Guest commentary by Amy Cerniglia
“Does anybody have safety pins?”
While driving to campus, a classmate noticed an unraveling thread on my dress and encouraged me to reach out to the rest of our class. With the help of a group message application, my cohort of middle-year seminary classmates could easily communicate from anywhere. In fact, we had messaged one another for a year before ever meeting in person. There was just one problem with my classmate’s suggestion: if I sent a call for help, then everybody would know that I needed it.
On the one morning when I wanted to have everything together, my own clothes wouldn’t behave. In my efforts to pack lightly, I had other outfits that would have worked for an ordinary day of class, but not for leading a worship service. In the end, I swallowed my pride, and classmates immediately answered with the supplies. An hour before I provided liturgy and music in the chapel service at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary, another student carefully pinned the hem of my dress. A little teamwork helped me feel much more comfortable when I stood up in front of all my professors, seminary staff members and classmates.
At Dubuque Seminary, students enrolled in the distance learning program spend two weeks every August in intensive classes on campus in Iowa. Far from my home in Central Florida, I had never even seen the Midwest before, and quickly learned a couple of things. During a silent weekend retreat, I walked miles through a prairie for the first time in my life. I learned more about the diversity of God’s created world and that God could meet me even in a vast expanse. On the prairie, I felt God calling me to run, to explore, to be not afraid. Toward the end of the retreat, I also learned that Midwestern flora doesn’t agree with me.
Barely able to speak without coughing, I left the final prayer service of our weekend retreat a few minutes early. Several people checked on me and followed up hours later with text messages. Since I didn’t have a car, one classmate ran to Target not once, but twice for supplies to ease my allergies. Another waited to leave the retreat center until he heard that I had a ride. One staying in my Airbnb shared resources and over-the-counter medications, while another classmate with a background in nursing advised me on the best home remedies.
The world wouldn’t have ended if I had to live without Tylenol or wear a T-shirt to chapel instead of a pinned-up dress. But when tragedy struck, other classmates and my community reached out without hesitation and with great love. In my preaching class, many sermons addressed particular situations or issues that arose during our time together. Their prayers, along with those of my professors, lifted up our deepest concerns.
Before the residency, I worried about whether or not a sense of competition among classmates would cloud our time together. Hearing others express vulnerabilities and seeing generous responses helped me set aside my fears and ask for help. The safe environment allowed me to run, explore and be not afraid even when our studies dug into intense and difficult topics. In two tightly-packed weeks with my siblings in Christ, I related to the verse in Acts when no one needed anything because everyone shared what they had with one another. Leaving my home base for an unfamiliar place could have been painfully difficult. Instead, I felt God’s love in new ways — both in the gorgeous prairie and the chicken soup brought to me by a classmate I’d only known for a week.
Because my cohort began our seminary studies near the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we had not met in person until August 2021. Our professors encouraged support from a distance and again during our residency. In one chapel service, Matthew Schlimm, one of my professors, spoke of the solidarity that friends in ministry can provide, and I want to say “amen.” Throughout our two weeks in Dubuque, many of us missed spouses, children and the comfort of our own homes. Some parents in my class missed out on sending their kids to that important first day of the new school year. On top of heavy coursework, many classmates balanced health struggles and family crises. Ecclesiastes reminds us, “A cord of three strands is not easily broken.” We most often hear this passage referenced in wedding services, but a friendship in Christ is no less holy a tie that binds. During two weeks of study and growth, those ties held us together with everything from safety pins to heartfelt prayers.
AMY CERNIGLIA is the director of music and arts at Peace Presbyterian Church in Bradenton, Florida. She is also an inquirer for ordination pursuing a Master of Divinity at The University of Dubuque Theological Seminary.
