Yale Divinity School

Lynn Bodden ’86 M.Div. had two part-time interims and is looking for a new position. Her husband, Peter, has been dealing with hundreds of refugees from Myanmar, many of whom are Baptist, and a building renovation. Their younger son, Benjamin, finished his first year at Wesleyan, while older son Luke is starting his thesis research on city park workers (an ethnography on people whose work is other people's recreation), prior to a six week long internship doing organizing with UNITE Here and hotel workers. Lynn and Peter enjoy running, hiking and visiting friends.

Lise Hildebrandt ’86 M.Div is happily working on an environmental health/justice project with the MA Council of Churches after leaving school. She continues to pastor a church part-time in Worcester. She and Eric Wefald ’86 M.Div. are trying to remain sane as their daughters compete in the Olympic event called “Applying for College.”

Imagine. After living and working in Montreal, Quebec for 17 years, Jan Jorgensen ’86 M.A.R, ’91 M.Div. has recently been installed as pastor of Willsboro Congregational United Church of Christ, Essex Association, New York Conference. In this the smallest of Associations she has discovered that nearly half of her colleagues are YDS alumni. Jan continues to have her primary residence in Montreal, caring for family and organizing a literary series called the lawn chair soirée.

Bob Meditz ’86 M.Div., as some of you know, has been in banking (don’t ask!) in the Hartford area since graduation, is married (to Linda) and has 3 daughters (20, 16 and 16).  After years of languishing, he recently published 3 book reviews, two in Anglican Theological Review, one in Blackwell’s Reviews in Religion and Theology, and has a forthcoming book review essay on Rowan Greer’s book Anglican Uses of Scripture in a new journal called Journal of Theological Interpretation.   He has also recently been accepted into a Ph.D. program in Theology and Ethics at Hartford Seminary and the University of Exeter (UK).  His wife is a Ph.D. student at the University of Connecticut, and will soon be writing a dissertation on the 18th century Puritan minister Stephen Williams, originally of Deerfield, MA.  Their oldest daughter Caroline is a student at Gordon College in Wenham, MA and their twin daughters Jane and Kathleen are students at Wethersfield High School, just south of Hartford, CT.   

Beth O’Malley ’86 M.Div., of Ellicott City, MD, who has more than 20 years’ of experience in congregational pastoral care and campus ministry, has joined the Hood College community as the first Dean of Chapel. She will serve as a pastor and counselor for the Hood community, develop and implement creative programming to enrich the religious, spiritual and intellectual life of students and represent the college in its relations with the surrounding religious community.

Peter Panagore ’86 M.Div. has one daughter, Lexa, who graduated from high school in 2008 in the top ten and matriculated at Clark University.  Andy, his high school son, plays jazz trumpet in a community band and the two hit the winter slopes together as often as possible. Michelle, Peter’s wife, teaches 5th grade science and language arts and is working on her Masters plus 15. Peter serves First Radio Parish Church of America, which reaches 2,000,000 souls per week using old and new media. A couple of Peter’s poems were published in the 2008 Spring Edition of The Café Review. Last summer he built himself a writing/radio production studio over looking their micro-habit pond, where minks and herons dine among bullfrogs and minnows. Peter still practices yoga and deep prayer, and plays as often as he can, which includes inline skating and racing J-22 sailboats in the summer months. Peter and Michelle welcome all their friends to visit them in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. They have room. See www.dailydevotions.org or write to peter@dailydevotions.org.

Martin Parkins ’86 MAR is now living in Boston after 17 years in New York City. He worked in book publishing and refugee services, was a special education teacher in the New York City Public Schools, and the executive director of the Foucault Society.  He entered Boston College’s clinical MSW program this fall with a concentration in children, youth and families with particular interest in trauma and existential psychotherapy.

Fred Shaw ’86 M.Div. provided the pulpit for the search committee for Willsboro Congregational UCC, Essex Association, New York Conference. He is pastor of Elizabethtown United Church of Christ, as well as First Congregational Church of Lewis. Fred, deeply respected by the community, endures the envious teasing of colleagues, and plays golf during our short summer season.

Maria Eddy Tjeltveit ’86 M.Div. served as an Episcopal priest in Charleston, WV, Alexandria, VA (with The Rev. Geoffrey Hoare ’82 S.T.M.), Harrington Park, NJ, and for the last nine years in Allentown, PA, as rector of the Episcopal Church of the Mediator. She is here, in part because she was set up on a blind date 12 years ago with a psychology professor at Muhlenberg College, which is in Allentown. They were married at the ripe old ages of 37 (Maria) and 42 (Alan), and have since had two children: William (10) and Anna (7). Maria enjoyed serving on the Berkeley Divinity School Graduate Society Council and Board of Trustees for a few years in the late '90s.

John Traphagan ’86 M.A.R. has moved to be fully housed in the new Department of Religious Studies at the University of Texas, which will be starting a Ph.D. program in the not-too-distant future. He would be happy to be more involved in alumni work with YDS.

After studying at YDS Samuel Wu ’86 S.T.M. returned to the Diocese of Hong Kong to found a Putonghua (Mandarin) worship service at St. John’s Cathedral, which he led until his retirement in 2000. He wrote two books, Understanding the Bible and Understanding Christianity. A stroke in 2002 left him with some language difficulties, but he still writes articles for the church weekly. He continues to exercise, go to the market, and accompany his family on outings.

Notes from 2007

A.K.M. Adam ’86 M.Div., ’87 S.T.M. went on to get a Ph.D. in  New Testament after his Yale years, and has put in stints teaching at Eckerd College and Princeton Seminary before landing at Seabury-Western for the past eight years. He’s on sabbatical this year to work on a book about Matthew's Gospel. He has served churches in various capacities at every point along the way. He’s also active among technologists, bringing an academic theologian's perspective to what people are accustomed to thinking of as strictly technical questions. Andrew and his wife Margaret celebrated their twenty-fifth anniversary this year. She has gone ahead to study toward a doctorate in theology at Seabury, then Duke and is now ABD. Their oldest son Nate is 22, and has begun work for a Ph.D. in music theory at the University of Michigan. Their second son, Josiah, is a junior English major at Marlboro College. Their 13-year-old daughter Pippa is thriving at home, and their various semi-foster-children are doing fine too. Andrew is looking forward to stopping by YDS when he preaches for Holy Week services at Christ Church, New Haven next year. He sends best wishes to colleagues of “roughly our vintage!” 

Lynn Carman Bodden ’86 M.Div. spent three years in a church in Chicopee, MA and has been an intentional interim ever since.  She just finished her eleventh interim at the end of June, and took the summer off, catching up on all the books she’s bought over the past few years, and just generally slowing down.  She has served a whole variety of interims and seems to be on a "downwardly mobile" track of late, at least financially.  Fortunately, Peter's job pays well, and they have generous parents, in terms of college tuition.  Their son, Luke, is a junior studying sociology at the University of Chicago and spent the fall in Costa Rica for intensive Spanish and culture. Benjamin graduated from The School of the Arts as a trombone major and is now at Wesleyan University in CT.  Being empty nesters Lynn says is “strange and sad and wonderful all at once.” Lynn has loved Rochester, NY, enjoying great neighbors, lots to do, a small and manageable city with urban delights and distresses. She and Peter both run regularly. He's managed four marathons so far, she a half last fall.  Twenty years of marriage suits them well!  “Life is good.”

Henry Brinton ’86 M.Div. is pastor of Fairfax Presbyterian Church in Fairfax, VA.  Married to Nancy Freeborne since 1985, they have a daughter Sarah in college and son Sam in high school.  Henry had a book published in 2006 called Balancing Acts: Obligation, Liberation, and Contemporary Christian Conflicts, which led to an invitation to be part of a YDS panel on religious convictions in the public square in February 2007.  He occasionally bumps into Leah Schafer ’86 M.Div. and Kathleen Kline Chesson ’84 M.Div., ’90 M.D. in the DC area, and tries to see Peter Panagore ’86 M.Div. when on vacation in Maine.

On September 9th, after 18 years as senior minister at the Congregational church in Middlebury, CT, Dennis B. Calhoun ’86 M.Div. preached his first sermon as senior minister of the Old North Church (UCC) in Marblehead, MA, a congregation gathered in 1635. In October he and Susan celebrated their 29th wedding anniversary. Susan, a registered nurse, is a student at the University of Hartford, planning eventually to teach nursing at the college level. Their older daughter Ellen, a toddler when they arrived at YDS, is now a social worker and graduate student in Boston; younger daughter Abby is a Pan-African studies major at Drew University. Dennis received a D.Min. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 2002.  While in Middlebury, he was the founding president of a non-profit corporation that developed 70 units of affordable housing in town and was active on the steering committee of Reclaiming the Prophetic Voice, an interfaith network of peace and non-violence activists in Connecticut. Once settled in Marblehead, Dennis hopes to connect with other people of faith committed to progressive social action.  He and Susan also look forward to indulging their passion for fly-fishing and learning to sail. 

Mary Commerford ’86 M.Div. is a clinical psychologist, working as the director of the counseling center at Barnard College, and has a small private practice in NYC. She’s married to an English professor (medievalist, currently doing modern religious history) and has two stepsons. 

Ernie Duff ’86 M.Div. is married to Vidya Rao Duff, from India, and they have two girls, Vandana(13) and Sahana(9).  They live in Centennial, Colorado, southeast of Denver. Ernie worked in refugee resettlement, locally in CT and then nationally in New York, for 10 years. He went back to school at the New School for Social Research and got another Masters in Psychology. He became aware of the torture treatment movement, and co-founded a program in New York, working with survivors from all over the world. Leaving New York in 2004, he went to California, where he helped start up an effort to bring attention and services to the plight of wrongfully convicted people coming out of the prison system. He is now in Denver, CO where he is the ED of the Rocky Mountain Survivors Center, an organization devoted to healing the wounds of torture and war. He says, “God is good!”

Elise Feyerherm ’86 M.Div. moved to Columbus in 2005 with her husband John Clabeaux, professor of Bible at the Pontifical College Josephinum, a Catholic seminary in Columbus. For the last two years she has been an adjunct at Capital University and Bexley Hall Episcopal Seminary, where she teaches courses in Church History and Ascetical Theology. After graduating from YDS, she was an intern at First Lutheran in Waterbury, CT. Having decided not to pursue ordination, she taught high school religion for five years at Moses Brown School (Quaker) in Providence, RI. In 1992 she began a doctoral program at Boston College in Theological Studies, focusing on Church History and Systematics. She graduated in 2001 with a dissertation on medieval English anchoresses. After teaching in the Honors Program and the Theology Department at BC for a number of years, from 2003-2005 she taught religion at Augustana College in Rock Island, IL. In 1994, Elise was confirmed in the Episcopal Church, and has continued to be active in this communion since then. Now she is entering the process of applying for postulancy of the priesthood in the Diocese of Southern Ohio. She says, “The Holy Spirit has finally caught up to me!”

Two days after graduating from YDS, Tom Furrer’s ’86 M.Div. wife had their third daughter and four weeks later, they moved to their first parish, Trinity Episcopal Church in Tariffville.  After a two year curacy, he became the rector of St. Paul's Huntington, CT, only to return 12 years later to Tariffville to be rector. His current parish has a mission partnership with the Diocese of Kaduna (Anglican Church of Nigeria).  They have raised the full support for a medical clinic serving thousands of poor rural residents in this diocese.  Tom says, “It has been a great privilege to be in partnership with a struggling and persecuted Christian community and to learn anew the joy of serving our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in the faces of ‘the least of these.’” He is still married to Maryjane (31 years and counting), and that daughter who was born two days after graduation is now a senior in college, preparing to be a nurse. His other two daughters are now married and they have one grandson (3). One thing he misses from his days at YDS is taking the time to read, think and discuss in an academic setting. 

Lise Hildebrandt ’86 M.Div. worked as a chaplain and bereavement coordinator for Hospice in 1986 and 1987, and was ordained an Episcopal priest in 1988.  She has been an assistant rector, rector, supply priest, interim, part-time, you name-it in parishes, while doing her part in the Episcopal-Lutheran dialog (in her marriage to Eric Wefald ’86 M.Div.) and being mother to their twin daughters Karin and Rebecca.  Since 2001, she has been looking for ways to combine parish life with health and nutrition concerns, which has led her to an M.P.H. from BU and current work in a Ph.D. program at Tufts School of Nutrition.  She serves St. John’s church in Worcester, MA in a part-time, cooperative model of church that makes her happy.  She also speaks to church and school groups about nutrition and health behavior topics. Karin and Rebecca are now high school juniors.  Lise enjoys playing music, watching Star Trek Voyager, and playing ice hockey on their pond with them.

After graduation Marlene Hoerle ’86 M.Div. went to work at Women's Workshop in Bloomfield. As her practice increased, she sold her New Haven condominium and moved to a lovely condo in Bloomfield. On Dec. 1, 1998 her brain was struck by the herpes simplex encephalitis virus.  She was in a coma/deep sleep for 7 weeks.  Two neurologists predicted she would be a vegetable, but she came to and went into rehabilitation.  The two women she worked with, two ex nuns (Helen and Michele) became her significant others and she stayed in their home for 7 months after rehab until she was able to move back home. Michele has written inspiring musings addressing Marlene’s struggle to deal with her brain disability (www.mtoomey.com “Musings addressing Herpes Simplex Encephalaitis”).  She says, “I have had to make the shift from primarily valuing ‘doing,’ to focus also on ‘being.’ It is a spiritual journey and I am grateful I could embrace it.” Marlene is able to live alone with her loving Maltese dog, Bailey. 

Jamie A.E. Holmes ’86 M.Div. has been living back in Chico in Northern CA since 1999, having left her management consulting and mediation practice in CT.  After working with Fortune 100’s as an associate of several consulting firms, she developed a private practice working with non-profits doing mediation, team development, leadership coaching, long range planning, etc.  That work developed into a specialty working with organizations in conflict—particularly churches.  While the management consulting was rewarding and fun, the conflict work could be brutal.  She doesn’t miss it! More significantly, she married a loving, smart, big-hearted man named Ralph Godwin in 1998 – even though he worked for that school up north (the blue one, but she forgave him). Ralph is a Master Instructor for CA, an international software firm. He works in a different city every week, so “normal” in their life is being together only on Saturdays. Jamie devotes a lot of time to her Lutheran church as a Stephen Ministry Leader, chair of Adult Education, teacher, Bible Study writer and leader, banner-maker, pastoral support team member, occasional preacher, and general troublemaker.  She enjoyed keeping her connection with YDS by serving on the Alumnal Board for six years.

When Amy Hunter ’86 M.A.R. graduated from YDS, she was 9 months pregnant and not able to imagine much beyond impending motherhood. Today she’s in her eighth year as the Associate for Adult Christian Formation at All Saints' Episcopal Church in Chelmsford , MA . She and Brian and have been married for nearly 27 years.  Their son Michael just turned 21; their son Sean will turn 20 in February. Michael is double-majoring in Film and English at nearby Fitchburg State. Sean is in Seattle studying gaming programming at DigiPen, a full-fledged college that spun off from Nintendo.  That impending motherhood thing led Amy into all sorts of places-- into special education meetings and recorder lessons and the joy of a close-knit family. She served as a search consultant for a decade when they first moved to MA. Mentoring an EfM (Education for Ministry) group moved her from consulting to her present position. She continues to write and has had several pieces published in The Christian Century. With kids leaving home, she and Brian feel at a new transition point. Christian formation and congregational development continue to draw her, and she looks forward to seeing where God leads next.

Upon leaving YDS, Wilfrid R. Koponen ’86 M.A.R. moved to CA, picked up a couple more graduate degrees (an M.A. and a Ph.D. in English & American literature from UC Santa Barbara), taught full-time at Stanford University in the Literature and the Arts track of the Cultures, Ideas, and Values program for four years, got his first book published in 1993, moved to Key West in 1994, then in 1995 to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he’s been ever since.  He’s been with his partner James Cardenas (a native New Mexican) since 1996, and since 1999 and has been the sole proprietor of Writing & Editing Services. He helps (among others) aspiring book authors and people for whom English is a foreign language whose doctoral dissertation committees have demanded, “Hire an editor!”

Peter Panagore '86 M.Div. lives in East Boothbay on the coast of Maine with his wife, their 17 year old daughter and their 14 year old son. He is still married to Michelle Miclette, who is now a 5th grade science and language arts teacher. Four years ago Peter left the pulpit for multi-media.  Currently, he serves as the 5th minister of First Radio Parish Church of America/DailyDevotions.org, which broadcasts daily two minute stories on two NBC affiliates during the morning news reaching 98,000 viewers daily. Variations on the stories are heard on American Forces Radio Network (1,000,000 listeners weekly), four FM stations in Maine, the New Morning Program on the Hallmark Channel, webstreaming at Spiritbreak.com, and by daily email. His stories seek the sacred inside the secular and end with a prayer and a thought for the day. Come December 4, 2007, 365 of his stories will be available in book published by Simon and Schuster.  Details may be seen at www.dailydevotions.org. Peter writes, “We seek to bring hope, inspiration and challenging thought to our viewers, listeners and readers. We are actively raising a middle church/moderate church voice in the mainline media.” Peter sails and skis as often as he can.

Eric Wefald '86 M.Div. became a Lutheran Pastor in September 1988, and currently serves as an associate at Good Shepherd in Westboro, MA. Married to YDS classmate Lise Hildebrandt ’86 M.Div., they have wonderful twin daughters, Karin and Rebecca.  (The girls are now 16 and were able to share a moving mission week experience with him in his church youth group.)  With Karin on flute, Becca violin, Lise cello, and himself on piano, they have their own chamber group.  Eric also trained them all as ice hockey players on the pond behind their house.  He leads an alternative/contemporary church band, writes music, and has produced a CD.  His next CD and songbook, bringing together music from Lutheran alternative singer-songwriters across the nation, is moving towards publication.  He recently fulfilled a life-dream by playing the part of Jesus in GodSpell—he writes, in a 600 seat theater I would die every night and then receive a standing ovation.