The Road Less Traveled: Decisions That Have Made All the Difference
By Terry Leigh Buckner
Published Fall 2008
Most of us at some point in our schooling study the works of the famous poets. Robert Frost was a pretty simple read and I guess that is why I remember his words so well. One of his poems always resonated with me: “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,” the poem goes. We are reminded that there are choices in life, different paths we can take. Each choice will take your life in a direction and subsequently you can look back, as Robert Frost did, years later and see that the path you chose made all the difference to where you ended up. Robert Frost said he chose the one less traveled and that is what made all the difference.
As a young woman in the early 1980s I chose the career of stockbroker. In Raleigh, there were 25 men and no women in the office. Let’s just say I was definitely odd “man” out in every way and this was definitely the road less traveled. Women were beginning to make inroads into the business world but it was a slow go. There were years that were more humorous than others. My name “Terry” is spelled like a man so at conventions I was often given a male roommate (oops, I am married!). Once I was given an award at the conference annual meeting and my spouse, Michael, which the conference pronounced Michelle, was given a charm bracelet.
As the years went by I began to volunteer at my local church more and more. The adventure of large returns on portfolios ceased to hold the allure it once had, though I did love the people and meeting with my clients was always a bright spot in the working day. Days went by as I poured over stock analysis reports and I daydreamed of a new direction. I used to tell my friends that a different train was coming down the track and I could almost hear the whistle. When it gets here, I am getting on it. That sounds very nonspecific but that was exactly how I felt. If only I had known that the train was a fast-moving bullet bound for another place.
A full-time position came available at my local church for someone to teach and coordinate all the adult programming. After much soul searching, I left a career of 18 years in the corporate world and jumped on a new train. That choice changed everything. Just a few years into the new job, the pull to higher education came. So at 40 years old I entered Duke University as a theology student. The average age of the entering students at Duke Divinity School was 26.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
After graduating Duke Divinity School, the Methodist denomination immediately places you in the pulpit as a pastor. My husband was running a restaurant in Little River so I asked to be sent east. I was told there was nothing at the beach. Of course, everyone wants to serve at the beach. But out of the blue came a change in plans, and my family, which includes two teenagers, was sent to Wilmington, North Carolina. I was warmly received at Pine Valley United Methodist Church.
In just two short years I was asked to start a church in Leland. After much consideration and more soul searching I said yes.
Guess what? No one can really tell you how to start a church. We currently have no building, one part time staff person and a lot of people with a big dream. We are being led by something far greater than just ourselves, and the adventure is great. Closer Walk United Methodist Church, as we are called, is in our fourth location in less than a year because we are growing. But the reality is I am again a woman in a man’s world. Church Planters are traditionally young males. All of those helping me are listening and we are learning as we go.
Ronald. E. Osborn once said. “Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.”
The Leland area is a diverse population with great poverty and great wealth. In our congregation we are committed to helping these two worlds connect. We are very happy to have been led to southeastern North Carolina and are excited to be a part of this growing and thriving community.
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