I distinctly remember sitting in my apartment on the westside of Chicago, surrounded by the noise and clamor of my neighborhood, when I was notified of my admission to ������Ƶ. I had begun to fall in love with the under-resourced neighborhood I had moved into to live in intentional presence with my neighbors, to live out the values I ascribed to through my work and personal convictions. I was hesitant and excited to step into the possibility of graduate school—knowing it would mean major upheaval, loss, and also great possibility.

When I said yes to ������Ƶ, the next six weeks felt like an almost paralyzing state of transition, on the threshold of learning what it is to remain in a liminal space. In a strange way, that time of liminality allowed me to resonate with my under-resourced neighbors in a unique way—people who are constantly experiencing displacement, loss, joy, grief, and so admirably holding it all in tandem with a hope like I’ve never known.

That disruptive and exciting feeling of transition did not end when I finally made it to the Emerald City from the Windy City. Even after several months, I still unabashedly described myself as “in transition.” That said, over time, I could feel bits of myself that had been scattered start to settle into place. I learned to developed a new set of rhythms between work, school, and trying to create a sense of place and community here.

I have taken to referring to this time as a wilderness. As a student, I was asked to invite the transformative possibility of engaging, naming, celebrating, and grieving my own story. I would much rather engage, name, celebrate, or grieve the story of those around me, but I learned very quickly that my ability to engage the stories and heartache of those around me required that I first do that work for myself. How dare I imagine otherwise? At the end of first year, my Listening Lab Facilitator applauded me for learning how to show myself the same compassion I extend to others. My capacity for grace and mercy for others was expanding as I learned to engage my story with the same gentleness.

In the midst of this journey, we are encouraged not to rush through to the other side, but rather to dwell in the wilderness. I have come to believe this is a profoundly beautiful and necessary task. Like the nation of Israel in the Old Testament, I believe the pillar of cloud and light goes before me as a figure of hope.

One of the most memorable images from my first term was part of a lecture on our capacity for hope. We looked at a well-known image of modern dancer and choreographer Martha Graham, known for creating a movement language based on the expressive capacity of the human body. Dr. Chelle Stearns referred to this sweeping motion as a “gesture of hope.” Such a gesture is only achieved through intentional practice. Like Martha Graham, we practice ourselves into a hopeful posture. As a result, we must learn to bless what life is in this moment—all that we are holding: possibility, potential, all that is unresolved in our hearts. I have no doubt that Martha Graham endured hours of practice and her fair share of pain to achieve such a gesture. So it is with hope. What a beautiful emblem of the resurrection!

As a part of the Artist’s Way class that spring, I completed a creative project inspired by Martha Graham’s gesture of hope. In an effort to practice my own posture of hopefulness, I created a flip book that traced the movement of the dancer into the full gesture of hope. 35 small drawings of a dancer and her sweeping motion. At the presentation of our creative projects, I shared my piece and how my neck ached and my eyes burned after several late nights drawing and re-drawing only slight variations of the same motion. “Ah, yes. But that is what it is to practice a hopeful gesture,” Dr. Stearns commented. She was right. In the very execution and embodiment of my project, I had tasted hope. It is bittersweet but absolutely worth it.

I hope that in the days to come, my little flip book can serve as a reminder of the beauty we’re working towards. Like that pillar of light in the wilderness, it calls us back to the wilderness at our feet and the promise of a Presence that transcends our circumstance.

In one of the readings I encountered as a student, the author noted a poem by Julia Esquivel. She says we have been “threatened with resurrection” and this is what keeps us up at night. I can’t imagine a better reason for a vigilant night than the profoundly hopeful and startling threat of resurrection.

Join us in this vigil
and you will know what it is to dream!
Then you will know how marvelous it is
to live threatened with Resurrection!
–Julia Esquivel,

If Jessica’s story of hope resonates with you, and if you’re wondering if ������Ƶ might be part of the next chapter in your own journey, we’d love to chat. It’s not too late to join our 2019 cohort starting this fall, and the next application deadline is June 24. Learn more at .

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We recently published the fifth issue of Lit, ������Ƶ’s literary magazine. It is exciting to continue the good work of alumna Lauren Sawyer (, 2014), who first imagined Lit three years ago as a space for the writers and artists in ������Ƶ community to cultivate and showcase their creative efforts.

As a member of the editorial staff for Lit, it has been an honor to read, encourage, and curate the incredible works of creative writing produced by my fellow students, their spouses/partners, and alumni of the school. We have sought to honor the spirit of our learning community while pushing the boundaries of our written work in a way that recognizes and challenges the creative mind and spirit of the student body. As someone committed to the work of creative writing, I’m proud to see another issue of Lit go to print and begin to circulate the school.

With each issue, students bravely submit their written and visual work for consideration and critique. As a graduate of a fine arts program, I know just how nerve-wracking it can be to put forth your very personal creative work to be evaluated, accepted, turned-down, edited, and quite possibly, published for all to see. I know no people more brave than artists. Our artists are the ones who keep our academically-laden imaginations afloat, and they are some of the most visionary and thoughtful change-makers I know. I believe creativity is a way of working out our understanding of who we are and how we exist in the world.

Several years ago I read Yann Martel’s acclaimed novel Life of Pi. I love Pi’s story, and I love how well Martel cultivates imagination through this magical and brave character. In the book, Martel profoundly writes, “If we, citizens, do not support our artists, then we sacrifice our imagination on the altar of crude reality and we end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams.”

With Yann Martel’s fierce words in mind, I believe we have a responsibility and honor to support and applaud the brave creative work of our artists. They are inviting us into a glimpse of their hearts and minds and giving us fresh eyes with which to see and engage the world. Furthermore, the poets, essayists, and creatives before and behind us invite us to lament our heartache and beckon us to consider the thread of hope that prevails in the imagination.

As a preview to the latest issue of Lit, we invite you to read the recipient of our Editor’s Choice Award, Brittany Deininger’s playful poem. Copies of Lit are available for free in ������Ƶ’s bookstore.

Exceptions to the Rules

“I” comes before “e” except after “c,”
except when it doesn’t, as in ceiling,
as in receipt, as in transceiver.
Mammals give birth to live young
and do not lay eggs, except
sometimes they do,
as in the duckbilled platypus.
We always talk about what will
happen using the future tense,
except of course when we don’t,
as in, “The doors open at eight.”
Viruses do not infect other viruses,
except when they do, as in
the sputnik virophage.
But light, now light is a particle,
except that is a half-truth,
as in light is a particle and a wave.
The human body cannot
survive without sleep
except when it can, as in new parents
stumbling toward the wailing
in the night, as in graduate students
coming to know what they know,
artists awake with the muses, as in
caregivers moving ice across dry lips,
saints keeping late-night vigils.
The human heart breaks
under the weight of grief,
except when it doesn’t,
as in rituals, as in community
that holds us together,
as in those who hope on our behalf.

You can read the PDF of the new issue of ��������, though we think it’s even better in print—free copies are available at Nourish Market.

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A Grief Remembered (February, Lent)

It is not difficult to be reminded of my humanity.
The mark of the divine is less apparent. It gets shadowed
by my doubts and defenses, by my efforts to survive.
I stand at the edge of a garden, peeking in at paradise,
wondering yet how there could be an echo of the holy in such a skin.

Here, the harsh February wind lashes across the edges of a frozen Lake Michigan,
banks of sandy snow packed solid and mountainous along a horizon with no ranges to claim.
A day later, the wind has whipped in warmth, and with it, the mountains shift unsteadily.
I gingerly step out onto the ice, testing the unpredictable tundra.

My skin prickles with hesitation and I am reminded of the One who beckoned to the disciple
and Peter’s own wavering faith. I admire him more for sinking.
His doubt I understand. I balk at his faith.
Doesn’t he know Jeremiah hung for 40 days in a pit of dung because the Lord was making a point?
Does he know what that does to a body, a soul?

The air now damp and gritty scratches at my eyes. I let it.
Like knotted nautical rope, anxiety snarls in my stomach, sadness coils around my throat.
I remember the dirge, my own jeremiad.
The waves smash and roll and my heart beats in time on the ice now altered.

I speak at last what my loyal doubt had been too scared to, a courageous lament:
“He does not see what happens to us.”
But Jeremiah did not die. With padded ropes, he was lifted out of the cistern.
Is there no balm in Gilead?

My stubborn heart says yes. I steal a look at the clouded sun,
close my eyes to scourging sand and recall: human and holy both.
Forgive me, but if you can hear the reeds wheeze and sigh then still,
you apprehend the holy.

Though the threnody of a heart yet wails, must it be explained?
When the bone-weary body can no longer keep watch,
the question formed at my dry, cracked lips,
there is a watchman set.

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I recently visited the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, where I stood in the room where Dr. King took his last breath and read the eulogy that was recorded and played at his funeral, which he himself wrote, so inundated by threats of death that he anticipated this tragedy.

“Yes, if you want to, say that I was a drum major. Say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all the other shallow things will not matter.”

Moments later I stood looking out the window from where Dr. King’s assassin is believed to have shot. It was a chillingly quick shift in perspectives and in that moment, I was struck by the familiarity of that kind of violence and racism 50 years later. I was convicted by my own complicity in the systems that have perpetuated what Dr. Willie Jennings called “the permissible death of black people.”

The day before I looked up to the balcony where Martin Luther King Jr. was shot, I received the alert on my phone that there had been a series of attacks in Paris. And in the wake of this tragedy, suddenly many people denied the call to hospitality and welcome that is so central to an embodied gospel.

I find myself entering the season of Advent with these devastating realities at the forefront of my mind. Like many others, I am reminded that the Messiah entered the world as a refugee, a homeless baby, and the target of Herod’s violent pursuit. This is not a truth I am often mindful of in the Christmas season. But it seems especially apt that we would be forced to consider the notion of welcome as we move through the season of anticipation and arrival. If this is the way set before us, how does the paradoxical entrance of Jesus into our midst completely upend our sense of hospitality? How are we collectively embodying the role of witness, advocate, and neighbor?

It seems especially apt that we would be forced to consider the notion of welcome as we move through the season of anticipation and arrival.

I am saddened by my own failure to embody this radical hospitality and angered by the Christian community’s failure to even note the critical resemblance of the God incarnate and the people we have rejected, ignored, and condemned.

More times than not, I am struck by the dissonance in the Christian community, which has left me feeling distant from the church and hungry for an encounter that would remind me of God’s hospitality and faithfulness in spite of our lack. I was at a church recently where I went forward to participate in the Lord’s supper, opening my hands to receive the bread in a gesture I only ever make in this sacramental ritual. The cleric placed an enormous piece of bread in the palm of my hand. Without much thought, I shoved the whole thing into my mouth, nearly choking on the body of Christ. While comical, there was something poignant about this moment that forced me to slow in my ritual. It was as if my body needed and couldn’t take in quick enough this symbol of the holy and sacred, this bread emblematic of the Jesus I had sorely missed encountering in my days. I was moved by my stumble with the bread of communion and what felt like Christ’s own reaching toward me, startling me out of my acedia-state. The great God who measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, who held the dust of the earth in a basket and weighed the mountains on scales—that same God meets me, even as I stand at a distance, wanting and yet wrestling.

Like many across the country, last week I watched a wave of anger and heartache sweep across my home city as the police video of the shooting of 17 year-old Laquan McDonald was released, his tragic death now witnessed by millions. My heart has ached to be with my Chicago community as they have marched for justice, for the young black boys who become hashtags. The voice of the prophet Isaiah has been ringing in my head all week: “A voice says, ‘Cry out!’” The prophet responds to the command, asking, “What shall I cry?” The voices of many cried out in a collective witness this week, weeping and calling for justice. Later, Isaiah gives further instruction to shout, “Here is your God!” My initial response to this was doubt. But then I remembered just how Jesus entered the world—as Immanuel, God with us. I have to believe that our paradoxical God lay beside Laquan McDonald that night. And as I envision the crowd marching for justice down Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, I can imagine the voice of the prophet crying, “Here is your God! Immanuel, the One who is with us.” We—the collective witness and community of believers—embody the spirit and hope of a paradoxical Messiah.

I have to believe that our paradoxical God lay beside Laquan McDonald that night.

As we march and limp our way to the beat of a crying heart, to the reverberating drum that rings for justice and peace, may we do so with an orientation toward welcome, toward the God who startles us with his presence.

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This post is part of an ongoing series in which first-year students reflect on the last year and the path that led them to ������Ƶ of Theology & Psychology. Read previous entries from and , and check back next Thursday for a new story.

When a new year dawns, we ring it in with toasts and countdowns and obnoxious little noisemakers. We make resolutions and set intentions. In truth, we’re in for an unknown and wild rumpus of a ride, filled with joy, unrest, and uncertainty. This time last year, I had recently moved into an under-resourced neighborhood on the west side of Chicago, learning to live in a community of profound brokenness with a spirit of hope. The prospect of graduate school was still sitting in the far corners of my mind, where it had sat for years, nudging at me now and again.

After a visit to Seattle the previous fall, I was considering graduate school a little more seriously. But I was torn, simultaneously looking at ������Ƶ and an MFA program in creative writing. Sometime last spring, I realized I was trying to make a decision and anticipate the questions and hurdles in advance, to figure it all out before even dipping my toes in. In the midst of my doubt, a dear friend reminded me of God’s words in Isaiah, which ring true yet today: “Behold, I am doing a new thing, now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”

With that question resonating in my spirit, I decided to apply. To both programs. One night, while writing my application essay, there was a shooting down the street from my apartment. I paused in my writing, disoriented by the act of writing my graduate application essay while this was happening outside. I decided to write about my experience as part of my essay, struck by the immense privilege it was to even be able to apply to school. I wrote these questions in a footnote: How do you begin to reconcile these worlds? What is the role of graduate school in a place of such brokenness? I still don’t know. But I felt then as I do today: we must be present in it. I couldn’t have known how this place would teach me to practice the art of presence.

I received word of my acceptance to both programs on the same day, with phone calls not five minutes apart. The next couple weeks were weighty with discernment and fervent prayer, my journal interrupted by lists of pros and cons—though I knew ultimately my decision wouldn’t be made by the length of pros vs. cons. Rilke tells his young poet to “have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.” A prodigious task.

It was with great trepidation that my unresolved heart said yes to ������Ƶ. I had been working for a national non-profit, and with an undergraduate degree in fine art and a penchant for writing, the program at ������Ƶ seemed to offer a unique opportunity to integrate these worlds. I hoped it would help me to cultivate a more defined vocational course.

In mid-August, my mom and I made the road trip west, stopping to see what the wild west had to offer en route to the Emerald City. It was an unforgettable start to an unforgettable journey. When we finally drove in on I-90—the very same I-90 on which we drove out of Chicago—my eyes misted and my heart clenched. “Seattle – Portal to the Pacific,” the Mount Baker Tunnel reads. Better yet, portal to a new odyssey.

I have described my time since then as something of a wilderness. It has been a profoundly disorienting season. We have been asked to enter into the hard space of lament, allowing ourselves to live into the shadowy spaces in order to recognize the pillar of light. I am learning to abide in the wilderness, not just endure, to bless the loneliness and heartache. The little red building that looks out to the Sound has brought much angst and weariness and weeping. Yet, I continue to be astounded at God’s kindness. The former fishery and luggage factory on Elliott Avenue now stands as a vessel for the minds and hearts of a great many brave souls embarking on one of the most courageous journeys I’ve known.

I wrote in my application essay that I believe in living a great story, that I believe story has the capacity to salvage society. We talk a lot about story at ������Ƶ—it would be easy to become numb to such a concept. But I still believe in it. If our words are all that’s left of us, what will they say of how we lived? This question has compelled me to enter into the murky space of remembering where I come from and the heartache that I hold, recalling my history in order to traipse on, having learned something of myself and humanity. Because who knows, I might find myself at the face of things too wonderful for me to understand.

In these last few months, I’ve been holding near and dear Chet Raymo’s words from The Soul of the Night. They are an emblem of my odyssey and perhaps a cheer for the doubting soul.

There is a tendency for us to flee from the wild
silence and the wild dark, to pack up our gods
and hunker down behind city walls, to turn
the gods into idols, to kowtow before them and
approach their precincts only in the official robes
of office. And when we are in the temples, then
who will hear the voice crying in the wilderness?
Who will hear the reed shaken by the wind?

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