THE ROAD TAKEN A Woman's Life In and Out of the Pulpit. As a minister, not only am I able to walk on water, but it feels more like slogging through an East Texas stock tank. Instead Of confidence and benevolence, I am perplexed and even aggravated. Tomorrow I will stand before grieving family in a packed chapel with nerve dredged up from somewhere. Meanwhile, tonight I have an old Smith-Corona portables and my sister's Bible from which to wrestle a badly needed message. Tomorrow, I will be the shaman who conducts the grief stricken family over the river of death. Typically, a minister's life is a curious mixture of pain and deep joy; of public performance and private agony; of "blessed assurance" and a hell of doubt. The personal is never really separated from the public nor the public from the personal. Being female adds extra to an already complex and even mystifying profession. The Road Taken is a very personal story of both the professional and everyday family life.