(Note to reader: this is the first of a new series, which I am calling simply “Life Stories” and will post these from time to time.)
Humbling moments, we all have them. Here is one (of many) that I remember.
In 1968 I was in my final year at Union Seminary in New York. I had struggled with theological issues and matters of faith for some time but had decided to stick it out at Union, lacking other better alternatives. Besides, by my last year at Union, I had managed to finagle a fieldwork assignment at the New York City Department of City Planning, and I was taking city planning courses at Columbia. My senior thesis was titled something like “Making Public Housing Human: Creative Playgrounds in New York City.” I still wonder why Union allowed me to get away with these activities. But, hey, it was the Sixties, and everything was up for grabs.
While I had struggled along the way at Union, I had not thrown in the towel yet and told myself to close things out I should take a least one more course in theology. I chose a seminar on contemporary theology taught by the famous theologian, Daniel Day Williams. Professor Williams was a kind and gentle person, who had written many books on theology and had a world-wide reputation. The seminar was open only to Union Seminary seniors and PhD students from various universities in New York City and very hard to get into. I still have no idea how I made the cut, but I did and realized the first day of class that I was in the Big Leagues. While it was labeled a seminar, there were probably around twenty people in the class, mostly graduate students from Columbia University and a Catholic institution of some sort. There were only a couple of other Union seniors besides me in the class and a lot of very enthusiastic PhD students. The atmosphere was electric, sitting at the foot of a theological icon, one of the few intellectual giants left at Union after the departures of Paul Tillich and Reinhold Neibhur. Everyone had to choose a theologian, write a paper on that person, and deliver a presentation of about 20 minutes about the person and his or her theology.
The first day Professor Williams passed around a paper with a list of famous theologians. I was one of the first to see the list as it was passed around and jumped on Paul Tillich, putting my name in the designated space. I could see others beside me frowning and sighing when they saw his name crossed out. I had hit the jackpot. Paul Tillich, probably the most famous living theologian in the world at the time, recently retired from Union and now teaching at Harvard, and I had lucked out in getting to write about him and his views.
Now Tillich was not new to me. In fact, in some ways he had already had a profound impact on my life. During my senior year at Davidson, Tillich had accepted an invitation to spend three days on campus and deliver a presentation each day in the school’s assembly hall. I attended all three lectures (which later became part of one of his books), sat in the front row of a jammed auditorium, took copious notes, and concluded he was the most profound thinker I had ever heard. That had happened four years earlier, and while I remembered the experience I could not remember exactly what he had said. This would be my chance to dig deeper and to come closer to the meaning of life. So I jumped in and got to work, reading several of his books and most of his opus magnum, Systematic Theology.
My presentation did not happen until week number four, which meant that I had three chances to listen to other students make their presentations. I had never seen anything at Union like the enthusiasm or engagement of my fellow classmates, with eager hands raised after each presentation, and thoughtful questions. During this preparation period I worked hard knowing that the pressure was on to reach the high standards set by the six or seven students who had made brilliant presentations before me.
There was only one problem. The more I read of Tillich’s writing, the less I understood. What he was known for was using terms like “ultimate concern” and “ground of being” to help make religion more relevant to the modern world. But the more I read, the more confused I became.
As the deadline approached, I started to panic, and the night before my presentation in desperation I called a PhD student at Union and a good friend and told him of my plight. He calmed me down, invited me to come to his apartment, and we began around eight in the evening to go over the main points of Tillich’s work. At six the next morning we were still working on it. My friend was extraordinarily patient and went over each concept as long as it took for me to understand it. I had never pulled an all-nighter before (or since), but by nine that morning I thought that I finally had Tillich figured out. I went back to the library and revised my paper and presentation, finishing by three in the afternoon, an hour before the seminar would begin.
I was the second of three presentations that day. The first was by a PhD student at Columbia about some obscure theologian I had never heard of, but whoever he was, he must have been profound because hands immediately went up around the room with questions, comments and replies. Just like the several presentations before hers, there was warm applause at the end and a smile on Professor William’s face.
Then it was my turn.
I walked to the front of the class, and bleary eyed, looked at the eager faces in the room, took a deep breath and launched into my twenty-minute presentation on the theology of Paul Tillich. When I finished, I smiled with satisfaction. I was so exhausted, I could not remember what I had said but felt a great sense of relief that I had managed to deliver my report and thanks to my friend, I had confidence I had nailed it.
There was complete silence. Professor Williams, with a puzzled look on his face and raised eyebrows, asked the class, “Any questions?”
There was not a single peep. Some people were looking down at their desks to avoid eye contact.
“Thank you, Mr. Howell, you can now go to your seat,” the kindly professor said trying to manage a smile. There was no applause like all the other students had received.
“Well,” I said to myself, “I have either knocked the ball out of the park or somehow have totally missed what Tillich was all about.”
No one spoke to me when the class adjourned and as other student presenters were being congratulated.
I suspected that it might have been the latter, but I did not have a chance to talk to anyone about the presentation and was afraid to talk to the revered professor, so I kept quiet for the remainder of the class and for the rest of the semester, sitting at the back of the room and speaking to no one. I told myself that I could have been so profound that no one had any questions or maybe I could have been so awful that people were speechless. Better just forget about the whole ordeal. So, I shrugged it off and stoically finished the course. I would know soon enough when the semester ended and when I would receive my grade. Who knows, maybe I had nailed it. The final grade would tell. I could have gotten an A+.
When the grades came in at the end of the semester, I held my breath and opened the envelope to discover a grade of C–, the lowest grade you could get at Union and equivalent to an F in most other graduate schools. There was not a single comment on the paper.
I had my answer, but by this time the semester was over, Union and Columbia were on strike due to one of the student protests in the Sixties, and in the fall I was headed to planning school in Chapel Hill. A just and proper ending for my three years of suffering through theological education (and occasional anguish) at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. And one of my life’s many humbling moments.