The Messenger:
Friendship, Faith and Finding One’s Way
Douglas John Hall
Cascade Books, 2011
What does it mean to be a mentor? What does it mean to be a friend? Who are the key people in our lives who have helped guide us in the directions we have taken in life? What kind of qualities do they exemplify?
Douglas John Hall, a minister and theologian with an international reputation, has written a highly personal book as a work of gratitude to his mentor, Robert (Bob) Miller. What is particularly unique about this book is that mentorship and friendship are spoken of not theoretically, but by means of a biographical and auto – biographical journey through the lives of Hall, Miller and other individuals during a key period in Canadian Protestant church life from the 1950s to the present. Also unique and worthwhile is an insider’s view into intimate relationships of friendship and guidance between men—in this case, an older with a younger—at a time when such intimacy is rarely trusted, let alone communicated.
Hall speaks of growing up in a time where Protestantism taught dogmatic certitudes and moralistic piety with little room for the “dark, subtle places of the human spirit.” As a teenager and young adult with many questions and a hunger for honesty, he was fortunate to find several key people who not only took his questions seriously, but refused to give any pat answers. Instead, they modelled a way of being Christian whereby the questions led to a much larger, more profound relationship with God, to “a second naiveté” of faith (to borrow a term from Paul Riceour). For the young Hall, Miller stands out among this specimen of Christianity, perhaps even rarer in the ‘50s than the present day.
Miller exemplified other qualities that also made him an incredible mentor. He offered the young Hall advice and direction without imposing his views. He was honest, but affirming and gentle, and he took the time to ponder every response to Hall. This attracted Hall not only to Christianity, but to the ministry as he saw it modelled in Miller. The other quality of Miller’s that Hall found astonishing was his humility. He had an authority but of a kind very different than so many of the clergy around Hall at the time. Miller’s kind of authority was earned but never imposed. In fact, Miller often shared his own questions and doubts with the young Hall, and showed him how asking the right questions and being honest before God and with others about one’s own uncertainties only deepened one’s faith, hope and love in the largest sense. A keen Barthian, Miller always knew he had to deal with “the totally Other” (Søren Kierkegaard/Karl Barth).
The relationship continued as Miller along with others helped Hall through his initial studies in music, and then the discerning of a call to ministry and studies in theology. Miller and this small group were there for Hall through all the key events of his life, those times of grief and of celebration. Hall tracks Miller’s own soul searching from the time Miller returned from graduate studies in Europe to find his way as national secretary of the Student Christian Movement, to his unjust and humiliating termination, but also to his incredible grace toward those who were against him. He was forced to let it all go and start over again with nothing and he did so without animosity or bitterness. Miller was a “book steward” and eventually opened the Bob Miller Book Room on Bloor Street in Toronto, which became his mission field.
In the last chapter, Hall offers more in – depth reflection on human character and the nature of core relationships, and such reflection provides some profound insight to anyone searching for a mentor with the right qualifications. He describes Miller as someone who didn’t readily talk about his feelings but was rather private. While some might have described Miller as lacking in the ability or willingness to disclose himself emotionally or spiritually, what Hall discerns is a certain personality different than his own or that of others. Miller was sensitive and an attentive listener, but was not someone who would jump in easily talking about his own stuff. And this was not about a lack in him, but more, perhaps a “Canadian” moderation or modesty that was genuine and spiritually profound, and in another sense, was more than many would expect. When he did speak, one would listen because the words and ideas had been sifted through very deeply.
What is fascinating about friendships, and even more so of mentorship relationships, is that those who become key people in our lives are not necessarily those we would have chosen or expected to serve in this capacity. We discover wonderful differences in humanity and this enlarges us and expands our way of looking at ourselves, our world and our way.
It’s been a few years since Miller died, but his legacy in Hall’s life and in the lives of others is something for which Hall is forever grateful. Would that we all have Bob Millers in our lives. But whether we do or we don’t, this book provides us with some wonderful personal and biographical tools for discerning our way.
