Of Fallen Walls and Paths Not Taken


November 9, 1989, found me in my apartment on the Boston University campus watching the remnants of my teenage career plans go up in clouds of cement dust as the Berlin Wall came tumbling down. I had thought that I’d have a career in the United States Navy as an intelligence officer, followed by an illustrious career as a Foreign Service Officer (FSO) capped off with appointment as the United States Ambassador to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Never let it be said that I dreamed small.

The Navy part went by the wayside when my eyesight proved to be so bad that—as I now know—even the broadest waivers wouldn’t allow me to pursue commissioning. At the time, there was a blanket “no waiver” policy thanks to the way that Tom Cruise made the military look glamorous in Top Gun. Ah, well, as the Army chaplain recruiter noted when I said you don’t have to be able to see to pray in a foxhole, you do have to be able to see to get out of one. When the Army says no, the door is firmly closed.

So in college, I adjusted my sights to start out in the Foreign Service and just achieve my goal that way, which led me to be sitting in front of the TV watching the beginning of the end of the USSR—and my career hopes—30 years ago today. 

My mom used to joke that the Berlin Wall fell so God could get my attention (see where I got those grandiose ideas?). God had started to get my attention months before in the gas chamber at Majdanek outside Lublin, Poland; the fall of the wall may have sped up my own process, but I was already looking at options beyond FSO (and who knew how much a church pastor needs to use skills that come from preparation for diplomacy and intelligence gathering!). The wall came down because the East German people created a non-violent protest that included singing and candles over many months, first gathering at the church where J.S. Bach wrote so much of his incredible music starting seven years before. 

Thousands of East Germans left the country throughout the spring and summer of 1989 as other Soviet Bloc countries loosened their borders. The events of November 9, 1989, were accidental but occurred in reaction to a series of escalating protests in response to the loosened borders that went on nearly unchecked because no East German soldier wanted to fire on his countrymen without a darned good reason—a candlelight march wasn’t one and neither was a 500,000-strong gathering less than a week before. A communications lapse in a plan to open the East German borders on November 10 led to a snap decision by the spokesman to make the plan effective immediately. By the time those in East Berlin went streaming through the suddenly open checkpoints into West Berlin around 10:45 on the night of November 9, thousands of West Germans were there to greet them with champagne in a raucous celebration. The iconic photos of people dancing on top of the wall that night may or may not have to do with the amount of champagne.

That night, sitting in Boston, it was too late to change my major and too late to add a business minor. The next two years were nevertheless fascinating as we studied the fall of the entire Eastern Bloc; in my Soviet Foreign Policy course that same semester, the professor told us he would not ask us to keep up with the news between the last day of class and the final, but would have an extra credit question in case we couldn’t help ourselves. All six of us answered and received full credit for our responses to the question about the ongoing situation in East Germany and the Soviet Russian response.

When I graduated in May 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts in Soviet and East European Studies, I already knew I was starting seminary in the fall, but it was still, at least in my head, a temporary stop on the way toward the Foreign Service. I came within a few points of passing—with just a bachelor’s degree—the oral exam for the State Department and was urged to take the written qualifier again in the fall; the proctors were sure that the second time around, I’d get those last few points. The head proctor was also excited that the only woman in the cohort of 21 or so that took the test in Boston that year had the highest non-qualifying score, beating out multiple Ph.D.s, doctoral candidates, and men with masters in international relations. That ranking didn’t make me popular with the 4 men in my group who didn’t pass, though the two who did also encouraged me to try again.

I wonder, especially now, where I’d be if I had tried again. Assuming the proctors were right and I passed both exams, I’d likely be 26-27 years into a career as an FSO. Given my interests and background, I’d likely have become a specialist working in and with the former Soviet Bloc countries and almost certainly would have earned a Ph.D. along the way (because, really, Dr. Ruth!). I could be in Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan right now, staffing the US Embassy. I could be in Washington as an analyst or on loan to the CIA or the NSA, either here or abroad. Perhaps I could have been in a similar position as Dr. Fiona Hill or even William Taylor right now, deeply involved in detangling the quid pro quo mess and called to testify before Congress about what I observed. I wonder how many amazing people I haven’t met… The path not taken could have branched in a hundred ways, some not even within the scope of my imagination.

But the path I did take makes me happy. I didn’t know on my first day of seminary when I stepped into a familiar lecture hall in the basement of the School of Theology building—one where I had heard Elie Wiesel speak and where my discussion section of Introduction to American Foreign Policy met several times—that I would leave the room 85 minutes later with a deep passion for the Hebrew scriptures and the Bible in general that’s led me to teach across many levels of the church. I didn’t know a year later on my first Sunday in my internship that I’d finish 9 months later with a passion for parish ministry, if with a great deal of learning still to do (that learning is ongoing lo these 25+ years later, thanks be to God!). This path has brought many amazing people into my life that I almost certainly would never have met on the other path; life would be much different without my friends, parishioners, and acquaintances and it’s hard to imagine not knowing each of them.

Perhaps, in this incredibly vast cosmos, if any of the multiverse hypotheses is correct, there is a universe in which I can see beyond the end of my nose, or passed the oral exam the first time, or hated Dr. Darr’s class and all the rest so much that I crammed for the next written exam. Or maybe all of them exist. But in this universe, I’m right where I’m supposed to be. I took the path offered and I’m content with where I am.

Though every once in a while, I wonder just how much colder it will be in Moscow this winter than it will be here in New Hampshire…


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