Author Archives: Aisha Ansano

The Meaning of “Home”

20 Friday Feb 2015

Posted by in What's It Like at HDS?

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As the winter semester wears on and students settle back into their routine here in Cambridge/Somerville/Boston, some find it a good time to reflect on what “home” means during the transition-filled graduate school years. Below, 2nd year MDiv student Aisha Ansano shares her thoughts…

“Where are you from?” It’s a question I’ve gotten more times than I can count since I’ve been at HDS. “Well,” I typically begin, “I was born in the Caribbean, on a small island called Curaçao, but I moved to Durham, North Carolina when I was 10, and I lived in the California Bay Area for 5 years before I came to HDS.” It’s a long answer, but the only one that feels authentic – these places are all my homes, even though I now live in a wonderful apartment in Cambridge.

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What HDS has taught me about #selfcare

24 Monday Nov 2014

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You know those kids in high school and college who did all their homework all the time, the ones who always had something to say in class discussion and had questions for the teacher every week? I was one of THOSE kids. I guess that’s not too shocking of a confession to come from a Harvard graduate student, but in hindsight I feel a little sheepish about those days. The most important thing I’ve learned in my time at HDS so far is how to prioritize and balance the things in my life, and homework just doesn’t always make it to the top of the list.

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The HDS Choir

19 Tuesday Aug 2014

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Photo by Chris Alburger

Organ. Photo by Chris Alburger

I have always found strong community in singing groups. In high school, I sang with the same women’s choir for all four years, and some of those ladies are still my best friends. In both high school and college, I sang in church choirs, and even though I wasn’t sure I believed every word of every song we sang, I loved it. I love the feeling of singing in harmony with other voices, loved holding down the alto (and sometimes tenor!) part and hearing how it blended with other parts to create an amazing piece of music. I love how easily I feel comfortable around other singers, how quickly I can bond over yet another boring alto part or the excitement of how rumblingly low the bass part gets.

When coming to HDS, I had high hopes of finding a singing group I would love. Maybe I would join a community church choir! Maybe a Harvard choral society! Maybe both! As the realities of the time commitments of grad school set in, however, I have been very grateful for the HDS Noon Service Choir and the opportunity it has provided me to join a wonderful community of singers.

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Multireligious Service

16 Monday Jun 2014

Posted by in Graduating

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Over the entire course of my first year at HDS, I would say that the Multireligious Service of Thanksgiving was the event that captured HDS in a nutshell. Yes, the invocations, readings, and benedictions from varied religious and spiritual traditions contributed to that feel of HDS—a reading from the Lotus Sutra followed immediately by one from the Qur’an, a benediction from the Humanist tradition followed by a prayer by Thomas Merton. HDS is a place where people of multiple traditions not only exist alongside each other, but also interact with one another on a regular basis. But those varied readings alone were not what made the service seem exquisitely HDS. It was also many other, perhaps less obvious things—like the streamers. Continue reading →

Baking for Charity

22 Thursday May 2014

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The prestigious award given to the winner of the annual HDS Bake Off. Photo by Aisha Ansano

The prestigious award given to the winner of the annual HDS Bake Off. Photo by Aisha Ansano

There are a lot of words I would use to describe the people at HDS: passionate, caring, enthusiastic, studious, silly, impressive, well-rounded…the list goes on and on. But after attending the annual HDS Bake Off this year, I have to add another descriptor to the list: cutthroat. Continue reading →

The HDS Religious NONEs

12 Monday May 2014

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An atheist in Divinity School. A Urantia Book reader who wants to create community for the unaffiliated. Someone who loves attending high church services who identifies one day as spiritual but not religious and the next as agnostic and the next as questioning and the next as a potential Unitarian Universalist and the next as confused. A humanist who is in the process of fellowship for ordination as a Unitarian Universalist minister. What do we all have in common? On the face of it, nothing. And we call ourselves the Nones. Continue reading →

Going Back to School After a Gap Year

22 Tuesday Apr 2014

Posted by in Transitioning to HDS

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Photo by Chris Alburger

Course readings available at Harvard COOP. Photo by Chris Alburger

After being in school for 18 years, I happily spent the year after graduating from college babysitting and bartending. Only a few months in, though, I started itching for more school, and this past September I started at HDS. As the semester began, I attended my first classes in over a year. They were full of smart people with interesting things to say about religion, people who were all here for the same reason I was—because they think religion is fascinating, important, and relevant. After being one of two religious studies majors to graduate my senior year, this was a dream—except that after a year without classes, papers, reading, or finals, I forgot how to do school.

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In My Head and In My Heart

24 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by in Why I Chose HDS

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Divinity Ave. Photo by Chris Alburger

Divinity Ave. Photo by Chris Alburger

If a year and a half ago someone had told me I would soon be in Divinity School, I would have thought two things: 1. “Here is someone who doesn’t understand that you can do something with a Religious Studies major besides become ordained” and 2. “That is not in my plan.”

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Hear and Now at HDS

22 Tuesday Oct 2013

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Karen, Aisha, Molly, Angela, & Bennett—a Hear & Now group—gather for food & fellowship for one of their weekly interreligious discussions

When I showed up at my first Hear and Now meeting, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was the first one there, perpetually early because I never know if things will run on “Harvard time”—that is, starting 7-10 minutes past real time. Slowly, the rest of my group trickled in, some I had met before and some I had not. We started out hesitantly, not knowing exactly what to do, but eventually we got into the flow, talking about our days, our lives, and our experiences with religion and spirituality. Before we knew it, the hour had passed and it was time to part. Continue reading →