Letter from Dr. Brent Strawn

Dear Pat:

Bill Brown recently shared the news with the colloquium that you are now receiving hospice care and taking letters rather than phone calls or email. I was sorry to hear this news and it made me sorrier still that we haven’t been in touch much of late. I wrote you an email in late February but didn’t hear back; perhaps you were already no longer taking calls at that point. I have been thinking a lot about you a lot recently, even before the news from Bill; even more, now, since hearing it. I have been praying for you as well and for your family near and far.

You were in my prayers earlier this week as the daily office had me praying Psalm 103. I will always remember you telling a class I was in that nothing happens in the Miller family without Psalm 103 being present! So it will always be “Pat’s psalm” in my book. But that is just one of the many things about you that I will never forget. I’ve said it before but want to say it again, that you have always been my greatest teacher. I told Mary, when I sent this note to her, that I have admired you since the day I met you and I think that admiration turned to love in a very short period of time. I knew your name already as an undergraduate student in San Diego, but remember being thrilled to hear that you would offer a devotional at the new student retreat at PTS when Holly and I arrived in NJ in summer of 1992. You did not disappoint! Just a short few days later and I was, by the mercies of God (or at least Dennis Olson’s), able to pass the Hebrew exam and so skip Hebrew grammar class. Dennis urged me to take the Intro to Hebrew exegesis class, however, which I was eager to do because you were the one teaching it. I still use the insights from that class in my teaching every semester (particularly from the paper I wrote on Amos 7:10-17; but also from another one on Isaiah 40 that you allowed Eric Jacobson and me to co-write). I remember you behind the lectern in Stuart, your light brown briefcase, your BDB, your insights, your wisdom, your manner. I told Holly early on that you somehow reminded me of my dad, but I think that was because you were already becoming a father figure for me. No surprise that, later, you were formally my Doktorvater! After introduction to exegesis in my first semester, I signed up immediately to take Deuteronomy with you the next semester. What you probably don’t know is that I waived NT intro just to take that course! And I also overloaded (18 units) so I could take it. But it was worth it, even on the very first day of class when you walked in, set up at the lectern, spied me out of the corner of your eye and said “Back for more Strawn?” Yes I was…and ever since.

I could recount so many wonderful memories: you asking me to tutor Wayne Miesel in OT; auditing your Israelite Religion class (which must have had 100 students in it); taking second year Ugaritic with you and Leong; spending Easter Sunday (and maybe another one or two) with you and Mary Ann with David and Carol Miles in Lamington. It was in their living room that I told you that I had decided to stay at PTS for the PhD, turning down other options (including Emory). You had been appropriately objective during my decision process but when I reported I was staying, I’ll never forget how you said “You are? That’s great!” and you got out of your seat and gave me a hug. That was worth the whole thing right there!

In doctoral work I got to take your OT Theology seminar (which was massive—20 people I think) and I remember how you asked me to write one of the first papers, on Gabler, and chastened me a bit about the product I delivered—rightly so, no doubt. You were demanding of me, giving me one (or maybe both) of the only A minuses I got in my MDiv. It always made me want to do better: to reach Pat Miller’s standards of excellence.

There was no question I wanted you to chair my dissertation and I was thrilled when you agreed. Of course I’ll never forget when we met in your home office and I shared with you a fantastic dissertation topic I had been thinking of. You listened and then slid over to me two monographs (one in German: Keel and Uehlinger’s work that was untranslated at that point) which effectively took that idea off the table! I remember you hosting Othmar for coffee just a few short years later when he came to Princeton and stayed with Holly and me. I remember my defense and how you took Holly and me out to lunch afterwards, and the kind words you said about the defense and how I held my own during Leong’s questions, even getting the better of him in an exchange! (That was a real high point of my career!) I remember your kind words about the death of Holly’s grandfather who passed away the very next day after my defense. We had come by the house to say goodbye on our way back to Kentucky (I was still at Asbury at that time) and your thoughtfulness was profound and meaningful. Earlier, I remember an HB colloquium at your house, or maybe just a holiday party, with Caleb as a baby. You took him right off our hands and carried him all around the house. When he was very little, probably his first Halloween, we brought him over to see you and Mary Ann. He was dressed like a lion—a foretaste of things to come! And then, after the move to Emory, there was the time we got to spend the whole summer in your beautiful house as I taught summer Hebrew at PTS. I combed your book collections—both offices esp. since you said I might have a few volumes (I still treasure those)—and of course Mary Ann’s poetry books were everywhere. It wasn’t too long after the move to Emory that you agreed to coedit the Cambridge series with me. What a thrill for a young prof like me and to work with you, my mentor and role model! As you know, the latest volume, on Kings, just arrived late last year and another is about to be published. More are in the pipeline.

Then there was your Festschrift—again, what a joy to work on that, what an absolute coup that I was able to do so! I remember after we announced it, at the Denver SBL in the PTS reception, that at one point the crowd parted and you and I met up, which we hadn’t yet after the formal intro with Nancy Bowen up front. I think you called me an “SOB”—with a twinkle in your eye and I took it as the highest of compliments. We pulled it off unbeknownst to you—thanks, of course, to massive help from Mary Ann! Some of my favorite essays I’ve read are in that volume though that book could and should have been much longer and multi-volume because of how many people know you and respect you and love you.

As a student I was always impressed with you as a teacher, in person; also as an editor when I worked that one year with you in Theology Today—that was a blast and you were a force to watch and learn from; and also as a preacher: it was pure joy that you were the baccalaureate preacher when I graduated with the PhD. I’ll never forget that sermon: “The Prophets’ Sons and Daughters.” (Neither will I forget the sermon on heaven you preached at George’s funeral, or the sermon for Don Juel that was published in the PSB.) When I left Princeton for my first post and thereafter, your published work became even more important to me. Your collected essays, your Israelite Religion volume, your Deut commentary, your stunning 10 commandments, The God You Have, and o on and so forth—also the collected TheologyTtoday editorials and the collected sermons. These are all high bars that I will never reach, but they make me want to try. And this doesn’t even mention other things I know and am in awe about over you: like when Mary Ann shared with us that you turned down a job at Harvard to pastor in SC. And I know, even if only inchoately, of how much you wrote for me: for grants and jobs and all the rest. How could I ever say thank you for all that?

I think also of your essay in the I Believe volume and how you talked about Mary Ann there and how it was time to care for her. What a beautiful piece and sentiment. As you might recall, I call Holly “Sweetie” and “Sweets” as you did Mary Ann. When we last saw you, there in Black Mountain, you mentioned that essay to us (we had come through, with Micah, after being up in Boone), and you reminded us about the importance of caring for Mary Ann—a vocation that preceded and took precedence over all other vocational pursuits. I will never forget that. It may be the most important lesson you’ve taught me, though I confess I’d heard it before, numerous times, at your feet. It is nothing less than another vignette in your life of faith, your life of keeping God’s commandments, something that you have lived out in palpable ways for all to see and all to marvel at. Including, especially, me.

I am so grateful for you, Pat. There is no way to say that adequately. Working on a FS, dedicating an article to you—these are paltry gifts. At some point in recent months, I had written to tell you that a collection of my iconography essays will be published soon and I’m dedicating it to you, my true Doktorvater, and also to Othmar, who played a role in my artistic work from a distance. But again that is the smallest of tokens. So, in the end, all I can say is that I praise God for you and consider myself the most blessed of students to have had you as my teacher, my mentor, and my friend. I say in the front matter of the collected essays volume that when I think of you, our Lord’s saying in Luke 6:40a comes to mind: no student is greater than his teacher, but how, if I am lucky, maybe the latter half of that verse might someday be true of me as well: “whoever is fully prepared will be like their teacher.” That’s my hope and prayer, but it’s a long shot. We’re talking about no one less than Pat Miller here!

Holly and I love you and will be praying for you. Tonight, we will reread Psalm 103, “Pat’s Psalm,” in your honor.

All my love,

Brent

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The Rev. Dr. Brent A. Strawn, Ph.D.
Professor of Old Testament and Professor of Law
Duke Divinity School, Duke University