1. Jeri Rowe: Papa & The Priest
By Jeri Rowe jeri.rowe@news­record.com | Posted: Wednesday, March 5, 2014 7:00 pm
The Rev. had me at Hemingway.Nathan Finnin
Ernest Hemingway.
He’s the priest at Canterbury, Greensboro’s Episcopal school, and he uses
Hemingway’s books to help eighth­graders write their sermons and find their spiritual
path at a time when adolescence sometimes feels scary and intimidating.
I mentioned him last week in my column about . I talked to him about
Mary.
Mary Derrick
You remember Mary.
There is something about Mary.
She is the eighth­grader who told a crowded chapel about overcoming her extreme
shyness that rendered her mute for the first eight years of her life.
How did she do that?
With Nathan’s help.
Or as the students call him.Father Finnin
He got Mary and the other eighth­graders ready through music, movies and books. I asked what books. That’s when Nathan mentioned
Hemingway.
I love Hemingway.
Been to his house in Key West. Hung out with his cats. Saw the cat's big water dish ­­ a urinal. And stood in his writing room for 10
minutes trying to absorb every detail.
JERI 022814 derrick 05jr
sends.JPG
Mary Derrick (right), listens to the Rev.
Nathan Finnin talk about her success.

2. Of course, that was 20 years ago when I walked around barefoot, scribbled gibberish in a notebook and anchored myself to a bar stool
for hours at my best friend's bar so I could watch the sun set over the sea.
Oh, but I still remember.
Hanging with the ghost of Papa.
Anyway, Father Finnin mentioned he uses Hemingway’s “ and “ I asked him why,
and he rattled off this quote like scripture:
For Whom The Bell Tolls’’ Farewell to Arms.’’
“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at broken places.’’
That’s from “Farewell To Arms,’’ Hemingway’s book from 1929. And that’s what Father Finnin wanted his students to see today.
They listened to tunes, too. You’ll see Father Finnin’s faith playlist to the upper left. And they watched movies.
It was all to get students like Mary in the right frame of mind.
Take “Toy Story.’’
“It’s that scene when Andy gets a new toy and writes his name at the bottom,’’ Father Finnin says. “In baptism, we’re marked as
children of God in a similar way. We all have God’s name written on the bottom of our feet, and the kids kind of dig that.’’
Father Finnin uses the tent poles of popular culture to help students find their faith.
And what does he hope they learn?
“I hope they come to realize that faith isn’t something you have to create,’’ he says. “It’s something you recognize. Theology and God
surrounds us already. So, it’s not a matter of creating it. It’s a matter of stopping and recognizing it and being aware of it. It’s not about
introducing the divine in everyday life. It’s about recognizing it and letting everyone be aware of it.
“Kids at this age understand this in a real way, and kids, they’re much smarter than what we give them credit for.’’
Father Finnin understood that early.
By the time he was a teenager, his mother died. She was a guidance counselor, and he was a kid who ended up with big questions that
he wasn’t afraid to ask like “Why do bad things happen to good people and how do I understand that, God?’’

3. How many of us have asked those questions?
Father Finnin is now 32, and when he works with eighth­graders on their sermon – and the questions they have – he tells them about
his mom.
So, he knows heartache. And he knows North Carolina.
He grew up in Wilmington, the only son of a career Army sergeant, and graduated from UNC­Chapel Hill with a degree in philosophy
and political science. He went on to Yale Divinity School where he was later ordained as an Episcopal priest.
He came to Canterbury four years ago by way of Rhode Island – or a friend who taught at a boarding school in Rhode Island.
“I got asked, ‘Would you like to come to a K­8 school in Greensboro?’ and I thought that sounded horrible,’’ he says. “But I fell in
love with the place. I had never spent any time in Greensboro, and I was driving up North Church Street and passed Pisgah Church
Road and saw the chapel and I thought, ‘Surely, that is not an independent school chapel,' and I found their identity revolved around
that chapel.’’
I, too, love that chapel. And Father Finnin?
“You can feel the juice there,’’ he says.
Eighth­grader felt the juice one morning two Fridays ago when she gave her sermon in front of 450 people inside the
chapel. She spoke for more than four minutes about the condition – her condition – known as “selective mutism.’’
Mary Derrick
At first, when she started working on her sermon in November, Father Finnin worried. He knew about Mary’s history of silence. The
first time she tried her sermon in front of him, Father Finnin thought she didn’t even breathe.
But she got better. And after at least seven rehearsals, working with Father Finnin the entire time, Mary nailed her sermon Friday in
front of a crowd of faces, both familiar and unfamiliar.
Pretty sweet.
“For her to talk about something that personal and that real is fantastic,’’ Father Finnin says. “And her message is a good one that God
somehow is with us and gives us strength to work through some of that stuff.’’
Yes, with the help of Dr. Seuss, Johnny Cash and Papa.

4. And Nathan, too.