Jim Magaw of Carrboro, North Carolina, enters Meadville Lombard Theological School next month as the new Hardy and Betty Sanders Scholar. He is a "P.K." — a "preacher's kid" — from Ohio, where his father served several churches as a United Methodist minister.
In an essay for his admission application, Mr. Magaw (pictured at right) succinctly described his reasons and purpose for approaching the Unitarian Universalist ministry at age 48 and why he wanted to study at Meadville Lombard, which he can do largely from North Carolina via the school's TouchPoint distance-learning format. Mr. Magaw began his admission essay by recalling words to a favorite hymn from his father's churches, Blest Be The Tie That Binds.
We share our mutual woes
Our mutual burdens bear
And often for each other flows
The sympathizing tear.
For Mr. Magaw, these words learned in boyhood were an early pointer to the chief issues in religion around which he is organizing his study of theology and his approach to ministry. He wrote in his admission essay:
The religious questions that most interest me are those dealing with the nature of the “tie that binds”: How do we nurture our awareness of it? How do we recognize it amidst our many cultural and experiential differences? What is its meaning in our lives? How do we act on it?
I know that I am bound to every other living thing by a powerful and transforming love that flows through me and yet transcends my personal experience and knowledge. But I am constantly losing, and then regaining, sight of this sense of connection. If I am to live a meaningful life, I believe I must focus on my engagement with the “Other,” in whatever form this Other appears.
Continuing, he set out his purpose in applying for admission to a program to prepare him for ministry:
My objective in going to theological school is simple: I want to learn as much as I can about ministry while deepening and broadening my understanding of religion and theology in order to become an effective and well-rounded parish minister. I have spent a great deal of time in recent years working to discern what I believe is the will of God in my life. I want to spend what is left of my life (which I hope will be a good long while) continuing to discern and act upon the sacred impulse that binds all to all and helping others do the same. I believe that ministry is the best way for me to serve this purpose.
Mr. Magaw believes that Unitarian Universalism has the potential to help people — who, ultimately, live individually alone in the world — connect with others by bringing together people with radical differences. He wrote in his separate application for the Sanders Scholarship for Excellence that he witnessed a remarkable example of embracing rather than excluding others during the fall of 2001, two months after the September 11 attacks. Mr. Magaw participated in a memorial service for one of the victims, a young man whose parents are members of Mr. Magaw's congregation, The Community Church of Chapel Hill Unitarian Universalist.
Perhaps the most memorable moment of this service occurred when the young man’s mother stood before the congregation and made a statement to this effect: She wished that she could meet and speak with the mothers of the deceased terrorists because they too know what it means to lose a child.
As I witnessed this disarming moment of grace, I understood with newfound clarity the insanity of retribution and the absolute necessity of reconciliation. In particular, I began to understand that the approach we must take to move toward healing the wounds of our world involves embracing rather than demonizing those whom we might perceive as radically different from ourselves.
I believe that the greatest moral challenge of our time is learning how to engage with the 'other' — whether it is the enraged terrorist or the estranged sibling, the venom-filled orator or the bothersome neighbor — and to do so in a way that moves toward reconciling us with one another while still respecting our differences and continuing to work for justice.
Mr. Magaw remembers his father, now retired, acting on a similar belief. At the time of the Kent State University shootings 40 years ago during a student protest over the Vietnam War, Mr. Magaw's father was leading a church in Northeastern Ohio, the same region of the state in which Kent is located.
"My father's ministry certainly does have an influence on what I want to do," Mr. Magaw said. "When I was growing up in the late 60s and early 70s in Northeastern Ohio, my father did a great thing. He tried to bring together different members of the community to have some dialog. ... Protests were springing up and erupting all over the place. He thought it would be constructive to bring people together -- protesters, usually young people, and community people and clergy. They had open community meetings and dialog, and I think they really brought people together and helped them listen to each other."
Jim Magaw is taking a big risk beginning a multiyear process of switching careers to the UU ministry. He is leaving a career in public relations and institutional advancement. Since 1995, he has worked for his college alma mater, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, serving first as a communications specialist for the Kenan-Flagler Business School and, since 2002, for UNC's Arts & Sciences Foundation.
His work at UNC has largely centered on fundraising, including writing content for university websites and the alumni magazine, writing speeches for university officials, and stewardship proposals and reports to be read by donors. In other words, Mr. Magaw, who writes proposals to donors for major gifts to one institution of higher education, will now benefit from a major gift to another institution of higher education.
It gives him an unusually clear perspective on the significance of the decision last year by Betty Sanders, who is a member of First Unitarian Church of Dallas, Texas, to fully fund the scholarship named for her and her late husband, Hardy, who died in 2003.
"I've worked in development for the past 15 years, and I've written proposals to individuals for scholarships and fellowships," Mr. Magaw said. "I've understood for a while how important they are to the educational institution. I think I am really beginning to appreciate how much difference it makes to the receiving individual and their family. I've never been on the receiving end before."
Hardy Sanders was a co-founder of Bates Container, a Texas packaging company. Betty Sanders is vice president of community relations for the company, and son Mark is now chair of the firm.
Mr. Magaw said the Sanders Scholarship, which pays full cost of tuition for the receiving student (selected on merit), will allow him to graduate from Meadville Lombard without much debt, a consideration important to his family, which includes his wife, Marta, a massage therapist, and their daughter, Ella, who is five years old and will enter kindergarten this fall. (The family is pictured at left with their poodle, Sylvie.)
"The unfortunate thing is that there aren't more of these scholarships to go around. I'm so grateful to Mrs. Sanders for what she has done, especially at this time, when it's such a challenge economically," he said. The Sanders Scholarship is the fourth full-tuition scholarship established by Meadville Lombard in as many years, thanks to the generosity of donors like Ms. Sanders.
Mr. Magaw enjoyed growing up part of tight-knit church communities. But he went through a period of life when he was not associated with churches. When he hankered to return, he tried a couple of Unitarian Universalist churches in his area before settling on Community Church in Chapel Hill. "I felt I found a church community that worked for me and was in line with my own values and beliefs," he said. "The more I have hung out at the church, and the more involved I have become, and the more I have found out it is where I get my energy from, and that my church work has been feeding my spirit in a profound way."
Thinking about ministry, he said, aligns his values with his future career and helps him contribute to the best hope for the world itself.
Choosing Meadville Lombard was a good decision on a number of levels, Mr. Magaw said. He wanted to attend a UU-specific seminary. But he was not interested in uprooting his family from North Carolina.
"It is fairly important for me to go attend a UU institution," he said. "I think there is some value in actually learning about UU history and UU polity, and reading the scriptures from the perspective of people who are actually involved in Unitarianism. Also, the fact that I can participate in the TouchPoint distance-learning program is a big difference for me too. I am middle-aged and settled in here. To pull up stakes for three years would be a big challenge to my family."
Mr. Magaw is also eager to be involved with the new Meadville Lombard Educational Model, which yokes practice with theory throughout a student's tenure in the school and provides the possibility of completing the master of divinity (MDiv) degree program in three years, and earning a dual MDiv/master of arts degree in four years.
"It's a big change," Mr. Magaw said of his road ahead." It's been a long time since I have been in school. But I've been looking at the course offerings and I am excited about each and every one of them, which reinforces for me that I've made a good decision."
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