to discover their callings, and to lead personal, professional, and civic lives of creativity, service, compassion, and integrity.’ The Lutheran tradition places a great emphasis upon the concept of calling, as Luther himself did:
Everyone must benefit and serve every other by means of his own work or office so that in this way many kinds of work may be done for the bodily and spiritual welfare of the community, just as all the members of the body serve one another.[3]
Over the years I had, in fact, discerned that part of my calling was to help others discern their callings. Of course, at a secular institution the words “discernment” and “calling” were viewed as religious. So, I borrowed from various sources to create what I termed a “personal mission statement” exercise. I had been leading students through this as a means of helping them start through own journey, without citing Buechner, but very much with his famous quote from Wishful Thinking (1973) in mind, ‘The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done.’[4] So I found myself looking back on my life and at Wittenberg’s history to see if (a) I most needed to do this and (b) Wittenberg most needed it to be done.
Over a year ago, I sat in my little study in Lexington, surrounded not by first editions of the Oz books, such as in Buechner’s “Magic Kingdom,”[5] but with academic works on Targum, midrash, and historical Jesus research. On a shelf just over my shoulder was a woodcut print of Frederick Buechner with the phrase ‘Go where your best prayers take you,’ and high above me, on the topmost shelves are my son Mack’s LEGO creations. There, with the Lexington birds singing, I started reading works about the origins of this western Wittenberg.
It was so-called because it was founded in 1845, not long after Luther’s own university had been collapsed into the Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg. Ohio was then the frontier. Here were Americans from the eastern cities and immigrants from all over Europe, settling and building their communities. Among them were Lutherans of various sorts speaking diverse languages. Wittenberg College was founded on the conviction that a Lutheran school for learning and the formation of ministers was needed, one that offered instruction in English. So it was in 1842 that the English Lutheran Synod of Ohio resolved, ‘That in humble reliance upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and alone for His glory and honor, we, now in Synod assembled, do ordain and establish a Literary-Theological institution.’[6]
The College, now “doing business as Wittenberg University” (a phrase the lawyers insist we use in all legal documents), has come through much in its nearly 200 years. At its centennial, when Dr. Lentz wrote A History of Wittenberg College, the school had already endured five wars, including the Civil War, and a Great Depression. In the eighty years since there have been the conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq again, and now Iran, yet it was perhaps the cultural shifts and financial fits that have had the greatest impact on Wittenberg. The seminary long ago merged with its cousin in Columbus and synods ceased funding the institution decades past. Lutheran students today make up less than five percent of the student body and the value of a liberal arts education is denigrated daily in the public sphere.
When we are in the middle of a difficult and daunting moment, we, any of us, all of us, have a tendency to assume it is the worst or most challenging time, yet the value of reflection is gaining perspective. When Buechner recounts how his Grandma Buechner urged his mother not to move them to Bermuda shortly after his father took his own life, he admits, ‘Maybe, if we had stayed home as she did, and wept for my father there, we might have become the stronger for it as certainly she became stronger herself….’[7] And yet, Bermuda ‘turned out to be a place where healing could happen in a way that perhaps would not have been possible anywhere else.’[8] Whatever choices made, they have shaped us and brought us to the place where we stand today.
In 1845, Ezra Keller stood on the plot of land donated by the city of Springfield OH, a portion of a cemetery from which he believed a new life would grow. Later that night, he wrote in his journal:
It requires some faith to believe, that in after years it will be an academic grove to which hundreds will resort to drink at the pure fountains of knowledge, and then go forth into the world to do good, to bless mankind. And yet I have faith to believe that this will all be realized.[9]
Keller was a wiry young man with an evangelistic zeal that led him to accept the call as the first president of Wittenberg, albeit only after several calls from the Board or Directors and much prayer and discernment. His intensity was such that a classmate once remarked, ‘his simple presence would repress all levity.’[10] The young Keller, who often wrote about embracing death and entering into the comfort of the Lord’s arms, was struck down by typhoid fever in his third year as president, in his thirty-seventh year of life. It seems that it was just such a faithful vision, focused determination, and selfless sacrifice that was needed for the founding of a college on the frontier.
Even then the value of education was not taken for granted, indeed it was widely rejected. Just last month, while escorting a friend and colleague through our archives, I looked over to one side and noticed a thirty-some page pamphlet titled, “A Plea for Wittenberg College.” It was written by F. W. Conrad, a professor of theology, and published in 1851, just six years after the founding of the school. The work was a plea for churches and communities to provide financial support for the fledgling school. Throughout much of Wittenberg’s history funding has been a challenge, yet the first section of the pamphlet is devoted to justifying the need for education. ‘We shall, in the first place, present some considerations to prove, that colleges and theological seminaries are indispensably necessary.’[11] The entire argument rings true today. As Buechner’s beloved Naya might have said, “Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.”
Back in my little room in Kentucky, the birds warbling, I read of Keller’s indecision and ultimate determination. The Board of Directors were committed to build a school and they had become convinced that Keller was the one to lead it. Yet he insisted on the time and space for prayerful discernment. Once he heard God’s voice in the call, he gave his all.
Nearly two hundred years later, the world and the school are much changed, and here I was seeking to hear God’s voice. The Board was calling, but who was speaking? As Buechner warned, ‘There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of Society, say, or the Superego, or Self-Interest.’[12] Was God calling me to this challenging work or was it, say, simply my pride seeking the title of “president”? There is no doubt that, while the world and school had changed, the difficulties and impediments to success were just as great and would require a similar level of faith and conviction.
Keller was often a morose man, with mortality a near constant companion as a pastor at the bedside of those dying, and as a father who buried three of his six children before he too would “rest in Abraham’s bosom.” His journal is filled with remembrances of those who died young and his own expectation and even yearning for his ultimate rest. They are anguished, sad reflections, that are always alongside statements of faith. As a bereaved father, I thought of our son and wept one morning when I read his journal entry the day after they buried their only daughter:
But now she is dead, why should I weep? Can I bring; her back again? ‘She shall not come to me, but I shall go to her.’ Why then complain of the approach of death?
‘Tis but the voice that Jesus sends,
To call them to his arms.’[13]
His words were my words. David’s words were ours.
I found much in Keller’s experience and faith echoing in my own life, eighteen decades later. Coming across these passages as I was seeking God’s direction, caused me to ask with Buechner are these ‘chance things or God’s things’? I was not sure that I could reply with him, ‘of course, they are both at once.’[14] I am too easily swayed by romance and coincidence.
Ah, but this is the dilemma of discernment! I find resonance and encouragement in the words of a fellow bereaved father and reluctant academic administrator, but is that the same as an affirmation of my own call to follow him to the institution he founded? The birds have quieted now that the sun is fully over the horizon.
In the midst of this reflection, considering whether to take up this leadership role in such a fraught time, I was struck with the realization that I was seeking to discern if I was called to Wittenberg precisely because Wittenberg recognizes the value of and seeks to aid students in their discernment. I began to see that my (a) was meeting Wittenberg’s (b). My nearly thirty years of academic and administrative experience, and particularly my deep commitment to helping others to discern their calling, was coinciding with the needs of Wittenberg University, at just such a time as this.
The world has changed much in the decades since Ezra Keller and his family settled in Springfield, Ohio. Yet the need to provide a place where people can come and ‘drink at the pure fountains of knowledge, and then go forth into the world to do good’ has not abated. The call remains. Hineni. Here I am, Lord.
In recording his notes for his first meeting with the Board of Directors, Ezra Keller wrote of all the miles he had ridden, the money he had raised, the two churches he helped to establish, and the students he had taught. ‘For strength to perform this labor, I render my thanks to God. The more toil, the more grace.’[15] The emphasis, as we scholars like to clarify, was his, in his own hand.
I read this and got up from my reading chair in my little study in Lexington. I walked six steps into Elizabeth’s office and said, I think we should take the job. We are called. She looked up with a questioning eyebrow. I answered, “The more toil, the more grace.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Thank you for reading The Buechner Review. If you would like to receive future articles in your email inbox you can sign up here.
Works cited:
[1] Frederick Buechner, The Sacred Journey: a memoir of early days (New York: HarperOne, 1982), p.6.
[2] Ibid., p.77.
[3] Martin Luther, “To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation (1520),” in: Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut Lehmann (eds), Luther’s Works, 47 vols (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1955–1986), xliv, pp.129-30.
[4] Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: a theological ABC (San Francisco: Harper & Row), p.95.
[5] Frederick Buechner, The Eyes of the Heart: a memoir of the lost and found (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1999), p.1.
[6] The minutes of English Lutheran Synod of Ohio, 1842, p. 9, cited by Harold Lentz in: A History of Wittenberg College (1845-1945) (Springfield, Ohio: Wittenberg Press, 1945), p.14.
[7] Buechner, Sacred Journey, p.45.
[8] Ibid., p.47.
[9] Charles Diehl, Biography of Rev. Ezra Keller, Founder and First President of Wittenberg College (Springfield, Ohio: Ruralist Publishing Co., 1859), pp. xiv-xv.
[10] Professor William M. Paxton of the Pittsburgh Presbyterian seminary cited by Diehl, p.36.
[11] F. W. Conrad, A Plea for Wittenberg College (Springfield: Geo. D. Emerson & Co., 1851), p.4.
[12] Buechner, Wishful Thinking, p.95.
[13] Diehl, Biography, p.214.
[14] Buechner, Sacred Journey, p.77.
[15] Diehl, Biography, p.296.
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