Böcker av William Finnin

The essays in this small volume stand as time-bound responses to specific issues marking my professional engagement in church-related higher education. They represent perspectives and opinions that found their public advent in denominational publications and professional quarterlies, campus newspapers, city dailies, a literary journal for students new to writing, and a couple of collegiate chapels. Each bears a back-story about its origin that may or may not become evident in its reading. For those gaps I beg forgiveness.These days I write sermons and then preach them without the manuscripts that framed their original thoughts. That manuscript stack has grown tall and cumbersome and likely will soon head for the shredder. This varied compendium of focused reflections remains. In many instances motivation for writing arose from one of those unique but incessant interruptions chaplains and my colleagues in higher education ministry readily describe as the heart of ministry. So it is here.Deep gratitude to those stalwart individuals who simultaneously supported and tolerated my collegiality at LSU for eight years and SMU for twenty-nine. In many ways, this last half-century has provided a sometimes-wild but oh-so-wonderfully meaningful journey. Thank you Connie Steele and True Dianne Faust and Mary Ladd Bingham, Betty McHone and Judy Henneberger and Nancy Kasten, Jenny Veninga and Marcy Pounders and Edilson Volfe! Each in your own way has been an amazing colleague on this trek through life. Let me never fail to thank Bob Cooper, colleague chaplain for thirteen years before his retirement, for his ever forgiving liberality of spirit and joyful politics.

William “Will” Finnin and I have been colleagues for almost twenty years. Before that, we came of age in the 1960s, those extraordinary years of civil rights struggles, new visions of social justice, greater inclusivity in government and institutional religion, and uncovering silenced voices, of women, Black and Hispanic Americans, and countless others throughout history. I honor him for his contributions in all of these areas.       But my regard for Will goes beyond our shared generational goals. Rather, it is more about his belief that the redemption of the human spirit is always possible in our uncertain world.       Will is an artist, and his talents are amazing. He is a musician, a painter, author, counselor, and more. But I believe that it is his poetry that has continued to sustain him and others for a lifetime. His poetry has given expression to the flow of his life in all of its moments of pain, joy, survival, uncertainty, and courage. His words are testaments to his vision of transformation.       As a poet, Will understands this job, and he offers this volume from his serious yet playful heart, his life, and his vision of a joyfully transformative human spirit.