Equal parts indefatigable energy and inexhaustible curiosity, Bob Paulen ’67 B.D. has a very busy calendar. He participates in track and field events, including the hurdles. He has traveled up the Amazon River as a chaplain on a cruise ship. He regularly travels on international mission trips. He has recited the poetry of Robert Frost for fundraisers.
From this personal itinerary, you might not guess that Paulen, a retired United Methodist minister, is 77. You also might not guess that Paulen has recently established a scholarship at YDS, awarded annually to students who wish to study in the Middle East or Middle Eastern students who wish to attend YDS.
“We’re to go out into the world,” says Paulen, who has traveled to more than 100 countries. “It seems to me that it’s crucial to try to walk in someone else’s moccasins, or sandals, or clogs, or whatever if you want to know more about their life. I think we really need to be in dialogue with one another if we’re going to address our issues.”
It was this passion for understanding the perspectives of others that led Paulen to establish a YDS scholarship. “It seems today that one of the key issues is, ‘How do we get along with people who are different?’” says Paulen of his hopes for the scholarship. “The Muslim community is one we need a relationship with.”
Paulen arrived at Yale in the fall of 1959, having just graduated from Southern Methodist University in Texas. After a year at Yale, Paulen spent five years teaching (in, among other places, Japan) before returning to Yale to finish his divinity degree.
After his graduation from Yale in 1967, Paulen spent another year studying abroad with the World Council of Churches at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, Switzerland. He then returned to the U.S. and commenced a 37-year career in fulltime ministry spent within the Baltimore-Washington conference of the United Methodist Church. He retired in 2003 and now resides in Dewey Beach, Delaware with his wife of 19 years, Sandy.
Sermons were a particular passion of Paulen’s during his work as a minister.
“I always enjoyed preaching,” Paulen says, remembering a prize he won for preaching during his years as a student. “That was the only thing I was distinguished in at Yale.”
Paulen typically preached without notes, liked to get out from behind the pulpit, and had an eye for dramatic illustrations. While delivering a series of sermons on death and dying, Paulen built a “wild west” style pine-board coffin and had himself carried out of the church while inside it.
But as a minister, Paulen not only sought to preach the gospel on Sunday mornings but to live it out daily. At one of his church assignments, a shelter operated out of the church basement. Paulen organized daycare centers at three different churches. He also remained active in community organizing and interfaith work.
This kind of socially-engaged ministry was something Paulen saw modeled at Yale. His time as a divinity student occurred during the Civil Rights movement. Activism gave Paulen an opportunity to interact with professors outside the classroom.
“It was incredible to see a professor in class one day and march with him the next day,” Paulen remembers. “It was a bonding experience which I don’t think normally one would have. I found that very impressive and moving and meaningful to me. Not only did they know so much but they tried to live it.”
Paulen also sought ways to connect with individual parishioners. Upon finding himself assigned to a large congregation, Paulen began a regular practice of visiting the homes of every member of the congregation—by bicycle. He visited about 600 homes a year every year for about 10 years.
“When you get to a bigger church you spend a lot of time in administration,” he says. “I was getting funerals but I didn’t know the people. So I decided I wanted to get to know everybody.”
Paulen first and foremost saw his bicycle visitation program as a way to build personal relationships with people he otherwise might only ever interact with over a Sunday morning “hello.” But, he admits, the exercise was also nice.
“It had multiple benefits: body, mind, and spirit.”
Paulen went on to spend forty days bicycling across the U.S. – a 3,500-mile trip. He flew out to the West Coast and bicycled back home to the Baltimore area. Along the way, he slept anywhere he could find, including churches, parks, and beside the road. He even spent a night sleeping in an empty room of an Alabama jailhouse (by invitation, of course).
Since his retirement, Paulen has remained physically active. Paulen ran track and field in high school and college but didn’t pick up the sport again until after his retirement. He has since participated in a number of World Masters Athletics events.
“To compete gave me the motivation to exercise,” Paulen says.
Since he began competing in World Masters events, Paulen has won 26 national championships and a handful of world championships, though he admits the competition within his age group tends to be rather small. His events include the hurdles and pentathlon.
He previously endowed a scholarship at Africa University, a United Methodist school in Zimbabwe. Paulen raised the funds for that scholarship through a series of events in which he portrayed the poet Robert Frost, describing the poet’s life and reciting some of his poetry.
Paulen indicated a sense of responsibility to do as much good with his resources as possible, particularly as he grows older.
“You came with nothing, you leave the same way,” he says. “So why not see that it goes to the greater good? What I’m trying to do is disperse my resources now while I’m still alive so I can see them work and enjoy them through other people.”