Through the Looking Glass...with Rev. Dr. Daryl Ward

First thing I should say is that my story is just a small part of the larger story. I see it through my pain. Others will see it differently, will name whatever it is they see. My part is only a small part of the whole story…

So the first conversation began over Zoom with Rev. Dr. Daryl Ward, pastor-emeritus of Omega Baptist Church, once-Director of Admissions and Dean of African-American Ministries, eventually president and then Trustee of United Seminary (Dayton, OH). We had corresponded about having a conversation 19 months prior, but then COVID-19 arrived. Today was finally the day to rest on-screen together, connect a bit in the intention I had named with him: to learn some of the earliest stories of the origins of the Doctor of Ministry program at United Seminary.

I’m not sure what the seed of this desire is in me, this need to know the stories as those who served in its earliest years would share them. I’m a 50-something white woman, serving as Professor of Practical Theology & Contextual Ministries at United Seminary and an ordained Presbyterian clergywoman (PCUSA). I serve in the DMin program as a Faculty Consultant to the Enacting MLK’s Beloved Community cohort, led by Faculty Mentor Rev. Dr. C. Anthony Hunt, with whom I have now worked for five years. I’ve served other DMin cohorts in my 17 years at United, but this is the first one that has seemed to become a rolling-admissions group. I even tried to recruit two different students who I thought would add to the graduate-level work in the cohort this past summer. I only mention it because it was a distinctive change for me--not only to have a desire to invite into a group led not by me, but also to feel free to recruit/invite students into the cohort. All that to say I’m not sure of any intended outcome or agenda I have in this desire to know the stories of origin. At this point, it seems enough that I simply want to hear the elders of this work tell their stories of vision, hard work, challenge, service, and more.

I have had a variety of interactions with the Ward Family in Dayton, Ohio, but this was the first sustained conversation I had with Rev. Daryl Ward. I first got to teach/learn alongside his son, Joshua--who perhaps I should now call Rev. Ward, in his capacity of pastor of Omega Baptist Church here in Dayton OH.

He took one of my courses as a directed study several years ago. I got to listen and learn alongside wife-mother and co-pastor Vanessa Ward, whom I would call Rev. Dr. Ward here, when she came to teach Hebrew Bible at United for several years.

She and I then became companions in the TedX Dayton journey toward TedX Dayton’s salon on Women in February 2020 (her talk can be seen/heard here). I’ve heard a lot about the husband-father-pastor-president-grandfather of this family over the years, but this morning, I got to sit with him, listen and laugh with him, begin to hear some of the stories he had to tell.

I suspect more formal writing will come as this listening-journey unfolds. And I hope and pray it will honor the receivings-listenings as I am able to mirror, to offer...as these voices will offer, accord, correct and confirm...but now seems a good time to bow to the Spirit moment that landed lightly but also significantly in me as I listened, then began to ask, then listened internally-externally some more.

A story of God’s calling to a deep-souled man unfolded its wings in this hour we shared. Toward the end of our time, I asked him what the seed of any story here about the Doctor of Ministry program at United might be. “The seed of the story for me is what God can do with so very little.” Rev. (D) Ward interpreted that for me, with specifics and blessing, difficulties and bemusement. He pointed some to himself, with humility, and some to the seemingly small city of Dayton, Ohio, deep in the Midwest (flyover states) of our USA. He then began to lean into the preaching moment upon us, within him. "You want me to preach the sermon here for you?” he laughed as he reined himself back into our small circle of two. I nodded yes and smiled; he seemed to think not... “It wasn’t all good, after all,” he said still with a smile. He named some of those stories too, gently. “But coming to Dayton and being a part of God’s work here gave me confidence and hope in visions, dreams. It was hard work, but God can do so very much with so very little."

It was at this moment that I knew I needed to return to his opening statement, “I tell this story through my pain.” How does he hold his confidence in visioning, dreaming, as he looks onto the world through his pain? He startled when I asked him, and asked openly, “What pain?” We looked at one another, both of us stymied, confused. He had no idea what I was talking about... I returned him to his opening words, sharing that they had caught my attention right from the start.

“Oh!” he said, laughing. “No! I see this story only through my pane...my own window pane!!”

We both laughed, and I felt the shift I've come to know as Holy. I paused a bit to let the awareness seep further into me...

Finally, I said, “Well, then that hearing clearly came from me. From my pain, p-a-i-n, as well as my pane, p-a-n-e.” He smiled, knowingly. I have no idea what he was knowing at that moment, and now I wish I had thought to ask him. But in that moment, I simply gave a little bit of context for him, a bit of my own storying journey right now, which led me to hear what I heard, and to accompany whatever it was he was knowing between us. And then we both seemed to realize that our time was coming to a close, at least for now.

What had needed to get started had gotten started. A spark had found dry timber. He gave me the names of some other folks to contact and invite into conversation and I thanked him for his time, his willingness to begin to share some of his storying… “Thanks for asking,” he said with his gentle smile. I urged him to share my hellos with his family. We clicked off the Zoom meeting.

I felt tears rise to my eyes, often a clue in my bodysoul that writing is coming… In this first post of what is at least a new private blog, I’m reminded what the librarian in The Midnight Library, Mrs. Elm, said to Nora Seed as she was trying to find her way back into a liveable life. Quoting Henry David Thoreau, she said, “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” I heard pain. He said pane. The poet in me knows that it’s all right there. If I were to answer my own question about 'seed,' that's a start. Clearly part of what is beckoning has to do with a pain that I am feeling, otherwise I would not have been goaded into asking the questions for the stories. But my focus has been on the stories of elders I don't even know right now, to listen, to laugh, to lament, to know.

To know. To remember. To acknowledge, as I heard in a tarot-prayer-teaching shared with me last night. Hmmm...

A more traditional bidding prayer then...Blessed One, help me--us--to see whatever it may be that beckons right here. 

Then, as Spirit does, in the ways our Ancestors speak to us today, a friend unaware of any of this going on this morning sends me Thomas Merton’s well-known prayer, closing my writing with tears of recognition. This is enough for now, methinks. For today.

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end, nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

(“The Merton Prayer” from Thoughts in Solitude Copyright © 1956, 1958 by The Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, with permission by Farrar Straus Giroux).