North Topeka pastor moving on

During her two years of service, interim pastor changed church.

--- John E. Chambers/Special to The Capital-Journal

Pastor

"It will be a different challenge, and a different personality. But God is at work in their lives, too."

--- Pastor Susan Hartley,on leaving Topeka for her new congregation in Rochester, N.Y.

By JOHN E. CHAMBERS

Special to The Capital-Journal

NORTH TOPEKA --- In just two years, interim Pastor Susan Hartley has left her mark on the congregation of Second Presbyterian Church in North Topeka, and part of the evidence is painted on the church parking lot.

Hartley, who came to Second Presbyterian, 210 N.W. Menninger Road, in 1997 to fill the pulpit temporarily after the retirement of Pastor Art Donnelly, is leaving the church to become pastor at a church in Scottsville, N.Y.

When Hartley began working at Second Presbyterian, some of the changes she made and brought to the church were dramatic.

Not only did the congregation of 166 members get a woman as interim pastor, it also acquired a different type of vision and style of ministry.

Coming from a seven-year pastorate at a partnering Presbyterian and Methodist congregation in Highland, Hartley guided the establishment of a labyrinth, painted on the church parking lot, as a prayer path for the community. She also implemented Taize services in the sanctuary, and served the congregation and community in more familiar ways as well.

For the past two years, Hartley studied at San Francisco's Grace Episcopal Cathedral Labyrinth Project how to facilitate meditation walks using the labyrinth and also studied for a certificate in the Art of Spiritual Director at San Francisco Theological Seminary.

The labyrinth is an ancient prayer path that was established as a pilgrimage during the 12th century when travel to the Holy Land was dangerous because of the Crusades. The labyrinth sets up a pathway that ultimately leads to a central rosette that represents God.

Hartley participated in a pilgrimage in August 1998 to Chartres Cathedral, 50 miles from Paris, and to the Taize Community, in France.

At the Chartres Cathedral, a labyrinth laid out in stone dates back to the 12th century.

"It was pretty special" to walk a labyrinth where so many pilgrims had walked for 800 years, Hartley said.

Hartley has brought the rewards of her other travels into her ministry also. She spent 10 weeks in Israel after her ordination 10 years ago.

She worked on an archeological dig in the Upper Galilee, four miles from Nazareth, for six weeks, and traveled the Holy Land for another four weeks.

One of her own personal archeological findings was a ceramic handle to a second-century incense server that could have been used in a home or in synagogue worship. The findings of her travels and study gave her further insights into Holy Land history and geography, as well as providing spiritual inspiration.

Watching the sun set and rise from Mount Sinai; drinking from Jacob's Well, located at Old Testament Shechem, New Testament Sychar and modern Nablus; visiting Ein Kerem, the town where Mary visited Elizabeth before Jesus' birth; stopping at the tombs of the patriarchs at Hebron, where people were praying while their machine guns were propped up against the tombs; and taking communion in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher all gave her inspiration and information that she brought back for sermons, she said.

Hartley's conversations with Israelis and Arabs gave her insights into the thinking of these battling descendants of a common ancestor, Abraham/Ibrahim. She found the estrangement and the passions of both peoples were typified in the Great Rift that runs from Syria to Egypt, she said.

"It was an amazing experience," Hartley said. "It is like the energy from the inside of the Earth is more powerful there because of that great rift. Everybody is so passionate. I mean, I have never been in such a passionate place. Nobody is laid back. All that energy just flows through the people as well as through the ground."

She spent four days in the desert, riding in on camels. She and two other clergy women built a stone altar in the desert, celebrating communion there because the churches around Jerusalem don't recognize the ordination of women and their authority to serve communion.

While traveling, Hartley looked particularly for examples of the interaction of God and Jesus with women, and because the subject wasn't covered in the regular tours, she went off on her own side trips.

Her experiences in Israel have affected her ministry.

"Reading the Bible has a depth to it," she said.

Hartley said she is a very visual person, and to have seen some of the settings for the Biblical stories, even though they have changed during the 2,000 years since Jesus walked those paths and streets, has made them all more real to her.

"I very often preach from that experience of knowing what the Sea of Galilee looks like and what the shoreline near Capernaum looks like.

"I learned a little more about the customs, both of modern times and of ancient times; what the desert looks like where Jesus went into the wilderness; what it was like to go back and forth, up and down the Jordan River and across into Samaria; to actually sit and hold to the soil, and feel connected with it," she said. "It changed my heart, being there."

She attended "lots of different services in all different languages, none of which I could speak," Hartley said, but recognized the familiar rhythm of the Lord's Prayer and the Apostles Creed and feeling a part of the services.

If experiences in Israel had their effect on Hartley's ministry, so did her study and practice in the benefits of the labyrinth in personal worship. She had read about the practice, was intrigued by it and had learned about one that was laid out in masking tape in a Kansas City church. She tried it and found "it really helped me focus my attention on God. I really felt I was in God's presence as I walked it."

When she came to Second Presbyterian, she considered laying out a similar labyrinth in the basement of the manse, but found that floor was too small. Then she considered painting one on the church parking lot.

"This church has had a history of prayer and spirituality, has a very strong prayer chain ministry, and so this seemed to fit as part of that tradition."

With approval from the church session, a labyrinth was painted on the hilltop parking lot that overlooks Topeka and the state capitol.

"I had a book that told about how other churches were rediscovering this to help their prayer life, and so I just did it. I am a quilter, so I just figured out the spaces."

Helping her were members of the church who were engineers, tool and die makers, and crafters who could help figure out the proportions of the center rosette.

The labyrinth was dedicated in May 1998 on Pentecost Sunday.

Alongside her studies about the practice of labyrinth-walking, Hartley also studied about helping people to reflect on their lives with God and to grow in their prayer life. She began heading retreats on prayer life.

Hartley, a native of Atwood, didn't start life with the intention of becoming a pastor. She earned a bachelor's degree in journalism at the University of Kansas and worked in that profession for 15 years before feeling the call of the ministry.

She took a course in clinical pastoral education at the Medical Center Hospital of Vermont in Burlington, with "on the job" training; became the director of a Presbyterian ministry, the Crisos (Greek for "Point of Transition") House, which was a halfway house for adults in life transition; and then became director of an Episcopal Church pilot program of home-sharing.

In three years, Hartley developed the latter program, Project HOME, into a full-fledged state- and church-funded agency that paired people who needed help in living at home with people who needed a home and could provide the needed services. She traveled in the United States, Canada and Great Britain to speak at conferences about the project.

Although her work itself was a ministry, Hartley felt called into the sacramental ministry. She entered McCormick Theological Seminary, a Presbyterian seminary in Chicago, where she earned a master of divinity degree, conferred in June 1989. After her graduation, she was awarded fellowships for her study and travel in Israel.

Upon her return from Israel, Hartley was ordained Oct. 8, 1989. She served from 1989 to 1991 as part-time associate pastor at Westport Presbyterian Church in Kansas City, Mo., and part-time interim campus pastor at the Ecumenical Christian Ministries at KU.

Hartley participated in a movement at KU that began with a student rally and resulted in the formation of Voice, an organization that seeks peace relationships between men and women of different races and backgrounds.

Referring to the children's chorus, "Jesus Loves the Little Children of the World," Hartley said that concept has been the bedrock of her ministry --- the impartiality of God, who welcomes everyone. She said she believes that each religious tradition has something to share with the world and with one another, and that together, we have much more of a complete picture than anyone by themselves.

She reaches out in all types of organizations, working with Interfaith and Concerned Citizens of Topeka, combating hate and helping people to reach out to include one another and respect one another.

Hartley's last service as interim pastor of Second Presbyterian was Oct. 24. On Oct. 16, movers were packing her things as she prepared for a final wedding and four baptisms, while also giving an interview.

She is leaving to accept a position as senior pastor of the 300- member Union Presbyterian Church in Scottsville, N.Y., 12 miles from Rochester and a one-hour drive from Niagara Falls. This New England church celebrated its 175th anniversary last year.

"It will be a different challenge and a different personality," Hartley said. "But God is at work in their lives, too."

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