60: Tell Me About Your Spiritual Side with Adrian Dannhauser

Host: Brandon Nappi 

Guest: Adrian Dannhauser 

Production: Goodchild Media 

Music: Wayfaring Stranger, Theodicy Jazz Collective 

Art: E. Landino

Instagram: @theleadersway.podcast 

berkeleydivinity.yale.edu/podcast

Brandon: Welcome to the Leader’s Way podcast, a spirituality podcast for people who aren’t ready to give up on the world. And this is a special summertime bonus edition of the leaders way podcast, which means that as you listen to this, I am likely on a beach somewhere in Rhode Island, frolicking with my family, playing guitar, knitting, and dreaming of my next garden project. And if I’m I’m not doing those things, I am sitting in the shade, doing a little bit of writing, preparing a book of daily meditations on spirituality and joy and peace. So more on that in the days to come, but I hope you enjoy this summertime bonus episode. 

               We have a wonderful guest, the Reverend Adrian Dannhauser, the rector of the Church of the Incarnation in Manhattan, New York City. She was raised as a Southern Baptist in Mississippi. She became an Episcopalian after encountering its many gifts for tradition, progressive theology, an invitation to question, an emphasis on social justice, liturgical space for contemplation, and a Christian community grounded in the Eucharist. As rector, Adrian gets to be involved in nearly every aspect of parish life, from preaching, teaching, pastoral care, leadership development, budgets, administration, financial stewardship. She does it all, of course, as every rector does. And outside of parish ministry, Adrian is a faculty member of the Episcopal Preaching Foundation’s preaching excellence program. She’s also a chaplain for incarcerated folks on Rikers Island here in the city. She’s a member of the Woman’s Forum of New York. She chairs the Episcopal Diocese of New York, their task force against human trafficking, and serves on the board of directors of PACT, the leading anti-trafficking policy organization in The United States. Before ordained ministry, Adrian practiced corporate bankruptcy law. Imagine that journey.

               You’ll  hear about it. It’s really cool. Her book, Ask Me for a Blessing, You Know You Need One, was published in September 2022. I’m really thankful for this conversation about blessing, about ministry, about discernment, vocation. Enjoy with the Reverend Adrian Danhauser.

B:            Hi. I’m Brandon Nappi.

Hannah: Hi. I’m Hannah Black, and we’re your hosts on the Leader’s Way podcast. A Yale podcast empowering leaders, cultivating spirituality, and exploring theology. This podcast is brought to you by Berkeley Divinity School, the Episcopal Seminary at Yale. 

B:            Well, Reverend Adrian Dannhauser, it’s so wonderful to have you back here at Berkeley and on the Leaders Way podcast. Welcome. 

A:           Thank you, Brandon. Happy to be here with you.

B:            We connected years ago. You were in our very first Leaders Way cohort, and so it’s it’s really sweet to to reconnect. 

A:           Oh my goodness. Well, I remember the food and the fellowship and the worship all being just extraordinary and, so many wonderful resources brought to bear for our group from across all these disciplines. I have to say one of the most helpful ones is around fundraising.

That has been a big part of my ministry lately and, grateful for that. And, still even digesting some of the nuggets of wisdom.

B:            It’s not easy, and we’ll hear from you the ways in which it’s challenging and also rewarding, to be in parish ministry right now. So to be able to welcome folks together, I’ve always felt a kind of vocation and heart for supporting leaders and to bring a community of, church leaders and faith leaders together to, to be a listening place for their challenges, but also a kind of dreaming place, to create a space where we can really imagine new possibilities and listen for the voice of God, listen for the work of the Holy Spirit in our midst. It’s just one of the great joys of my life. I’ve been blessed so much by them learning every moment from all the incredible leaders that have this tradition now coming every year, every June. Thank you for your voice and sharing your experience and being part of that first cohort, which really laid the foundation for the future. 

               Adrian, I’d love to hear your vocation story. I don’t know that I’ve that I’ve really heard it in these, years of being connected to you, and I know you have Mississippi roots. I know law school, and the practice of law has been part of your journey. You’re one of our alums and so that’s always really special to reconnect with it all. But would you bless me with telling your story on how God called you for ministry? And feel free to go as far back as you’d like and include as many details. One of the great gifts in in my ministry has just been to bear witness to how God is working in other people’s lives. So, would you tell me your story?

A:           Absolutely. Well, I’ll start when I got to New York City. I was raised Southern Baptist in Mississippi, came to New York in 2003 to practice law, and was attending a nondenominational church in Times Square with a praise band. I love a praise band. But the preaching and the theology was …  I’d just kinda have to muscle through. That wasn’t feeding me so much. My husband, who was raised Catholic and had attended an Episcopal school for a little while, said, well, why don’t you try the Episcopal church? And, Trinity Wall Street was on my walk to work. I was living in and working downtown. And, I remember the very first service I attended was the installation of Jim Cooper as a former rector. And it was Handel’s Messiah. It was good and glorious, and it was at the time where they were still using the prayer books as opposed to, like, printing every single thing in the leaflet. And, like, tears were streaming down my face as I read this book. And I told my mom I had a Pentecostal experience in the Episcopal church. 

               And then I learned, I guess not too long after that, that Jean Robinson as the first openly gay priest to be consecrated a bishop. And I just thought, what? Because coming from such a conservative background, I thought that was just the best news ever. It blew my mind in terms of the LGBTQ inclusivity. And, it wasn’t long before I was just super jazzed on the Episcopal Church, and the call to ordination crept in. The last thing to fall into place for me was the Eucharist because, again, I was raised in a tradition that didn’t have the sacraments. And during this time, I’ve decided, you know what? I wanna go back to school, get a Master of Divinity, and be a professor of law and religion. And I had learned in law school about, I was at Vanderbilt. They have a wonderful divinity school as well as law school that you could get, a JD and an MDiv. Much like you can do a JD MBA. And I had considered it, but, you know, knew that I would be, you know, going into corporate law and decided to put that on the back burner. So I decided, no. This is time. This is what I’m gonna do. 

               And then, you know, all everyone’s sort of discernment has the twist and the turns. And so the the call to ministry sort of ordained ministry eventually came, and I ended up at Berkeley at Yale in 02/2009, then came right back to New York City after that. I thought I’d be in New York City for maybe two years, and here it is, you know, twenty-something years later. 

B:            So I’d love to hone in on these moments of discernment. Maybe these are moments just before it became clear, to you and before maybe you became, you came to New Haven to study at Yale, or maybe even through your three years with us here in New Haven, we have a lot of seminarians and even potential seminarians, folks who are maybe experiencing their very first intuition that there may be a call that God has on their heart. And I wonder if you could maybe provide some encouragement or, what do you wish you had heard when you were maybe vacillating or just struggling to know?

H:           That it might not be, you know, this flash of light that knocks you to your knees like Paul on the road to Damascus. You know, the still small voice was part of Elijah’s conversion too. And, I mean, I’ll say one detail that was just spectacular. I was at my firm, you know, a junior or a mid-level associate, and I told my boss. I said, I have to figure this out, and working eighty hours a week doesn’t give me the space to do it. And he said, take a month off. We’ll call it paid leave. 

B:            Wow. 

A:           Which was such an incredible merciful gift. And I came back, and I said, yep. I think this is, you know, what I’m called to do. And another really important piece of it was a silent retreat for eight days. Wow. Because, you know, you gotta get a spiritual director. You gotta you do all the things.

B:            Okay. So I didn’t anticipate the silent retreat in this. I mean, silent retreats have been absolutely transformative in my life. It’s mostly the only way I do retreat now, but it took me a while to work up the courage to be silent first for a day and then a weekend and then an extended retreat. Can you share a little bit about kind of the fruits of that experience, what it was like? I mean, all the fields, manifest themselves in the midst of silence, especially extended silence like that. What was it like for you? 

A:           Well, you you certainly have to be wary of reading too much. Right? It’s you know, you’re not supposed to speak, but you’re not supposed to, like, take in too much either, and really give the Holy Spirit space. And, for me, I just got this overwhelming joy. I would go on a run every day, and I would feel God, like, just running along with me, or just as close as, like, the chair next to me. It was such a gift, and it was a Catholic retreat house, and I got a spiritual director for that time too. The only time you could talk was in spiritual direction on a daily basis, and then, you know, you would participate in a Eucharist, once a day as well. And she said that I should bear the chalice. I don’t think I was comfortable handing out bread because, you know, that’s … it’s a different theology around that. And I’m like, are you sure that I can do this and I’m not a Catholic? 

B:            Oh, this is during mass, like, at a Catholic mass. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That’s fantastic. 

A:           Sometimes it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission. And I hadn’t born the chalice yet, and that was I had to, like, keep myself from, like, crying and making it all about me. I saved the tears for after.

B:            You know, I love asking this question of folks, in talking about discernment. And a universal theme over the last few years of having conversations with many priests and bishops is often it’s the role of other people seeing something in you that maybe you can’t even see in yourself. And it seems to me that a pervasive theme is that we, the individual who are in discernment, are usually really struggling, and it’s, you know, it’s maybe surprising that we’ve received this call and what to do with it. And then the people around us are totally not surprised. They’re like, “Oh, yeah. We–we’ve known this for years. We’ve known that you’ve had these skills.” And, I love that, you know, a spiritual director would see in you this great capacity to be of service and for ministry, and just so organically, naturally hands you the cup and says, you know, go serve. That’s beautiful. 

A:           Very true, Brandon. And thank you for naming that because that that that’s such a big deal that that other people recognize it, and affirm you in that way. 

B:            And so, tell me about, your first call. After ordination, you went to I was at, Saint James Manhattan, so on the Upper East Side, and I was part of a team of five clergy. So I am so grateful for the opportunity to learn in that setting, essentially, as a curate. And, I was there for two years, and I still, like, draw on the lessons from that. And Brenda Husson, now, you know, retired rector, is, my hero, strong woman, incredible preacher. I call her the funeral master because she and my favorite thing to do is a funeral, as a priest. Favorite thing. And that might have been, you know, in part from watching her in action.

               So Saint James was lovely. Absolutely lovely and, prepared me so well for for my ministry today. 

B:            You know, here at Berkeley, we’re beginning a new virtual curacy program, a kind of, online and in person program for curates who don’t have a traditional in-person curacy. For those outside the Episcopal world that, you know, the curacy would describe the first assignment after ordination under the supervision of a mentor where lots of mentoring happens in apprenticeship. And so I’ve been thinking a lot about the kinds of learning, the kinds of lessons that are really essential to create that foundation of ministry. And I wonder as you reflect back on your curiosity, were there, you know, a couple of core lessons that you had to learn, maybe even learn the hard way? 

A:           Well, certainly being in that setting allowed me to get my footing with, you know, all types of all aspects of parish ministry. So they’re, you know, teaching confirmation class and doing a baptism and weddings and funerals. One thing that I really loved about the way it was designed was that I kind of got a signature project. I could do whatever I wanted. And, a couple of things happened there. One, I discovered that I have a passion combating human trafficking. Like, I didn’t see that coming, but that was a big part of my priestly vocation that emerged in that space. And so I was given the room to, you know, do some education around that for our congregation, form connections with experts in the field, and lead initiatives that would help those serving trafficking survivors and also, you know, provide mission and service opportunities for our congregation. Now a big thing I do is lobby in in Albany and DC, and so that has still become a like, big thing for me.

               And then also, in terms of my blessings ministry, Saint James gave me space to say, first, let’s try Ashes To Go because they’ve never done it. And I’d had a little bit of experience with that in seminary at the Stamford, Connecticut train station in the wee hours of the morning. And, so that turned into, once we got to Eastertide, I said, well, can we do it again and call it blessings to go? And, you know, my fellow clergy were, like, a little reluctant, but they did it. And we got some lay people doing it with us too.

               For me, you know, taking on a seminarian this fall, I’m like, this person needs a signature project. Let them do whatever they want. You know? I think that was a gift. A true gift.

B:            I … so I’d love to hear more of this story about your blessings project. You’ve written this terrific book, Ask Me for a Blessing: You Know You Need One. You shared it with me years ago, and it sat on my shelf. And it’s become a kind of icon for me. I have to be honest, Adrian. I it’s … I’m so thankful for it because it reminds me to be courageous. Because when you initially described what you were doing, I had this visceral nervous system response. I am a raging introvert. And your  ministry on the one hand is so exciting to me and strikes a little bit of fear, and I’m probably not alone. So describe this. You know, describe how it happened. Right? You started with ashes at the train station, but there was something in it that that called to you. Can you describe how that was? Like, how did you know, oh, I have to continue this? 

A:           Well, I’ll take us back even a little further. The first iteration of this ministry was called “Want Prayer?” And I was outside the library in Stamford, Connecticut with a sign that said want prayer. And in, like, smaller fonts would be, like, family, health, employment, like, just different things you might go to God with. And I had a sort of a  partner with me. Right? The disciples went out two by two. It’s an important aspect. And I was I was a layperson. It’s not like I had a collar. You know? You didn’t need to do that to just be open praying for people. And I will give a shout out to that that Southern Baptist background, that part of my faith tradition that places such emphasis on evangelism and, witness and testimony and speaking to the faith that is within you. And I do believe that evangelism is a spiritual gift of mine, so that that boldness might come a little more naturally to me than some.

               And actually now, what it what it looks like now asks me for a blessing that I write on a frame chalkboard sign. I get to stand in in front of my church with the collar. Oftentimes, I’ll put on vestments and a stole just so to people see me. And that’s not as scary as the “Want Prayer” version. Because, I mean, I have the imprimatur of the church behind me. Right. Yeah. I I don’t give the those feelings of trepidation a second thought now. Yeah. I I’ve been doing this nine years. 

B:            Nine years. How and how often? What’s the rhythm for you? 

A:           The rhythm is, Tuesday mornings from 9 to 09:30. I have a morning prayer service, so I get prayed up. And then I go out there just for that little part of the daily commute, and it’s become a real spiritual practice that I don’t even give a second thought. It’s like, okay. Yes. Life is crazy. My schedule is out of control, but this is what I do, and I’m not gonna, you know, move it for anything.

B:            So this is Church of the Incarnation in Manhattan. Address? 

A:           209 Madison between 35th And 36th Streets. Just, you know, a stone’s throw from the Empire State Building. 

B:            And Are they Mets fans or Yankee fans over there?

A:           Mets fans in in my household by just by affiliation. My husband grew up a Mets fan on Long Island. And also by association, Knicks fan. That’s that’s a big deal right now. I understand.

And then I guess the other one would be Giants. 

B:            It’s it’s playoff time here as we speak, you know, this episode. 

A:           I don’t claim allegiance to much of it, but my husband and I both went to Duke. So so Duke basketball, you know, I’ll give a cheer for that one. 

B:            That’s fantastic. So, in a moment, I’d love to ask you about some stories. You must just have stories upon stories, and you share some of them in the book. But I’d love maybe to start theologically. This word, blessing, blessed, it’s one of these words that, thankfully in some ways is still part of our secular vernacular. Right? Even folks who are not people of faith, they’re churchgoers, might use this word. Right. And yet I’m thinking of it’s a little dated now, but the kind of #blessed trend that went on a, a number of years ago. And I wonder if you can share from your perspective theologically, how do you understand this idea of blessing? What is it that you understand is happening when you offer a blessing, you know, in front of the church there?

A:           Well, I will say I wrote an entire book unpacking the word blessing, and I still don’t have a sufficient definition. And I agree with you that the word blessed, you know, people play fast and loose with that, and they don’t even know they’re doing it. You know, at its simplest, it’s requesting God’s favor and recognizing God’s favor that rests upon you. And the greatest blessing is being blessed to do God’s will. Humility always must be at the core. So, you know, the people who do use #blessed, if that’s still a thing. I’m not big at the social media. I’m not sure. But lots of times that that post might be, you know, look at how amazing my life is. Look at how amazing I am. And, like, it’s not pointing towards God. Right? Like, what where is the point in all of this? And I’ll also say that sometimes for me with this ministry, it’s a little bit like blessing is the hook and prayer is the point. Right? Because blessing you know, like you said, people do respond to the word, and that’s an opportunity for me to hopefully go to God in prayer, with that person. 

               I do believe that the power of prayer is not just about, like, changing God’s mind or asking for some divine intervention that’s gonna alter a circumstance, But there’s a real pastoral moment there, you know, being with that that person and knowing that the Holy Spirit is swirling around you. 

B:            So, you know, I’m almost sensing that there might be some initial assumption that this is gonna be a kind of transactional moment. I’m gonna come to, to Mother Dannhauser in front of church, and I’m gonna get something, almost like, almost like it’s a withdrawal from the bank or like God is turning on the energy from the electric company and grace suddenly starts to flow transactionally.

And, of course, I mean, grace is flowing all the time. And what I hear you inviting folks into is something that, in one way, might be transactional, but is much more relational, I suspect. That by the end, you’re praying with someone. Not only are you having a relationship with this with this person, stranger, or, you know, friend, or whatever, but you’re actually inviting folks into a relationship with God, which is amazing to think about, like, on the way to work. Like, I presume you have commuters and professionals going into work and all that sort of thing.

Did I, like … respond to that. Does that sound like how you understand it? 

A:           100%. It is all relational, and I think that people are often surprised when they walk away. Like, who knows what the expectations folks come in with?

But, yeah, I’ll just tell you about one. So this woman sees my sign. She comes up and she stops, and she’s like, “Well, that is, I think, the most Christian thing I’ve ever seen.” I said, “Well, thank you. Tell me about your spiritual side,” which is a go to for me. Tell me about your spiritual side because you don’t know what they’re gonna come back with. And I’m glad I didn’t ask, you know, “Oh, what’s your Christian denomination?” Because she didn’t have one. And she had been, you know, raised Catholic, but hadn’t been in church for thirty-five years, and she wasn’t sure whether where she was going on her spiritual journey. But when someone brings, like, that sense of openness, there’s such possibility.

B:            I love this question. Tell me about your spiritual side. It’s not a question, right, but it’s an invitation. 

A:           And before I move on from that, Brandon, I’ll say that that often gives me an opportunity to also evangelize for the Episcopal church. Because, you know, coming to the Episcopal church in my mid-twenties and falling in love with it, and I just think it’s everybody needs to join us. And sometimes they do. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they come to my church. I even have one man who, he’s an atheist, he says, but he introduced me to someone as his pastor. 

B:            No. I mean, the Episcopal Church is such a beaut– such a beautiful treasure. It’s a community that I discovered, you know, only in the middle part of my life and have been overwhelmed by the way in which God is moving in it. And, and it it’s just spoken to me, this community of faith. And, I mean, one of the pieces that you referenced before, kind of, hallmark of Episcopal identity, is the kind of radical inclusivity. And a number of years ago now, pope Francis made a big stir when he approved a blessing for, for same-sex folks. Right? And so there was a moment where the world was sort of reflecting and talking about blessings and who could get one and who can’t have one and why. And, of course, with the recent papal election in the Roman Catholic church, you know, some of that conversation has been has been stirred again. And I wonder if you could reflect, especially for some of our maybe non-Episcopal listeners, for whom the Episcopal Church is totally new, how the Episcopal Church in general, and how you approach blessing. Is there any kind of radar or filter in terms of who can get one and who cannot and who’s worthy and who’s not?

A:           Come one, come all! I’ll allude to a story in my book where this young woman was day drinking, tipsy, and she sees my sign and says to her friend, “I need a (effing) blessing.” Fill in the the full word there. And I said, well, come on over. Yeah. So it’s totally inappropriate to say it, but I’m here for it. 

B:            Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, this idea that there are litmus tests around worthiness, of to receive a blessing. And you can I mean, I mean, thank you for the casting all of that aside and just like lavishly and abundant abundantly offering blessings to people. Do you find that there any themes that you bump into often? 

A:           Peace. People are just spun up, whether it’s what’s going on politically, interpersonally. I don’t know if New Yorkers are busier than anybody else. I will say that an acupuncturist once told me, just being in New York and all the stimulation around you, like, your body absorbs that and you don’t even realize it. So, yes, acupuncture can help, but a prayer life is super important. And folks just feel pulled in different directions, and I’m often quoting, Jesus telling his disciples, my peace I give you, my peace I leave with you. And we are his disciples, and this is our inheritance. And, just a lot of affirmation around that and a lot of listening. Yeah. Other themes … health. Somebody’s mom was diagnosed with cancer, or there’s a hospital not too far from here. So sometimes people are going to the hospital for a test or to see a patient, and then relationships.

B:            I wonder … how many years did you say did you say? Nine? 

A:           Nine. 

B:            Nine. Wow. Yeah. I wonder how this has evolved and changed for you over the years. What lessons have you learned? I presume when you do something like this long enough, there are there’s shifting and learning that happens. Like, as you reflect on all these years, what are the lessons for you?

A:           Well, a really thing a good thing and lesson for me before I even started doing this was something Dr. David Gortner, who’s at Virginia Theological Seminary, he calls naming the holy. If someone says something that I feel like, oh, do you think God was at work there? Or that sounds like you’re in the right place at the right time. Yeah. And kinda put it back to them if they agree. You don’t wanna label something that someone might take issue with. But I had a conversation with a young man the other day, and he told me at the outset that he was in a moment of transformation. And then he went on to describe how utterly broken he felt that he didn’t know up from down and he was crying. And I’m like, I think you meant to say you’re in a moment of transition, but do you know what you said? You’re in a moment of transformation, And that is a prophecy. You just prophesied over your life, and God is gonna fulfill it. 

B:            Wow. 

A:           But you definitely want to, like, match the person’s energy … it’s a lot of honing those pastoral caregiving skills.  And there have been, you know, I continue to be surprised at the variety of things that come my way. I presume some days are better than others. There’s some days that probably feel really fulfilling and other days that are probably just hard. I suspect that not everyone is happy to see you and not everyone wants a blessing and not everyone passes you quietly and some people probably give you a piece of their mind. I … but maybe that’s not even the challenging thing. Like, what are the … how do you name the challenges? And then and then how do you work with them? What do you do in in those moments of real pushback or challenge? 

A:           Well, I don’t have pushback too frequently. I mean, I’ll get a lot of side eye or someone, like, moving to the other side end of the sidewalk or rolling their eyes at me. Like, that doesn’t get under my skin. Some of the challenge, it’s still there for all of us, is just trusting the Holy Spirit to help you show up for this person in the way they need it. Usually, no one is looking to engage in a debate. Right? If somebody has something nasty to say, they usually say it while they’re moving. And I’ll just say, “God bless you, sir.” You know, like that. 

B:            If someone is moved by this ministry, obviously, check out the book. The book lays this out in great detail, and it’s just really it’s a beautiful read Ask Me For a Blessing: You Know You Need One. But do you have some encouragement or tips in terms of getting started? 

A:           Well, I do, Brandon. It’s chapter seven of the book. 

B:            See how I teed that up? 

A:           Yeah. Well, chapter seven is all about, like, the practicalities of it. What–I mean, whether you want to get out on the street or whether you just want to be more comfortable praying for other people because, I mean, that’s really what it’s … what it’s all about. And I just had this sweet group of folks at a church in Connecticut, who are ready to go out on the street and do this. They have a big, what they call a prayer wall. It’s like a chalkboard sign, and you and you write, what you’re praying for, what you’re hoping for. And people in the community have been doing that, so now they want to add an element to it where, you know, on certain days of the week, at certain times, there is someone to offer healing prayer or however they end up describing it. And, you know, I talk about my book, and I have a little spiel that that goes along with it. But this was the first time anyone wanted to talk about chapter seven. And I was just thrilled.

               But the the point is that that that entire chapter is unofficially called Lessons from a Seminarian. Because so much of this, like, you don’t have to be ordained. Like, yes, to officially bless, as in, you know, bless and consecrate, those are priestly things to do. But you can reframe it, and nobody has to, like, feel excluded from this ministry because it is the ministry of the baptized. 

B:            Yeah. I mean, in this divided moment, in a moment of, I don’t know, stressful commuting on their way to work, in a moment of violence throughout the world, I was … just to be, to be alive today is hard and is overwhelming. And it seems to me, at its core, what you’re doing is you’re just loving people in public. 

A:           That’s what it is. 

B:            On the on the one hand, you know, you’re doing something, you know, really trusting and courageous. But on the other hand, it’s one of the simplest things that we as Christians can do. Isn’t it? 

A:           Yes. We’re building up one another in the body of Christ if we’re doing it with fellow Christians, but also as, you know, fellow humans in the family of God. Lord knows we need it. 

B:            Lord knows we need it. So, tell us a little bit about the parish for those who might wanna come either, check out the blessing on Tuesday morning after morning prayer or may wanna visit you on Sunday for Eucharist. What’s the church like? What’s the community like? 

A:           The community is a real hodgepodge, and I love it. There’s a lot of diversity and different respects, and I feel like it’s, you know, everyone rejoicing around the throne in Revelation. It’s … and I’m just so thankful to be able to raise my child here, if that says anything. It is a rite one-loving congregation for … as someone who loves a praise band, here I am. Oh, isn’t that fun. But, I think I’ve come to love that rite one Eucharistic prayer. So much beautiful language and theology there. And we also do morning prayer as our principal service a couple of times a month, so that’s distinct. And we have a beautiful … you know, you’re in New York. You’re gonna get some good singers, paid professional choir with the … all the Anglican bells and whistles. But, you know, we do we used Lift Every Voice and Sing. We have a jazz quartet every now and again, and we do have a contemplative, more contemporary service on Thursday nights. So that’s the worship. I mean any worship that’s done well is good. Right? And, I think we do a good job. 

B:            Well, Mother Dannhauser, thank you for this, for this ministry, and, we’re just so so thankful that you could spend some time. I hope you’ll take just a moment though to play what our recent guests have been playing, which is called Holy Cow. This is our game inspired by our mascot, Saint Luke, the winged ox, that proves to our listeners that luminaries such as yourself are fully human just like us. Here we go, Adrian. Your favorite snack? 

A:           My favorite snack, flaming hot Cheetos dipped in ranch dressing that’s mixed with Sriracha.

B:            Wow. I did not see that coming, the trifecta. 

A:           Yeah. I somehow try to put some celery in there too to make me feel less bad about it, but that that’s the one.

B:            That’s impressive. The weirdest thing in your refrigerator. 

A:           Probably some sauce from a takeout dinner. You would think that I was raised in the Great Depression because I can’t waste anything. 

B:            And so hopeful. Right? Like, you’ll definitely use that little container of, you know, sweet and sour. 

A:           Some marinade or … you know? But there’s probably a few of those with mold in the back. 

B:            I love it. Most random former job?

A:           The summer after my senior year of college, I was working at a Jimmy Buffett concert, and it was I was in this little booth, and it had to do with a taste test between Pepsi and Coke. And we had these little oyster crackers for people to cleanse their palate, okay, in between, and, like, a plastic spoon. And, you know, you’re … you just spoon up your oyster cracker, put it in your hand, and put it in your mouth, but so many people had been drinking heavily that they would put the spoon in their mouth. So I had to run and go get extra plastic spoons. 

B:            Oh my gosh. So far, you win the award. Adrian, for the most random former job.

A:           Holy cow, man.

B:            Holy cow!  Now are you a parrot head, or was this just sort of an occupational accident? 

A:           I was–I was getting paid to do it. I … I’m not I mean, God bless him. Love love Jimmy Buffett, but no, I’m not a parrot head. 

B:            Okay. Bad habit that you’re willing to share. 

A:           It used to be leaving dirty dishes in the sink, but I’ve cleaned up my act, there. However, my office is a disaster zone. Always has been, always will be. I try to do a quick cleanup before someone comes in, and I’m usually apologizing about how messy it is. But now I’ve learned to not apologize because that’s just … this is what it is. This is how I am. I can’t even claim a method to the madness. But at least it’s contained that it only affects me for the most part. 

B:            Love it. I love it. You heard it here. And finally, the smallest hill that you’ll die on. I love the use of the word y’all being from the South, and I try to avoid you guys because y’all is more gender-neutral. So score one for the South, in that category, which is rare. And, I just hope everybody will join me in that. 

B:            I love that this is your smallest hill because I’ll die on this hill too. And I have been converted as a lifelong northerner, grew up in here in Connecticut. I live ten minutes from my home. I have just fallen in love with the South over the last number of years as my daughter has ventured down for college in Tennessee. And, y’all is just a superior construction, and “you guys” needs to be retired. 

A:           Needs to go. 

B:            Needs to go. I agree. Well, I mean, I can’t think of anyone better to bless us. I mean, you have a resume 10 miles long for blessing. 

A:           Oh, sweet. 

B:            Would you bless us, the podcast, the listeners, and anything else that your blessing feels like touching at this moment? 

A:           Alright. Well, yes. For you, Brandon, for your listeners, for, this Leader’s Way podcast, blessing on your ministry in the name of power of Jesus Christ. May you be nourished and sustained and emboldened by his grace. May you be reminded that not everything depends on you and grateful for a little organized chaos, because a little chaos leaves room for the Holy Spirit. And may you always be blessed to do God’s will. Amen.

B:            Amen. 

A:           That blessing might have been more for me. I don’t know. I was just speaking to my– what I need to hear. 

B:            Oh, we all need it. Reverend Adrian Dannhauser. Ask her for a blessing. Thank you so very much for all you do. Thank you. 

H:           Thanks for listening to the Leaders Way podcast. You can learn more about this episode at berkleydivinity.yale.edu/podcast. Follow along with us on Instagram at theleaderswaypodcast. 

B:            And you can rate and review us on your podcast app and be sure to hit follow so you never miss an episode. And if you’d like this episode, please share it with a friend. 

H:           Until next time.

B:            Peace be with you.