Commencement is a foundational part of 天美视频鈥檚 annual rhythm, full of ritual, symbolism, beauty, and depth to help mark the meaningful, transformational work to which these students have committed themselves鈥攁nd to welcome them into the next phase of their journey as alumni. This cohort in particular faced unique challenges due to the pandemic, shifting much of their final coursework and internships online. Through many obstacles they persevered to not only cross the finish line, but complete their degrees with great courage and determination.

鈥淐ommencement marks a season of endings and beginnings. It is a time of gratitude for the grace of God during the journey, and for the courage to persist in the midst of struggle. This moment affirms and celebrates a renewed call to life鈥檚 adventure and service,鈥� said Dr. J. Derek McNeil, President of 天美视频.

This year鈥檚 ceremony will feature student voices Bina Ellefsen (MA in Counseling Psychology), Emma Groppe (MA in Theology & Culture), and Milli Haase (Master of Divinity). The ceremony will also feature special music from Jodi Bagge, a graduating MA in Counseling Psychology student.

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, only graduating students and one guest may gather in person for the celebration of the 60 students who are completing their time as students at 天美视频. While we are unable to invite our community to join us in person, you can join us live via our .

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鈥淚f each of us can change something in the lives of others simply by how we walk with them, talk to them, or breathe on each other, what then is the meaning of this for you? How will you walk? How will you talk? How will you breathe in the middle of this viral pandemic and racial tsunami?鈥�

鈥淲e need you to bring who you are – bring your story – to change our classroom, our dialogue, our blindnesses our fears, our courage, in just directions, to eradicate the hate.鈥�

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For those of you that know me well you know that I am blunt sometimes to a fault. I am realistic and often speak of lament. I don’t always choose it and yet sometimes words of grief and protest just seem to pour out of me. That is who I am and that is how my voice shows up in spaces where I’m given permission to express it. So while I attempted to write words that uplift and encourage, I couldn’t help but pay attention to the reality of the world going on around us.

The pain in mourning, neglect and suffering, despair and utter devastation. Some of us in this graduating cohort came to 天美视频 in the midst of the 2016 presidential election cycle, the results of which caused many of us to question our national moral integrity for the very first time. Some of us in this graduating cohort came to this school two weeks following the shocking events that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia. We struggled to stay present during orientation in our first days of classes. We watched Hurricane Harvey devastate the Houston area with Hurricane Maria soon to follow.

We have survived more than our fair share in these last few years. Dozens of unfortunate mass shootings such as those that occurred in Las Vegas, Parkland, and El Paso. We have witnessed the launch of the #metoo movement and the heartbreaking but necessary acknowledgment of systemic sexual violence against women. We have observed countless acts of political corruption from travel bans and family separation and kids in cages to intentional government shutdowns, numerous accounts of fraud, attacks against marginalized communities and an unfaltering rise and domestic hate groups and extreme nationalism.

We’ve witnessed the environment cry out in distress not only from the hurricanes but also earthquakes, wildfires, a rising sea level and other signs of global warming. NFL players have taken knees while police brutality and police murder continue to befall the black community and America’s correction system remains functioning by design. We are facing a growing opioid epidemic and uptick in abuse statistics, continued threats against basic human rights, national voter suppression and a staggering mental health crisis. I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention that many of us in this graduating cohort survived a brazen incidence of abuse of power and cultural trauma inflicted within the four walls of this very institution, the likes of which have not only had a profound impact on all of us as individuals but had a ripple effect on the overall culture of the school.

We are a peculiar bunch, aren’t we. We began our pursuit towards a master’s degree during one national crisis after another. Now we are officially ending in the midst of a global pandemic and mass civil unrest. It seems as if we have been invited to embody the school’s creed – text soul and culture 鈥� for such a time as this. The actor and fallen national hero Chadwick Boseman talked about purpose when he addressed the 2018 graduating class of Howard University. He said, 鈥淧urpose crosses disciplines, purpose is an essential element of you. It is the reason you are on the planet at this particular time in history. Your very existence is wrapped up in the things you are here to fulfill.鈥�

To the graduating class of the 天美视频 of Theology and Psychology, I say thank you. It has been a privilege and an honor to learn from you, be challenged by you, and encouraged by you. Given all of what we’ve been through both collectively and individually these past few years, I can emphatically affirm that I wouldn’t have made it without each one of you. You helped me grow up. Thank you for providing me the opportunity to discover more of my purpose, and I’m hopeful that each one of you is able to declare the same.

Now to the family, dear friends, and colleagues that have joined us here today, I leave you with two reminders: one, the resistance is much larger than police brutality and police murder, much larger. And two, with the presidential election just 36 days away I implore you to be an empathetic witness and vote on behalf of the widow, the orphan, and the stranger. Remember, however, that voting will not fix every problem. In fact, the right to vote comes with many problems of its own, but it’s definitely a strong starting place. Peace.

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2020 Graduates: No matter where you’re at, to each of you.

February darkness
March curveballs
April strikes
May day is June deaths
July outrage
August outrage
Coronavirus quarantine shutdown
Rolls of toilet paper plundered

Lynchings
Ahmaud Arbury
George Floyd
Breonna Taylor
Ray Lewis
[name?]
Tony McDade
Manuel Ellis
Elijah McLane
Jacob Blake
And too many to name

Black lives matter
Immigrants and fire, pandemic exploits
Smoke that meth or September opiates
Or whatever is your choice
Drug ambition that’s our situation
Protest that shit or don’t
We鈥檒l be sitting by
Listing by preaching by
What we be for the least of these

Out my kitchen window
Birds pitching endless fits
Violent callous society
Looting politely
News flash the Dow won’t crash
Number 45 all [chomped?] aglow
While those birds billow
Why are you burning my world
Through summer scorched skin it begins
Old evil powers seem to win
I push hard to go through
To be she who shows thoroughly
Hopes more than you’ll ever know

Trauma don’t discriminate
You and me might dissociate
Workaholics high functioning healers
But emotions inherently
Bodily relationships
Inherently bodily believers
An engagement with our bodies
The wounds persisting trauma
For our communal body persisting

Didn’t know if we would be
Reckless pain or drowned in superfluous glee
Opposite ends collide
Etched with a shroud to cloud
Barbed words from furious skies

Liars lied in the name of
Freedom a gender reveal
In the name of freedom
Two sons for planet earth
Or when you give birth
The earth order to conceal
Not reveal its brown as blackness
Immigrants valueless and
Justice is racist supremacist

I implore you resist
Less we divest
Don’t betray these your brothers sisters
The one you don’t know
Because they’re telling us get off my neck
In the land of the free where you aren’t free
Cast off the chaff
Will you finally see?
Grief doesn’t end it
Begins again repeats again and again

We are off a truly modest
Grad ambition
Paid position
Agency my agency or yours
We are change agents

Hungry mouths
Minds wound
Pump jumped up on
Literary academic disillusion
Stories for glory stories
With glory in the ripping red blood
Coming from black brown yellow red
Some white
But don’t forget
It’s red blood spilling

I’m not checking
You we get to begin in the midst of protest
Offer honor containment
Trust rest it’s us the someone in a system
That continues to perpetrate injustices
We are the someone who didn’t see
It’s us who need to see

We must have a sense of justice
Sense of radical decency
This will no longer stand
Not for us, I propose
You chose to love those in agony
I know for you and me will be witnessing
I reckon it’s the now not yet
Because all ashes aren’t beauty yet

Enter madness
People not because we are heroes
But we have tasted enough healing
I’m believing treacherous terrain
Hold faith hope love
Its refrain a hope
It doesn’t rush us to a resurrection life
Complacent a hope that says
I will remain adjacent

Notorious RBG and Chadwick鈥檚 best
With John Lewis imbue us
To fight for things we care about
Do it in a while leading a way
So others will join us
So you be more change
But don’t leave any more
We can’t bear that anymore

Let’s bring our faces bodies
Comfort together side-by-side
Besides this is the work of the spirit
On our behalf all the time
And hope does not put us to shame
Because God’s love has been poured into our hearts
Through the Holy Spirit
Who has been given to us

So will you put yourself in the narrative
Forgive live bold
Free wild fight
With insight
Stand in margins
Don’t give up even
When you mess up

And I’ll leave it with Dr. Allender
Take seriously the story that God
Has given you to live
It’s no mere phase
Let your story set us
Ablaze

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We are gathered here in our caps and gowns to signal that we have accomplished, what we first arrived at 2501 Elliott Avenue to do. However, I would urge you to remember that there was so much more in your heart than a degree when you began.

I wonder what it was that motivated you to enroll or to even begin seeking a graduate program. Maybe even what the program sought in you. For most of us, I would guess that you saw something in the world you are not okay with. For me, that was the injustice of sexual violence that women and children face all too often.

But I would wager that there was something, or many things, that you knew at the deepest level of your being were not the way that they were supposed to be. There was a passion inside of you that had hope for a different way, a better way, And however it was that you encountered 天美视频, you saw sparks of that hope alive and moving.

You saw people who have gone before doing work that was shifting those same tides, and so you chose to be a part of the movement. At the beginning of every school year there’s a Fall Vespers service and in this service the story of 天美视频 is told including how it was started by folks who were just foolish enough to believe that they could have an impact and create change. Paul Steinke would end the speech by welcoming us beautiful fools into the fold of hope and change seekers that had come before us, and I would venture to guess that your journey at 天美视频 probably wasn’t exactly what you had imagined when you first began, as life never is.

I know that I got far more than just an education in theology and biblical studies, but these last few months I found it difficult to ground myself, to find the directions forward or to even hold hope, and perhaps you have as well.

The world looks much different than it did when we started not just because we read Esther Meek, Martin Buber or the Septuagint in Greek, but also because we are in the midst of a global pandemic and an active civil rights movement. In the last nine days alone, we have been mourning the loss of a champion for women and LGBTQ folks rights as well as the denial of justice for Breonna Taylor. And while all these specific events are new, the underlying issues and systems are not, from racism, xenophobia, sexism, unequal access to healthcare, and homophobia, white supremacy, and the list could go on and on and on, and it would be foolish to think that we could reverse every evil, but it is possible to have an impact.

It’s necessary to enact change within our areas of influence. It can be easy to forget the work that we have done here or why we did it, especially in times such as these. For myself, I got my voice back. I got access to pieces of myself I hadn’t known or had lost along the way. I learned many new aspects and histories of Christianity that gave me a renewed connection to our creator and now I will go forth to make space for others to do that same work.

I don’t know what each of your unique paths look like but my friends, as we depart for separate vocations and paths, I pray that the God of the impossible would meet you in surprising ways when you feel more foolish than hopeful. May you always have strong community around you and in times of difficulty may you be able to feel the palpable presence of God so you know you are never alone in your work. In the times when you feel like you cannot go any further, may rest and peace find you, and when you emerge may your capacity be enlarged enough to keep going another day. And finally, may you have spacious breath that fills your lungs with ample oxygen to keep those embers of foolish hope that brought you here in the first place alive. May they burn enough to continue lighting your path and guiding your work in this beautifully broken world, because the world needs you.

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Delirious, we stumble over the crest and onto what feels like another planet. There is no other way to describe this first glimpse of The Enchantments than otherworldly. Suffice it to say, there is a reason that I submit myself willingly to such physical and mental agony to be in that place. I have yet to find anywhere like it, and they lay hidden in the very mountains that I am now observing, the same mountains that watched over me as a child in the Leavenworth Valley. I completed my first through-hike in 2016 and have returned every year since. It鈥檚 as if I didn鈥檛 have a choice. I would beg my sister to never let me do this again while on the punishing ascent of Asgaard and be choosing which month would be best the following year by the time we were in the parking lot waiting for our uncle with melon as a treat for our struggle.

But this year was different.

We hiked mostly in silence. My sister stopped and took in views longer than normal. I was antsy, hiked ahead, waited, and looked around quickly.I just wanted to go home, to be done.

I realized that we were saying goodbye.

We dropped out of the Core Zone and started our descent, expertly navigating the trail and avoiding the accumulated mistakes of past years鈥� mishaps and wanderings. We plunked ourselves down for our ritual of whiskey, gummy candy, and lightening our pack of remaining snacks before the grueling plunge back to the valley floor.

鈥淒o you want to do this again next year?鈥� she asked in between gummys.
鈥淵ou know, I鈥檝e been thinking that I鈥檓 done,鈥� I replied as I sipped whiskey.

We were ending.

Of course, we told each other we would return again one day, but in our silences, we had come to a mutual understanding that something was different. There are myriad of reasons why this year was the last for a while: the high amount of traffic on the trail, the familiarity of the sights, the absence of mistakes, and therefore, challenges. Personally, too, my mind was no longer challenged in the same way. The past had absolutely been a physical challenge, but also a mental one as I learned to quiet my mind through the 14 hours and get back into my body. I looked forward to this time to reset every year鈥擨 needed it. This time, though, I was just present to what was around me.I had come home to my mind.

As I sit now, I realize that I had thought that this meant the mountain had nothing left to teach me. I had learned my lessons, I had passed the test.

But this, now, is the final lesson: To leave, to end, to finish, to say goodbye.

It seems no coincidence that in the same year that I end with The Enchantments I am also ending my time as a student. I am no longer being called back to the mountain in the same way that I am no longer being called back to the red brick building. Or, if it is a calling, I am refusing to go (sorry, John Muir, but I鈥檒l keep listening) because I know how important it is to end now.

In my final month in the building, I had written an essay about endings. I meant to submit it to the blog; it was a eulogy to my time as a student and employee at the school. I wrote about how frantic I had become at the end, trying to prepare for the future after school while missing out on what was in front of me. I was antsy, like I had been in the Enchantments, just wanting to skip to what was next and avoid the pain in front of me. The way forward, as I learned in the mountains, was to slow down and be present to the wonder around me. So then I wrote about how I would see groups of friends together around the old coffee-maker altar (how many times have we fellowshipped there?) and how I would have a jolt of awareness that this would no longer exist in a few months. It was ending. I was leaning into savoring the precious moments I had left.

We all know what happens next: COVID-19. We have all collectively had the breath knocked out of us in our particular griefs that have opened up from this pandemic. I feel speechless and gasping still, all of the words I had wanted to say feel empty and painful. The old essay is full of hope and goodness and poetry. It is not wrong, but it is no longer representative of what this particular ending means to me, to many of us.

So instead, like I do every summer, I return to the mountain which remains steadfast and faithful in a way only nature can right now. If I can summit that mountain in search of beauty despite the pain, I know I can end my time as a student and the plethora of endings and meanings that come with that simple act. And I can say: thank you. Thank you for allowing me to tread on your sacred and fragile terrain so that I may become whole again. Thank you for letting me fall in love with the world and myself again. Thank you for teaching me about my strength. Thank you for allowing me to curse you and stomp on you and still be welcomed into holy places. Thank you for being my prayer when I could no longer pray. In the words of the President of 天美视频, 鈥淭hank you, thank you, thank you.鈥�

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