The Doorkeeper

Sharolyn Browning

Thereare some days in my life I can look back on and recognize the moment when everything changed. Certainly, I have had some days when big things happen, and they understandably change life forever. The day I’m thinking about was not one of those. Until recently, it resided in the memory, filed under “ordinary days,” and only upon reflection and the perspective of hindsight can I see what a vocational threshold it was for me. And little did I know this doorway would have a quiet and constant doorkeeper.

My first visit to Austin Seminary was in fall of 2007, as a Godly Play Trainer for David White’s Christian Education “lab day.” David hospitably brought his clay pitcher of water and helped set up the little wooden “people of God,” golden parable boxes, and art supplies in the worship lab. He then went upstairs to begin class, with a promise of returning to the threshold with a group of seminarians. He brought them to the door and sat quietly in the corner outside of the circle. As I told the Good Shepherd and World Communion story, I could see him lean in, to see or hear better, but for the most part, his only participation was that of a dutiful doorkeeper, listening carefully and supporting the circle of “children” or, in this case, seminarians. Toward the end of our time, he “climbed to the balcony” to reflect with the class on their Godly Play experience. This played out similarly, almost every semester he taught a Christian Education class since that fall of 2007.

As the semesters went by, I began to sit in the back of his lectures, before the Godly Play lab. It was my turn to sit by the door, outside the circle, as the class was gathered around a candle, encircled with books by the likes of Walter Wink, and lean into the pedagogy and wonder. In 2011, I officially became an Austin Seminary student and was invited to David and Melissa’s home for new student welcome, where I met the real Wink … furry and four-legged. Over the next three years I was both in the circle of learners and continuing to witness that one day in Christian Ed when the wonder moved to the floor and notes moved to watercolors.

I have continued to slip into the back of David’s lectures before my Godly Play time with them, with an ever-changing vocational vantage point … to inquirer, to seminarian, to graduate, to pastor continuing as Godly Play Trainer. Likewise, David has continued to bring his class to the temporal Godly Play room (once, even on Zoom!), to sit on the floor and wonder over Exile and Return and chocolate chip cookies. Time and time again, he would reflect with these adult learners how it all connects … worship, play, flow, beauty, contemplation, wonder, silence, candles, vocation, ministry, life, death, new life, time.

Tuesday, September 27, 2022, was my last Godly Play lab with the Reverend Dr. David White’s Christian Education class. Marked clearly on my calendar, but observed as ordinary among the rest, without undue fanfare. I trust David and I will meet again at a different Godly Play threshold, as he shared one of his hopes for retirement might be to sit inside the Godly Play circle as the storyteller with children. I will be happy to sit by the door.

Sharolyn Browning (MDiv’14) is a minister of Word of Sacrament in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. She works with congregations in transitions, a ministry that springs from her work as a Godly Play Trainer and is guided by the wisdom and wonder of children in story and at play.