Tag Archives: Humanist

The HDS Religious NONEs

12 Monday May 2014

Posted by in Student Life

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

 

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 →

Spiritual Community at HDS

25 Monday Nov 2013

Posted by in Student Life

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

IMG_4658

Walking the Labyrinth during the HDS Fall Retreat. Photo by Chris Alburger

I see Harvard Divinity School as a spiritual community, within which there are many distinct spiritual communities. HDS is full of kind, caring, altruistic people, because that’s who the school attracts. Classmates, faculty, and staff have all ministered to me and supported me through difficult times. I often have conversations with people that inspire or challenge me to be my best self (like a good sermon). The Divinity School, like we say at my church, is “a place where we practice being human.”

Community Tea on Tuesday afternoons is like “Coffee Hour” at church to me. It’s when Continue reading →

Saying What You Mean

31 Wednesday Jul 2013

Posted by in Student Life

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

I sat across from him in the pub during orientation week. It was one of the pub-nights organized for us to make friends or something. Of the infinite threads of social conversation, of course I, being an overzealous new Divinity School student, wanted to talk about religion. “I think,” I explained, “that I see the Bible like a series of expanding concentric circles centered on Jesus.” He didn’t know what I meant. I didn’t know what I meant. What I was trying to say was that I seek to believe the Bible with the most ‘plain sense’ reading I could and follow it accordingly. I just wanted to say it in a way that didn’t make me sound stupid.

Continue reading →

Living Pluralism

11 Tuesday Dec 2012

Posted by in Student Life

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I will admit that I was very nervous about being asked to write about my experience of pluralism at HDS. My first thought was, “what do I have to offer to this? I’m Catholic; quick, grab a Muslim, a Pagan, a Humanist, anyone but me!”  After thinking on what it is like to be a student here at HDS, I can say that it has been an immense time of growth for me. I have chanted with Buddhists, been silent with Quakers, high-fived over commonalities with Episcopalians and burst into tears of frustration over impassioned theological debates. Continue reading →