By The Rt. Rev. Keith L. Ackerman, ‘74, SSC, DD

Being brought up at the corner of Evans Avenue and Jenny Lind Street in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, often gave me pause as I realized that these two names were also expressions of my own ethnic heritage: Welsh and Swedish. The question growing up was “which heritage predominates?” Food-wise, the Swedish won out (except for the dreaded Luttefisk), and church-wise the Welsh won out. Yet, ironically, my Swedish grandparents, although raised in the State Church in Sweden, wound up having their funerals in our local Episcopal Church where my Welsh mother and Swedish father were members. My Anglican heritage was quite clear on my Welsh side, but what about the Swedish side? Interestingly, both of my ethnicities come from “the State Church,” and at times I would chuckle as the Welsh and English would say, “We’re not Anglican - we’re C of E.”

An Introduction to the Halls of Nashotah

Labin Duke

Once a Son or Daughter of the House, always a Son or Daughter of the House . . . yet, because of Nashotah House’s remarkable model of formation, community, and worship, after students leave the House, they often find themselves missing their people and feeling bereft of those fundamental components that contribute to their ongoing growth. Unless alumni return to campus for more coursework or to attend a conference (and we hope you do!), they may feel their alma mater has little else to offer after they graduate.

In July 2021, Lieutenant Colonel Kelly O’Lear received the Legion of Merit for his career of service as an Army Chaplain. He distinguished himself by exceptionally meritorious service in a succession of positions of great importance and responsibility to the United States Army and the Nation. Having served as a medic in the National Guard and regular Army prior to his service as a chaplain, he has served our nation almost continuously since 1991. As Chaplain, he served in the most challenging assignments. The Reverend Canon O’Lear now serves as the Director of Formation and Leadership Development at Nashotah House.

The Rev. Robert J. Gearhart, Sr., Class of 1973, died August 19, 2021, at his home in Syracuse, Nebraska. Born in 1938 in Camden, New Jersey, to Curven V. and Isabelle (Bunting) Gearhart, he enlisted in the United States Army as a young man and served from 1956-1959. He was united in marriage to Wilma M. Wilson on June 17, 1960, in the Lady Chapel at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. After marriage, he attended Temple University and graduated from St. Joseph's College before enrolling at Nashotah House as a seminary student. While at Nashotah House, he served as an assistant at St. Francis Episcopal Church in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin.

A Student Reflection

The Rev. Jonathan Mohler, MDiv ‘21

The Army takes civilians and turns them into soldiers. When you show up at reception, you’re met by grim-faced, uniformed drill sergeants waiting for their next batch of civilians. One of these drill sergeants climbs aboard your transport bus and immediately starts screaming. In the next distressingly disorienting 72 hours of your life, all of your personal belongings are taken from you, you are issued uniforms, your head is shaved, you’re poked and prodded, presented with textbooks and orientation briefings . . . and you get screamed at a lot. When that’s over, you’re placed back on a bus and shipped out to basic training.

By The Rev. Steve Schlossberg, ‘07

Many years ago, when I was a postulant of the Diocese of Quincy and a middler at Nashotah House, I did my quarterly duty and preached at my sponsoring parish. I did not know the church; I had gone to seminary without a bishop, and the parish picked me up, just as the diocese had picked me up, as an ecclesiastical vagrant. I showed up that first Sunday as a total stranger to the congregation. Wandering into the fellowship hall, I went unmet, if not altogether unnoticed, by the handful of parishioners who had gathered to share some coffee and small talk before the service.

There I was, a painfully introverted seminarian awkwardly intruding upon an intimate group of strangers; and there they were, a perfectly comfortable coffee klatch being obliquely intruded upon by an awkward stranger; and so we mutually agreed, as human beings mysteriously can without speaking or even making eye contact, to pretend we hadn’t noticed each other.

By the Rt. Rev. Gregory O. Brewer, Bishop of Central Florida

The day of the Pulse nightclub shooting five years ago, I was traveling home to Orlando from Louisville. As I waited in the airport, CNN and all the other news services were blowing up. And before long, my phone was blowing up too. Deacon Nancy Oliver called me early on to make sure I knew what was happening. She was outside the Orlando Regional Medical Center, where a number of the victims who were still alive were brought. Many of them couldn’t even get in.

It was hot, and these were her texted words: “I need to get water to these people.” Her deep concern in the moment was not who was hurt or what had happened or where they were when it took place but simply being able to serve, to reach out to those most in need.

A Reflection on being a Hybrid-Distance Student at Nashotah House

By Katia Crabb

Nashotah House is, as Benedict would say, “a school for the Lord’s service,” set apart for His glory, equipping all of us to be servants of the Lord. The Lord is our Teacher, and Nashotah House participates in His equipping by the interweaving of prayer, work, and study, which strengthens our spirit, body, and mind, so we may go into the chapel and out into the field where the “ . . . harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” I hear these words directed toward me, knowing this is Jesus’ invitation to join Him in His work in the world. Time spent with professors and fellow students and reading and writing have helped deepen this calling and my understanding of the beauty of prayer, discipleship, and life with God. Unlike my earlier college days, I am now blessed to learn and pray, not with experts in bones and birds, but with fellow disciples of Christ, who seek to know how dry bones live and the ways of God – who is likened to a dove.

By Hans Boersma, PhD, Saint Benedict Servants of Christ Professor in Ascetical Theology at Nashotah House

Do angels eat? Scripture says they do. “Man ate of the bread of the angels; he sent them food in abundance” (Ps. 78:25). “Thou didst give thy people food of angels” (Wis. 16:20). It’s puzzling to think that angels eat.

The notion of angelic food (panis angelicus) invites the question of the angelic diet. What do angels eat? The answer is not straightforward. Both passages above refer back to the exodus, when God rained bread from heaven (Exod. 16:4). Angels eat manna, we might say.

But this tells us little if we do not know what manna is.

By The Rev. Steve Schlossberg, ‘07

One of the things I learned in seminary is that Reformed theology and Catholic liturgy are incompatible. I happened to learn that at an ardently Anglo-Catholic seminary, but I’m fairly sure that I would have learned the same thing at an ardently Reformed seminary. One thing we can all agree on is that liturgy conveys theology, and for an ardently Reformed believer, the Mass gets practically everything exactly wrong — the nature of ministry, the nature of the sacraments and, probably above all else, human nature.

By Elisabeth Rain Kincaid, PhD, Assistant Professor of Ethics and Moral Theology

Beloved author J.R.R. Tolkien survived the First World War’s trenches, confronted the intellectual challenges and questions of modernity, and then wrote his epic works of high fantasy, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, during the horrors of the Second World War. After the perils and high heroic deeds of their quest to destroy the ring of power detailed in The Lord of the Rings, Frodo, Samwise Gamgee, and the other hobbits return home to the Shire. Rather than the peaceful domesticity they are anticipating, they find one final task lies before them. In their absence, the Shire has been invaded by the evil wizard Sarumon and his henchmen, who have corrupted the Shire with the malaise, disease, and dirt of modern industrialization. The returning hobbits must restore order among their neighbors before they can settle down to cultivate their gardens and raise their families.

By Tyler Been, Seminarian at Nashotah House

Two days after Easter, my wife and I found out that our expected child was dead. She should have been twelve weeks along in the womb, but she measured at eight weeks, and there was no heartbeat. Her name is Sybil. This has, of course, caused me to ask all the natural questions that one asks when faced with this kind of suffering. All of them can be summarized by a one-word question: Why?

Join us October 7-8, 2021! Tucked away in the woods of Wisconsin’s beautiful Lake Country, no other seminary approaches formation like Nashotah House. The difference lies in a comprehensive environment of classical curriculum and Christian community. Our graduate degree programs involve much more than studying and consuming information. When you visit Nashotah House, you will see how the entire rhythm of the day starts, continues, and ends in community. From participating in daily corporate Daily Office and Holy Eucharist, to sharing meals, attending classes, and participating in work crew, community touches all aspects of life.

A review by the Rev. Ben Jeffries, ‘14

This commentary is an invaluable example of scholarship and piety working in perfect harmony. The Anglo-Catholic hymnographer John Mason Neale (1818-1866) spent eighteen years working on it, and it only reached final completion after his death, when his colleague R.F. Littledale got the final pages ready for the press. It contains the very best of patristic and medieval commentary on the Psalms, synthesized in a running-commentary format, with sources indicated alongside the text by abbreviations in the margins.

By Peter J. Wooley

A mercurial man, an unusual conservative, a community activist, an Anglo-Catholic, and a supporter of Nashotah House, the Rev. Arthur E. Woolley, Jr., died in Lake Ridge, Virginia, earlier this year. He was two months shy of 90.

He was raised a practical agnostic but converted after being a paid singer in an Episcopal church’s boy-choir in Brooklyn. He continued to attend the historic church of St. Luke and St. Matthew after his voice broke, turned pages for the organist, and served on the altar. He was determined as a senior in high school to go to seminary. (His agnostic father, an Army engineer, finally converted at age 77, and Woolley attended his confirmation.)

By Dru Johnson, Ph.D.

Did Bible illiteracy help lead to the video church services we dislike so much? Though we’re grudgingly thankful for the technology that allows us to “be together” over this last year, my informal stats indicate that few of us have enjoyed “Zoom church” or church on Facebook Live. We all know that we weren’t actually together, and we have the awkward living room sing-along worship to prove it. It’s as if we had been co-opted by a massive fake-it-until-we-make-it church worship movement via video-conferencing.