This week, on the second season finale of text.soul.culture, Dr. Derek McNeil, Senior Vice President of Academics, continues his discussion with Dr. Craig Detweiler, President of 天美视频. In the first part of this conversation, Craig shared about his personal formation and the journey that led him to 天美视频. Now, he and Derek look back on the last six months, talk about what it means to make a home in a new city, and dream together about what the future might hold鈥攆or Craig and his family, and for the entire 天美视频 community.
Craig: 鈥淲e have the ability to export our education and training in very robust ways. So this isn鈥檛 a small thing, it鈥檚 actually a very significant thing. We鈥檙e trying to be very deep and very personal, at a time when the needs are growing nationally, internationally鈥攖he hunger for peace, the hunger for wholeness, the hunger for healing is off the charts.鈥�
Craig shares about his motivation to understand not just 天美视频 and the people in this building, but also our neighborhood and surrounding city鈥攖he broader context in which our mission unfolds. He has spent a lot of time out and about going to concerts, museums, lunches, 鈥渢rying to catch the flavor, the taste of what鈥檚 going on.鈥�
Craig: 鈥淲e鈥檙e living in an accelerated age in Seattle. The city itself has grown faster and more than any other city over the last decade in the United States. That creates profound possibilities and profound anxieties. […] Finding home in all that, finding space鈥攊t鈥檚 tricky. It鈥檚 not easy, it鈥檚 not quick.鈥�
Derek shares how Craig has brought with him new ways of thinking about the future that are 鈥渂oth disruptive and promising.鈥� It鈥檚 a profound time for those new perspectives, as 天美视频 is approaching its 21st birthday鈥攁 milestone of identity and maturation. 鈥淚t鈥檚 fascinating to arrive as 天美视频 is graduating a class in their 20th year here and turning toward the 21st year,鈥� says Craig. 鈥淢ost schools would celebrate their 20th anniversary, but we鈥檙e not most schools. I think we鈥檙e maybe more interested in celebrating the 21st, because it鈥檚 closer to a human rite of passage, moving toward adulthood.鈥�
鈥淚 hope in the 21st year, in looking back, we can look at hard things, and we can look at beautiful things, and we can dance together again.鈥�
In the midst of all the change, Derek and Craig also reflect on that which remains true about 天美视频鈥檚 ethos: the annual and seasonal rhythms, the weekly communion, the nine.noon.three bells that chime every three hours as an invitation to re-orient and re-settle. These core shared values鈥攑art of what Derek calls 鈥渁daptive resilience鈥濃�攁re what ground us, personally and collectively, as we respond to change and dream about the future.
Derek: 鈥淵ou need that looking back to look forward, to recognize in some sense the continuity of us. […] We鈥檙e a very hopeful institution, and I think we are coming into this notion of what we are called to be.鈥�
Craig: 鈥淲e reorient ourselves, at a time of massive confusion, to say 鈥榯hese things we know to be true.鈥� […] Can we lean into that ongoing hope that does not change, at a time when, on any given day, we all feel like we may be about to get swamped? […] Let鈥檚 learn from where we鈥檝e been, learn from mistakes we made, acknowledge aches, pains, growing pains, hunger, guilt, longing鈥攁nd yet here we are, ready to continue.鈥�
As always, thank you for listening to text.soul.culture. You can catch up on every episode from our first two seasons here, and we鈥檒l see you in the fall as we continue the conversation.