About Cindy

I was born and raised in Lancaster County, Pa. (often known as the “Pennsylvania Dutch country”) and was baptized and confirmed in Trinity Lutheran Church in downtown Lancaster. At Trinity, I had the privilege of hearing the Gospel proclaimed authentically and of learning about the significance and importance of the Protestant Reformation. It may say something about me, although I’m not sure what, to reveal that as a kid I had a rabbit named Calvin, a guinea pig named the Pope, and a hamster named Luther. I’m not saying which one I liked best (although I should, all these years later, thank my parents for being so incredibly tolerant as to allow me to have all those little beasties at the same time).

I graduated from a Lutheran-affiliated university, Wittenberg University, in Springfield, Ohio, and then moved to Washington, D.C., to attend the Georgetown University Law Center. I graduated from Georgetown in 1972 and was admitted to the DC Bar that same year. After I moved to DC I began attending the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church. I was drawn to New York Avenue not because of its denominational affiliation (obviously, since I was still a Lutheran) but because of its strong social outreach program, including a tutoring program for inner-city kids that I participated in for many years (and that is still going strong today). It was at New York Avenue that I chose to become a member of the P.C. (U.S.A.). I was ordained a deacon, and then an elder there, and served as Clerk of Session.

I also served on a Pastor Nominating Committee at New York Avenue. As occasionally happens, the “fit” between our committee’s choice and the congregation didn’t work. After a period of intense conflict, the pastor resigned. Anyone who’s been in the midst of church conflict knows how painful it is. For me, that pain led me to realize that I could no longer be a positive force at New York Avenue, and that I should find a new church home. Frankly, I wasn’t sure I would remain a Presbyterian. I didn’t realize then what I know now – that conflict is a part of every faith community, no matter what denomination. What matters is how conflict is faced, confronted, and, hopefully, resolved.

After a time of attending various churches, I ended up transferring my membership to the First Presbyterian Church in Arlington, Va. I had moved to Arlington, just across the river in DC, in the mid-80s. First Arlington, like every congregation, is no stranger to conflict and change. It was facing the reality that the large suburban church that it was in the 1950s was changing, as members left for outer suburbs, and as the neighborhood around First became more diverse and urban. The congregation at First could have refused to recognize that their congregation was changing. But instead of turning inward and thinking about glory days, they welcomed new members such as myself and started figuring out how to do ministry in a way that would reflect their new reality. I was elected to the Session and served as Clerk. My experience at First reaffirmed and reassured me as to the vitality and importance of the Reformed tradition.

Another important part of the 1980s for me was, in the latter half of the decade, being a foster parent to Jimmy, a teenager who introduced me to the world of skateboarding (and, 20 years later, he’s still skateboarding).

I also was enriched by watching my two nephews grow up in the DC area. My sister Ann, their mother, is an ordained Presbyterian elder who lives in Washington. My oldest nephew, Mark, is a priest in the Washington Archdiocese who currently serves a church in Northeast DC (and, yes, it leads to interesting family discussions). My other nephew, Ben, is a journalist living in New York City with his wife and sons Jake and Rafe.

Right after I graduated from Georgetown, I started work at BNA, Inc., a publisher of legal and regulatory information services. I figured I’d stay a couple of years, get some experience, and move on to government work or to a law firm. Thirty-plus years later, I’m still there. BNA is the oldest wholly employee-owned company in the US, having been founded in 1947. We currently employ more than 1,600 reporters, editors, lawyers, IT staff, and production staffers who produce – in print and electronic formats – more than 350 daily, weekly, and monthly news services covering legal, legislative, regulatory, and economic developments. At BNA, I’ve been a reporter and legal editor, a managing editor of publications focusing on First Amendment and intellectual property law, and the director of the successful effort to convert our publishing systems from print-based to electronic. I am now Executive Vice President and Corporate Secretary and a member of BNA’s Board of Directors.

When I was first ordained an elder, I suspect I was like many new elders: I didn’t have a clue about what “polity” was, much less whether it mattered. I wondered about why, exactly, we were called a “session,” but, since I’d grown up with the equally strange title of “vestry” for the congregation’s governing council, I decided not to worry about it. And even though I had been ordained, I still didn’t fully appreciate one astonishing aspect of Presbyterian life: that I, as a ruling elder, had equal leadership in the ministry and mission of the congregation with the congregation’s pastors.
I didn’t begin to truly grasp the uniqueness of our Presbyterian system until I was elected to the Committee on Ministry of National Capital Presbytery, and was subsequently asked to serve as its chair. I remember one time when, as part of the Catholic service in which my nephew Mark was ordained a deacon, I was introduced as the person who was “in charge” of all the Presbyterian pastors in the area. After the service, a woman made a beeline to find me. She asked, with quite a cheerful glint in her eye, “Let me get this straight. YOU – a laywoman — are in charge of the pastors?” When I nodded, “yes,” the cheerful glint got ever more cheerful.

Well, of course I was not “in charge” of the pastors — the COM is. But I, as a ruling elder, was fully eligible to lead the COM. And, as a ruling elder, I could, and did, serve as Interim General Presbyter of National Capital Presbytery (doing that part-time while continuing to work at BNA part-time), as Moderator of the Presbytery, and as Chair of the Presbytery Council.

For the past three-plus years, I have been privileged to serve as the Co-Moderator of the Form of Government Task Force. I have learned and gained so much from working with this group of talented Presbyterians who are diverse in theology and background but who share a faithful and dedicated commitment to carry out our task of proposing a new Form of Government that will empower the church to witness effectively in the 21st century.

I didn’t grow up in the P.C. (U.S.A.). I came to it by choice. I stayed in it by choice. I am strengthened and uplifted by our history, by our Reformed understanding of who we are as children of God, and by our commitment to outreach and mission. At the same time, I’m not blind to the challenges that face us: the unremitting trench warfare over ordination standards, the increasing irrelevancy of mainline denominations generally, and the ever-expanding secularization of American culture. I fear that if we don’t face those challenges, we risk losing the strengths that sustain us. All of us in ordained ministry in the P.C. (U.S.A.) – elder and pastor alike — have the obligation to do whatever we can to build on our strengths and pass on those strengths to the next generation.
I have to admit, up front, that on a personal basis I’d probably rather share a beer with Martin Luther than with John Calvin. But what we Presbyterians need today more than ever is Calvin’s steely resolve and his unremitting faith – a steely resolve to sustain us as we confront challenge and change, and an unremitting faith that allows us, even in the midst of challenge and change, to sing, “Our hope is in no other save in Thee; our faith is built upon Thy promise free; Lord, give us peace, and make us calm and sure, That in Thy strength we evermore endure.”