BEYOND THE CHURCH DOORS

THIS IS PART OF AN ONGOING SERIES OF COLUMNS ABOUT THE ACTIVITIES OF OUR MINISTERS OUTSIDE OF ALL SOULS

RICHARD LEONARD—MINISTER EMERITUS
Dick Leonard retired from the active ministry at All Souls in 1997, but one wouldn't guess this when one walks down the hall in Wiggin House on almost any weekday and sees him hard at work at his desk in the Ware Room. He and his wife Polly have certainly not retired from All Souls.

In fact, Dick has been very much in the news at the church this winter. We celebrated the publication of his book, Call To Selma at a recent Second Sunday Soup when he talked to us about his recollection of the harrowing eighteen days he spent in Alabama during the March from Selma to Montgomery, culled from the diary he kept while the march was progressing. Even more recently, he revisited Selma while attending the Ministers Convocation, held every seven years, this time in Birmingham, when he joined with 55 of the 450 delegates to walk across the bridge again and to visit Brown Chapel and the cafeteria where it all started.

Dick was born in Detroit and aspired early in life to a career in music. A gifted violinist, he played his instrument at Cass Tech High School and for several years at the National Music Camp. This led to his acceptance at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, where he studied during the years of WWII. Somehow, the war and his own changing ambitions led him to divert his career plans.

"I followed the advice of my Chinese relatives," he says about this turn of events. Related to the Hayes family, which included many missionaries in China at that time, all of whom had studied at Yale, Dick followed in their footsteps and graduated from Yale in 1949 with a BA in Sociology. He did not give up music however. While in College, he played the trombone in the Yale band and has been president of the Yale band alumni.

Making another right turn in his search for the right career, Dick decided on the ministry. Born and raised as a Congregationalist, he studied at Union Theological seminary and was eventually ordained as a Congregational minister. His first pulpit was at the East Rockaway Bethany Congregation. But while still at Union, Dick had done some fieldwork at New York's Unitarian Community Church under the Rev. Donald Harrington and gradually he began to realize that he was more a Unitarian than a Congregationalist. Having kept up his relationship to Rev. Harrington, Dick feels lucky to have found a niche as Religious Education Minister at the 1,600 member Unitarian church in 1959. He remained in that position until 1968. Asked if he ever regretted his switch in denomination, Dick said that in fact his ordination in the Congregational church had been difficult because his ideas had always been more liberal and he had tended towards the freedom of thought provided within Unitarianism.

In 1965, at the height of the Civil Rights movement, Dick found himself almost accidentally propelled into representing his church on the famous march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, on which his recent book is based.

Changes in his personal life, including a divorce and remarriage, led to another career change. Until 1982, Dick was involved in fundraising and development for a series of private schools, including Walden, Horace Mann, and Columbia Grammar School. However, in order to retain his standing as an ordained minister, he preached regularly at the Flatbush Unitarian Church in Brooklyn. A meeting with Forrest Church in 1979, as Dr. Church was just starting his ministry at All Souls, led to a new part time relationship with this church, which eventually became a more or less full time job assisting Dr. Church with his work.

A recital of Dick Leonard's various job changes does not paint a full picture of a man with so many talents, hobbies and avocations. As an avid chess player, he was good enough to be invited to play in a televised exhibition game against Viktor Korchnoi and later also against the runner up. He has a huge collection of Rubic's Cubes, which he has displayed for us here at All Souls. He is a passionate traveler to exotic places and has a talent for writing about some of the amusing experiences in his varied life. He has collected some of those writings in a new book, notably including two hilarious accounts of looking after a group of Russians at the behest of the minister of the Unitarian Church in Vancouver. Called "The Day the Russians Came" and "The Day the Russians Went Home," they typify the way he looks at the events that happen to him. Many of us also fondly remember Dick's invariably funny reports given at our Annual Meetings.

Among the things that keep Dick working at his desk here at All Souls in spite of his retirement, are the by now more than 350 Japanese wedding ceremonies he has performed in our church over the years. The young couples just keep coming. It all started with a popular Japanese movie star who asked him to conduct a double wedding and things just snowballed from then on. In all, he has performed more than 3,000 weddings in his 50 years in five churches!

DAVID J. ROBB—DIRECTOR OF ADULT EDUCATION
—by Margaret Willard
David Robb splits his time between Massachusetts, where he has a psychotherapy practice, and Manhattan, where he also has a practice and where he serves as Director of Adult Education at All Souls. He uses his energy and sense of commitment for the enlightenment of others. He loves to teach at All Souls, he professes, because he loves to teach subjects that interest him. "If you want to learn something, teach it," he says. He sums up the connection between religious faith and psychotherapy by saying that "they are both a journey of the soul."

David was ordained into the United Church of Christ in 1965 and later received the degrees of Master of Divinity (MDiv) and Master of Sacred Theology (STM) from Union Theological Seminary. On a sabbatical leave from Connecticut College, where he had been the chaplain and Associate Professor of Religious Studies for 14 years, he enrolled in the Institutes of Religion and Health, which trains clergy as psychotherapists and pastoral counselors. He loved seeing 'clients' at the clinic. When he graduated, he decided to become a therapist and to build a practice. He has trained in the Jungian and Psychoanalytical traditions, combining different approaches to the psyche. "I don't tend to tell clients how to live their lives but to help them discover their own journeys," he explains.

In the fall of 1995, Kenwood Psychological services referred David to All Souls, where he gave two lectures on "A Spiritual Approach to Depression." They were well received. In 2001, he took on the position of Director of Adult Education at All Souls. He also preaches a few sermons each year during the summer.

David was stranded in Vienna on September 11, 2001, where he says music got him through the torment of that time: "Performances of Mozart's Requiem and Mahler's Eighth Symphony were among the most powerful experiences I have ever had."

In January of this year, David was in the Galápagos Islands on a tour sponsored by the Nature Conservancy. He was fascinated that the wildlife had no instinctual fear of humans. He read Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle and says that he felt like part of the web of life.

David's main residence is in Mount Washington, MA, in the southern Berkshires. He has four children. He has built his own dynamic bridge between psychology and religion, which enables him to have a uniquely effective impact at All Souls.