[image from St. Paul's Akron website] I had sometimes thought of myself as one of God's unfunny jokes--let's gift this person for ministry, but put her in a church that didn't allow women to use those particular gifts. My final summer of library school, God sent another joke. Because my home church was fighting, considering yet anther split, I couldn't go watch. I'd had some disappointing things occur in the church I belonged to during the school year, too. So I checked the newspaper every week, looking for what I called the best show in town. Independence Day weekend featured the Akron Bagpipers at St. Paul's Episcopal Church. I thought that would be a hoot, and so I drove across town to be amused, but the joke was on me. I'd been told that mainline churches were "cold, dead, liberal," but no one told me about the music. The music director then at St. Paul's was the head of the Royal School of Church Music in America. Their men and boys choir was magnificent, the sermon was quite good, and someone came to welcome me. I walked out thinking, What else have they lied to me about? I went back every Sunday, newly in love with liturgy and taken by the courtesy of it all: "The Lord be with you." "And also with you." I went back to my job at the end of the summer, thinking this new love was like infatuation or the flu--I'd get over it. And God laughed.
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It turned out that Kent State offered the only American Library Association-approved Master’s in Library Science in the state, which was a gift to me. I lived with my mother and saved a ton of money.
The best time to be at Kent was after about 30,000 students left the campus and the town in May, so that we summer students could find parking. Kent is a pretty little town, with parks and a river, coffee shops and eateries. And a twelve-story library; on the third floor was the school of library science, where all our classes were. “You need to get the degree,” my boss said. “You won’t learn anything (a reference I thought to my experience, not to my mental capacity), but I need the piece of paper to promote you.” Since I’d left high school, I had been almost completely wrapped in a conservative Christian environment. No cigarette smoke, no drinking at lunch (or any other time), no profanity. I thought I would be okay, but I didn’t expect to make friends, which I did, beginning the first day. My fear of people has lessened with age, but at that point, I was still choosing end seats so that I would have a person only on one side of me. One less person to make conversation with, to share space. I chose a seat on the far side of the room by the window. (I wasn’t worried about getting out of the room, only about being bracketed with people I didn’t know and about not being able to see outside.) By the end of that first class in reference I had begun to make a friend, because we both agreed that there was such a thing as a stupid reference question. The professor did not think so, but we were somewhat experienced in libraryland, and we had heard some really silly and unnecessary questions. I didn’t wrap myself in my Christianity, but neither did I squelch that aspect of my life. I invited a new friend to church. One evening as we left class around sunset, the sky was simply gorgeous, and I asked a friend, “Doesn’t God do good work?” To which he responded, “Well, he certainly has a marvelous sense of color.” These people were fun, and they liked me. I knew I was liked back in my Christian world, but I thought that was because those people had to like me. My self-esteem was so low at that point that I didn’t see anything in me worth befriending. (Therapy, years later, helped.) Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash My new title in the college library was circulation supervisor; two adult women and four college students comprised my staff. We checked books in and out, reshelved them, handled interlibrary loans. My job included arranging schedules, and as students graduated, hiring and training new workers. One of my goals in returning to Ohio was to earn a master’s degree in English and teach at the college level. My alma mater had faculty without doctorates; I assumed as a graduate, I’d have no trouble finding a place among them. I also had no idea what that would mean in terms of salary, but I was not a prudent woman. To that end, I picked up a basic English Composition class, which I taught on my lunch hour. It did not go as I’d hoped, and my evaluations were not stellar. Even so, I was at the library circulation desk one day, poring over catalogs of universities with graduate programs. One of my favorite English department profs came by and asked what I was doing. (There was not a large turnover within the faculty and staff; many of the professors I had taken classes from seven years earlier were still there.) “All of these programs require a language,” I said. “I don’t know whether it would be better to work on my Greek or to go back to high school Spanish.” He grinned at me and said, “There’s no language requirement for library science,” and left. I walked into the library director’s office, smiling at the joke. “Hey, guess what Ron just said.” After I told him, he replied, “Get the degree, and in three years I’ll promote you to reference librarian.” I left his office crying, because suddenly I could get what I truly wanted: I could remain in this beautiful little village, among people I knew, and not have to teach. It seemed a sign of God’s providence that the only library school in Ohio was at Kent State, a mere fifteen miles from where my mother still lived. Granted summers off (without pay) to pursue my studies, I could live with her. Ten years after graduating from college, I was back in school. Photo by Jonathan Pielmayer on Unsplash When I moved to Ohio for my new library job—which, mercifully, was not centered on audiovisual equipment—I had freedom of choice for church once again. Not tied to a church-run school, I could choose any Baptist church I wanted! After a choice that didn’t ultimately work, I chose a bigger, more established church, with a pastor I’d known from my home church in Akron. The thing is, among some Baptists—and probably other denominations— adult Sunday School classes were segregated by marital status and age. There was the Young Marrieds class and whatever the next step was—Parents of Teenagers, maybe. But all the single people had a class together, which meant sometimes college kids came to our class, and some of us were in our thirties. It was impossible to age out of the class until one was a senior citizen; marriage was the only escape. We were “church leftovers,” as one happily married young man once described such a class, not meaning to be unkind, but hopelessly clueless. (This wasn't said in my church, but one I was visiting.) We met across the street from the church in the associate pastor’s home, which was cozy and offered treats. It was kind of the pastor (who taught the class) and his wife to open their home when there were no classrooms remaining in the church building—but it also separated us physically from the rest of the church folks for that hour. Singles class was both like and not like being in perpetual youth group. Sometimes other people in the church invited us over on a Saturday night to eat and play games or have a Bible study. Sometimes we went as a group to a local restaurant for snacks after Sunday evening services. Twice we went on mission trips, working with a couple who needed extra help to put on Vacation Bible School, trying to save the lost of Vermont. On very rare occasions, two people in the group became a couple. I know that some of those relationships ended badly. The mystery is why we stayed at all, but we were wired to be in church whenever the doors were open—even if those doors were across the street. |
Baptist GirlI was a conservative Baptist girl who grew up to become a career Christian, working first in a Baptist school and then in a Baptist college. For about three decades, it was very good until it wasn’t, and I had to leave. But the Baptists formed me. This is my homage to the good times and good people of the world I left, finally, at forty-three, when I became an Episcopalian. These are my memories; others might disagree with my recollections. So be it. Archives
January 2024
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