A Clergy Appreciation Month Reflection from Jeremy Hamilton-Arnold

I was joking with my spouse — full disclosure: she is ordained — that I should begin my contribution to this DSF newsletter issue by saying that any “clergy appreciation” piece, given the likely audience of this newsletter, would be…preaching to the choir. Okay, okay, I couldn’t help myself. But in all seriousness, you, dear reader, and I, are both very likely on the same page about the importance of clergy in our lives, our faith formation, our understanding of scripture, and the church. They teach, guide, calm, read, ordain, wonder, question, preside, lead, joke, steward, account, pray, charge, inspire, and so many more glowing verbs. I don’t mean to be flippant. They’ve been such a consistent presence in my life that they’ve become (literally) familiar, and it’s easy to forget how clergypersons have been so pivotal to my life.

For a while, I was dead set on becoming clergy myself. Instead, I seem to have chosen a life dedicated to maintaining “clergy adjacency.” Following my time earning a B.A. in Religion at Texas Christian University, where all of my closest friends were involved with the Disciples on Campus student group (and many were clergy-bound), I went to seminary. Avoiding an M.Div., though, I earned an M.A. in Art and Religion at the Graduate Theological Union. In the middle of that, I married a pastor-in-training and eventually found my way down to where she was attending seminary, herself, at Claremont School of Theology. At this time, during her remaining two years of the M.Div. program, I worked for the wonderful folks at DSF. Then, if I didn’t have enough of seminary life, I wound up at Yale Divinity School, earning yet another non-M.Div. degree, an M.A. in Religion focusing on Art and Material Culture, all on my path to academia. Long story short, by the end, I found museum work to be more fulfilling, and I now find myself about to mark a decade at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, working in a leading role in the Museum’s membership department.

Yet all the while, throughout my adult life (as in my youth), clergy have been a recurring force for encouraging curiosity and for following the radical model set by Christ. They have called for me to think about what my role is in the Church as we work together in love to enact justice, spread mercy, and build humility. They have encouraged me to see “beauty” as a name of God and to create spaces that foster a sense of belonging, connection, and empathy. Even though my place of employment has changed from what I envisioned 20 years ago, it appears my calling never really has changed all that much, and I’m happy to remain in my adjacency to those preaching to the choir.

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Jeremy Hamilton-Arnold is the Senior Manager of Membership at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. He earned an M.A. in Religion from Yale Divinity School, an M.A. in Art and Religion from the Graduate Theological Union, and a B.A. in Religion from Texas Christian University. He currently lives in Houston, TX, with his spouse, Rev. Caroline Hamilton-Arnold, and their two young boys.