Mastering Memphis, step one

Not all people are wired the same way. Some people play video games because they love the challenge. They only play their games on the most difficult setting. They like having three lives to challenge 1 billion immortal zombies, or they like it when the QB throws a pick on their own 20 with 30 seconds left in the fourth when they're up by three.

I don't get those people. I prefer utter domination. I play the game on the easiest setting first and wait until I'm winning football games 250 - 0 to advance to the next level (250 because the game stops counting points at that number). I prefer mastery.

Knowing this about me, you would think that I'd be pretty excited to have graduated last Saturday with my masters. You'd be right. Officially, I have letters after my name. Unofficially, Masters of Divinity has to be in the running for most egregious misnomer in history. Still, I've got the paper and the library to show for it, so there's that.

Graduations are by nature both ultimate and penultimate experiences. They are pivotal moments, the last step of one journey and the start of another, one apex before the next. Since this one, right now, feels more like a last step than a first one, I thought I would take a few posts to look back at the steps that got me here...


Most college seniors spend their last spring break, well, reinforcing the stereotype of last spring breaks. I spent mine with my dad. We took the week to travel to Pasadena and Chicago to visit Fuller Theological and Trinity seminaries, respectively. The weather in California was fantastic. The cost of living? Not as much. It snowed in Chicago. I had a great time with Dad, but the trip didn't give me much clarity about what to do. My main goal was to get outside of the normal CofC stream and expose myself to new ideas and challenge the ones that had become my own. When I got back to Searcy, I decided to talk to a few professors to see what direction they could provide. Dr. Ken Neller helped me understand more about the language of seminary and how to make distinctions between what each school was telling me about what they taught. Dr. Fortner told me, quite simply, that if I wanted to read as many different ideas as possible I should go to HUGSR in Memphis. He told me that I wouldn't necessarily find a broader perspective at the schools where I was looking than what I would get in Memphis. Dr. Monte Cox, a Trinity alum, told me the same thing. I was skeptical but trusted their advice and experience over mine.

In a few weeks, I had applied, gotten accepted, and had received a very nice scholarship offer that included working as a graduate assistant for Dr. Allen Black. All those spring breaks spent at less than tropical climates had literally paid off. After a brief period of deliberation, I accepted the offer. I would join my friends, Bob, Bobby, and Greg (admit it, you were thinking Robert) in the fall at Harding University Graduate School of Religion. I would live on campus. I would work as a GA. And I would pray that Memphis proved to be well outside of the Harding bubble.