From Hollywood to seminary school

Last Thursday, I did a very odd thing for a man of my age. I went back to school .

And not just any school, either. I am enrolled in my first year of the master of divinity program at Princeton Theological Seminary. I have a backpack filled with heavy (and expensive) textbooks. I have reading assignments and discussion sections and lectures where I take notes, a thing I have not done since 1987. I also have a paper due on Monday. These are odd things for a man of my age to have on his to-do list.

But before I go any further, I’d like to announce publicly that I scored a 100% on Friday’s New Testament Greek quiz. Though in full disclosure, it was suggested by the professor that I work a little harder on my penmanship, which is something I heard from my teachers during the Jimmy Carter administration.

In my defense, it was the first quiz I have taken in 40 years, so as far as I’m concerned, the professor is lucky that I didn’t hire an assistant to take it for me. That has been my usual system for getting things done for the past decades — barking at assistants, managing a writing staff, wrangling with studio and network executives — and the change has been a little disorienting. Princeton Theological Seminary, it may not surprise you to know, is very different from the writers' room on a typical television comedy .

In the first place, you don’t hear much profanity here. Students and professors are polite and purposeful, discussions are thoughtful and almost always informed by deep scholarship, and no one erupts into a rageful cascade of verbal filth just because, say, the assistant brought the wrong kind of turkey wrap. When someone offers a thought in class, the rest of us listen closely and patiently instead of shouting, “Shut up! That won’t work! We need something better!” In an exasperated tone of voice. Also: Here, when you make an observation about Deuteronomy 11:18, you don’t need to wrap it up with a joke. (People will think you’re weird if you do. Just trust me on this.)

I’m among the oldest students here — everyone is too polite to make an actual count — and when the subject of my age comes up, it’s always with real curiosity. “I’d love to know more about the path that brought you here,” a young student asked me yesterday. In show business, that person would have already searched my IMDb page, done some mental arithmetic, and decided that I am old and in the way and should move aside for someone new. In Hollywood, I am a “seasoned showrunner” who needs to stop taking up space. Here, I am a repository of valuable life experience. If I’m being completely honest, I’d have to admit that both interpretations are correct, but I really prefer the second one.

In other words, Princeton Theological Seminary is a place where people of all backgrounds and faith traditions come to study and learn and contend with one another in a respectful and generous atmosphere, and Hollywood is none of those things, ever, at any time. About the only thing they have in common is that everyone here seems to walk around with a bottle of water. We did that, too, at Warner Bros. It was just a more expensive brand.

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Still, I’m happy I came. I’ll be here for a few years getting my degree, but I haven’t given up on Hollywood just yet — mostly because I can’t afford to. (After many years in show business, I’ve become addicted to nice stuff. No amount of religious training can change that at this point.) But that’s fine, too. This is a lovely timeout from the hustle and struggle of the entertainment industry, but life really isn’t meant to be lived in a cloister. Or mine isn’t, anyway. Eventually, I’ll have to return to the nest of vipers in the 310 and 818 telephone area codes, but I hope that when I do, I’ll carry some of this gentle purpose with me. I’m spending the next few years reading and thinking about the Big Questions in a place that has been nurturing those conversations since 1812. Surely there’s a way to take some of that essential human inquiry and put it on screen, somehow? That’s what I’m after.

Oh, and I’d also like to make it funny, which may be a bigger challenge.

Rob Long is a television writer and producer, including as a screenwriter and executive producer on Cheers, and he is the co-founder of Ricochet.com.