Rev. Shirley A. Ranck,
Ph.D.
Some Personal Notes
Dear Search Committee,
I
like to think that we are the artists of our own lives, the heroines of
our own adventures as we journey. That means to me that the
personal is interwoven with the professional as our lives unfold.
One Sunday morning in September
1972, I took the advice of a friend and made my first visit to the
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Morristown, New Jersey. It
was my first visit to any UU congregation. As I opened the door
to the old mansion, the aroma of fresh coffee drew me in, a perfect
welcome for someone who grew up in a home where the coffee pot was
always on and a cup of java was always the symbol of welcome. The
big old marble foyer in Morristown was full of people greeting each
other and they quickly included me with a name tag and words of welcome.
Three of my four children were with me (my eldest, Scott, had just left
for college) and I was directed to a table where I could register them
in Sunday School. “That will be $30,” said the woman behind the
table. As a not-too-affluent single parent, I was a little
startled; but as someone who had worked in religious education for many
years, I was very pleased. “These people take their Sunday School
program seriously,” I thought. As I entered the meeting room for
the service, I noticed that the lectern had the symbols of all the
major world religions carved into it. I liked that. As a
psychologist I thoroughly enjoyed the Fellowship president’s talk
entitled “I Really Do Believe That I am God!”
So there was coffee, a warm welcome, a self-respecting program for
children and young people, and a theological inclusiveness and
immanence that met some deep need in me. As I became involved in
the life of the Fellowship, I felt that I had come home to something
genuine in myself and to a community with a wide and challenging vision
with which I could identify.
As my involvement in the
Morristown Fellowship deepened, I served as Chair of the Sunday
Services Committee, as a member of the Board and as a member of the
Committee on Ministerial Interns. It was a young intern minister
who asked me if I had ever considered becoming a minister. From
that moment I found myself watching the Fellowship's minister and
imagining myself in that role, even though I liked my work as a school
psychologist and I had for many years worked toward a long range goal
of completing my doctorate and becoming licensed for private practice.
In 1976, with my doctorate completed and both of my sons off to
college, I decided to risk taking a different path professionally, to
explore the possibility of becoming a Unitarian Universalist
minister. I sold my house and furniture and moved across the
country to Starr King School. The humans in our family drove a
stuffed VW bus across the country; the two felines went by plane.
We took along only important possessions—beloved teddy-bears and thirty
cartons of books.
The journey that began in the VW bus and continued during my years at
Starr King School was a time of soul-searching and re-examining my
whole personal and professional identity. Who was I—that woman
who left a good job, a nice home and a wonderful community of friends
to set out on such an adventure?
I was born Shirley Ann Bush on October 22, 1930 in Jersey City, New
Jersey. I grew up in a variety of New Jersey cities and suburbs,
some of them near the ocean. The ocean and beaches are my closest
ties to the natural world and whenever possible I refresh myself by
visiting a beach.
My father, Gilbert Holmes Bush who died in 1985 at the age of 86, was
for many years an executive for National Distillers Corporation.
He was always interested in liberal religion and encouraged my
study. In my twenties I earned a Master's degree in religious
education from Drew University. Going to theological school was
rather an odd thing for a young mother to do in those days and I was
considered particularly odd because I insisted upon taking electives
such as a series of courses in New Testament Greek. I was
fortunate in having two strong women mentors, Mildred Moody Eakin and
Nelle Morton.
My mother, Ann West Bush who died of cancer in 1970, came from Kewanee,
Illinois. As a young woman she studied journalism and drama at
Northwestern University. She taught me to write and to love the
theater. She also baby-sat for me and typed many of my graduate
school papers.
I was married twice. Each marriage lasted about a decade and each
one ended in a divorce. However, I consider both marriages to
have been successful because my personal growth and that of my husband
was enhanced by the relationship in each case. I believe it was
healthy that we parted when that was no longer so. My second
husband was also an important mentor for me. He strongly
encouraged my study of psychology and during that marriage I completed
a Master's degree in clinical psychology and an internship at a
psychiatric clinic.
Two sons were born of my first marriage. Scott is a
graduate of Beloit College, did graduate work at the University of
Wisconsin, and has taught English in several Spanish-speaking
countries. He is now a writer and translator. He lives in
New York and is married to Joy who is a poet and
playwright. Jim is a graduate of Goddard
College, a veteran of anti-nuclear demonstrations and a singer of
sacred harp music. He lives in Wisconsin near his former
partner, Kit, a social worker, and her daughter Camilla who is a
graduate of Beloit College and holds a Master's degree from the
University of Wisconsin.
Two daughters were born of my second marriage. Christina
lives in California. She is a Purchasing Manager,
an
avid bicyclist and the mother of Michael, who studied at California
Polytechnic University and Jacqueline who is married. Laura is a
programmer/analyst as well as an artist and musician, lives
in Honolulu, and is the mother of Kevin, age eleven. I am very
proud of each of my children and
grandchildren.
For about ten years, before my children were grown, I was a single
parent. For most of that time I worked full time as a school
psychologist, took courses at night and during the summers toward my
Ph.D., and managed a suburban household of four children and a variety
of pets. Through the organization Parents Without Partners, I
came to know many single parents whose lives were as over-scheduled as
mine. We ministered to each other in many ways, and I will always
have a special interest in the needs of single parents.
My experiences as a single parent and my avid reading of the literature
of the women's movement gave me an intense interest in women's issues
both in psychology and in religion. I enjoyed the California
sunshine, flowers all year round and the luxury of being a full time
student at Starr King School. I spent much of that wonderful time
researching women's religious history. I stayed in Berkeley until
Christina graduated from high school and Laura left to spend her senior
year in Holland. Christina was married in 1980 and I accepted the
call to become the first minister at Northern Hills Fellowship in
Cincinnati, Ohio. I served there for a little over two years.
While in Cincinnati I decided to complete the process of getting
licensed for private practice in clinical psychology. I worked
part time at the University of Cincinnati Psychological Services Center
to accumulate hours of supervised experience and in 1983 passed the
licensing exam and returned to California. In 1984 I joined a
group of psychologists in private practice in the San Diego area, and
in 1986 I accepted a position as senior clinical psychologist at Las
Colinas, the San Diego County jail for women. It was good for me
to complete that long-held goal of licensing, and I enjoyed my work as
a psychologist. But I missed the variety and the intellectual
stimulation of the ministry.
One of the great joys of my professional life was the publication by
the UUA in 1986 of my Cakes for the Queen of Heaven, a feminist
theology curriculum kit which has touched the lives of many women and
men in our denomination. In planning and writing the material, I
was able to make use of all my interests in religious education,
psychology, women's studies and ministry. The popularity of the
kit has been deeply satisfying to me.
In September 1988 I accepted the position of Minister at the Unitarian
Universalist Fellowship of Mobile, Alabama and the Unitarian
Universalist Church of Jackson, Mississippi. I served there for
two years and then, in September 1990, accepted an Interim Ministry at
the Marin Fellowship in San Rafael, California. During that year
I attended an interim ministry training conference in Boston. I
found that the role of interim minister suited me—being more of a
consultant and steady presence in time of transition. I decided
to start the process of becoming an Accredited Interim Minister.
Most of my subsequent placements have been as an Interim Minister.
In 1993, I retired to do some writing. I enjoyed living near my
daughters and grandchildren in California, but discovered that I was
not really prepared to retire either financially or emotionally.
In 1997 I returned to ministerial work as quarter time interim minister
in Reno, Nevada and half time Associate Minister at the UU Society of
Sacramento, California.
In 1999 I accepted a two year position as Interim Minister at the UU
Congregation in Olympia, Washington. I also entered into the
Interim Ministry Network Training Program and received a certificate
for having completed 60 hours of intensive training and analysis of
interim ministry work. At General Assembly 2001, I was designated
an Accredited Interim Minister. Since then I have continued to do
interim ministries. In particular, during 2007-08, I have been
serving as Interim Minister at the UU Fellowship of Northern Nevada in
Reno.
In the years since my involvement in Morristown I have experienced
within the larger Unitarian Universalist community a growing sense of
belonging and commitment and excitement in my life. These
qualities
are, I believe, the main resources I bring to the work of
ministry. I
hope you will enjoy getting to know me through the personal and
professional materials in this website, and that you will find here a
kindred spirit with whom you might like to share a ministry.
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