How many times have you re-invented yourself? Would you want to be remembered as the same person you were in high school or even in childhood? In high school I remember the startled looks from former grade school classmates when I criticized organized religion. At Ascension grade school in Kettering, I had been a very vocal, by-the-book Catholic, sometimes drawing derision for my rather pompous piety.
All of this is by way of saying: Give Omarosa Manigault Stallworth a chance.
Think about the time in your life that you liked yourself the least. What if you adopted that very worst persona in front of a national audience?
You have to hand it to Omarosa; this was hardly the next obvious career move, pursuing a doctor of ministry degree at the United Theological Seminary. She burst upon the scene in “The Apprentice” practically scripted as The Girl You Love to Hate. Certainly not someone you’d expect to meet in theology class.
She won’t be your new next-door neighbor. The doctor of ministry candidates come to campus twice a year and spend the rest of the year working on projects in their own communities. (For more details, visit the seminary’s Web site at united.edu.)
Christianity is a religion of second chances and startling transformations. But Stallworth’s UTS mentor, Ivan Douglas Hicks — associate dean for African-American studies — says this isn’t a sudden turnaround. He has known her for years from his home church, The Metropolitan Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., where his father, H. Beecher Hicks, serves as pastor. He said he recruited her because she’s a socially conscious young woman who has worked on issues involving the poor and homeless in Haiti. “As her pastor, my father knew we would get her well on the road to ministry,” Hicks said. “She has expressed a call to the ministry.”
Can this possibly be the same Evil Omarosa, the reality-show equivalent of Disney’s Wicked Stepmother?
It’s hard to say whether this says more about the artificiality of reality television or the dichotomy of human nature. But it’s certainly in keeping with what I know about UTS students, having lived practically next door to the former campus in the Dayton View Triangle for 10 years. They’re an interesting and diverse lot, from every imaginable nation and background. And they’re bound to surprise you.
What if Omarosa turns out to be the most soft-spoken woman on campus?
Stranger things have happened, especially at my high school reunions.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2209 or mmccarty@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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