Category Archives: What’s It Like at HDS?

Summers of a Graduate Student

05 Thursday Jul 2018

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Post by: Jarred Hamilton, Master of Theological Studies (MTS), Women, Gender, Sexuality, and Religion; Graduate Assistant, HDS Office of Admissions.

Hi everyone! My name is Jarred Hamilton and I am the new Graduate Assistant for the summer in the Office of Admissions. I am originally from Raleigh, North Carolina and I majored in English and Art History at UNC Charlotte. I am going into my 2nd year of the MTS degree studying a combination of sexuality and medieval forms of sanctity in the high and late middle ages.

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Common Questions about the CSWR (and their answers!)

12 Friday Jan 2018

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While giving tours to prospective HDS students, I am sure to bring them to see the Center for the Study of World Religions (CSWR). However, even as a current student and a Graduate Assistant in the Office of Admissions, I felt that I did not know as much about the CSWR as I would have liked, so I arranged to meet with Dorie Goehring, the Staff Assistant at the CSWR. I was surprised to learn that Dorie graduated from HDS with a Master of Divinity in Islamic studies and theology in 2016. It is always great to hear how HDS Alums continue to support and engage the HDS community.

Read our conversation below to learn more about the CSWR! Continue reading →

A Campus Tour in the Winter Wonderland of HDS

18 Wednesday Jan 2017

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Now that you may have submitted your application for admission to HDS, you may be tempted to visit Harvard Divinity School. In fact, January is a wonderful time to visit our campus for an official campus tour with one of our Graduate Assistants in the Office of Admissions! However, we understand that some applicants may not be able to visit Cambridge during this time. For those who are unable to visit, we’d love to give you a sneak peek at what a tour at HDS is like, especially this time of year, when our campus is decorated under a quiet bed of snow and chilly temperatures invite breaks into our Rockefeller Café for hot chocolate.

Join our current Graduate Assistants, Samm and Sujay, as they show you around some of their favorite stops on the campus tour! We hope you’ll accompany us virtually, and visit our campus for an in-person tour soon!

Divinity Hall:

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Divinity Hall. Photo by Chris Alburger

 

Sujay: Hi, I’m Sujay, and I’m a first-year MTS I’d love to show you around our campus with the help of my fellow GA, Samm. Divinity Hall (Div Hall, for short) is our first stop. This building was built in 1826 and is the oldest building at HDS. This building is also the first to be constructed outside of the Harvard Yard. While it originally housed the entire Divinity School, and it later became a dormitory, today, Divinity Hall provides multi-purpose spaces including: classrooms, faculty and administrative offices, student resources center, a student lounge and Divinity Chapel – this is where Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of HDS’ most famous alumni, gave his Divinity School Address entitled “Acquaint Thyself at First Hand with Deity,” to the graduating class on July 15th, 1838. Look out for the cool plaque commemorating his speech in the Divinity Hall Chapel (right above the yoga cushions)! This building is also the location for the Office of Admissions and Financial Aid. At one point, the office of our Admissions Director was Ralph Waldo Emerson’s bedroom. We hope you’ll stop by and say “hello,” when you visit campus. Right now, Div Hall’s student lounge also has portions of the “Faces of Divinity” exhibit – part of a year-long, campus wide exhibit- that celebrates the 200 year anniversary of HDS. Be sure to check it out!

Andover Theological Library:

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Samm at Andover-Harvard Theological Library

Samm: Hi all, I am currently a first-year MDiv student. Sujay highlights the “Faces of Divinity” exhibit, and you can see more of this exhibit in the Andover-Harvard Theological Library. The Andover-Harvard Theological Library was founded in 1836, built in 1910, and renovated in 2001. This is the perfect place to curl up by the large windows and watch the snow fall, as you dive into one of the more than half a million books. In addition to all the journals and periodicals, our library has over 30,000 rare books (including 22 that were published before 1525). Now, that’s a lot of winter reading! But even if you work your way through the Divinity School library, don’t worry.  As a student, you will also have access Harvard’s entire library system, comprised of 73 libraries and with access to over 18 million volumes (and growing). As the largest university library system and private library system in the

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The Stack in Andover-Harvard Library Photo by Chris Alburger

world, you will surely never run out of reading material. When you need to be inspired, take a trip up to the third floor in the Divinity School’s library to check out special exhibits, or walk into the stacks and pretend you’re in an old, mythical library straight out of a fantasy novel.

Andover Hall & Andover Chapel:

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Samm welcoming you to Andover Hall

Sujay: Yes, Samm, our library stacks do resemble a fantasy novel. Speaking of mythical libraries, the next stop is Andover Hall. Built in 1910, Andover Hall is the only example of collegiate gothic architecture at Harvard. This means that it is the building most likely to represent your Harry Potter fantasies! Additionally, Andover Hall houses HDS’s largest lecture room (The Sperry Room), faculty offices, classrooms, administrative offices, the Office of Ministry Studies, denominational counselors, the Braun Room and Andover Chapel. I have many of my classes in Andover Hall this semester, and I look forward to learning in small, seminar classrooms that look out

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A winter wonderland outside of Andover Hall

towards the green trees on campus.

If you have a chance to join us on campus, you’ll have the opportunity to experience the Braun Room during Community Tea on Tuesday afternoons. Community Tea offers a time for the community to connect with one another. As a visitor, you’ll likely have the opportunity to chat with current students and other members of the community that attend Community Tea. After Community Tea, be sure to stop by the Office of Ministry Studies to learn about Field Education (Field Ed) opportunities. Students have completed their Field Ed at a plethora of sites locally throughout Boston and all over the world. The Office of Ministry Studies assists in ensuring that students find Field Ed placements that meet their diverse needs and interests.  Samm, please tell us more about Andover Chapel.

Andover Chapel in Andover Hall:

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Sujay in Andover Chapel

Samm: Sure, Sujay! Andover Chapel is my favorite place for quiet contemplation, or to attend the weekly Noon Service events. Noon Service is a weekly event that takes place every Wednesday in Andover Chapel. Hosted by a different group each week, it’s an opportunity for all in the HDS community to pray with our companions across the boundaries of our many respective traditions. Noon Service is dedicated to creating a safe and respectful environment for diverse student-run groups at HDS. We aim to support and advance the genuine religious pluralism of the School, engaging and honoring the many religious perspectives, commitments, and experiences among us. If you visit campus on a Wednesday, be sure to check out Noon Service. Andover Chapel is one of the most serene and beautiful places on campus. Look for the stunning stained windows and brass organ! But, Sujay, now I’m starting to get hungry; all this walking is making me crave a cookie.

Rockefeller Hall/Rockefeller Café:

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HDS Gear located in The Rock Cafe

Sujay: Okay, Samm, I’m ready for a snack, too. Let’s visit Rockefeller Hall, which houses the Rockefeller Café (also known as “The Rock”). This building is adjacent to Andover Hall and has administrative offices, classrooms and the lively café. During the school year, you’ll find students conversing with each other, doing course work, or just relaxing on the comfy couches. You can also stop by to pick up a treat to eat; the Rock serves both hot and cold entrees. I recommend the chocolate chip cookies! This is the perfect place to take a break on the tour, load up on Divinity School swag, and get ready for the last two stops on the tour.  Incidentially, I’ve also have classes here in Rockefeller Hall. Last semester, I studied the ancient, Buddhist language called Pali in this building. Samm, what’s next on our tour?

Jewett House:

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Samm outside of Jewett House

Samm: Now let’s look at our last two stops. Here’s the first: Jewett House. Jewett House is home to Dean David N. Hempton and his wife, Louanne. Their stunning home is right across from Andover Hall, and they graciously open the doors of their home to current students during Orientation each year! Next door to the Jewett House is the Center for the Study of World Religions. Be sure to wave “hello” to Dean Hempton, if you see him walking around campus.

Center for the Study of World Religions (CSWR):

Samm: Next to the Jewett House, you’ll find the Center for the Center for the Study of World Religions, where a number of students reside during the academic year. The CSWR also offers various events and speakers throughout the year. If you are on campus, be sure to take a walk through the halls to see the unique artwork hanging throughout the center. From the CSWR, you can see the backyard of the Jewett House the HDS Community Garden, and the Carriage House, which houses offices for the visiting fellows of the Women’s Studies in Religion Program (WSRP). On your way out, you’ll take a walk through the beautiful garden of the CSWR, where you may find residents playing Frisbee or soccer with their kids, students meditating, or enjoying tea and conversation.

Samm: Thanks for accompanying us on this virtual tour of the Harvard Divinity School Campus. We hope you will visit in-person soon and see more of what our campus has to offer. Sujay, would you tell us what students may expect to see in the Spring?

Sujay: Sure, Samm! We hope you visit us this spring. Our classes will be in session, and you can expect to see students attending a variety of events including: a symposium on Religion in Humanitarian Action, the annual Greeley Lecture for Peace and Social Justice, the Ingersoll Lecture with novelist Marilynne Robinson, and a lecture by Haitian novelist, Edwidge Danticat on the art of Doris Salecedo, just to a name a few. We look forward to welcoming you to our campus!

HDS <3 HUDS: HDS Students support the Harvard University Dining Service Workers

19 Wednesday Oct 2016

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“In seeking the long-term welfare of all, we endeavor to accept responsibility for the impact of our actions on our community, our environment, and the world. We hold ourselves and each other accountable for our behavior and our use of resources.” –HDS Community Values

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HUDS workers gather with undergraduate and graduate students in front of the John Harvard Statute in Harvard Yard. Photo Credit: Brittany Landorf

On Wednesday, October 5, the Harvard University Dining Service workers went on strike after months of contract negotiations fell through with the university. The HUDS workers are protesting a cut to their health care plan, one that would raise their co-pay and make it prohibitive to seek services and seeking a $35,000 annual salary with a guaranteed stipend during the summer months. Currently, HUDS workers are required to be on call during the summer months and are not allowed to collect unemployment benefits. While the average hourly wage is above minimum wage, this does not take into account how many hours workers are allotted during the year as well as the lack of employment they experience during the summer months. In addition, it is not sufficient for the high living costs of Cambridge, Boston and the surrounding areas.

Support for the strikers has poured in from the students in the undergraduate college and graduate schools. At Harvard Divinity School, the HDS Student Association has connected the Divinity School’s community values with the HUDS worker’s plight, standing in support of the strike, “In voicing our support for HUDS workers, we draw on those moral teachings shared by many of the world’s spiritual and ethical traditions which emphasize compassion, dignity, and justice for all people. Burdening workers with unsustainable incomes and unaffordable health care coverage directly contradicts the values of equity and social justice we believe Harvard must stand for – for its students, faculty members, and workers alike.”

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Top to bottom: Natalie Malter, Rod Owens, and Nestor Pimienta speaking at the interfaith spiritual service held by HDS students for HUDS strikers. Photo Credit: Angela Counts

Many HDS students have become personally involved in the strike, supporting the picket line, staging walk-outs, and providing spiritual and material services to the HUDS workers.  HDS students held an interfaith spiritual service for the HUDS workers before a student-led walk-out at the beginning of this week. And, on Tuesday, students led a walk-out from Community Tea, a weekly opportunity for HDS students and faculty to socialize over food and tea, to bring food and beverages to the HUDS workers.

First-year MTS candidate Madeline Kinkel has been at the forefront of organizing HDS students to provide support to the workers. She created a Facebook page “HDS  ❤ HUDS,” and has helped coordinate an HDS petition and food drives for the workers. Madeline is the daughter of a union family and has a deep understanding of the important roles unions play in negotiating living wages, health care, and other benefits. Madeline spoke with HDS Admissions GA, Brittany Landorf, the other day about what it means to support the HUDS workers to her, “When I heard about the negotiations between the union and the university, it felt personal. As a first year student at HDS, I didn’t know any of the workers involved, not at first anyway. That didn’t matter. Thinking of how stressful it is to not have affordable health care, to avoid going to the doctor when you’re sick, and having to try to take care of a family and children on top of that, I couldn’t even imagine. Beyond this gut reaction, raising the standard of working conditions for one group of people can help raise them for everyone. Joining the struggle for fair pay and health care coverage felt like I was joining the fight for my family.”

Madeline became more involved with the strike after helping set up a petition with other HDS students to show support of the HUDS workers. She has since met several of the HUDS workers and union leaders, “About a week after the [HDS] petition was public, I was introduced to Aaron D., one of the HUDS workers. Aaron is not only incredibly kind, but also knows all the ins and outs of the conflict between the university and the HUDS workers. From what I’ve heard, Harvard has begun to offer marginally better wages, and an infinitesimal summer stipend, if the workers agree to drastically cut health care. So, they want their workers to just keep running, hoping that they won’t trip and get sick, that their children won’t get sick.”

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MTS Candidate Madeline Kinkel photo credit: Brittany Landorf

She connects her service and support of the strikers with the HDS mission statement, “The HDS mission statement reads that we are training people to build a more equitable world. It seemed to me that as HDS students, with all the privileges that come with that title, we were and are called to stand alongside families and people desperately fighting for a chance to live, a chance to live without that constant anxiety and fear.

For Madeline and many other HDS students, supporting the strike is not a choice; it is a direct reflection of the academic, community, and spiritual values that motivated them to apply to HDS in the first place, “And so I, and a solid group of HDS students, have been shirking our scholarly duties and organizing, and going to the picket lines to stand with the workers. In part because we are called to fight for an equitable world, and in part because, personally and selfishly, I think of my mother working a non-union, minimum wage job and driving in her broken car in the winter with no safety net if the frozen wind makes her sick, and I need to stand with the striking workers.”

Encountering Faces of Divinity: An Exhibit of Inclusion

11 Tuesday Oct 2016

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If you walk through the Harvard Divinity School campus right now, you’ll see the crisp air turning the leaves into copper hues; students gathering around shared spaces to discuss readings and community activities; and remarkable guest speakers sharing their own unique perspectives on religion, faith and spirituality. Additionally, to coincide with Harvard Divinity School’s 200 year anniversary, this year marked the opening of an evocatively titled multimedia exhibition, Faces of Divinity: Envisioning Inclusion for 200 Years. Faces of Divinity showcases twenty-one exhibits of photographs, poetry, paintings and audiovisual materials located all around the HDS Campus – in Andover, Divinity, and Rockefeller halls. The exhibit was designed to celebrate HDS’s bicentennial and also to highlight the multifaceted display of histories connected to HDS.

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Faces of Divinity exhibit, Divinity Hall Panel. Photograph by Sujay Pandit.

Developed over a span of more than eight months by Professor Ann Braude, director of the Women’s Studies in Religion Program and Senior Lecturer in American Religious History, this multimedia exhibit recounts the history of Harvard Divinity School, which was founded in 1816. Professor Braude worked alongside three Harvard doctoral students (who had the unique opportunity to serve as assistant curators): Eva Payne, MDiv ’10, Christopher Allison, and Tom Whittaker.

The exhibit opened on August 30, 2016, right before the 2016 Convocation for HDS students. Although the exhibit draws on 200 years of history, the content feels fresh, innovative and timely. By bringing together diverse narrative voices from students, faculty and university initiatives, the exhibit helps viewers understand how HDS became one of the preeminent multireligious, multidisciplinary centers of academic excellence, religious scholarship, and service to the local and global communities. While unique to this particular historical moment, the exhibit explores the development and history of HDS through a series of themes including: theology and ethics, history, and Unitarian and Universality traditions, as well as Jewish, Asian, Islamic, African American and women’s religious studies, ministry training, preaching and social justice. Like viewing an enormous tree from multiple sides, each of these narrative angles allows a viewer to understand a particular community at HDS but also points to resource rich, larger community of our school that holds us together.

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Image from Faces of Divinity exhibit.

In an interview with HDS, Professor Braude discussed her interest in creating the exhibit:

“The bicentennial offers an opportunity to change the visual culture of the School. I want to show on the walls of the School how the people who are here now came to be here. I want the students who are here to be able to see that they have a legitimate place in the ongoing history of the School, that their voices are needed to continue the ever-widening conversation about religion that has been going on for 200 years.”

(To read the full interview with Professor Braude, please click here.)

The exhibit transforms the “visual culture” of HDS to include the stories, creative work, scholarship and perspectives from voices that would have remained obscure without the exhibit. Although the exhibit is not a complete record of the School (imagine the sheer size of chronicling 200 years of history!), Faces of Divinity takes the necessary steps to follow students, faculty, and staff across porous and shifting lines between HDS and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, a line often discussed in relation to the exhibit’s themes.

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Seasons of Light (2013) photograph from Faces of Divinity exhibit.

My favorite part of the entire exhibit is the multimedia station located in Rockefeller Hall’s first floor; entitled, “Expanding the Archive,” this exhibit permits visitors to add their memories, and contributions to the exhibit. This moment in the exhibit’s timeline allows current and past students to remember how HDS has directly shaped their education, and it allows prospective students to imagine themselves as becoming part of the branches of the incredibly complex, multifaceted tree that is HDS.

I hope you will take the time to encounter the faces of the exhibit on your visit to Harvard Divinity School, and perhaps even see your own reflected back as part of our community.

Hallowed Ground

09 Tuesday Aug 2016

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Today Andover Hall is at the center of our Divinity School campus. Crowned with a gothic tower, flanked by the stately Theological Library and the modern Rockefeller Hall, with Jewett House and the Center for the Study of World Religions paying their homage from across Francis Street, Andover is Harvard’s sole example of college gothic architecture. It looks every bit the home of a divinity school. But it was plain, unassuming Divinity Hall that I would first discover when Stephanie Paulsell, our Susan Shallcross Swartz Professor of Christian Practice, encouraged me to explore HDS for graduate study.

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Emerson Chapel – Photo by Rose Lincoln

“Go to Divinity Hall,” she told me, “Emerson Chapel’s on the third floor—don’t miss it!” Leaving Harvard Yard, where Stephanie was teaching Literature of Journey and Quest that summer, I set off in search of Divinity Avenue and the hall for which it’s named. Harvey Cox, our beloved emeritus Hollis Professor, delights in telling us of our “exile” from Harvard Yard in 1826. In his telling, our troublesome forbearers were hard at work afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted, and Harvard  wanted a little distance from the theological rabble-rousers in their midst. On that hot summer day when I finally came upon “Div Hall” as we call it, I would find it facing resolutely away from the street, its back to the Yard, determined to engage the world.

On that hot summer day when I finally came upon “Div Hall” as we call it, I would find it facing resolutely away from the street, its back to the Yard, determined to engage the world.

Dutifully climbing the stairs to the third floor, I discovered a small, quiet chapel with chairs arranged in an open square, facing each other across the room. Bookended by a pulpit on one end and an organ on the other, the chapel is adorned with several large plaques commemorating the luminaries who helped to shape the Divinity School’s early history. On that day the two old chandeliers seemed superfluous as natural sunlight streamed through the large colonial style windows. Stephanie had described it as a secret gem, and indeed it seemed that I had stumbled into a well-preserved bit of history, still extraordinarily well-suited to quiet contemplation and reflection.

These days, it is Andover Hall’s Chapel that serves as our gathering place on Wednesday’s for Noon Service and on Tuesday mornings for our Ecumenical Eucharist. We gather there for Seasons of Light and other big occasions throughout the year. By contrast, Divinity Hall’s Emerson Chapel has come to serve as a place where members of the HDS community come to find respite from the rush of activity that can sometimes characterize the divinity school experience. Students seek out this space to read or pray or simply sit in meditation. Small classes and discussion groups convene in the cool quiet of Emerson Chapel for conversation inflected by a sense of our history and feeling of timelessness.

Divinity Hall’s Emerson Chapel has come to serve as a place where members of the HDS community come to find respite from the rush of activity that can sometimes characterize the divinity school experience.

But the chapel in Divinity Hall used to be at the center of our communal life, serving the students of HDS when Divinity Hall wasn’t our oldest building, but our only building. Preaching classes would convene there, visiting eminences would come to preach and proclaim, and a 35-year-old Ralph Waldo Emerson would scandalize the community with his Divinity School Address on another hot summer day 176 years before I would find my way to the chapel that now bears his name.

On July 15, 1838, Emerson took to the chapel’s pulpit to encourage that year’s graduating class of divinity students to “acquaint themselves at first hand with deity.” Not quite ready for such a radical message, the community waited some thirty years to invite him back! Of course, Emerson was only participating in that particular brand of theological troublemaking that has characterized the best of us here at HDS for 200 years now. As we celebrate our bicentennial, we look forward to another 200 years of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.

Discovering a New Version of Home at HDS

01 Friday Apr 2016

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Being human is being comfortable with the uncomfortable.

I remember the first time someone told me I was going to hell (apart from the times in elementary school when my teachers were just fed up with my wisecracking in class). I was an undergrad.

“No way! I can’t go to hell. I believe in Jesus.”

But my antagonists were convinced that I didn’t believe in the right Jesus. “You believe in a false god. Not the one that comes through this church.”  By “this church” they meant their particular denomination, and in many ways they were righMemorialChurch2t: I didn’t believe in the Jesus that they interpreted in their weekly Sunday gatherings. I believed in a Jesus and a Christianity that were broader and more nuanced and more inclusive. How could they reduce a whole Jesus movement to their own particular denomination? What do you call this? Some would label it extremism. I might reach that same conclusion, but I typically imagine an extremist tying me to a chair, locking me up in a room, and forcing me to watch their religious propaganda—like Wednesday, Pugsley, and Joel were indoctrinated with Disney Films in Addam’s Family Values. Thank god that didn’t happen! Fundamentally, I believe my interlocutors felt an unease with something different. They were uncomfortable.

How to be “comfortable.”

Most of my free-spirited liberal friends would say, “Life is a balance.” I agree, wholeheartedly. However, is the balancing act ever comfortable? Think about it. When the Wild Coyote is chasing the Road Runner down a tightrope, does it ever look pleasant for the Coyote? Does it look easy for a gymnast to perform on a balance beam?

I often found myself in sweaty situations where all I could do was fake a smile, and the only place I was able to decompress was in a small, one-window bedroom. In these moments of decompression, I realized something: I was making a home.

I’ve given much thought to this idea of comfort, especially as it relates to balance, and I’ve come to believe that comfortableness is not a human quality. We are always susceptible to forces beyond our control and encroached by evil even in places of peace. Our bodies are degenerative. Our families, traditions, and legacies fade or are replaced, and only a few of us are lucky enough to see three generations. Being human is uncomfortable. Being human is being comfortable with the uncomfortable.

In my time at Harvard Divinity School, I have often been uncomfortable. In the beginning, I thought I would get used to the different personalities, cultures, customs, views, and people, but that never happened. In fact, I became more uncomfortable as time progressed. I often found myself in sweaty situations where all I could do was fake a smile, and the only place I was able to decompress was in a small, one-window bedroom. In these moments of decompression, I realized something: I was making a home.

Homes take different forms. There are the physical spaces we often think of as home. Some find home in a religious tradition. But for me, home is dynamic and ever changing.

Homes take different forms. There are the physical spaces we often think of as home. Some find home in a religious tradition. But for me, home is dynamic and ever changing. It is an uncomfortable place filled with different views, people, cultures, and traditions. I don’t think of a brick-layered building, but a sculptor carving away at a block of stone. It may be incomplete, but always, in a sense, progressing. Not a progression that requires a triumphant end, but one that astonishes you with every new development.

My home is in others’ homes. It may sound bizarre. It may sound like conformity, compromise, or masquerading. But what would it be like to reimagine home? We often think of home as a refuge—a place like no other. This presumes that we are autonomous individuals, each traveling our own path, each in need of a home that consists of seclusion and apartness. In a complex, yet still divided world, I’ve found it helpful to remind myself of the value of encounter.

In a complex, yet still divided world, I’ve found it helpful to remind myself of the value of encounter.

When I first came to HDS, I was tempted to avoid encounters with the different cultures, worldviews, and religions because of unfamiliarity and unease, but after a period of time I grew aware of something happening to me. Disagreements challenged me. Cultures informed me. Traditions awakened me. This development became a consistent reminder that I am a sculpture and the world—my new community—is the sculptor.

I have found that my home is no longer an individual estate or a place of seclusion, but that my home is in others’ homes. It is not the place I retreat to in order to avoid seeing coworkers, tough situations, major events, crisis, and people. It’s the meeting place where the worlds of many become one: everyone unique and yet somehow familiar, collaborating, exchanging, and growing. Home has become a place constantly transformed by the world and life. Not a retreat, but a place of engagement.

A Day in the Life of an HDS Student

19 Thursday Nov 2015

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What does a day in the life of an HDS student look like? Here’s the play-by-play of one Tuesday in October.

6:00am: Grad school has confirmed that I’m an early riser who needs his morning “me” time, and today is no exception. I roll out of bed, make some coffee, sit down at my kitchen table, and do some pleasure reading over my breakfast.

Prospect_Hill_Monument_-_Somerville,_MA_-_DSC03320.JPG7:00am: I head out the door into the unusually warm fall air. I live in Somerville, about a 25-minute walk from Harvard, and my apartment sits on top of Prospect Hill, which offers one of the best views of downtown Boston. Prospect Hill also sports a stone “citadel,” which marks a number of historical events, including the spot where it’s said the original American flag was first flown. I take a second to appreciate the fall foliage and the sun glinting off the city’s skyline before heading down the hill.

7:25am: I arrive at Lamont Library in Harvard Yard. Most buildings are closed this early, but Lamont is open 24 hours during the week. At this hour, the place is deserted besides the cleaning staff and a few undergrads slouched in armchairs after an all-nighter. It’s quiet and calm, the ideal place for me to get some reading done during the day’s early hours.

8:40am: I leave Lamont and head right across the Yard to Memorial Church for Morning Prayers. Morning Prayers is one of those Harvard traditions that has been going on for centuries. The service is held Monday through Saturday for 15 minutes in a small chapel in the rear of Memorial Church that includes angelic singing from the Harvard University Choir and a short address from a member of the Harvard community. I love Morning Prayers because, though there’s a general Christian spirit in the liturgy, you never know what you’re gonna get with the sermon; they run the gamut from religious to vaguely religious to not at all religious, and the speakers include those from a range of faith traditions—or none—and from all the different schools and offices across campus. Overall, it’s a pleasant balance between consistency and surprise. Today’s speaker is Professor Michelle Sanchez from the Div School, who gives a reflection on the role of habits and her church community over the past tumultuous year.

img_1640.jpg9:00am: I cross the Yard again for my Spanish class. As an MDiv, I have to complete three semesters of language. I completed two over the summer thanks to the Summer Language Program and cross registered for an advanced Spanish language and culture class being taught through the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. It’s a tough class, and it’s a lesson in humility to be in a classroom of undergrads who all grasp the material easier than me. This week we’re finishing up our reading of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold in Spanish. ¡Qué bueno!

10:00am: Two of my fellow HDS students have Arabic in the same building at same time that I have Spanish, so we meet up outside after class and stroll together over towards the Div School campus. Today, we decide to stop at Velozo’s food truck outside Div Hall, so my pal can grab one of Dean’s famous red-velvet cookies.

10:20am: I don’t have any more class today, but I have plenty of work to do. I find an open table in the lounge in Div Hall, and take out a pile of books from my backpack.

12:30pm: After two solid hours of reading, I head outside to eat lunch and enjoy the unusually warm fall weather.

1:00pm: I head to the second floor of Div Hall to the Office of Admissions where I have a work study job as an office assistant. I really enjoy the convenience of working on campus and enjoy getting to know people I wouldn’t otherwise see. We’re gearing up for Diversity and Explorations and Theological Education Day in November, so it’s a busy day in the office.

Overall, it’s a pleasant balance between consistency and surprise.

4:00pm: I walk from Divinity Hall to Andover Hall for Community Tea, a weekly HDS tradition when the whole community comes together to share relax and socialize over food. I stuff my face with falafel, beef skewers and rice (rule #8 of grad school life: if there’s free food, I must eat as much as possible), and catch up with a group of fellow first years.

5:00pm: I backtrack to Divinity Hall and walk up to Divinity Chapel for Hear and Now. Hear and Now groups are small, interreligious support groups that meet weekly throughout the academic year. They’re less about growing in your particular faith tradition and more about sharing your story and spiritual growth and listening to your peers. I’ve grown quite close to the other two members of my group and I cherish our weekly meetings. Today, we spend half of the hour checking-in and for the other half another students leads us in the some very basic meditation.

6:00pm: I still have plenty of work tonight, so I stroll over the Harvard-Andover Library, where I end up for a few hours most days to study. I’ve come to love the odd leather and wood, reclining chairs on the second floor, and post up there. Dinner is yesterday’s pasta eaten discretely from a Tupperware. Leftovers have also become an integral part of my grad school life.

Unknown.jpeg9:00pm: The flip side of being an early riser is that my brain stops functioning at about 8:00pm. I struggle on for an hour longer, but eventually close the books for the night. I run into one of my classmates on the way out who also lives in Somerville, and we stroll home together. I end up idling on the sidewalk outside his apartment so we can finish our debate about our readings from Introduction to Ministry Studies. We both geek out over Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

9:45pm: Home sweet home. My roommate is watching The X-Files. (He’s currently working his way through all nine seasons—it’s been an interesting few weeks.) To reward myself for a productive day, I plop myself on the couch for the remainder of the episode.

10:45: After looking over my schedule tomorrow and making the next day’s lunch, I lay down in bed to do some pleasure reading before turning in. But I barely make it three pages before my head is already nodding. I toss the book aside, flip out the light, and quickly fall asleep.

Singing a Song of Joy with Notes from HDS

09 Friday Oct 2015

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courtyard-031aAt HDS, we understand faith to mean engagement with the future. From the first day of classes, HDS has drilled one question into my soul: how can my lifetime offer something to the future? How can reading this book, writing this paper, learning this ancient language, and taking on this field education placement offer something to the future? How can encounters with suffering and possibility offer something to the future? Here’s a little story.

Exactly a year ago, I received an email from one of my little brothers of choice. His twin sister had just died after a long battle against a complex medical condition. She was 26. The news of her passing was my first encounter with a peculiar kind of suffering: the oceanic, inexplicable, unspeakable kind that just does not make sense. She was too young, too loving, too special. Their dad kept repeating: “No, she’s not dead. My daughter is not dead.”

It didn’t help that I was in the throes of my own transition to HDS. The insights we kept unearthing from reflecting and writing about learned ministry and many faces of religious experience were beginning to shake my core. HDS’s safe and diverse community of learning and transformation had already ushered me into the humbling and undeniable limits of what I can comprehend or change. Here was yet another encounter that beckoned me to humility.

I did not have a plan. I had no idea what to say to my little brother. What I did know was what I did not want to say: platitudes. “Things happen for a reason.” Yeah, right. That clearly helps when you don’t know why something has happened to you or someone you love, or how you are going to be the new person your new circumstances are challenging you to become. Here’s another one: “Better days are to come.” Uh huh? That clearly helps when someone feels they are drowning in the 12-foot end of the pool, and there is no one around. Thank you, but no thank you. I’ll take some calming silence instead.

My little brother had told me to ring him an hour after our Theories & Methods class—a required course for all M.Div. and MTS students. Theories & Methods introduced me to a professor whose generosity of heart has sustained me at HDS: Charles Hallisey. I went up to him after lecture to seek his counsel regarding my anxieties about the dreaded phone call.

“I don’t know what to say to him. And I don’t want to whip out the usual, useless platitudes,” I said.

“That’s precisely where you’ll find your voice,” he said. “In that silence. In that inability to say anything.”

“So, I’m supposed to tell him that I don’t know what to say?”

“Yes.”

That was not exactly the counsel I had expected to receive. I still had no plan. The clock kept ticking. Ten minutes before I had to call, I sat on a bench outside the Law School Library to reflect and pray. I prayed to make peace with saying to someone I love that I did not know what to say.

My prayer was fairly orderly and coherent at the beginning:

“Lord, please use my voice to radiate some light and warmth in this dark time.”

As the time drew near, my prayer came down to fewer and fewer words until only one word came to mind:

“Please. Please. Please. Pretty please, Lord. Have mercy. Please. Please. Please.”

I took a deep breath. I called. I heard his voice. And I began to utter the words I had dreaded: “I am so sorry. I don’t know what to say. And I’m here. You can yell. You can hang up. You can weep. You can do whatever you want. I’m sorry, and I’m here.”

My heart rate slowed down. Being true-true—no matter how incompetent it made me feel—was easier than I had thought. Next thing I knew, we had been talking for 45 minutes.

I cherish the memory of that phone call. What makes its memory worth cherishing is not just Professor Hallisey’s intentional and gentle challenge. He had sent me away with a religious question, a very HDS question: how can acknowledging that I do not know what to say offer something to the future? It’s also what the phone call became: a song of joy.

The wound was too fresh, the grief too acute to ignore, dismiss, or wish away.

And yet.

And yet, neither of us could take our eyes off the future we share.

“We don’t have a lot of time,” my little brother said.

He is not wrong.

He and I are where we are thanks to sisters like his and many others who had embraced and unleashed us back when we were still buried deep inside the closet. He and I are who we are thanks to sisters like his and many others who chose to have faith in the stories they saw in us.

Our time with his sister was over. Our story wasn’t. We renewed our commitment to keep writing it. Yes, things can and will inevitably fall apart along the way. And yes, we can and must pick up the pieces for the future—intentionally and joyfully. We owe it to the audacity of our sisters. We owe it to the future. Many more notes of joy filled the song my little brother and I sang in that dark hour.

I do not know what seasons of struggles and moments of glory await as my second year at HDS starts. And I am prepared. HDS has impressed upon my soul the disciplined practice of transforming each and every paragraph of my story into an offering for our future. That is our story. That is our song. Please join us in singing it with humble notes of intense joy.