Meet the Prof

(For a complete story of my testimony, please refer to my book chapter: "From Agnostic to Evangelical: How an Unlikely Conversion Birthed a Unique Convergence," In R. Ashton and D. Denton (Eds.), Spirituality, Ethnography and Teaching: Stories from Within. Peter Lang Publishers. 2006.)



To begin at the beginning: I was adopted as a baby in 1966, and raised as an only-child, in a nice, middle-class Catholic home. I knew Jesus as a child and received the sacraments of baptism, first communion, and confirmation in the Catholic church.



As a teen, I went through a typical rebellion, which (among other things!) included eschewing my parents' faith for what I thought were more `cool' beliefs. Basically, I would believe anything as long as it wasn't related to Catholicism! But, I was especially drawn to the mystical & metaphysical, and topics like reincarnation, astrology, tarot cards, etc. When I was an undergrad I found a home of like-minded people at the Unity Church. However, graduate school succeeded in turning me into an even more skeptical postmodernist. By the time I landed my first faculty position at the University of Tulsa in 1995, I was sitting "in the seat of scoffers" (Psalm 1:1) and was a self-confessed agnostic.



Before long I joined the local Unitarian-Universalist congregation (along with most of the other University faculty). BUT...there is where things got interesting...and I LOVE telling people that I was "saved" in the Unitarian Church!



After a series of life-events, including a near-death experience after giving birth to my twin daughters (which precipitated a bout with terrifying panic attacks), I found myself seated in a pew at the Unitarian Church listening to a memorial service for a young colleague who had lost a short battle with cancer. I became panicked as the minister read my colleague's vita and never once mentioned God, an afterlife, heaven (or, even reincarnation, for that matter!).



I left the church that cold, rainy day resolved that I did NOT want to be remembered like that. I went home, dusted off my Bible, and randomly opened to the Book of Ecclesiastes where 12:11b-12 jumped out at me: "...like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings that are given by one Shepherd. Of anything beyond this, my child, beware. Of making many books there is no end and much study is a weariness of the flesh."



So, in my desperate weariness, I called my good friend back home in Florida who I had always chided for being a Bible-believing Christian--and I told her I wanted to become a Christian! At my friend's suggestion, I enrolled in Bible Study Fellowship (BSF International ) where I began to delve deeply into God's Word.



Now, eleven years later, I am still in BSF and have held several leadership positions therein; my three children all attend with me. Perhaps the most wonderful display of God's grace is that I was saved in time to raise my children in a Christian home. My husband, kids, and I all received believer's baptism and are members of a wonderful local church.



Although I did not return to the Catholic faith of my childhood, I DO work at a Catholic University--where I am constantly reminded of my upbringing and grateful that the Jesus I knew as a child never left my side, even when I turned my back on Him.



I love my job as faculty member in the Communication Department, where I teach courses in Interpersonal Communication, Family Communication, Nonverbal Communication, Mothers & Daughters, Intro. to Women's Studies, and Research Methods. My students say I am approachable, friendly, and good at relating complex theoretical ideas to everyday lived experiences. Finally, I am very thankful that I took the advice of one of my old professors who assured me that being an academic is a "nice life". Indeed!