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By my last year of seminary I was secretly wishing to wear a cross, but I dared not buy one for myself. Was I going to need a cross to prove to people that I was a pastor, too? The inner vortex began to spin and I conceded that no solution was to be found within myself. That is why God gives us the verbum extra nos, the word outside ourselves, to break through the vicious circle of self-consciousness.

The word came to me through Suzanne, my old college roommate, who surprised me at Christmas with a slender and delicate silver cross, at the crux of which was a dove. She gave it to me along with her blessing on my vocation, calling upon me to respond again faithfully to my call. Fittingly, this cross is not another knick-knack on a chain; it is the Cross of Christ himself laid upon me.

This time I will carry it.

Sarah E. Hinlicky ministers at St. Paul's Lutheran Church and the Lutheran Campus Ministry at Duke University.

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Hinlicky's previous articles for Christianity Today and Books & Culture include:

Reuniting Mary and Martha | Theology is women's work, too. (CT, Nov. 1, 2001)

The Great Reunion Beyond | Death is the heartless divider—or so I thought before I watched my grandpa die. (CT, Feb. 15, 2001)

Free to Be Creatures Again | How predestination descended like a dove on two unsuspecting seminarians, and why they are so grateful. (CT, Oct. 17, 2000)

Urbane Bigotry | A review of Chloe Breyer's The Close: A Young Woman's First Year At A Seminary (B&C, Sep/Oct 2000)

SWF Seeks Marriage Partner | I've got it all. So why do I want a husband? (B&C, Jul/Aug 2000)

An Open-Door Policy | Is meeting alone with a member of the opposite sex dangerous? Is taking steps against it sexist? (CT, Nov. 11-16, 1999)

Hinlicky is also a regular contributor to First Things, where she wrote "Talking to Generation X," "Subversive Virginity," and "Don't Write About Race," and to re:generation quarterly, where she has written about Mary.

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January 2003, Vol. 47, No. 1