Sixteen months.
That’s how long ago I graduated from seminary.
I had to count twice, because it doesn’t seem possible that I left Union Presbyterian Seminary with two diplomas in hand not quite a year and a half ago. My seminary studies consumed four years of my life, so it still feels extraordinarily strange that they no longer do. (And yes, 16 months out is when I’ve just begun missing academia and learning.)
And yet… my life now feels so different than it did during seminary. I live in a new state where “Richmond” is presumed to refer to the place just outside of Lexington in Kentucky where I now live, rather than the city in which I previously lived in Virginia. (Thankfully, a good seminary friend and his family live not too far away, making this transition somewhat easier.) I serve a new church where my duties involve a lot more emails, phone calls, visits and meetings than reading, conjugating verbs, writing papers and taking tests. (Thankfully, there are still lots of books to read; regretfully, I have struggled to make the time.)
Now, when I reflect on my time in seminary, mostly what I feel is gratitude. I am grateful for the ways I learned how to exegete a text and prepare a sermon. I am grateful for the opportunities I had to assess curricula and plan lessons for all ages. I am grateful for the chances I had to sit at the feet of the venerable Katie Cannon, who did far more than her fair share of waking me up to my whiteness and privilege, all the while encouraging me as a young woman pursuing ministry.
But mostly, I am grateful for the relationships. Becoming friends and colleagues with my classmates taught me about empathy, solidarity and the importance of sharing joys and sorrows and everything in between. Developing relationships with my professors taught me about mentorship and the importance of lifelong learning. Getting to know the dear people of Tuckahoe Presbyterian Church – where I spent a year in worship, service, learning and fellowship as their intern – taught me what it’s like to love a congregation unconditionally, and what it’s like to be loved like that in return.
Of course, there are many things I did not learn in seminary. I feel most ill-equipped for the business of the church when it comes to budgets and personnel and stewardship and maintenance — and I’d even served on a session! But I find it a fairly useless endeavor to dwell on such yet-unlearned things. After all, God willing, I have many more years to learn more about the things I am unfamiliar with (and the things I don’t even yet know that I don’t know). My learning certainly didn’t end the day I graduated from seminary — thanks be to God.
Perhaps what I might go back and tell my first-year seminarian self if I had the chance today would be this: You will not learn everything you could possibly ever need or want to know before you become a pastor. And that is okay. God’s got you — as do all of the people who you came to know and love while in seminary. Thanks be to God.
LINDA KURTZ is associate pastor for Christian formation at First Presbyterian Church in Lexington, Kentucky. She is newly married to Daniel, a Methodist pastor. Linda enjoys being outside, reading for fun, and taking photos of anything but people.
