welcome to mosaic on the summer morning i am hugh burrows sitting in for ron swisher we are going to do a profile which we do from time to time of a religious bay leader we are very excited to introduce dr. jamesemmer son he is pastor emeritus of calvary here in san francisco where he served until 199013 just turned 58 years old. we are delighted to help celebrate the birthday and bing him to you. >> thank you. >> towards the end we want to get towards your book forgiveness the key to the

creative life. a great contribution to people who simply want to get in. you were talking about forgiveness long long ago we will come back to that, but start us off now you are a peninsula boy. >> yes, my dad taught at stanford and cal people please forgive me i have great fondness for cal too i grew up there, only child, of my parents, dad was sick most of my growing days because he had tb from world war 1. and i also got it from him so i really started out as being a consequence of the trenches of world war 1 which may seem strange that is where he got the tb ultimately when i caught it i got it from him so there was that i didn't start school until the third grade. i had to be home schooled. and then was in all of the campus school, palo alto, and

stanford. >> went to princeton for seminary. >> being with tb that was very very serious in those days. >> it was. >> et was a full recovery. >> a full recovery i do have legions on the lung that show i had it but no tb there the doctor do i have to worry about tb he said not more than anybody i'm sorry but everybody else needs to. you were home until third grade had a nice integration back in and then went to campus school once you got out of high school you went where? >> to stanford. >> you stayed at stanford. >> son of a professor there, tuition -- my stanford education cost me $25 a term now match that. [ laughter ] >> what did you major in? >> i started out thinking i was going to be a lawyer my dad was and so forth and came the time

of the kamikaze planes in world war ii and i was studying comparative religions right at that time and realized the connection between those kamikaze planes and shinto and began to thing maybe the questions of the world are not legal and more ideological that started me into thinking about ministry and i didn't think necessarily i would be a pastor, but i went to seminary and got so much out of it personally, and discovered i had some ability to get up and speak and so could preach and was well received on that and found fulfillment in it so next thing i knew i was graduating from seminary most of my life i was a pastor there was one time when i broke out from that because of my other background and background in psychology

and counselling, which i got from university chicago, i wound up as head of the community service society new york city which did a major study on developing -- delivering social services. >> i want to go back here you are about 25 years old, you graduated three years from seminary. >> mm-hmm. >> and then you wake up and say what am i going to do? >> actually i was 22 years old. >> 22. >> when i graduated i was the product because of the war they were pushing us through high school and through college as fast as they could we went to school in the summer, not because i was smart we just went round the clock so actually i graduated from stanford age 19 again not because i was smart because they just kept us going and then next i was right into seminary because the idea was i would go into the chaplain is he along comes the a bomb

suddenly the war is over it tempt like a call to me i became a -- felt like a call to me i became a pastor. >> sounds like a place to break we will be right back a profile of beloved bay area religious leader, jim

emmer sen you grew up with us on the peninsula your father was a professor there, surprisingly at 22 years old you end up with a masters degree the war is over and now you have some choices to make about what you are going to do what did you do and why? >> i chose the ministry because i was going in that direction any way i was interested in theological issues because out of the war i felt the issues between japan and the united states were not political but ideological and had a lot to do with the concept of the divine however you worked with that. whether you believed in god or didn't believe in god if you did how you believed in god this became very interesting to me. and i came to a view that we are very much determined by the perspective from which we stand and look at the world. everyone of us you have a perspective, i have a perspective these relate to our background so that has become

my thing and if i can put it that way i really spent my life trying to understand individuals perspectives, i have to agree with me i want to know where they are in terms of their perspective help them help themselves in terms of dealing with a marriage, with a divorce with business decisions, whatever. >> and so you chose -- you have gone between teaching and being a parish pastor so right out of seminary, what did you choose? >> right out of seminary i was an assistant minister in a church in philadelphia, working with young people primarily and that was exciting because i wasn't that much older than they were but we were all thinking of the same things trying to figure out some of the same things it was a rather conservative church yet we went to the home of -- beach home in new jersey of one of them and

opened a closet here it was a liquor cabinet we sat down and had some conversation about that. >> conservative being tea totallers on that side. >> yes. >> let's just ask you were married to a abs buttely wonderful speck -- absolutely wonderful spectacular woman who is no longer with us. >> that's right. >> how did you all meet? >> her father was pastor of presbyterian church in new york i was going through struggles relative to my own parents divorce and things of that sort s i went to him, because of the reputation he had as a counsellor he taught counselling at the seminary i got so much help from that that i began to move more and more into that direction i never sat down and said well, i want to do with other people what he did with me but in effect that was the inspiration and the motivation so i went on and did

get formal training in psycho therapy in counselling, carl rogers, university of chicago was my mentor, i went through all of that, and then decided at that time i have to say i was one of the few people who haddock tore real level training in counselling who was also a minister we were in demand to teach seminaries and all of that and i said no, my whole life has been in academia. >> no, meg had degrees in this. >> she did and she was the counselor making a living as counselling and i wanted to work in the pastor and that is what i did. >> y'all were married what year? >> 1952. september 18th i remember my anniversary. >> there you go. >> and children? >> yes, we have john, who is a lawyer, head of major program in southern california, in the area of communication actually, we have a daughter who is up in

tampa and she graduated also from college and back east in colorado i should say and then our youngest is jed and some people may know him because he developed a view called blended values, it is a basis for looking at stocks you are going to buy, not just from their economic value but from their social impact value. >> name of the company is what? >> well, he is independent right now but he is jed emmerson in new york and he consults he really does quite a -- >> blended values. well, and so you find yourself then in the east, an assistant pastor hopscotch us to say how you got to denver. >> well, after -- for awhile i was assistant pastor but presbyterian church of forest hills was a church 250 members

in a 90% jewish area and forcest hills being where the -- yeah, i got involved in that and had a wonderful time with some rabbis who were there in fact, one new synagogue was getting started needed a place they started in your place. >> and went to the u.s. open together. >> that is how that all started and then from there i receive add call to a church fairly large church across the hudson in bloom field new jersey and that was a church, multiple staff church at that time i also because of the fact that i was one of the few people with this kind of training who stayed in the parish and didn't go into full time counselling, teaching counselling or something, i was in demand to be frank. there weren't very many people like that. >> why did you stay in the parish? >> because i wanted to be where the action was. that is where the action was you can do so much from the

parish you didn't have power but you had influence and mayors of the cities, governor's of the state, i was trying natural things, putting me in situations to meet these people, i had an invitation to go down and meet the president of the united states one time mr. nix on -- president nixon regardless of people's politics, it was quite moving. >> i would think. we are talking with dr. james emmerson we will talk about his book on forgiveness but more about his lay of life, fascinating stuff stay with us

dr. james emmerson is with us. i want to get back to how you

got to cavalry church but you said on break growing up you were a guide at stanford and took around a lot of people, prince feisel and the queen of netherlands that gave you insight how to relate to people. >> it did and i discovered in the first place they were just people and i read a book about the training of the kings of england it was by a foot man and in it one of the things they said was be sure that you know how the get him to the lavatory if he needs it. it was a basic -- just that basic. so one of the things i did was went around the stanford campus and figured out where all the lavatories were and by golly i am this on this one occasion and feisel of arabia is there he needed to know where the lavatory is i knew. >> you knew. >> as basic as that. >> but the skill you develop with people is important you

were able to pastor churches, there were people with significant secular position, in broadcasting, printing, tell us how something about your people skills, that maybe some insight someone watching could -- >> i need to say on the other side i also was very comfortable in the center of harlem or some of the poorest sections of new york, and the question is how did all that go together i think it is you know really starts with family that you are brought up to people are people and my mother some body came by, right after the war, we had a japanese friend who basically was a gardener and had no place to stay. so my mother said stay with us so i grew up with people of all different types, actually living in the home, or -- and respecting them as people and what they did and what they

could do. >> that's a good lesson for us to remember right there. people as people. >> you went to denver and pastored there at central church for 7 years? >> it was a shorter time than i wish it had been about 7 years. >> about seven you decided to come to calvary church san francisco, still a wonderful delightful congregation a place to be. how do you decide to move from church to church? what are the factors in that? >> well, there is the question of what i think are the factorthe question as to what really were the factors because when cavalry church was expressing an interest in me i was excited i was a californiaen, coming back the california and so forth but i believe sincerely you went where you thought god wanted you to be. i was telling my wife i thought god wanted me to be at this

church she looked at me with a stern eye and said jim if you would just simply tell me you would really love to be in california i could handle that better than wrestling with god. there was the real truth in which she was saying. and that also teaches me we have to be careful what we attribute to god and come clean as to where we are but the important thing from that from my stand point my wife had gone on and got her doctorate as a psycho therapist we were able to come here she was able to set up work and was a professional psycho therapist here in the bay area, very well known, loved and appreciated, and we had our two careers together here and that's in many ways, a new life started when we came here and it was -- we were a team and i respected her work she respected mine and then from then on whatever we did we did together. i was part of her and she was

part of me when it came time to retire i didn't retire to retire i retired because we had had the invitation to go and teach in japan, in china, in korea, and in india. so we took a year each in each of the countries. >> so a career is not everything. what has been most difficult about living alone since her untimely death? >> the sense of loss. just the sense of loss and no matter what you say, it has nothing to do with faith i believe in god i believe she is fine i believe she is in god's hands all of that, but that sense of loss. bishop pike some people would remember here and the friend of the pike family told me when he died, some body said to mrs. pike well, he is with god and mrs. pike said very honestly i am fine about him being with god but not now i want him with

me. well, that is what i feel like. >> you just do every day. >> every day i miss her greatly i think -- i say to my kids, i am supposed to say what would jesus do i say what would migs do. i really do she is very much a part of me and to think about what she would do in some situations that come up give me a balance to myself. >> dr. emmerson thank you for sharing that we will be right back with a final thing and want to say a word about your book on forgiveness girl: hi, mom. hi, sweetie.

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hugh burrows back with dr. emmerson interim pastor as san francisco theological seminary. forgiveness, key to the creative life as your book is available now you can probably get it online. tell me about this book it has a preface by the president to have graduate theological unit in berkeley what is it about why did you write it? >> it go backseat to my coming to terms with the coming to

terms my parents didn't make it in their marriage. i had to come to terms with that. they were separated a long time they never lived together again but after i had gotten started i am in the east my mother had been -- she took pictures and she was a photographer and coming back for one of her -- from one of her around the world trips stopped to see my dad in palo alto and the call i got was to say i want to tell you that your father and i have forgiven each other. and what that did to free me, to begin with, they had always allowed me to have a good relationship with the other i never got pitted against either one but i got such a sense of freedom out of it and i began to think of it more and more and read about forgiveness not as a near we but as an emotional dynamic and the emotional dynamic is and the question i was asking, how do

you realize forgiveness you say i am forgiven i don't feel forgiven. >> how do you feel forgiven and how do you help other people feel forgiven i came up with a concept of realized forgiveness as an experience and did a book on -- just entitled dynamics of forgiveness which had a lot of research to it and it was -- well, not everybody would be interested in it and it wasn't my best writing but really was the foundation book, 44 years ago now, or 50 that i wrote that book, finally i came to a point a few years ago i've got to put this together again and see what i learned that i didn't know before and what i learned thanks to mri we now know a lot more about the brain than we ever knew before i really studied that material and came back and really this book is now that we know what happens in the brain, with regard to forgiveness and the way we didn't before, how would

i rethink the whole matter of the experience or forgiveness and that is what this book is i made a real attempt to write it for everybody. >> this is a new work. >> this is a new work. >> this is work to someone 85 years young. >> that's right. >> the forgiveness, let's give it t to the creative life,. >> if anybody is interested bookstore can order it, author house is the name of the publisher but even easier get it on the internet and. >> pop there it is. >> at 85 you don't seem to be done. >> i do feel there is still something for me to do i am not quite sure what it is but i am excited about the future i think -- my sons tell me i will make it to 95 well, i am thinking at least i've got five good years ahead what am i going to do with it. >> what are some of your

choices? >> well, one of them -- you are giving an opportunity right here i thank you for that. i am taking this summer to think that through, my expectation is that i will come back and say to the seminary and say to the presbyterian of san francisco i am here, here is what i can offer, you got a place that you need that, let me know. >> mm-hmm. you can be teaching and mentoring. >> yes. >> would you take the same path if you went back and looked at things now? >> i think that i have been -- one of the things that makes me believe there is a providence of god, something that guides you, god was -- as you probably remember some body wrote a sermon everybody's life and plan of god years and years 19th century sermon but i think there is a place for each of us as we can figure out where it is and it will come to you, doors will open and other doors will close and so i am just going through doors as they

open. >> well, and that is an important approach to faith and theology because your beliefs are change -- have changed and challenged but amid-the doubt and this and this, your counsel to us is just keep going doors will open >> at the age of 40, 40 to 45 when a lot of people have mid- life crisis or whatever, i had my own little crisis, i wasn't sure i believed in god any more i went back into that, i went back to the very beginning in my dreams and everything else, as to what i thought as a child and i worked through my theology i never blamed it on other people i never blamed it on god certainly and this is my problem and that happens to one i would say, take the opportunity, to work it through because you will work it through and get a faith that fits you where you are. >> the story i remember you went to your board cavalry church and said i am not sure i can preach this and this they

said you preach what you can. >> good counsel from a very wise man thank you. >> been a pleasure. >> happy birthday to you and you out there. we will be back next month i am hugh burrows for mosaic. >> jim just a delight.

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