I grew up in Columbia, South Carolina, the third of five children. My father was a lawyer in a firm founded by his father, and my mother was a housewife until midlife. Later my father had a stroke which rendered him completely unable to work, and he committed suicide, a family tragedy which took me years to unpack — but that unpacking has enormously helped my ministry.
My family in 1960 or so. 12-year-old me is on the far right.
A brief biography
My parents were devout Episcopalians and helped start two Episcopal churches in the postwar suburbs of Columbia, together with an Episcopal day school which I attended from kindergarten through sixth grade, as part of my active involvement in the church. I attended public school in Columbia and then (9th and 10th grades) Virginia Episcopal School (a prep school in Lynchburg), followed by public high school in Columbia. I graduated with a BA in Anthropology from Yale. At Yale, I was part of a great student movement over race relations, corporate power and the Vietnam War. I also found my religious beliefs departing more and more from orthodox Christianity. I was a great fan of the Yale Chaplain William Sloane Coffin and felt that the profession of ministry could have a positive impact on society. My high school sweetheart Lee likewise struggled with the political and religious beliefs of her younger years, and, by the time we finished college, we were both liberal to radical. We married halfway through our senior years.
After graduation, when I was subject to the Vietnam War draft, Lee and I searched for ethical work. We briefly lived in Ann Arbor, where we explored some “alternative” jobs. Then we enrolled in a revolutionary new law school, Antioch School of Law in Washington D.C. Its poverty law orientation and very diverse student and faculty body appealed to us. Our son Luke was born during our Antioch years.
Following graduation, we moved to our home state of South Carolina, but, avoiding our hometown of Columbia where our families were enmeshed in the prevailing culture, we moved to Charleston, where we got our first legal jobs and raised our son Luke and daughter Sally. One of our first Charleston homes was a carriage house on Archdale St., right across from the Unitarian Church, the oldest one in the South. We were then new to Unitarian Universalism and happened into the Charleston UU Church by accident: I was invited to play for an outdoor service, after being discovered playing my autoharp in the carriage house courtyard. My initial tour of the premises showed many of the trappings of a church – stained glass, pews, hymnals. However, when I asked what you had to believe to be a member, the tour guide said that UUs were open to all theological beliefs. And there was a parish hall next door which was just waiting for someone to sponsor some folk music or dance. I thought I had died and gone to heaven.
In the next years, while practicing as attorneys, Lee and I held many Church leadership positions including Vestry chair. Our two children attended Sunday School there. I ran a debate/discussion show which was broadcast on the local NPR station. I also revived the local chapter of the ACLU and ran a folk concert series which brough musicians from all over the country.
By the mid 1990s, I was feeling that the practice of law was not what I had intended to be doing with my life, and I started considering the UU ministry. I sent off for information from the UUA, became intent on a new path and arrived in Boston in 1995 to enter Harvard Divinity School.
This photo captures the most significant moment of my life with most of the significant people in it – my ordination into the UU ministry at the Unitarian Church in Charleston, SC January 11, 1999. My internship supervisor Rev. Dr. Susan Suchoki Brown (blonde with back to camera) is administering the laying on of hands, just to the left of her is Rev. Karen Stoyanoff. Just beyond me is my late mother, Bessie and beyond her my wife Jacqueline. To the left of Jacqueline are my daughter Sally and my son Luke.
My ministerial training helped me with better knowing myself and acknowledging my residual pain from my father’s suicide. That knowledge came with a price: the loss of my first marriage. Lee and I had an amicable divorce, although I still can feel the emotion almost 30 years later. I was fortunate to find solace in Boston’s folk music scene, and, in 1997, I began a relationship with one of my favorite musicians. Jacqueline and I moved in together in 1998 and got married in 2000 and, having been through many moves, two medical operations, and other changes, are still happily married. (And Lee and her second husband Jerry, Jacqueline, and my children have an amicable relationship, including ongoing chats.)
Jacqueline, a graduate of New England Conservatory, is best known to the general public for her performances on the soundtracks of many of Ken Burns’ documentaries, shown regularly on PBS, including The Civil War, Baseball, Frank Lloyd Wright, The Corps of Discovery (Lewis and Clark), Mark Twain, The War and most recently, Benjamin Franklin. Now that the pandemic is over, she is much on tour for concerts and folk dances, but she enjoys connecting with my congregations. We currently live in Lexington, MA.
Edmund Robinson's Ministry 