Parishioner Profiles by Nancy Marlowe
It is said that it is more difficult to schedule a meeting with a student than to get on the agenda at the United Nations. Robert Stevenson is an undergraduate student at the University of North Carolina, a crisis intervention counselor at AHOPE, a ministry for street people, and assists Thomas Murphy in All Souls children’s chapel services each Sunday. Being overbooked is a constant state for this 26-year-old.
Robert is the energetic Pied Piper who leads children from the nave to the chapel. Thomas Murphy, who conducts children’s chapel, says Robert is an effective crisis intervention counselor for exuberant youngsters as well. According to Robert, who is single and childless, “over-excited or disruptive children are merely trying to communicate.”
A native-born Ashevillean, Robert attended Isaac Dickson grammar school, Asheville Middle and Asheville High schools. “I drew well as a child—dragons, dinosaurs, all animals. My drawing ability is stunted, but I did have a gift for it. My father, a psychiatrist, hung my drawings in his office in Rutherfordton.”
Robert said he was skilled in English and writing, but “not good at math.” He is majoring in religious studies at UNCA and is pursuing his interest in Japanese Buddhism in undergraduate research. “As a Christian, I see Buddhism as a philosophy,” Robert said, “but the scholar in me wants to say it is a religion.”
Bag boy at The Fresh Market on Merrimon Avenue was Robert’s first paid job. Nowadays, he is busy with social work 24-7. Robert says he has not fully decided what his life’s work will be, but thinks it will be advocating for the street people and homeless population “which has no one to speak for it.”
He prepared for this at AHOPE and also at Zaccheus House, an informal Presbyterian ministry in Asheville “with no shepherds and no sheep; some were street people and some went home to sleep in beds.”
“Why am I drawn to this work? I want to follow Jesus and his example of service and sacrifice,” Robert said, “but this is not selfless work. I love my job; I get good feelings from it. I want to please God, but I think I am pleasing myself.”
Robert first attended All Souls with his mother. “My memories are of a big and beautiful space. I researched the Episcopal Church. I spoke with Brian (Cole) and was baptized. Brian introduced me to Thomas.”
It came to pass that Robert, who had worked with children at the Unitarian Church on Charlotte Street, began to work with All Souls’ children. He finds All Souls children “funny and brilliant and very perceptive.”
Of ministry in the Episcopal church, Robert said, “The greatest thing this church has going for it is the social gospel. It serves the needs of the people, especially those with whom Jesus spent his time, those most disadvantaged.”
Of the cathedral, he said, “I commune with Christ in this space. The sacredness of the space makes me aware of God’s presence. I will be an Episcopalian all my life, ultimately working in secular social service.”
Robert enjoys mountain hiking, old movie classics (Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep, for example) and he maintains his interest in natural history, including dinosaurs.