Yale Divinity School

Notes from 2007

Michael Baal ’82 M.Div. is in his seventeeth year as Pastor of St. Andrew’s United Church of Christ, Reading, PA.  When he was still a student at YDS, he said that some day he wanted to pursue graduate study in music and eventually teach on the college level.  In December 2006 he was granted the degree of Musical Arts in organ Performance from Shenandoah University, Winchestor, VA and has been an adjunct member of music faculty of Abright College in Reading for the past six years, and served as an adjunct music instructor at Penn State – Berks for Spring 2007.

You might remember Monica Bauer ’82 M.Div. for two things: her play produced off-off Broadway in her senior year, and the baby girl she and her husband Neil produced. Both have happy endings, and a long journey. After being ordained in the UCC, Monica served a rural church in her home state of Nebraska. A request from that state's Democratic Party led to her becoming the Democratic nominee for the US House of Representatives in 1984. That defeat led to her second career, as a political science professor, with degrees from the University of Nebraska. She taught at several universities, including the American University in Cairo, before returning to her first love, writing for the theater. In 2005, she graduated with an M.A. in playwriting from Boston University. Her plays have been performed everywhere from San Diego to Boston, and back off-off Broadway; and four have been published. Now, back near New Haven, she and her husband sing in the choir at Church of the Redeemer, where she is a Deacon. And their baby girl Joanna has started in the graduate program in Public Health at UNC Chapel Hill. Bauer can be reached at playwrightmeb@aol.com!

Ruth (Watt) Berger ’82 M.A.R. has just finished her first semester of a master’s program in Physician Assistant studies.  She served as a missionary for eight years in Costa Rica, before becoming ill and spending the next 12 years slowly improving.  She has raised two sons, David and Daniel, both of whom are at Gordon College.

Lyn Brakeman ’82 M.Div. has completed an unpublished memoir about her ordination process in CT, just after the church voted women “legal.”  The process took 11 years, but she celebrates being a priest for 20 years in 2008.  As she enters her seventh decade, she is finding caring for her health is taking a LOT more time than she’d scheduled.  Her grandchildren now number 9.

Gregory Boyd ’82 M.Div. has been invited to attend the first Open Theology & Science Seminar hosted by Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy, MA. Program organizers Karl Giberson, Clark Pinnock, and Thomas Jay Oord chose Boyd as one of only 14 participants because of his current and potential contributions to the emerging field of open theology and science. Boyd is currently the senior pastor of Woodland Hills Church in Maplewood, MN.

[Greg Boyd ’82 M.Div.]

Lyn Brakeman ’82 M.Div. writes that she is looking toward retirement. She serves as a Sunday Priest Associate at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Gloucester, MA, where her husband is the rector. She maintains a private practice in pastoral counseling and spiritual direction. Her two books, Spiritual Lemons: Biblical Women, Irreverent Laughter and Righteous Rage (1997) and The God Between Us: A Spirituality of Relationships (2004) are both in print and available from Augsburg Press.

Robert Cannon ’82 M.Div and Carol Rexroad Cannon ’82 M.Div. have been serving United Methodist Churches in South Carolina since graduation.  After the birth of their older daughter in 1985, they became the first clergy couple in the SAC Annual Conference to serve as co-pastors, sharing a single appointment in order to provide care for Sarah, as well as her sister Elizabeth, who was born in 1989.  They have continued in this form of co-pastoring and have felt greatly blessed by it over the past 21 years and five appointments.

Judy Chan ’82 M.Div. was inspired by the recent 25th reunion to study for another degree. She just completed the Master of Journalism degree at the University of Hong Kong.  She studied part-time while continuing her work as Executive Secretary for Communications at Hong Kong Christian Council under the appointment of the mission boards of the United Church of Christ/Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and Presbyterian Church USA. “Good journalism is really tough.  Sermons seem easy in comparison!” Her family remains happy living in China. They just celebrated the 10th anniversary of the 1997 handover. “The 2008 Summer Olympics will be in Beijing – look for me carrying the torch! (Just kidding)”

Susan Ericsson ’82 M.Div. became Senior Pastor of St. Luke Lutheran Church, Devon, PA, in June after completing 11 years as Assistant to the Bisho[p of the Southeastern PA Synod, ELCA.  She and husband Charles (Chase) Ferguson share two great sons/soccer stars, Amani (10) and Gabe (8).

Nellie Greene ’82 M.A.R. has been serving at Chestnut Hill United Methodist Church in Philadelphia since 1991, was ordained to the Permanent Deaconate of the Episcopal Church in 1993, and finds the most rewarding thing for her spiritually in a weekly Presbyterian Bible Study group she’s been a part of since 1983.  She writes, “Am I Episcopalian, Methodist, or Presbyterian? Go figure!”

Geoffrey Hoare ’82 S.T.M. is Rector of All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Atlanta , Georgia , having served previously in Raleigh , NC , and Alexandria, VA.  Geoffrey and the former Sage Smith were married married in June 2006.

Bob Molsberry ’82 M.Div. and his family have moved to Columbus, OH.  He was recently elected Conference Minister for the Ohio Conference, one of our largest conferences in the UCC, and the home of our national offices as well.  Ann is still enrolled at Eden Seminary in St. Louis, but taking her final classes now at a Methodist Seminary, MTSO, in Columbus.  She’ll graduate with her M.Div. this next May and will be seeking a call in a local congregation around here.  Their son Ames is in St. Louis and engaged to a lovely girl.  They’re both in the field of outdoor education.  Their daughter Kate is a senior at St. Olaf College. 

Paul Panaretos ‘82 M.Div. entered the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) after 12 years as a priest of the Archdiocese of Detroit.  As Paul put it, “My ordination was the happiest day of my life.  Professing my first vows as a Jesuit crowned the happiest day of my life.”  After the 2-year novitiate, Paul earned a Master in Pastoral Studies (Loyola University, Chicago).  He served as Retreat Director of Loyola of the Lakes Jesuit Retreat House, Green, Ohio.  He and Paul Stroble (at the University of Akron) were able to meet occasionally.  One day Paul and John Lentz met each other at St. Mary Roman Catholic Seminary as they arrived to here Fr. Richard Rohr.  Another Yale person is never far away!  After 10 years a Jesuit and five years as a Retreat Director, the Provincial of the Detroit Province (all of Michigan and Ohio, north of and excluding Cincinnati) asked Paul to make tertianship, the final phase of formation of Jesuits before being called to final vows and “full incorporation into the Society of Jesus,” in the Jesuit vocabulary.  While awaiting the invitation to final vows, Paul has begun service as Associate Pastor of Gesu Parish, near Cleveland, Ohio, starting June 2006.  “Returning to parish work is like riding a bicycle.  Some things abide always.”

Jay Sanderford ’82 M.Div. is leading a dynamic new church development in central Virginia after pasturing Presbyterian churches in Florida, Virginia and Maryland.  Jay’s family includes wife Beth, and administrator for University of Virginia Hospital; daughter Alyson, a senior at Hollins University; and son Drew,  U.Va. graduate who works in workforce housing in Sun Valley, Idaho.

William Shepherd’s ’82 M.Div. most recent publication is Without a Net: Preaching in the Paperless Pulpit (CSS Publications , 2004).  Bill reports that he hears from classmates Julie Galambush and Paul Stroble on occasion and gets to see Geoffery Hoard from time to time.  He also keeps track of Byran Whitfield (completing a dissertation in NT at Emory University) and former YDS Professor Luke Johnson, who is teaching at Emory.

Paul Stroble ’82 M.Div., who has been teaching at the University of Akron for six year , received an Excellence in Teaching aware from the graduation senior class in UA’s honors college in 2005.  His book You Gave Me a Wide Place: Holy Places of Our Lives was released by Upper Room Books in Novemeber; another book, What About Science and Religion? Will be appearing Spring 2008 from Abingdon Press.