As we move through the academic and calendar years, the Sacred Space realm of Student Leadership regularly offers small collections of words and images to help 天美视频 community mark the rhythms and seasons. This fall, A Little Book of Welcome features images by second-year student聽Davia Campbell, plus聽poetry and prose by 天美视频 students Luke Winslow (MATC), Stephanie Johnson (), and聽Elsy Thayil-Blanchard (MDiv),聽as well as other writers whose words resonate with our community. Here, we’re featuring the opening letter from Sacred Space, followed by a link to the full PDF of A Little Book of Welcome, which is also available in print form at the front desk.
Dearest 天美视频 Community,
Beginnings are wild, full to the brim with euphoric聽vibrancy, fraught with precarious possibility. To venture聽down the path of a new beginning is to step onto soil聽that is unknown and yet exploding with life in all of its聽infinite forms. This fertile ground that we tread upon,聽this dirt that swallows the soles of our shaky feet, grafts聽us into a family, a communion with enchantment,聽wonder, and each other. While we head into uncharted聽landscapes, we do so with a promise that we are not聽alone.
As we begin to take our first steps into this new school聽year, we want to simply say, welcome. Welcome to聽a new year of discovery, longing, sorrow, and joy.聽Welcome vulnerability, beauty, and grief. To turn the聽corner and step into a new year is to risk much and yet聽to walk such a path is to become acquainted with the聽God who resides in frailty, the God who lingers in the聽haunted chambers within us. You are not alone.
We hope that this book is a reminder of the open vistas聽before you, of a new world and a new creation that is bursting forth in the midst of blessing and heartache.聽We invite you to linger in these words and images.聽Think of them as threads tethering your very body to聽the Divine that is at work in the spacious terrains we聽will wander together. As we become deeply rooted聽together in this work, as we learn to make space for聽others, and come to be surprised by the love of God,聽may we see and hear anew. May we know the world聽that awaits us.
Love,
Sacred Space