Where We Belong (23 page)

“We were sitting on the bed at one point and Lindley said to me, ‘I thought we would always make it together.’ It was a pivotal point. I thought,
I can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. I’ve got to make this work.
I liked him. I liked having him in my life, so there must have been that overwhelming pull for me, but it took awhile.”

As their pastoral counselor, Paul saw that the way for them to stay together was clear but difficult to execute.

“How could Lindley be Lindley,” Paul says, “without making it difficult for Sarah to be Sarah?”

• • •

In May 1999, Lindley was awarded a master of divinity degree at forty-five years old. The following February, he was ordained as a Presbyterian minister of the Word and Sacrament.

“The day I was ordained was an incredible high,” Lindley says, “right up there with my wedding day in terms of feeling loved and blessed and supported.”

The next step was the first step in Lindley’s new career as a full-fledged minister. He was eager to find a call and become the senior person at a church. Lindley knew Sarah didn’t want to move out of New York, so he found an opening on the west side of the Hudson that would allow her to easily commute into Manhattan for work. Sarah did not give it her blessing. He agreed to take a lesser position as interim associate pastor at his former church, First Presbyterian in Greenwich Village.

Lindley, Ellie, and Sarah, First Presbyterian Church, New York City, 2000
(Courtesy of Lindley DeGarmo)

“There were a couple of fundamental things that I felt I had to give up,” he says, “but the bigger give has been from Sarah.”

In March 2000, a little more than four years after the pink slip from Salomon Brothers, Lindley started his new job as an interim pastor at First Presbyterian. He was now looking out over the pews instead of sitting in one. Sarah and Lindley had arrived at a place where they wanted more than just to stay married; they wanted a gratifying relationship.

“I think that was the work that was paramount for us to do,” Sarah says. “That was the work we did with the therapist weekly for two years. After those two years I just said to myself,
This is who he is, this is where we’re going, and we have a little girl who’s growing up and I love her and he loves her
, and he got a job and it was a good job.”

In Greenwich Village, after eighteen years in the same career, Lindley began the transition into a field far removed from corporate finance and Wall Street.

“The professional church world has its own language and rituals. A lot of it was new to me when I started. Now I am reasonably comfortable among my peers, although I am a bit of an odd duck, having come to it so late and from such a different world,” says Lindley. “Certainly, ‘church speak’ was not the norm in the investment banking world.”

Two and a half years into Lindley’s job as an interim associate pastor, a fork in the road presented itself—a fork that headed south to Maryland. Lindley was being considered for a position as pastor and head of staff at a six-hundred-fifty-member Presbyterian church in Towson, a suburb of Baltimore. This was his chance to lead a church. Lindley and Sarah visited the area in November 2002, and one month later, several members of the pastoral nominating committee traveled to New York City to formally extend an offer to Lindley.

“It was acknowledged at that point that a big part of our decision would revolve around Sarah’s feelings and career opportunities,” says Lindley. “I agreed to give them an answer by late January.”

During the Christmas holiday, Lindley and Sarah drove back to Baltimore to tour Towson and the surrounding area. Unfortunately, Sarah developed a stomach virus and missed most of the outings. When the deadline came for Lindley to reply to the offer, Sarah was not yet convinced the move was a good option. Lindley respectfully declined.

“I didn’t really want to uproot the family,” Sarah says, “and I would say to Lindley, ‘Why can’t you get something in New York?’ It took me awhile to get my arms around leaving New York.”

Lindley was disappointed.

“I thought it was a pretty good fit for us. But I was also clear that if Sarah didn’t agree wholeheartedly, it was never going to work,” Lindley says. “I was also trying to let her know that I respected her decision and remained confident that we’d eventually find something that clicked for all of us.”

Sarah spent several weeks revisiting the pros and cons of making a major move. The Towson job would not pay Lindley what he made ministering in New York, but the family’s quality of life would improve handsomely. The risk of terror attacks would decrease; the amount of green space would increase. Money would go further. Lindley would have a chance to run his own church. Having just turned fifty, Sarah began to warm up to the idea of leaving behind decades of taxing commutes and long workdays. She wanted to spend more time with eight-year-old Ellie.

“I had no life in New York City. The joke for me was that I didn’t live in Brooklyn, I slept in Brooklyn,” Sarah says.

The last piece in Sarah’s decision-making process fell into place when she asked her employer if they would set up an office for her in Baltimore. When they agreed, Sarah was on board with a move. The Towson job had remained available, and the position was reoffered to Lindley.

In 2003, the DeGarmos were off in a new direction—this time, as a unified force. In October, ten months after the initial offer, Lindley was installed as the ninth pastor of Towson Presbyterian Church.

“The church was packed with friends old and new. There were words of encouragement and faith in the future. I never got that kind of feedback on Wall Street,” says Lindley. “A bonus check just isn’t the same quality of love.”

Paul, whom Lindley calls his mentor, was there to support his close friend and colleague.

“I think the congregation learned something really valuable both about Lindley and Sarah because of the struggle in making the decision,” Paul says. “Sarah is a very strong person, and she made it very clear that she had done well with her career and she was moving in a direction that she wanted to go, but at the same time she loved Lindley and Lindley loved her. They had some very good time of discernment through prayer, through faith, through disagreement, and yet, through it all they were able to balance what Lindley needed, what Sarah needed, and what community Ellie would grow up in. I think they are a stronger, loving couple because they went through this experience together.”

The move to Towson proved to be a positive one for the whole family.

“It has certainly made me more physically available,” Lindley says. “I’ve made it my practice in Towson to always get home for dinner, even if I have to return to the church in the evening for meetings. That was just not an option in the Salomon Brothers days. I would also like to think that I am a calmer, more sensitive presence to those I love because of my own spiritual maturation during these years. Then too, for Sarah and me, the process of working through the change was one of mutual discovery and growth. Hopefully, I’ve become a little less self-involved in it all. I’ve come to realize this isn’t just about me doing what’s right for me; it’s about the change we’ve all made. In some ways I’ve been stubborn and led us in this direction and it’s been tough, especially for Sarah. With twenty/twenty hindsight I can say the change was a good one for me and—as it turned out—my family. We have been blessed.”

The transition for Sarah took several years. Lindley had a congregation and Ellie had schoolmates, but Sarah was without colleagues for the first time in her life. She made it a point to forge relationships by becoming involved with youth sports, coaching, and being a team manager.

“I think it’s been a great change,” says Sarah. “Ellie has blossomed down here. She’s become quite a gifted lacrosse player, which we would never have found out unless we got her out of New York. It’s an easier way of life; Lindley has grown into his job, and I had a good eight years with my job.”

In June 2007, Lindley’s mom, Elsie, moved to Towson. She never remarried after being widowed twice.

“We kid with my mom that she gave up on men after that,” Lindley chuckles. “She was just too deadly.”

Elsie, Sarah, and Ellie are all members of the church Lindley heads. Dad presided when Ellie was confirmed by the church at age thirteen.

“She’s like most of the kids who are confirmed,” says Lindley. “We don’t see as much of them once they’re confirmed. We’ve never taken a very hard hand in saying to Ellie, ‘You’ve got to go.’ Sarah’s there just about every week. She’s become my chief editor. She reads my sermon ahead of time, and she’s a pretty tough critic.”

So what is it like for Lindley to be a minister? He says there are many lovely components to his job, but like all careers, work is work. Being a pastor has its own set of pressures and challenges.

“I think the toughest part of heading a church for someone like me—who understands numbers—is dealing with the sort of secular decline of the mainstream church that is under way. There are fewer Presbyterians every year, for example, and they attend church less frequently than they used to. That means it’s harder to fill pews and there is an ongoing pressure on budgets,” he explains. “When I started out, I envisioned myself as being so effective as a preacher and pastor that I would, through force of my own abilities, overcome those trends in my congregation. I’ve become more humble, but I still feel the pressure of numbers.”

Sarah, Lindley, and Ellie, Ireland, 2014
(Courtesy of Sarah Finlayson)

Lindley says there are certainly days that feel more trying than spiritual.

But, oh, the rewarding days; the chance to share in life’s most intimate and meaningful moments.

“Ministering through 9/11 and its aftermath at First Presbyterian in New York City was a uniquely rewarding time to be a pastor. We were in the thick of it and lost seven members. From opening the church that first day and conducting services every night for a week, to grieving with the families who had lost loved ones and conducting their funeral services, I felt very involved and useful.”

Lindley considers baptisms among his favorite honors.

“I like to hold the baby after the formal part is done and to walk around the sanctuary introducing the little one to his or her ‘brothers and sisters in Christ.’ I’ve now been at it long enough to see some of the kids I’ve baptized growing into young adults in the church and I’ve always been their pastor.”

He recalls a particularly poignant wedding.

“I married one eighty-nine-year-old and his seventy-five-year-old bride in his living room; he couldn’t be too far from his oxygen. They were like teenagers with each other, so very happy.”

Lindley says his early relationship with death has been very helpful in ministry. Not being included in his father’s funeral has shaped his input during pastoral sessions.

“When I counsel parents now in a similar situation I always say, ‘The best thing you can do is have the kids be a part of it. Let them grieve and let them see you grieve.’ You’re never too heavy-handed about this type of thing, but my advice, only when it is sought or when it is appropriate to offer, is, ‘This is all part of the process. Don’t be afraid of it.’ ”

In May 2008, Lindley was awarded a doctor of ministry degree by Princeton Theological Seminary. When asked to look back over the last nineteen years and the risks he took for happiness, Lindley offers, “I must admit, I tend to think of this in religious terms. Christians believe God is always calling us into relationship with God. He gives each of us gifts to be used for the common good. We all (not just preachers) have vocations, a word that comes from the Latin
vocare
, meaning ‘to call.’ ”

Lindley then shares a beautiful phrase from Frederick Buechner, a popular writer who is also a Presbyterian minister.

“He once defined vocation as ‘the place where our deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.’ So getting your life right has a lot to do with discerning your vocation and living it out.”

The place where our deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.