76: Seminarian Takeover!

Host: Whitney Kimball Coe with Misty Krasawski and Jae Kirkland Rice

Learn more at the Berkeley at Yale website: https://berkeleydivinity.yale.edu/

Whitney:     Welcome to the Leaders Way podcast. I am your host today, along with two of my colleagues and fellow seminarians. My name’s Whitney Kimble Coe. And I’m here with Misty Krasawski and Jae Kirkland Rice. And we are sitting in for Brandon Nappi who has given us leave to just take over this podcast. 

Misty:             That’s scary. 

W:       We’re calling it the seminarian takeover.

M:        I like that. 

Brandon:    Welcome to the Leaders Way podcast, a show for people who are not ready to give up on the world. We convene sacred conversations with luminaries, scholars and spiritual leaders who explore the creative vision needed to lead change in our aching world. I’m Dr. Brandon Nappi, lecturer at Yale Divinity School and executive director of the office of transforming leaders at Berkeley Divinity School at Yale. I’m so glad you’re here.

W:       So this episode, we’re hoping to, I don’t know, kind of go behind the curtain around what we do at seminary, how we got here, how we feel about it, and maybe– 

M:        How did we get here? And how do we feel? 

Jae:    That’s the question.

W:       That’s a fact. And hopefully, speak to folks out there who are thinking about seminarian wondering, is this the place for you? Is this where you should be headed? And I’m just gonna say probably off the top of my head, yes, if you’re even listening to this, that’s true. 

M:        That’s true, yes. 

W:       You should really be considering seminary. But we thought it would be fun to go behind the curtain a little bit with some seminarians who know what’s going on. And what’s going on right now, Misty and Jae, is that it’s the end of the semester. Yeah. How are y’all feeling? How are we doing?

M:        I think we are all feeling pretty exhausted. I don’t wanna talk for anyone else, but it’s a lot. There are papers and presentations, and we all are kind of also giving sermons occasionally. And we also have families and parents and brothers and sisters we’re trying to keep up with. We are not unbusy people.

W:       Yeah. That’s so true. Jae how are you doing?

J:           I’m hanging in there. It does feel like I’m on one of those rodeo bulls, (Both Laughing) and I’m hanging on. I just gotta make it the eight seconds. I have to write it for a minute that I gotta hang on for eight seconds. So there’s a lot going on this week in particular as a big turn-in week. So lots of things are due, but I think once they’re in, then I can look forward to the break and just let the break be its own time. So I’m looking forward to that, just kind of breaking it into chunks so it’s not all coming at me at once.

M:        What about you, Whitney? 

W:       Well, I’m just always surprised at how intentional you really have to be to create those breaks. Even when Yale Divinity says, “Okay, now you have this reading break.” It’s up to you to treat it as such. That’s so true. And to make yourself slow down. The way I’d take care of myself usually is through movement and kind of like getting back into my body. So I’m doing a lot of hiking in between writing papers and sermons and doing the other work that I do on the side. Do y’all have strategies that you’re using right now to just sort of stay centered?

J:           Yeah, I think for me, going back to basics of, did I eat today? Did I drink water? Did I go outside? Having a dog helps with that because he’s got to go out in the morning, he’s got to go out in the evening. So I have those bookends that are not about me. It’s actually care for someone else that I think really helps. And I’m in one of those periods where as much as I love my classes, I don’t want to do the work.

So I’ve been breaking things into the Pomodoro style chunks of if I can work for 25 minutes, then I get a break. That’s been good. It ensures that the work gets done, but I also get up and move around and such. Yeah, but y’all. 

M:        I think I mentioned a couple of weeks ago on the podcast something about having a contemplative practice every morning no matter how busy I am. And that, the duration of that can vary really widely depending on what else I have to do. But I do find that even just taking a moment to read some scripture, to kind of be with myself and God as a person first thing in the morning is really helpful. It’s not fixing everything, but it’s helping.

W:       It strikes me how all the seminarians we talk to these days are feeling, I think, some sort of, some kind of overwhelm. And we can lean into the struggle bus around it. And also it’s good to remember that we chose to be here. Like, this is the result of a lot of thought, effort and discernment. And as I notice sometimes that as I walk the halls or sit down in the Berkeley Center, that I am overwhelmed with like gratitude for just the opportunity to be here. 

So on that note, I thought we might start our conversation off by thinking about, you know, like what brought us here? It’s never just one thing. And it often is the result of many years and many conversations and a lot of community work that we’ve done before we show up. So I don’t know, do either of you wanna launch in and give us a little bit of a story about what brought you to seminary? 

M:        It feels so funny to me because I wasn’t even in an officially Episcopal church. When I decided to come get an MDiv, I’d raised eight kids and was teaching them at home. Was pretty busy doing that and some other ministry things for many years before I was able to go back to school and started doing that part time. And so I think there just came a point where I said, I really would like to learn more–learning is my favorite. Learning is my favorite. Like smiling. And so deciding to get an MDiv was like, I think this is something I’ll just throw it out there and see what happens. Like, can I get accepted somewhere? So for me, it was such a funny situation because I made that decision mid-January. And what that meant was the seminaries I was thinking about had already passed their application dates. And Yale was not on my list. I hadn’t like thought of it as a place that I would go, but my daughter who had made me watch Gilmore Girls during the beginning of the pandemic kind of had put that on my radar. 

And so when I checked, there was still a week of application time left. I actually called YDS’s office and said, am I a crazy person for thinking about trying to pull together an application in a week? And they were like, no, sure, go for it. If you feel like you can do it. Thankfully, I had some work that I had done. So I didn’t have to do any like major writing of a writing sample or something, which would have been wild. But yeah, so a few weeks later, like here I was and this is what I was gonna be doing. So it was a big surprise to me, I would say. One that I’m really, really happy about. Honestly, that is really true. It’s good to remember that.

W:       Were there any Misty like questions you were holding that felt like seminary might be the answer to some of them or that this might be the place where you got to explore them? 

M:        Yeah, I think … gosh, it’s funny. I think I knew that this was the place I would need to be to do professional ministry. I put the scare quotes around that. And I knew I wanted to learn more about theology in general. So I didn’t necessarily walk in with specific questions other than like, what will this mean for me as a person? To be in ministry professionally, I wasn’t sure what that meant. So that was a question that I had.

W:       Also, because we didn’t do like formal introductions, I kind of, I forgot that we just kind of assumed that everyone out there knows you and perhaps Jae, like would you tell us just a little bit about your background too, Misty? 

M:        So I’m a third year MDiv student this year. And I, gosh, grew up in Nebraska, lived for a long time, well, for a few years in the Northeast after I graduated from high school, spent some time in Florida, again, like had my eight kids who are now … several of them are married, I have some grandchildren. So I was doing ministry to moms and some writing and things like that, you know, teaching Bible study at home and teaching children’s church and doing all those kinds of things before I came here.

W:       Yeah. Okay. So yeah, I mean, you’ve been thinking about ministry and doing ministry for a long time. 

M:        Pretty much forever. As a child, I used to gather the kids in my neighborhood during summer break and teach them Bible study. God only knows the level of heresy in those days that were happening in that little like park in Nebraska. But yeah, that always felt like something that I just love to do, love to talk about Jesus and the Bible since I was this big, yeah. 

W:       I’m glad we got that part of the story. That’s really good. Jae, what about you? Tell a little bit about yourself, would you? And then, yeah, and then maybe speak to the seminary bit. 

J:           Yeah, absolutely. So I’m Jay, second year MDiv at Berkeley this year. I’m originally from South Carolina, born and raised. So I grew up in Columbia, the heart of the state, college, big college town, you know, all of that. And I’m the first person in my family to be born in the city. So both of my, sides of my family are rural. So I had an urban experience growing up before coming to Yale in fall 2016. So I’ve been here a while. Wow, yeah. I was in Rhode Island. That’s why I did my undergrad in Rhode Island. And that’s where I entered the sermon process. And I became a postulant way back in spring 2016, which is when I graduated from Brown. So I’ve been a postulant unintentionally long.

And I came to Yale in 2016 to begin work on a PhD in comparative literature, which I’m still finishing. Yeah, you know, if there were folks out there applying who are in other graduate work and want to take a pause and then, you know, do the MDiv or do it concurrently, there are plenty of people doing that. So don’t let that stop you from applying. And I think for me, there was a sense of what work I’m doing in the classroom and that as pastoral and sort of guiding folks into how do we think critically about texts that we’re reading? How does what we read affect how we think and what we believe in the world actively?

And I had a sense of wanting to teach, not just in the classroom, but also in the pulpit. And the question was, well, I can’t do these programs at exactly the same time. So I have to decide what to do. And I was 21 at the time, I’m 31 now. And I think it was the right call for me to try and do most of the PhD first. I’m one of the people who got caught up trying to finish the dissertation in the pandemic. So that’s why I’m still completing it. And I realized, well, I owe it to myself to not leave this call sitting there on the shelf. And it feels like maybe the right thing to do now that I’m ABD is go to seminary, plug in, jump in, and then figure it out. So it didn’t feel like that was the right thing necessarily, but it felt like this is the thing that’s doable. And I will wait for God to kind of be here. 

M:        This is the next right step. 

J:           Yeah, exactly. Oh my goodness. Exactly. And I weirdly TA’d at the school before I became a student, but it helped me kind of choose to apply here. Because as you know, there are other Episcopal options. There are other non-Episcopal, but have an Anglican studies option. So I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay here in New Haven. But I think that experience of getting to try out the Div school and kind of see what the kind of social sphere was like, how do students treat each other? What kind of questions do they have? How is that different than teaching undergrads? That helped me choose to apply here and then to come here and spend what will be all, when all said and done a full decade here in New Haven. Wow. Yeah, so I think having that sense of myself as a teacher, and then being able to see that I could grow into an even better teacher, and then actually see myself as a priest here, brought me here, typically.

W:       What is the last class that you TA’d for? Do you remember? 

J:           Yes, so it was last fall. And I’m not teaching this year, which is the first time in five years I’ve been in class. It’s so weird. I constantly feel like I’m missing a meeting. Or like, oh no, what are these? I’m supposed to be leading section right now. Yes, exactly. I’m constantly like, oh no, did I not do office hours? I’m like, no, I don’t have to do that. Yes, last fall I was one of the TAs for a class that I was originally one of the TAs in the first run of it for. So it’s come full circle. But it’s a version of the Great Books program here at Yale that’s called the Six Pretty Good Programs. So there are six seminars.

First year students who are brand new to Yale pick one of those six seminars. They have their individual kind of literate discussions and seminar style things with one TA. And then on Fridays, they come together for a writing laboratory, which is everybody from all classes together just trying some mixtures of kind of creative nonfiction stuff, building blocks of a strong academic paperwork. And then they break off into small groups after that. So the one I was assigned to was called Six Pretty Good Kids. And we were thinking about children’s literature and the development of interpersonal character across text. So we started with—

M:        I wanna take that! 

J:           Yeah, hey, I’ll send you the syllabus. 

W:       Actually, I just wanna be in Jae’s section. 

M:        Right, right I do too. 

W:       I know you all both have teaching or instruction in your background in a lot of ways. And I think that’s part of why I gravitate towards you all on campus too is like, Misty will know, Jae will know, or they will at least ask me the questions that will help me to know what I need to be doing next. 

J:           Oh, yes. Yeah. Well, yeah. Whitney, what brought you here? Tell us about your experience. 

W:       So I’m a third year MDiv. I’m from East Tennessee. I’m 42 years old as of Thursday. 

J:           Hey, happy birthday. 

W:       Thank you. And I have two kids who are teenagers. They’re delightful most of the time.

J:           That’s super fun. 

M:        And then … I married Matt Coe. My husband is a special ed teacher here in New Haven. We figured out how to make it work, like how all of us could come and do this adventure. And my call became their call sort of, even if they wouldn’t necessarily characterize it that way, I feel like we’ve grown a lot closer through these last three years of being in New Haven and away from a place that we love deeply, but also it’s been really important for us to have this time in a different place and together. 

So I’ve spent the last almost 20 years doing nonprofit work with a group called the Center for Rural Strategies, where we’ve done … I’ve done everything from public policy advocacy to media and communications for rural people and places. And with the idea that if we tell truer, more complicated stories about rural people and places alongside rural people, then maybe public policy will become kinder and smarter and better serve all populations. So this is something that I’m still doing and I’m still really passionate about.  

But always in the back of my mind has been this notion of maybe I’m also called a ministry. I think a lot of folks in my family would say they’re not surprised that it’s finally led to this moment. My grandfather was a United Methodist minister, his father, or his grandfather before that, his father before that and his father before that. So it’s kind of like come from a family of people who are very involved in church and in leadership in church. And I also grew up having a really beautiful church experience. Like I was well loved by the people in the pews and I was formed in what felt like a very inclusive and safe environment.

In first the United Methodist church and then the Episcopal church, which I found in part because I was 17 years old and wanted to be with my friends, a lot of whom were at the Episcopal church. I also had a crush on somebody who was at the Episcopal church. 

You know, we do what we have to do. Just the next right thing. 

M:        The Lord leads us as we must be led.

W:       So, you know, my crush didn’t work out but the Episcopal church worked out. 

M:        And good thing for Matt Coe. 

W:       Yes, that’s right. I fell in love with the Episcopal church and Matt and the girls and I have been, you know, very involved in our home parish and then COVID hit and you know, as for many of us, it was like whiplash around what are we supposed to be doing with ourselves and in our communities. And it just felt like the time to recalibrate. And so I started the discernment process in the Episcopal church, which is different in every diocese, right? I mean, it’s got –the contours are kind of the same but the way it ultimately plays out in terms of timeline and what’s emphasized and what’s not. And I had a really beautiful experience. So if anybody is listening and they’re close to the diocese of East Tennessee, I recommend having conversations with people there. 

So now I’m a candidate for Holy orders and I’m set to be ordained to the transitional diaconate in January. 

M:        Oh my goodness, January. Wow, so exciting. 

W:       I know it’s all just… And so as I hear us talking about these things, it’s like a snowball in some ways, you know, you just keep, I feel like there’s actually no final, like, okay, if I just do this, then I’ve checked all the boxes and it’s done. It’s always just kind of like, okay, what’s the next right thing? Or what does, what feels like the next step? And then it kind of snowballs from there, you know? 

M:        I was surprised when I first got here by how many people in our program were walking in already with PhDs or they had been serving as teachers already for years and years and years, or they were lawyers or they were writers. Or they, I mean, people were doing things like you, where they were like running organizations, but this call can sometimes be very insistent, I guess, in different ways. And when it’s time to answer it, you just find a way. 

W:       Yeah, yeah. And I’ve noticed that the people we’ve come in with too, a lot of them are not in a process, right? They just come to Berkeley. 

M:        Oh yeah. That’s true too. 

W:       And, or to YDS and they kind of evolve and their call evolves. And then they, you know, by the time they graduate, they’re in a process or they’ve discerned themselves out of the episcopal process, which is not a bad thing at all. It’s just, you know, this is what we’re called to be doing. And Berkeley accommodates all of those things. 

J:           You kind of anticipated a question that I have, which is, you know, now that we’ve got classes under our belt, you know, I’m in the middle of my first internship. Y’all have done internships already. What stands out for you about your experience at Berkeley? Any surprises, any pieces of advice that you would give to people who are considering trying to discern whether there’s so many ways for them, any stories you have attached to that? 

W:       Well, I just want to say you referred to internships and that’s something that everyone at Yale is invited to do beginning after their first year at YDS. You can have an internship at a parish or in a nonprofit. And I think it’s a requirement of course for Berkeley, right, that you have one in a parish. I wanted to tell the story of like my first day at Berkeley and walking into St. Luke’s Chapel, which is the chapel that’s inside the Berkeley Center. And the Berkeley Center is located very close to campus, the main campus, but it’s the … kind of the heartbeat of our community, the Berkeley community. And we do morning prayer there, evening prayer, compline, community meals … a lot of gatherings happen there. So that’s where they brought us that first day and we worship together in St. Luke’s Chapel. And I had no idea what the hell was going on. Like I sat down and I was just wasn’t, you know– I kind of always thought that if you’ve attended one Episcopal church, you’ve attended, you know, most Episcopal churches, but that’s not the case. 

And I mean, that actually aligns with rural America too. If you’ve seen one rural community, you’ve seen that rural community. Not the other ones. No, and not the other one. So we sit down in St. Luke’s and I’m like, I’ve got the BCP and I noticed my hands are kind of shaking. Like everybody around me seems to know what’s going on and I’m just trying to follow. I’m used to the BCP, but there’s different customs and there are different ways of timing and gesture and when to stand, when to not, you know, what, what do, how does this community worship together? And so I realized then that I was stepping into something, and it was very humbling and very good ultimately to step into something that I just wasn’t fully familiar with. 

And now, you know, we go into St. Luke’s as third years and we’re … I feel like we don’t even need to pick up all the things that they hand us in order to participate without thinking so much, but that was my first experience of walking into Berkeley. And I guess I named that not to … it’s not about value judgment. It just is naming that we’re all coming from precious places, parishes that, you know, raised us and shaped us that we love. And we’re stepping into what is ultimately the pluralistic Episcopal community and we’re all gonna find our way. 

M:        I think I’ve been so touched by so many different like … tiny stories.  It was funny because we were sitting in the common room the other day and they … there were all these boxes in there and then they started putting up the Christmas tree. And my first year, I love Christmas. I’m a very big fan of Christmas. And my first year as we were putting on garland and ornaments and all the things—it started snowing outside. And I think I cried probably the chances are high that I cried because it was just so sweet. 

And I think lately it has, what’s been striking me is just off moments. I was sitting across from you in Marquand, which is the big chapel that’s part of YDS, the main campus itself. And your kids were with you and your husband, so sweet. I’m looking across and like, Jae’s there and Heather and all of the people, all of the people that I really like have learned to love so much. And I was just thinking, there’s only one more semester left. I did not know how much I would love all of these people and how much it already feels like it’s gonna be such a loss to not be with you all, all the time. Yeah, so that’s been a beautiful surprise and is an anticipated sadness now, which is interesting. 

W:       Yeah, yeah. I’ve been having a lot of those moments too. This is the last time we’re celebrating All Saints together. This is the last time… Right, exactly. Those sorts of things. What about you, Jay? What’s something you would bring up? 

J:           I guess I’ve got two miniature stories. I remember my first community dinner and I’m a kind of quieter human. So I like to kind of observe what’s going on and then I will volunteer you details about myself. But I remember just being invited to sit with folks who have now graduated, but I didn’t know particularly well. And I think recognizing that that’s the gesture of invitation, that’s what it means to be communities that you can recognize, this person has no one to sit with and is looking for a place to just be. How can we be safe for this person to land? Because I think there’s a sense too, even though I’ve been in New Haven for a long time, I haven’t been at Berkeley, I hadn’t been at YDS. I still needed to learn all of everybody’s names. What is it like? How does it feel in my body to get up every morning and make it to daily morning prayer at 7:30? And I think that kind of rhythm of, oh, people are here in it with me and they wanna know who I am. That kind of community dinner where we’re just eating, we can laugh. I like that community dinner, you hear laughter in all the different rooms where people are sitting down at their food after our big principal Eucharist every week. 

So I think that that kind of move from reverence into like revelry maybe is really neat to think about as the kind of midpoint of the week. The other thing I would say is that with spiritual direction here, which is the first time I’ve been back in it in this kind of 10 year postulancy period, I think I’ve been learning how to let God surprise me. I’m a big planner. And as we know, God sometimes looks at our plans and says, “No, thanks. I have a better plan.” But you don’t see all the details of that.

So I think I’ve been learning a lot more about my own spirituality with that kind of questioning at the individual level and then talking to everybody in the community who’s doing their own direction and thinking about, well, discerning, yes, great discernment. Discerning, no, also great discernment. And there’s a lot of places for play and just sitting with the question and not rushing out of feeling uncomfortable in a positive way. And so I think that kind of play space, that’s also, how do I sit with this question? That is a big surprise for me, of actually loving the question and not just what’s my answer from it. 

W:       And you mentioned spiritual direction. And folks who are listening, you can look all this up on the website, but it might be helpful for you to hear it from us that spiritual formation, spiritual direction is an important part of the Berkeley life and YDS as well. But at Berkeley, and I … Do YDS kids?—Kids!

J:           I mean, yeah, we’re all children of God. (All Laughing) 

W:       Do—we all have access through the Annand program to spiritual directors. And right now they’re doing the spiritual exercises, the Ignatian spiritual exercises too. All of these things are free and encouraged and it’s available for free. 

M:        And that really is an amazing thing because I had wanted to do the exercises for years and had not been able to afford it, to be honest. So the fact it’s free here, it is not free otherwise. And so it is really a fantastic benefit that we have being part of YDS to have that opportunity.

W:       If you come in with an entrepreneurial spirit and there’s something you want to do that is not necessarily listed or being offered, there are folks you can talk to about that, to shape something that’s the right fit for you. Are there any other offerings or even requirements that we are asked into that it would be good to name? 

M:        Yeah, I was just thinking about our ministry teams at Berkeley. 

W:       Oh, yeah– chapel ministry, and hospitality!

M:        So we have ministry teams both of taking part in the ministry service of being a lector, being an intercessor, being an efficient for morning prayer and evening prayer services at Berkeley, which is wonderful, as well as the ministry of hospitality, which we really look at it that way; in which people care for coffee hour in the morning and for our Wednesday night meals together. And that was something I had no idea of, of course, but really drew me in, I think, right away to feeling like part of the community because I was taking part in serving people– and often in ways that felt like a push, I think, especially in the ministry areas, because I have poured coffee before, but I had not led a morning prayer service. And so that was such a gift to have the chance to do that and to learn how to be an usher or be a sacristan or whatever it is. Those are really great things that are requirements, but also, I think, blessed requirements.

W:       I had not ever served on an altar guild before I came here. So I didn’t know exactly what sacristan meant or how we handle the elements. And I followed Jae around one evening. And Jae, again, is one of the best teachers. 

J:           Oh, thank you. 

W:       And just so– Kind, and there was no question that was, or at least you never suggested that any question I asked was silly or out of left field. So that’s another thing that’s worth noting, I feel like, is that we’re learning from professors and from the deans and from the people with the degrees already, but really we’re learning from each other too. 

M:        I think that’s really true. 

W:       Side by side. Through these ministry teams and also in class. 

J:           Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I really appreciate this. Thanks, y’all. Someone referred to the chapel ministry and the hospitality ministry team as peer TAs, which I think is pretty accurate. I kind of had the opposite experience with the sacristry stuff. So I’m an old school sacristy rat of–just tell me all the stuff. How do we make this happen? But even as a chapel minister this year, I’ve learned a lot from the teams, especially in that kind of spirit of play. And Dean McGowan always says that St. Luke’s Chapel is a laboratory. And I think that’s really true of just trying something. And I think sometimes when we think about how do we plan a service? How does it flow together? How do we want it to feel accessible to folks, even if this is your 50th time in chapel? How can we create, not in the sense of curation, how can we create a space for you to encounter God in a different way? 

And I’ve learned so much, especially from our first year students who are also brand new. So they’re where we were and they’re putting it all together. And now with the revised curriculum, they’re having experiences that we haven’t quite had. So there’s that aspect of newness too, and they’re putting it all together. But I love how much care can come out of this, for them, randomly assigned group, but for me it’s the role of chapel minister is, trying to be very careful about how many first years are on this team, how could they work together? What could be fresh for the third year on this team? 

So yeah, we’re kind of thinking at various levels about how to be together as a community in that space. And then how, when we’re leading worship, or it’s our time to be the usher, how do you create community in that one role for this one time? And what did you learn from that? Because I think it gets us to the kind of nuts and bolts of what does it feel like to be in church together? Even if we are the people who were administering sacraments for the rest of our lives, you can learn something from being the person who’s had to be at the door. So I think it kind of reminds us that all of the service is sanctified, it’s not just the sacramental part. 

W:       That’s so true. 

M:        So good. Yeah, that is what I’m learning in this kind of active student teaching role this year. 

W:       If you’re listening out there, and this is making your heart sing just a little bit, to think about all these pieces, there is still time. You should apply to seminary.

M:        Yes, please apply. That’s really good. I wonder if we might think a little bit about how, when you’re looking back over the last two and a half, it almost has years of being here at seminary, how would you say the experience of being here and with these people and in these classes and all of that has changed you, has challenged you, maybe clarified something about your calling, what stands out when those ideas are kind of presented?

W:       I didn’t really think about much or connect much with the Holy Spirit so much before I was here. I don’t think I ever really thought about how the Holy Spirit is working in me and around me and in the people around me and how all of that is an invitation to acknowledge, to say yes to, or to take risk around, or you know, like that there’s something, it’s almost like saying there’s something in the water or there’s something, there’s some force that’s moving among us that it’s not just my will be done or it’s not just the control that I’m exerting or the way I’m planning my schedule or the way I’m making sure that I show up at this time and do these things and check these boxes. There’s something much larger at work than just me. 

And that is so humbling and such a profound learning that I’m trying to hang on to and be aware of. And it’s sort of like a thank God I’m not in control of all these things. And there’s no way I could have worked it for it to be what it is right now alone. I will also say that again, going back to being a 42 year old professional, somebody who’s come from a different pace of life, different aims and goals in some ways, and making this move here to New Haven with my family, I have new found knowledge in my ability to be courageous and take risks that I didn’t realize I could do something like that. I remember looking at Matt Coe three years ago and saying, “I think Yale is where I wanna go.” And he said, “Great, Yale yeah, let’s go!” (Laughing)

M:        I’m gonna say that now.

W:       So we did it. We climbed in the car at like 5:30 a.m. one morning, pulled out of my parents driveway and we were all weeping, except I wasn’t weeping because I knew I couldn’t because it sort of felt like this was my fault that we were all feeling sad. Everyone else was crying. But then we pulled out and started the trip up to New England. And I did eventually let myself cry and all of that. But my family rallied around me when I arrived here, the deans, Berkeley, all these entities were here to receive us. So we can do scary things. 

M:        That’s good. What about you. Jae? 

J:           Yeah, I think … it’s a middler year. I have one sibling, but she’s my twin. So I don’t know really what it’s like to have kind of ordered birth order experience. But I imagine that this is how it works. So tell me if this is off-base, but middle children have a particular experience. And I feel like middlers in the three-year cycle that we have. 

W:       That’s right. You’re a middler. We’re seniors. 

J:           Yes. That second year of seminary is different. It’s a different animal. And in some ways it feels more comfortable in different types of classes. Like I know what my seminar persona is. The familiarity. Yeah. So it feels like you have some YDS things that are under your belt. And then the rug kind of gets pulled out from underneath you because when you’re in the internship, everybody is in different places. Some folks are in New York, some folks are in Rhode Island or other joining states, Massachusetts even. So you’re not seeing each other as a class when you had spent this whole first year kind of really getting to know each other. And that can be hard. And I think what I am experiencing is that kind of challenge of doing some personal growth alongside the spirit moving. In my life and then realizing that some of that has to happen on my own. That a lot of my friends can’t really accompany me into it. They can accompany me alongside it, but that’s not the same thing. And so I think I’m experiencing some healthy destabilization this year in the internship especially, because I wanted to do it in a different kind of liturgical style than I’m used to.

This is a place in Stanford that used to be a teaching parish in its history, but recently in the past 20, 30 years they haven’t been able to do that. And so it is nice to go somewhere where they haven’t had a seminarian for a while. So they’re trying to learn that relationship too. And I think it’s helped me feel like, oh yeah, maybe part of my call is this, of trying to imagine formation or re-imagine formation in places where either folks have been hurt in a ministry context or the kind of … cities changing around and you’re trying to figure out how you fit into it. Or there’s a community that has nowhere to worship.

We’re even re-imagining a worship space that exists but has no congregation yet, who could be here? So I think that kind of visionary work that’s formation work is where I feel pulled right now. That’s also the challenge of the second year is how do you manage the time? Which you know, there’s classes and you know, traveling, if you’re traveling for the internship. But I think of it as a kind of good stretch. I’m being kind of pulled into the next thing for me and not pulled out of joint necessarily.

M:        Wow, I like that word, although I don’t like the word–destabilization. 

W:       But healthy. 

M:        Yes, yes. Don’t like the feeling of it. But it is an accurate word, I think, for this. And I’m gonna pull out something that Ed Watson said which should not be a surprise to anyone because we all love Ed. But he’s one of our teachers this year for Anglican Way. And he said early on, and I don’t know if it was within our first like few weeks here, but he said, “You do not need to know everything.” And that was like shocking to me. That sounds really stupid, I think now. But he said, “You’re not at seminary to tell everyone how much you know or to prove that you know all the things. You’re here to learn and to talk about what you don’t know yet and what you think about what you do know and then learn some more things.” And that was so incredibly helpful for me. 

And I realized that that’s not just about seminary, that that’s actually about all of it and especially any kind of walk with God, a walk with a congregation, a walk as a spiritual person who lives with scripture and sacred texts–that we do not need to come to God or anyone else with the idea that here’s all the things I know, I know it all because it’s just not even all knowable. And I think that is such a … it feels destabilizing at first, and then it feels so similar to what you’re saying. Then it feels like this freedom. I don’t have to know everything, I can’t know everything. And that’s part of the fun of it all. And I think that has been a really big, just a shift in the way I see pretty much everything in the whole world that has been really wonderful from this experience. 

W:       Yeah, yeah, that’s really important. And especially thinking about, if you’re thinking about applying to a place like Yale, which comes with an assumed, perhaps folks assume that in order to be at Yale or get into Yale, you need to know a lot of, you need to have accumulated some knowledge. 

M:        I wanna say a Nacho Libre line and I’m just not going to. (All Laughing)

B:         If you’re enjoying the Leaders Way podcast, you might like to join us in person as a Leaders Way Fellow. The Leaders Way at Yale is a certificate program exploring spiritual innovation for faith leaders. The Leaders Way at Yale combines the best of divinity school, retreat and pilgrimage. Fellows meet in person at Yale for a week over the summer, then continue their learnings and mentor groups online. You can also take an online course or workshop with us here at Yale. Our learning space for faith leaders is hopeful, practical and imaginative. Learn more on our website at berkeleydivinity.yale.edu. Clergy and leaders from every country, denomination and seminary background are warmly welcome to join us for all of our programs. Now, back to the show. 

W:       I wonder if there are any tips you all have or advice you might like to share, things that maybe you think you know, or just ideas you have for someone who’s thinking about applying to Yale, like what would you say about this application process or about as you put your packet together? What’s something that folks ought to consider about any piece of it? 

M:        I think that you, again, and with this idea of, you know, feeling like you have to prove that you know everything, I think that to write your application essays as an honest person and not as a persona is good advice because the people that are looking at them are trying to create, they’re wanting this to be a diverse community with people coming from a lot of different perspectives that know that they don’t know everything. And so I think to be really honest is the advice that I would give. 

W:       I think that’s really good. All right, Jae, can you think of anything? 

J:           Yeah, I guess I would say two kind of related things. One is to pray before you sit down to work on it. Yeah. 

W:       Oh yeah, prayer.

J:           (Both Laughing) Oh yes, remember that. Yeah, I think in a lot of ways that was the big lesson for me so far of seminaries. Like it really matters. Prayer really matters even if you don’t have, you know, the full 30, 40 minutes to do morning prayer. I think a lot about Teresa of Avila and her idea of aspirations, which I … you know, it’s a great word because well, I aspired to pray for longer and I got five minutes. What can I do? And then it’s also something that you breathe out to God. So it can be, you know, a sentence or two because I get trapped into that. I’m like, oh, I don’t have enough time. But actually, I do. I just need to think about the time differently. So good. And so yeah, I think when I sit and pray and work on something, I work on it differently because I’m treating the time differently. So I think like forcing oneself to slow down, but also– God is in this application process too. And not just when I get there. And so I would say that. 

The other one is writing in such a way that it sounds like you. Yeah, I’ve run into this a lot in my own teaching, but I think it’s really palpable reading it. When you can hear somebody’s voice in the writing. And I think knowing what you sound like and producing writing that sounds like yourself, kind of gets back to your honesty piece of, Who am I? What do I want people to know? And what I want them to be able to see from what I sound like on the page. 

W:       That’s great. 

M:        That’s great. What about you, Whitney? 

W:       Well, I’m not gonna be able to top prayer. I think prayer is really good. (Laughing) I’m just not too wrapped right there. (Laughing) I love how Dean Peterson always talks about being prayed up. Are you prayed up? Let’s get prayed up. Yeah, I think that’s a really good one. 

Maybe I’ll add, don’t be afraid to ask questions of the admissions people, of reach out to Dean McGowan, reach out to Dean Peiterson as you’re putting together your application if you have questions. Or if you just wanna chat about the, just the prospect of what this all means and the questions you’re holding. And in fact, I think they really enjoy, we all really enjoy those conversations. Like we’re enjoying this one right now. 

So, okay. I like that. And we always do this at the end of, every podcast episode of “The Leader’s Way.” And I thought it’d be really fun to do a seminarian version of the Holy Cow, which is our five rapid fire questions where you don’t need to think deeply, you don’t have to have a huge explanation. But it also just kind of reminds everyone that we’re just people too, with our opinions and the things that we care about!

(Laughing)

I’m gonna start with Jae. And then we’ll go around the circle of this first one. So Jae, what is a seminarian must-have item? 

J:           For me, I would say it’s a container to put your favorite caffeinated beverage in. 

W:       Oh, that’s really good, Jae. 

J:           This is more caffeine than I’ve drank in my entire life. (Laughing) Sometimes we need it. And you know, I believe in coffee hour as a ministry. And so I like having just a conversation starter. I’ve been bad about it in this past week, but it also ensures that I am not using more water than I want for a coffee hour. But I think just having that mug with me reminds me to stick around and commune with people. So if I bring it with me and like, oh, you brought the thing for the specific purpose of coffee hour, don’t run off. You have time to talk to people. So I think anything that you can put your favorite hot beverage, caffeinated or otherwise, I want to include non-caffeine humans, because they exist. But yeah, something that reminds you, Oh yeah, my real job, aside from classes, to be here and be in community. 

W:       Oh, I love that. I have a pin on my backpack that says linger. And it just reminds you to linger. Yeah, so that’s mine. Good. What about you, Misty?

M:        I must have these pens. They’re Pilot G2, so they’re a gel pen in blue. And they’re bold, not the thin ink. For some reason, having the pens, 

W:       Is it a .7?

M:        No, it’s one.

W:       Oh, it’s one. Okay, 

M:        So not 0.7, it’s one. Yeah, so these are … I have to order them from Amazon, because sometimes I can’t find them. And I just, I don’t know, having something that writes well and my favorite color and pretty notebooks just makes every day better for me. So that seems so silly, but it’s one of my must-haves.

W:       I love how we’re staying on the school supplies theme. Really, it’s still fun to shop for school supplies when you come to seminary, that’s good. For me, having a coat or something, a layer, because honestly, sometimes you wanna curl up in the library or it’s cold in one of the classrooms. Or yeah, it’s sort of like a security thing for me too. Have a layer, have an extra layer wherever you go. Also, it’s New England, so just wait a minute and then the temperature will change. 

J:           What’s a seminarian bad habit that you’re willing to share? Little thorny one here. 

M:        I’m still trying to do everything.

W:       You mean like all the readings and all that? 

M:        I’m trying, I’m failing, but I am trying. (Laughing) And I’m just, yeah, I think that like it can be a bad habit to try to do everything and also to say yes to every side thing that comes up, right? Because I just want to be able to like help or participate in things. And so I am getting better at the end of the semester at just people are saying stuff to me now, I’m like, nope, no, no, before I even know what they’re asking me. Just now starting to try to break that habit of saying yes to it all. 

W:       On the opposite end of the spectrum, I noticed that when I’m feeling particularly overwhelmed or I don’t know, just lost, I tend to become dormant or go into myself and I don’t express that to … there’s a plethora of folks here on campus who can help you. You just have to sometimes raise your hand and say, you need some help. So something else that it might be good for our listeners to know is the health services here that are provided also include counseling. So just basic care that you would receive as a Yale student is a counselor.

So I need to …  a habit I need to break is forgetting to ask for help. 

M:        Oh yeah. 

J:           Yeah, I would say mine is kind of in between these two. Both of like trying to do too much and asking for help or not asking for help when I need it. And I would say it’s not checking in with myself about my own prayer life. Wow. 

So I go to morning prayer every day, hit the benchmarks and communally, but I think there are times when I feel a pull and I’m like, well, I don’t really have time for that. Actually, this time would be better used serving someone else. And I forget that I need care. So even if it’s just a kind of five minutes of silence at the end of lunch, I think protecting little pockets of time it’s like, no, no, don’t worry about anybody else for five seconds and that doesn’t suddenly become selfish. It’s just about self-concern. So I think I’m still learning that boundary between what is selfish and then what is self-concerned.

M:        Okay, what’s your favorite spot Whitney to read or to study or to work on a paper or whatever? Like what’s your favorite spot in general doesn’t have to be at YDS or I guess. 

W:       I bounce around reading, writing and arithmetic and all the things, you know, I just, I don’t have one single spot. Okay. But if we’re gonna talk about prayer, man, like my prayer life has become more robust as I’ve been here because we live near or we’re going to school near East Rock and I’m an outdoor person and just love nature. And I’m able to hike East Rock almost every day. And even if I don’t really have the time to do it, I do it anyway. Sort of like, what is it the Dean McGowan says about bread? Somebody asked him like, how do you have time to make bread? And he’s like, Well, I don’t really, but if I don’t make bread, I still don’t have time and then I don’t have any bread.

(Laughing) And that’s how I feel about my hike up East Rock is like, I don’t really have the time, but I need to do it. And that’s where I check in with myself. I have a little spot on the trail where I cry a little bit sometimes and then just leave it there. If you see me doing that, it’s I’m okay. And it’s happening in a good place. So that’s my favorite. 

M:        I like that. What about you? Any favorite spots?

J:           Yeah, Totally, I was like, I don’t know if I want to give away … One of my favorite spots. Yeah, I’ll give one of my favorite spots. I do different activities in different places. Okay. So I can read only in like very quiet places, because it’s hard for me to concentrate on the words. just looking at words, if there’s too much noise around. So I read in … actually I’m a really big fan of the East Asia Library in Sterling. 

W:       Oh, Sterling, yes. 

J:           So if you go into Sterling and you go to the elevator, scan your ID, there’s a little map that tells you where the different reading rooms are. Yeah, East Asia reading room is on the third floor. It’s not usually packed during the midday. In the evenings it is, in the mornings it is. But it’s really nice because there’s screened natural light coming in. So it’s not super bright, but it’s bright enough where you don’t really need to turn on a lot of lights during the day. So it’s kind of really nice reading condition. So I like to read there.

I write usually in a just empty classroom in the evenings at YDS. There’s a plug? This light, if I want to use a chalkboard to write something out, I do that. And I like to study in coffee shops. So the caffeine is there, snacks are there. You might see friends. Sometimes you run into a student and it’s okay. So I think studying in places where I see people reading in places where it’s a little quieter and then writing in a place where I have space to kind of storyboard a little bit. 

M:        Yeah, that’s so smart. 

I like to study at home honestly, and I do a lot of my reading and study time partially just out of practicality, I guess, because that’s when I have time. But I do love the Trowbridge reading room area. I love those comfy chairs that are around the fireplace. I love to sit there in that room. 

W:       The light in that room is really beautiful.

M:        It’s very bright and you’re surrounded by all the books. It makes you feel smarter. So that’s always good. I also love the entryway that’s like the nave or narthex at Sterling, I think is just so beautiful. So those, there are like little areas off to each side where there are again, comfy chairs. And so sometimes I will kind of grab all of my stuff and drive down or walk down or whatever and spend a few hours in that area to do some writing. And I really enjoy that. 

W:       All right, two more questions. What’s something particularly special to you all about Berkeley? 

M:        I’m gonna say that I love morning prayer. I just do. And even though I sometimes will not go, if it’s freezing and I have things to do or I slept or I didn’t sleep all night, that has happened to me more often than usual this year. But I love it that the idea that we can come and be together and spend time in prayer and that the first thing you can do can be to share in the Eucharist, just it still will bring me to tears very often. And I will really miss that a lot. 

W:       I love so many things about Berkeley and people like individuals and the community. But I’ll just name one thing that came to mind that just makes me giggle every time I think about it is Rev. Dr. Teresa Morgan is a professor here and she preaches once a week in morning prayer. And I just love it when she gets up to preach and she pulls her sermon out of her pocket and opens it up on the pulpit. And it’s usually just like one page and it’s always a really profound message that she’s bringing. But just her little walk up to the podium and then whipping out that piece of paper and putting it down is really dear to me.

J:           Yeah, I think St. Luke’s itself is my favorite thing about Berkeley, but I especially love singing together. And this year we’re singing more than we ever have. So we sing on Monday evensong, so it’s sung even prayer. You can always add a hymn to any service, which is really cool. But we do have sung morning prayer Wednesday/Friday, and so I think just learning to listen to each other, helping each other learn to chant and then just that experience too of watching folks forget the fear a little bit and just do it has been really cool. So I think it’s both communal and individually empowering for folks to sing together. And there’s that old school ancient saying of, The person who sings prays twice, which I do believe. 

W:       Oh, I believe in that too. 

M:        So good. Yeah.

W:       Last question. What is one of your favorite classes at YDS? 

M:        Ideas of Salvation with Professor Teresa Morgan, who is just fantastic.

W:       Yeah. Absolutely. So you’re in it right now, right? 

M:        Such a good class. No. Last year. 

W:       Okay. Okay. Yeah. That’s a great one. 

J:           Ooh, this is so hard. 

M:        It’s so hard.

W:       It’s so hard. It doesn’t have to be the, I mean, yeah. Just one of them. What’s a favorite class? 

J:           Totally. I would say last fall, so my first semester here, I took a Greek Exegesis seminar with Professor Nasrallah on 1 Corinthians. And as a former Baptist, it comes up a lot. Both when you’re kind of praying extemporaneously and look, it’s a commonly preached on text. And we were just kind of digging into how hard is this to translate? The answer is very at times. Wow. And thinking about like, well, what is the text actually saying? And then how are we using it? And thinking too about what’s the social world that this text comes out of. 

So I think it made Paul come alive in a real sense of, no, no, sometimes this is Paul trying to run a first century church. And then it also has real moments of beauty where we’re sitting with the mystery of God. And isn’t that church, you know, to go from people management to God as mystery, let’s figure some of it out and leave the rest to God in one letter. 

W:       Oh, that’s good, yeah. Yeah, that’s great. Gosh, you know, I’m in foundations of Islam right now, which is really fantastic. But I wanted to name too that you can also take classes that are not REL, you know, necessarily. And I took Chris Wiman’s creative nonfiction writing class that I think the spring semester of my second year. And it was set at a really unattractive time. It was like Friday from like three to five. And I don’t know if he does that on purpose, I should ask him. 

M:        I think he may.

W:       But you know, so the people who were at the table really wanted to be there. And the things we read and the writing we did was really important, felt really important. So yeah, that was it. 

Okay, we’ve gone over our time. We’ve had … this is not …  

M;        That’s unbelievable. I didn’t think we would do that. 

W:       This is exactly what seminarians do because we’re so into what we’re up to. 

M:        We just love it all. And each other, so we just have a lot to say. 

W:       It’s so much. Yeah. Well, I really appreciate Brandon Nappi for giving us the time. 

J and M:       Thank you Brandon. 

W:       And the Leaders Way podcast for being available to us. And I hope it’s been a good listening experience for all of you out there and Misty and Jae, it’s so good to sit together. 

J and M:       Thank you. 

M:        Good to be with you too. 

W:       And going through this together.

All right, thanks everyone.

B:         Thank you for joining us today on the Leaders Way podcast. A show for people who are not ready to give up on the world. We hope you found the episode expansive and nourishing. If you enjoyed the episode, please be sure to subscribe, rate and review the podcast on your favorite platform. Your support helps us to continue bringing you sacred conversations with luminaries, scholars and spiritual leaders who are dedicated to transforming our world. For more information about our guests and to catch up on past episodes, visit our website at berkeleydivinity.yale.edu. Follow the show on Instagram at theleadersway.podcast to stay updated on future episodes and events. Until next time, I’m Dr. Brandon Nappi, walking with you as you lead with courage, wisdom and compassion.